Latest news: it appears that Pat Tillman, the former NFL player who ditched his contract to enlist following 9/11, was a victim of friendly fire.

After some time of saying that he was killed by enemy forces while serving in Afghanistan, the Army now admits that the "probable" cause of his death was being shot by our own folks. There was a battle between ourselves and our Afghan allies and the enemy (or maybe ourselves and our allies, without any enemy) and someone took shots at an Afghan, mistaking him for an enemy combatant. Tillman was apparently too close to the "enemy," and was shot in the confusion.

"A fellow Ranger looks over and sees an Afghan military member, and they think they're an enemy and take them under fire," the senior defense official quoted anonymously in the article said: "You can imagine how crazy, how absolutely confusing the situation is."

Indeed.

This doesn't change the fact that Tillman died serving his country. He died trying to save his own people's lives, "without regard for his own safety." It doesn't negate any of the awards he got, alive or dead. He died bravely, and with distinction. And it doesn't alter any of the praise given to him when he died. It doesn't make him any less of a man, any less of a soldier, or any less of an American.

But this announcement does cast a pall over the attempts to make him into a poster boy for the War on Terror. If anything, it makes him a poster boy against it, or at least against how we're handling it.

The circumstances of Tillman's death stand as an example of what a bloody, senseless mess war can be. And they also shed yet another ray of light on what a bloody, senseless, clueless and fucked-up mess the War on Terror has become.

What went wrong? It's pretty simple, actually: we don't know what the hell we're doing ­ at all. From start to finish this has been a "make it up as we go along" venture, and with the major press no longer cowed by threats of being viewed as "unpatriotic," that truth is finally starting to sink in.

Early on in the war, while we were only in Afghanistan, I realized that, in spite of what seemed to be a decisive victory, we were making some very serious mistakes. It wouldn't be until later, when the so-called "Rumsfeld Doctrine" was shown up for the goofy fraud that it is, that we'd realize how serious those mistakes were.

Then it became fairly clear that we didn't know where we were going, either, except around in circles. And then we got a glimpse of where we were going, but delivered in an utterly ham-fisted way (courtesy, in part, of neoconservative goober David Frum).

And now, there is Iraq. I supported our invasion of it, and faced with the raw evidence of Saddam's tyranny, I can't say my mind has been changed. Saddam needed to go, and we ­ being the ones who helped prop him up for all those years ­ were the ones who should have removed him. We helped break Iraq by supporting that monster, right up until he invaded Kuwait, so we bought Iraq.

And now we've laid claim to it at last, but we made the same mistakes we made when we invaded Afghanistan. We didn't commit enough troops to the effort, relying on Rumsfeld's cock-eyed notions of how to wage war and the idea (courtesy of paid liars and neo-con lunatics) that we'd be hailed as liberators. And while we did win ­ there was really no question that we would ­ we didn't win in the proper way, with an enemy force completely beaten and demoralized, and a people ready to stop fighting back and cooperate.

The more time goes by, the worse the situation gets. The more the enemy regroups and attacks. The more scandals come to light. The more mismanagement goes on and gets caught. The more our "friends" turn out to be... well, fiends, for want of a better word. The more we can't find any WMDs of significance, and discover that what we were looking for was just fairy dust to begin with...

The more we are revealed to be leaderless, aimless nincompoops with guns, in other words. And I don't tend to fear a fool with a rifle: I leap back behind safe cover and wait for him to shoot himself.

In a way, this is good news, however bad. Anyone who feared that we might be carving out a "New American Empire" can get off the soapbox and relax. Not only do we not want one, but even if some of us did, we've clearly demonstrated that we can't establish it ­ not even to save our lives.

But I don't think that realization has soaked in on high. Already, I can smell the next "engagement." After the election, I have no doubt that we will be using our extended stay in Iraq, post-"handover," to build up more troops for another so-called liberation. I also have no doubt we will be inside Syria, next, or possibly Iran.

And I also have no doubt that once the shooting's over, and we've won ­ again, how could we not? ­ we'll stumble all over ourselves, making the same stupid mistakes, only three times as bad for having made them twice before.

It's a terrible thing to say that, more than three years after 9/11, I fear the actions of my own country's current Administration more than I fear any moron with a bomb, a cause and a grudge. At least we can grab the moron when he jumps up, mid-flight, and tries to ignite himself. But what can we do when morons from on high, with no regard of their own actions, try to ignite ground war after ground war just to look like they're doing "something?"

In reference to Pat Tillman, Army Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger Jr. said that the exact circumstances of his death should have no bearing on how he has been viewed: "(Tillman) focused his efforts on the elimination of enemy forces and the protection of his team members."

I agree, but it would be nice if the same thing could be said for the people leading this farce of a war.

"You just leave me nailed here - Hanging like Jesus on this cross - I'll be dying for your sins - And aiding to the cause"

"Ringfinger" - Nine Inch Nails