Subject: Open Letter to Al-Qa'ida

[Crimson Ghost]

This was sent to me by a buddy of mine:

From: Federalist Patriot Alert [mailto:mailer@federalist.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 11:44 AM
To: (I removed this e-mail address - CG)
Subject: Open Letter to Al-Qa'ida


From a Marine officer on the Iraqi warfront with Jihadistan...

(This is an open letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, "Islamic
Response," and the rest of the so-called al-Qa'ida "insurgents"
in Iraq and elsewhere. We don't have an e-mail address for these
swine -- though we are closing in on their snail-mail address,
but we are forwarding this letter to Federalist Patriots around the
world in the hope you good people will forward it to as many other
Patriots as possible to rally prayer and support for our fellow
Marine, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. Should these al-Qa'ida pigs
spill his blood, we want them to rest assured that the contents
of this letter will eventually be nailed to their foreheads. Thank
you for your assistance.)


To al-Qa'ida terrorists in Iraq:

I see that you have captured a U.S. Marine, and that you plan
to cut off his head if your demands are not met. BIG MISTAKE.
Before you carry out your threat I suggest you read up on Marine
Corps history. The Japanese tried the same thing on Makin
Island and in a few other places during World War Two, and came
to regret it. Go ahead and read about what then happened to the
mighty Imperial Army on Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They paid
full price for what they did, and you will too.

You look at America and you see a soft target, and to a large
extent you are right. Our country is filled with a lot of spoiled
children who drive BMWs, sip decaf lattes and watch ridiculous
reality TV shows. They are for the most part decent, hard working
citizens, but they are soft. When you cut off Nick Berg's head
those people gasped, and you got the media coverage you sought,
and then those people went back to their lives. This time it
is different. We also have a warrior culture in this country,
and they are called Marines. It is a brotherhood forged in the
fire of many wars, and the bond between us is stronger than
blood. While it is true that this country has produced nitwits
like John Kerry, Michael Moore, Howard Dean and Jane Fonda who
can be easily manipulated by your gruesome tactics, we have
also produced men like Jason Dunham, Brian Chontosh and Joseph
Perez. If you don't recognize those names you should. They are all
Marines who distinguished themselves fighting to liberate Iraq,
and there will be many more just like them coming for you.

Before the current politically correct climate enveloped our
culture one of the recruiting slogans of our band of brothers was
"The Marine Corps Builds Men." You will soon find out just how
true that is. You, on the other hand, are nothing but a bunch of
women. If you were men you would show your faces, and take us on
in a fair fight. Instead, you are cowards who hide behind masks
and decapitate helpless victims. If you truly represented the
interest of the Iraqi people you would not be ambushing those who
come to your country to repair your power plants, or sabotage the
oil pipelines which fuel the Iraqi economy. Your agenda is hate,
plain and simple.

When you raise that sword over your head I want you to remember
one thing. Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun is not alone as he kneels
before you. Every Marine who has ever worn the uniform is there
with him, and when you strike him you are striking all of us. If
you think the Marines were tough on you when they were cleaning
out Fallujah a few weeks ago you haven't seen anything yet. If you
want to know what it feels like to have the Wrath of God called
down upon you then go ahead and do it. We are not Turkish truck
drivers, or Pakistani laborers, or independent contractors hoping
to find work in your country. We are the United States Marines,
and we will be coming for you.


(Circulation of this message is being sponsored by The Federalist
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I thought some people would be interested.

[Radar]

An idiotic letter by a stupid jarhead. What else is new?

[Happy Monkey]

So here we have a Marine telling Al Qaida that John Kerry is a nitwit, and succeptible to their "gruesome tactics". Lovely.

If John Kerry is elected, will this Marine suddenly hate America?

[glatt]

When I saw the "BIG MISTAKE" part, I immediately thought of Rich. The letter lost my respect at that point. I stopped reading it.

While I understand the sentiments behind it, I have to side with Radar on this one.

The Marines don't know who the hostage takers are. They are powerless to do anything about it. If they had any power over this, the hostage would have been freed long ago. This letter conveys one message: We are impotent and frustrated about it.

[Cyber Wolf]

Very powerful, very strong and very one-sided. A subtle promotional tool for the Marines, this is. With some of the terms and inferences he made here, this guy's not going to score any points with anybody, unless they were looking down the same fairly narrow tunnel.

What I want to know is if this was actually a personal piece, like someone writing down his feelings in a diary just to get them out, or if this was meant to represent how a group of people feel. If its the former, I'd understand the emotion more. If it's the latter, then I'd peg it as I would a propaganda letter from one of those insurgents.

[hot_pastrami]

The message of this letter is just the polar opposite of "We will cleanse world of the infidels!" Ineffective, unintelligent blather unworthy of the attention it receives. I understand the motivation of it's author(s), and agree with the sentiment of destroying al-Qaida, but it is a stupid, pointless letter.

Judging from the specific names cited as the "nitwits," my guess is that this open public letter is nothing more than bullshit Republican propaganda. The implied message to the "patriots" is "Our president is great and strong... we'll kick al-Qaida's asses and salute the holy living shit out of one another if he gets re-elected. His political adversaries are weaklings."

[lookout123]

before we get to carried away ranting against dumb jarheads and the like... i'm not familiar with the Federalist Patriot. is it possible that this is just another one of those letters like i get in my email that has been forwarded on 18 bazillion times, and it says something along the lines of:


I got this from my brother yesterday. He is a Lt Col in the 101st A/B (I have to delete his name due to security issues)

Hi Sis,

I just wanted to let you know that the boys (and girls) are proud to be over here. We are taking the fight to the enemy. Some of us won't come home and we know it. Just yesterday we were out on patrol when we came under enemy fire. John (the blonde one, remember?) took a round in the leg and another in the chest. but he saw he friends pinned down so he single handedly crawled to the top of the hill and threw his grenades down onto to those arab SOB's. Just before his body was riddled with bullets he shouted that he was proud to be an american, proud to be in iraq, proud to have voted for the best damn president ever. Then he pulled the flag from his pocket and as he died he pulled it down over him.
Sis, I want you to forward this on to everyone you know. They need to know that we are fighting hard for our country and president.

All my Republican Love,

John

although our soldiers do honorable things, many do support the president, and most are extremely patriotic - they are not the ones writing these letters. most of these BS posts are written by a guy with to much caffeine in his system and too much time on his hands. so let's not blame the soldiers for this type of crap.

Have to agree that this letter is just another piece of BS. I'm sure the marines, along with the army, along with the rest of our armed forces, along with the rest of the American people are outraged over this situation and would rescue the hostage marine if they could. However, the average GI (or marine) has his time occupied with more things then writing political rant letters and most military men that I know, even if Republican, do give some respect to Kerry for his service in Vietnam.

[wolf]

The Federalist is a far right newsletter and website. I have at least eight copies of this in my mailbox, one the original sent from Federalist, the others from friends who KNOW I already get the federalist releases but seem to forget this with some regularity.

You may take or leave their information with your grain of low sodium salt substitute as you choose.

[lookout123]

i don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but i don't believe for one minute that a real grunt wrote that.

[wolf]

A couple of them do have educations, you know. (but I agree. this is a PR piece)

[lookout123]

i wasn't talking about the education level. i'm just an enlisted puke myself. but after 13 years of bullshitting with real grunts, i don't see too many sitting down to type this out.

[Beestie]

Originally posted by Happy Monkey
If John Kerry is elected, will this Marine suddenly hate America?

No, he'll hate John Kerry. You hate Bush, right? Does that mean you hate America? Of course not. One could even argue that one's hate for Bush is because of one's love for America. Perhaps the soldier should be given the same benefit of the doubt.

Assuming for the sake of discussion that this letter is indeed from a soldier in the field close to the front lines, then I think its exactly the way a soldier should feel - focused on the enemy and emotionally charged. Its pointless and irrelevant to evaluate the political content of the letter on the merits. It is, however, life-or-death critical to evaluate the soldier's state of mind as he/she readies for battle. Using that criteria, the letter gets an A+ - this soldier is focused and ready to engage the enemy.

A soldier who enters the theatre of battle unsure of who the bad guy is or unsure if the bad guy is really bad or unsure how committed he is to killing the enemy or who questions his reason for being there (or any combination of the above) has a body bag waiting for him. That, imho, is the perspective from which the letter should be evaluated and not on its political merits.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Beestie
No, he'll hate John Kerry. You hate Bush, right? Does that mean you hate America? Of course not. One could even argue that one's hate for Bush is because of one's love for America. Perhaps the soldier should be given the same benefit of the doubt.

Thanks for explaining my irony.