If this doesn’t absolutely enrage you, don’t bother telling me about it:

I’ve been mystified at the absolute nonsense of being in “awe” of Tillman’s “sacrifice” that has been the American response. Mystified, but not surprised. True, it’s not everyday that you forgo a $3.6 million contract for joining the military. And, not just the regular army, but the elite Army Rangers. You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the “real” thick of things. I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish. Even Rambo got shot in the third movie, but in real life, you die as a result of being shot. They should call Pat Tillman’s army life “Rambo 4: Rambo Attempts to Strike Back at His Former Rambo 3 Taliban Friends, and Gets Killed.”

But, does that make him a hero? I guess it’s a matter of perspective. For people in the United States, who seem to be unable to admit the stupidity of both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, such a trade-off in life standards (if not expectancy) is nothing short of heroic. Obviously, the man must be made of “stronger stuff” to have had decided to “serve” his country rather than take from it. It’s the old JFK exhortation to citizen service to the nation, and it seems to strike an emotional chord. So, it’s understandable why Americans automatically knee-jerk into hero worship.

However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a “pendejo,” an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. This was not “Ramon or Tyrone,” who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. This was a “G.I. Joe” guy who got what was coming to him. That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy.

Tillman, probably acting out his nationalist-patriotic fantasies forged in years of exposure to Clint Eastwood and Rambo movies, decided to insert himself into a conflict he didn’t need to insert himself into. It wasn’t like he was defending the East coast from an invasion of a foreign power. THAT would have been heroic and laudable. What he did was make himself useful to a foreign invading army, and he paid for it. It’s hard to say I have any sympathy for his death because I don’t feel like his “service” was necessary. He wasn’t defending me, nor was he defending the Afghani people. He was acting out his macho, patriotic crap and I guess someone with a bigger gun did him in.

Matters are a little clearer for those living outside the American borders. Tillman got himself killed in a country other than his own without having been forced to go over to that country to kill its people. After all, whether we like them or not, the Taliban is more Afghani than we are. Their resistance is more legitimate than our invasion, regardless of the fact that our social values are probably more enlightened than theirs. For that, he shouldn’t be hailed as a hero, he should be used as a poster boy for the dangerous consequences of too much “America is #1,” frat boy, propaganda bull. It might just make a regular man irrationally drop $3.6 million to go fight in a conflict that was anything but “self-defense.” The same could be said of the unusual belief of 50 percent of the American nation that thinks Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11. One must indeed stand in awe of the amazing success of the American propaganda machine. It works wonders.

Al-Qaeda won’t be defeated in Afghanistan, even if we did kill all their operatives there. Only through careful and logical changing of the underlying conditions that allow for the ideology to foster will Al-Qaeda be defeated. Ask the Israelis if 50 years of blunt force have eradicated the Palestinian resistance. For that reason, Tillman’s service, along with that of thousands of American soldiers, has been wrongly utilized. He did die in vain, because in the years to come, we will realize the irrationality of the War on Terror and the American reaction to Sept. 11. The sad part is that we won’t realize it before we send more people like Pat Tillman over to their deaths.

Let me get this out of the way right off: yes, I know we’re strong enough as a nation to tolerate this sort of utterly mindless idiocy. Yes, it doesn’t mean much in the end, and this zurramato‘s blather will never, ever be mainstream opinion. Yes, it’s good to have this sort of putrid garbage right out in the open, so we know exactly where the smell is coming from. I don’t care. At the risk of sounding like every whining liberal’s cliched nightmare of a gunracked-pickup-driving ignoramus with no more unrotted teeth than IQ points, I’ve gotta say this anyway:

This filthy, spoiled, dimwitted, self-centered, America-hate-pimping little ingrate ought to be decorated with plenty of feathers and hot tar, splashed around in a cesspool a bit, and ridden out of the country on a rail. What the hell is he even doing here in the first place? Why, he’s furthering his liberal education to improve his prospects in the evil American job market. In other words, he’s taking advantage. He’s taking advantage of a system he clearly despises, a system built, maintained, and defended for him by far better men than he’ll ever manage to become. (And along those lines, check this ridiculousness out: Gonzalez was part of a group of smegma-faced little snots “fighting oppression” by protesting a 65-dollar-per-semester increase in his college fees as an international student. God, what a…I’m sorry, I seem to have run out of derisives that are strong enough to express my contempt for this little pussy.) And he has balls enough to mock that system, and the men who built it, even while sucking at its teat for every comfort it can give him.

This ass-brained twit ought to be carrying those balls straight back to Puerto Rico with him. In a box. Today wouldn’t be soon enough to suit me. Call it stifling of dissent, call it jingoism, call it repression, call it whatever you like. I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck.

Update! Here’s the antidote. It’s long, but read every word of it – and then relish the delicious thought of this nimrod’s somehow getting the opportunity to put his “intelligent,” “nuanced” outlook forth around a group of Marines. Christ, but I’d pay a hell of a lot of money to see that one. He wouldn’t last a moment – but then again, he’d never have the guts to do it in the first place. I’d predict a lot of stammering, yammering, and a sudden spate of backpedaling that would leave the sidewalk scorched under his feet and make the Roadrunner look sluggish.

Updated update! Forgot to mention that I found this excrescence via Sullivan.

Update to the updated update! Michele points to a site that has more on this intestinal microbe, including this funny comment:

My God, it’s the bastard child of Gilbert Gottfried and Janeane Garofalo.

We played basketball with a kid like this in high school. Little bastard never would fit through the hoop.

Whoa, that’s good squishy.