Tillman.

Tillman!!

How many Tillmans live in Iraq?

That is the terribly worrisome question for America. How many Tillmans live in Iraq?

We remember the celebrated Patrick Daniel Tillman, don’t we? Don’t we remember that Hollywood-handsome guy who made it into the NFL and was paid millions of dollars to run his body head-on into the bodies of people carrying footballs? Remember that celebrated patriot? Remember how he felt the urgency of the Sept. 11 attack and quit the NFL, giving up a fledgling career worth perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars over a lifetime, to join the US Army?

Tillman dropped his football, and picked up a gun. He gave up a cushy, comfortable life in America, bade farewell to family and friends, joined the US Army Rangers as a lowly “specialist,” and died wretchedly in Afghanistan taking a bullet fired in raw confusion and fear by his own forces.

The US Army posthumously promoted Tillman to the rank of corporal. A nice gesture acknowledging his patriotism and sacrifice. For days afterwards, radio and television personalities discussed what might easily in the Middle East be seen as Tillman’s martyrdom.

Tillman died “for his country.”

Almost four years and two countries later, the question now facing America is simply this: How many Tillmans now live in Iraq?

How many of the fellows who attack American troops, from the “B” in Bin Laden to the “Z” of Zarqawi, are doing so in order to seek revenge against the “invaders?” How many stray “precision” bombs crashed into residential homes, killing the occupants and sending the survivors into training camps? How many of these “Tillmans” are out there driving cars loaded with explosives into convoys?

Americans do not own the copyright to patriotism... Americans do not have a monopoly on the sense of defending one’s homeland.

And “sense” is the operative word. Real patriotism is something felt, and felt deeply. People do not risk or welcome death for nothing.

How many Iraqi “Tillmans” are out there? The John Hopkins’ Lancet report recently released data that might suggest there are many hundreds and thousands and potentially millions of such people. The US government tells us that the Iraqi “insurgents” are “foreigners.” However, the John Hopkins report tells us that American bombs, artillery, rockets, and the havoc and disruption that ensue from them have killed more than 100,000 innocent Iraqis.

100,000 dead Iraqis have left millions of angered cousins, brothers, sons, and nephews. If even a tiny percent of these “war orphans” take up arms against the Americans that killed their innocent relatives... than we can expect generations and generations of Americans to die in that barren country.

Every time the American tanks fire a shell into a building.... they create another Iraqi “Tillman.” Every time a precision bomb screams through the air and blows up some “hideout,” another squad of Iraqi “Tillmans” is born. And sadly enough, every time a group of Navy Seals, working closely under CIA supervision, squeeze the testicles of an Iraqi to torture and humiliate that individual... dozens and dozens of Iraqi “Tillmans” begin their training to kill.

How long can America hang on with so many “Tillmans” coming at them from every side?

Creating terrorists. It isn’t rocket science. It’s a simple process.

Just declare “war” on something, and watch the chaos of unintended consequences ensue. Like the fishermen in the US northeast that declared “war” on hungry starfish that were eating and decimating coastal oyster beds.

These fishermen got the idea of how to get rid of the starfish. They caught as many of them as possible and chopped them in half, then tossed them into the water.

But what the fishermen did not realize was simply this: Starfish regenerate limbs. When you cut one in half... you merely create two starfish.

The fishermen worked feverishly to get rid of the menace. They gathered up bushels of starfish... chopped and chopped until their arms were sore... and yet, the harder they worked, the more the starfish came after them, and the more oysters the hungry starfish gobbled up.

To solve the problem, first, the fisherman had to stop “killing” the starfish.

What a dilemma... Imagine thinking you are killing something, and when you are done chopping and hacking, they look really, really dead.

But in fact, you have merely doubled your enemies.

Last Thursday, the US National Intelligence Council released its report, “Mapping the Global Future.” It indicates Iraq is the new training ground for the next generation of “professionalized” terrorists. According to David B. Low, the US National Intelligence Officer for Transnational Threats, “There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will...disperse to various other countries.”

Want to win the terrorist “war?”

Maybe it’s time to do something different.