From Kevin Tillman

In his introduction to an article by Kevin Tillman, Dave Zirin writes:

Now Pat's brother Kevin has broken his silence as well. Kevin has written a brilliant piece that should be distributed in front of every army recruitment center and sent to every person who wears the uniform.

I don't agree with every word, but that's hardly the point: Kevin, like Pat, represents a growing surge in this country against the machinery [of] death and the lies that grease its wheels. We have paid dearly for those lies. It's time to bring the troops home now.

As indicated in many pieces I've written, I agree entirely.

You should read the complete article. Here are a few excerpts:

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 get 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 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 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.

...

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

Read it all.