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

Yep!

Glenn