Role Models

Dying doesn't make you a Role Model

Interesting choice of Role Models you have over there in the USA... I was reading Shadesofgreys article on Pat Tilman, and no disrespect to this particular individual - but he is no role model for dying, or joining the army... He was merely a tool in a play between great evils... It was unfortunate he had to die, but dont glorify him because he could have been playing football... It doesn't make him any different from any other soldier that dies.

Is that the kind of message you want to send to your children?? If you go to a foreign country as an invading army, and you die, but you could have been earning millions of dollars playing football - that makes you a role model?

Pat Tilman should never have died. No US soldier should have died in Afghanistan or Iraq for that matter... If Pat Tilman was directly defending his homeland, instead of corrupting someone elses - maybe we can talk about role models.

Mohammed Ali was a real hero. The man had his livelyhood stripped from him for being someone the conscientious objectors looked up to. Yes, as far as role models go - Ali wasn't the greatest (pardon the pun) he was cocky, arrogant, and sometimes just plain old rambunctious - but as he famously remarked "I aint got no quarrel with them Viet Cong" he was dragged through the mud by the powers that be. Ali had no reason to have quarrel with the Viet Cong, This wasn't a case of Ali choosing to go to war, Ali was stripped of his heavy weight title - arguably one of the most prestigious titles in world sport, just because he had a conscience.

Imagine if Ali had of died in an un-necessary war just as Tilman has - the world would have been void of one of it's greatest champions ever. Tilman obviously had something to beleive in to go and fight for his country in the middle east - now that he is dead, I wonder if his soul thinks it was worth it? I wonder if Tillmans conscience is wishing it had piped up somewhat...

I wonder how many peasant farmers defending their homeland this Tillman character had a direct involvement in killing - yeah, he may be a a soldier following orders, and orders come from the top. Doesn't make those orders right though. The Iraqi's and Afghani people who try going about their day to day lives with American soldiers watching their every move, They are role models.

I try and ask myself the same question with the shoe on the other foot - what would be happening if someone invaded the USA - would the general public who had no association with an American equivelant of the Taliban or the bath party be happy that the invading forces are there? Let me ask you Americans - try and put yourself in the shoes of these peasant arabs, would you stand around smiling and let your homeland be disrespected? I can only speak for myself - I would fight... any invading army that touched my homeland I would fight, I may hate the bath party or the Taliban, but this is my country, and America is powerful, but my blood is part of the soil.

I know this is what Tillman and the other hundreds of US soldiers that are whittling away in the Middle East thought, they thought they were defending their homeland - they weren't. Only time will tell, and i am arrogant in saying this, but in trying to make the world a safer place for our children, they have made it worse.

Bring the troops home... no more Tillmans need to die... heck.. no more John Smith's need to die either... and I would really like it of no more Abduls or Sayeed's died either... War must be a necessary evil, but dont make role models of people who willingly partake in this evil on foreign soil.

BAM!!!

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