Kevin Tillman, Pat's brother and fellow soldier: Cauldron of Truth. Bless him!

Kevin Tillman, brother of the late Pat Tillman and fellow soldier in the Iraq war, writes the most truthful and powerful indictment of that folly that I have seen. His courage and leadership are what may yet save America and its democracy....


After Pat's Birthday

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/

Posted on Oct 19, 2006

By Kevin Tillman

Editor's note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.
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It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice. until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them.

Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman

An Ode to the Axle, the Cello and Hugh Masekela

I was enjoying a beautiful Bluegrass ride through the rolling hills of central Kentucky after a day of watching fast women and pretty horses Keeneland when James Taylor’s classic Fire and Rain blared forth. With it came memories of my sophomore year at Lafayette High: football Friday’s and first dates, crisp cold gray days with the multi-hued leaves filling the streets and lawns.

But what makes this such a powerful song? Certainly, there’s James himself, the author and creator. But I submit to you that there is so much more. Whoever planned the cello part was pure genius. Whoever played that cello did so to perfection. Whoever arranged the song and produced it did so flawlessly. And whoever engineered the sound, thereby creating the final product was at the top of their game.

Like any musical recording, it is ALL these working in tandem that creates the tunes so familiarly fabulous to our ears. That cello in Fire and Rain is so powerful that the song could never be the same without it.

Same with Hugh Masekela’s trumpet in the Byrd’s “So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star.” The song is hypnotic, but it is Hugh’s horn that makes it a heavenly harmony. It soars!

This all reminded me of the axle, that forgotten but essential part without which the wheel would be useless. The wheel gets all the credit as the greatest invention of all time, but where would it be without the humble axle.

Look behind the “stars” of your world. You’ll find a million such axles, cellos and Hughs.


RFD 10/18/06

Unholy Hoax: The "Clash of Civilizations"

The best lie contains elements of truth, thus making it devilishly difficult to expose. So it is with today’s biggest lie: that “Islamic fascists” are bringing on a “clash of civilizations” to take over the world.

The truthful elements are obvious. There have been many acts and statements of violence in the name of Islam by rogue extremists. 9/11 happened and is attributed to this group, who, it is claimed “hate us for our freedoms” and want to destroy us. That image is further tarnished by their seeming intolerance of free speech, most recently shown by their demonstrations in the wake of the Pope’s speech.

Yet, the larger truth is that all such words and actions are but from a very small number of the Muslim world. They do not speak for mainstream Islam. In fact, most Muslims view such extremist terrorists for what they are: criminals. For example, Sheik Fassa al-Guood, an Iraqi Sunni tribal leader is leading a force of 20,000 men to “purge (Ramadi) of these infidels.” He continued, “People are fed up with the acts of those criminals who take Islam as a cover for their crimes.”

Exactly. The 9/11 perpetrators were criminals. Suicide and subway bombers are criminals. As the Sheik correctly noted, they use Islam as a cover. So why are our leaders falling for this bait and actively encouraging an onset of this clash?

One possibility is that they need a foil to serve as a scapegoat against which they can unleash their “solution”: a new era of military domination as outlined in uncanny detail in the Project For A New American Century, PNAC, which you can read online. In it you’ll find that the war in Iraq was planned long before 9/11, that they predicted a “new Pearl Harbor” event so as to convince Americans of the need to vastly increase the military and that our future, if this plan is allowed to continue, will put us on a course of perpetual conflict.

It is far better to deal with terrorists as the criminals that they are, than to create a clash that need not be.