Hi All,

Just got this and thought I'd pass it along. Perhaps it will help those offshore understand us a bit better...

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An open letter to a terrorist:

Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America.
You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America. You used
helpless American bodies to take out other American bodies,
but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America.

Why? Because of something you guys will never understand.
America isn't about a building or two, not about financial
centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a
place, America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America
is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where
you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live, for
the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue
Happiness. (No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can
sure try!)

Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your
terrorist litany: "If you can not see my point, then feel
my pain." This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a
country where we don't have to see your point. But you're free
to have one. We don't have to listen to your speech. But you're
free to say one. Don't know where you got the strange idea that
everyone has to agree with you. We don't agree with each other
in this country, almost as a matter of pride. We're a collection
of guys that don't agree, called States. We united our individual
states to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another
idea we made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as you go, when
it's your country.

If you're free enough.

Yeah, we're fat, sloppy, easy-going goofs most of the time. That's
an unfortunate image to project to the world, but it comes of
feeling free and easy about the world you live in. It's unfortunate
too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans,
they tend to fight like a cornered badger. The first we knew of the
War of 1812, was when England burned Washington D.C. to the ground.
Didn't turn out like England thought it was going to, and it's not
going to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you're not the
first bully on our shores, just the most recent.

No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the
FIRST and so far, only country in the world to use nuclear weapons
in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays? News for you bucko, it was back
then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in the whole
world and we used 'em both. Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan
Project. Told me once, that right up until they threw the switch,
the physicists were still arguing over whether the Uranium alone
would fission, or whether it would start a fissioning chain reaction
that would eat everything. But they threw the switch anyway, because
we had a War to win. Does that tell you something about American
Resolve?

So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real
estate, like the good old days. Unfortunately, we're probably at war
with random camps, in far-flung places. Who think they're safe. Just
like the Barbary Pirates did, IIRC. Better start sleeping with one eye
open.

There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this
country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for
freedom. Even if they misuse it. The Marielistas that Castro emptied
out of his prisons, were overjoyed to find out how much freedom there
was. First thing they did when they hit our shores, was run out and buy
guns. The ones that didn't end up dead, ended up in prisons. It was a
big PITA then (especially in south Florida), but you're only the newest
PITA, not the first.

You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in
America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it's called. And
killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won't change it.
Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until
we're crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely
different kind of Spirit.

Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time.

Sleep tight, if you can. We're coming.