Comment by jerglingu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerglingu | Hacker News Reader

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His enlistment was glorified, but bear in mind it was during a time when the ugly truths and outright lies of the GWOT had not been uncovered entirely. The fake claims of of WMD's in Iraq had not been outright nullified yet, and the Afghanistan campaign had not yet devolved into the goalless, meandering, whack-a-mole presence it lazily morphed into in its later years. In hindsight, sure Tillman's enlistment was a bad decision. But as we generally understand/presume his motivations, his enlistment and willingness to fight and die was for what was thought to be a noble and just cause.

I happened to join the same Ranger Battalion Tillman was in after he was killed. The ground force commander at the time of Tillman's death (and perhaps whose decisions mostly attributed to Tillman's death), Major Hodne, later came back to 2nd Ranger Battalion as its commander when I was still active. He won no respect from any of us enlisted guys. Last I heard, he was a general in charge of general infantry training in Fort Benning. Fort Benning is the home of the infantry, where most basic and advanced infantry courses for the US Army are held. The irony is thick.

Not writing this to say you're necessarily wrong. The two major GWOT wars in Iraq/Afghanistan were bullshit, and Tillman along with thousands of others were killed for nothing worthwhile. There's just more nuance to the whole debacle that I think are worth pointing out. Or maybe I'm just insecure at how pointless all that shit was and I'm writing this to validate my/others' actions, hard to tell.

Wow, now that's interesting. You were so close to that cover-up; it's something that's nagged at me for a long time now. Do you suspect there was motivation to murder Tillman because he'd been saying some fairly disillusioned shit just before his death? How did the battalion feel about the subject, was it discussed? Taboo? Obviously I understand if you can't say too much.

Tillman was almost 100% assassinated, he was talking to Chomsky and was set to come back for an anti-war tour during election year. If Tillman lives Bush doesn't get a 2nd term, he was the poster boy of the war and would have exposed all the lies about it. Military also illegally burned his journal and videos he'd recorded

he was shot from within 10 yards in the back by American weapons, which for some reason the media never talks about. The official claim was that he was killed from so far away they couldn't recognize him as American

>The following day the Associated Press reported that a doctor who examined Tillman's body after his death wrote, "The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described",[19] also noting that the wound entrances appeared as though he had been shot with an M16 rifle from fewer than 10 yards (9.1 m) away

These are all things that I'd heard, but it's hard to get strong corroborating evidence of it. Sibling comment seems to provide first hand info that seemingly counters this narrative.

While I was in residual proximity of the whole thing (I ended up in the same company but different platoon, and I knew/worked with people in Tillman's platoon), I wasn't involved in it as I showed up about three years after the fact.

There definitely was no motivation to murder him, I'm convinced of it. Armed conflict inherently breeds a general cynicism, and lack of clear goals and guidance from leadership only exacerbates that. We all said out loud, "this is fucking bullshit," more than once when we would give full-throated efforts only to be frustrated by sideways shit like innocents or friends being maimed/killed, no clear mission or point to the killing and violence in general, a commander who seemed more eager to give a teary-eyed killed in action speech over a dead Ranger than to actually lay the hammer on insurgents, etc. All that to say that Tillman's misgivings about the war were especially normal. The real conspiracy was in the outright lying done about the whole thing, and in institutional leaderships' efforts to cover everything up.

Tillman was killed because of miscoordination/incompetence. The miscoordination at the macro level was from Hodne as I mentioned earlier, in his attempted orchestration of troop movement that introduced too much chaos. The incompetence came from a few variables of the people on the ground that I won't get too much into, except to say that it wasn't out of nefarious intent but instead from confusion and bad training. The SAW gunner who pumped rounds into Tillman had a reputation after he left of a bumbling, incompetent rock farmer. Note that I never met him personally, it was just his reputation around the company.

His death wasn't taboo internally. His named was invoked pretty regularly when it came to target selection and deciding if you had enough awareness of the assault forces' positions to pull the trigger into a room or general area; you never wanted to accidentally kill your buddy. A new Ranger would be liable to get smoked[1] until fluid leaked out of his ears because he "could kill another Ranger like Tillman, you fucking moron." Externally, we were ordered to divert all questions/comments about Tillman to the SOCOM Public Affairs Office.

[1]: "Getting smoked" in the Army (military?) is a euphemism for punishment through strenuous exercise/tasks, usually accompanied with humiliation and general hazing

The Hodne family of New York haven't covered themselves in glory...

The claims of WMD’s in Iraq were never credible. There were huge protests about it at the time. The rationale behind the Afghanistan war had a little more logic to it, but it was still always doomed to failure (as has been proved out): the easiest way to turn everyone against you is to invade them.

In foresight, not just in hindsight, both these wars were utterly pointless and morally abhorrent.

If western countries want to reduce Islamist extremism, we might want to start by examining our relationship with Saudi Arabia (who seem to be the ones funding and pushing a lot of it, and who we seem happy to trade with)

Perhaps, but I would counsel patience and here's why... Afghanistan is taking an interesting turn with the Taliban seemingly at odds with Iran (https://amwaj.media/media-monitor/iran-deploys-armored-divis...) and so far no overt signs of resuming status a terrorist safe haven. Similarly, Iraq has become a sinkhole for Iran who continues to spend money it barely has to maintain its influence, while much of the country's oil revenue benefits Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Kurds.

Was either worth the cost in lives and money? I think the ultimate answer takes decades and the enemy gets their vote.

Iraq was still an illegal war where fake intel was used on purpose by leadership to mislead people.

> The fake claims of of WMD's in Iraq had not been outright nullified yet

They were literally being nullified in realtime when they were made.

> The two major GWOT wars in Iraq/Afghanistan were bullshit

Iraq for sure; Afghanistan was more of a mixed bag, though it became total bullshit because of Iraq (through diversion of effort, alteration of the political context, and other factors stemming from the priority of Iraq.)

> killed for nothing worthwhile

It was not for nothing. America is the first democracy, and hopes/aims to spread democracy in the world. But that's not an easy task. In hindsight, it's very easy to say Saddam did not have WMD's, but at the time, we knew that he had had them and used them, both against Iran, and later against his own people. Saddam was a truly awful guy. It's quite likely that is what happens with those who have absolute power for too long (see Putin). Removing Saddam was on balance a good thing for humanity.

Aside from that, Iraq and Afghanistan taught America some lessons. Lots of lessons. Blood was shed to learn them, and one can debate if the trade-off was worth it, but for sure it was not nothing.

One of these lessons, the way I see it, is that it's much easier to help a people, if they want to be helped. See Ukraine.

In any case, thank you for your service. It was definitely not for nothing.

It was definitely for... Raytheon profits. Those don't get shared with the rest of us, though, so let's just call them "nothing".

What did we learn in Iraq that we hadn't already learned in Vietnam? What will Ukrainians learn that Georgians, Afghans, or Hungarians couldn't have told them?

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