Dear Markos,

You and the Left are sounding more and more like al Jazeera every day. You're blind hatred of the Bush Administration is endangering the lives of U.S. soldiers and embolding our enemies to kill them.

I know you 'love' America, but your 'love' of America is like that of an abusive husband who 'loves' his wife. You 'love' America so much that you will not let any opportunity pass to belittle and abuse her. You 'love' America only when America acts in exactly the way in which you believe it should act. When America gets out of line, you pull no punches.

Whether you 'love' America is beside the point just as whether an abusive husband 'loves' his wife is irrelevant. What I and the rest of America want is less of your proclamations of love, and more evidence of it.

From reading your blog I have come to the inevetable conclusion that you 'love' America so much that you are willing to kill it. I know you have the best of intentions for our great nation, but so does the abusive husband who really didn't mean to kill that bitch wife of his, but, you know, she just up and made him soooo angry that he couldn't help himself.

You have betrayed America with your perverse love in the exact way that an abusive husband betrays a wife. You are a traitor.

Your latest screed on the use of white phosphorous by the U.S. military in Fallujah is really beyond the pale. Equivocating between the U.S. military and the Saddam Hussein regime is exactly what our terrorist enemies do in their propoganda. You say:

Saddam tortured, we torture. Saddam used WP chemical weapons against insurgents and civilians, we use WP chemical weapons against insurgents and civilians.

Perhaps you are unaware of this, but supporters of al Qaeda read blogs like yours and take them seriously. The reason they fight us in Iraq is that they believe, like you do, that the U.S. is the moral equivalent of Saddam Hussein. Each time you publish insane theories about the U.S. using chemical weapons, they eat it up.

If you actually believe that the U.S. is as bad as Saddam Hussein regime, then I suggest you grow a backbone and join the mujahidin in Iraq. The moral implications of your statements are that we are the bad guys. If such is the case, then the inevetable conclusion for you--or an Iraqi 'fence-sitter'--is that morality requires armed resistance to the U.S.

In fact, at a jihadi forum which I frequent, the terrorists and their supporters make the exact same argument that you are making. White phosphorous has become quite the hot topic lately 'proving' that the mujahidin are in the right and that the U.S. really is the Great Satan.

Thank you for legitimizing the jihadists and their belief system. They love Americans like you and use words like yours to benefit their recruitment efforts. See, they say, even the Americans now understand that their own government must be stopped.

Which is exactly the morally correct conclusion to reach if you actually believe the U.S. is guilty of systematic torture, mass murder, and the use of WMD against civilians.

If you believe this, though, than you have made yourself an enemy of the United States of America. No, not the Bush Administration, but the United States. The country which you love, but only insofar as she acts in the exact manner proscribed by you.

You are like so many member of the Communist Party USA in the late 1940s and 1950s who loved America so much that they gave our nuclear secrets to the Soviets. Their acts of treason, like yours, were done out of concern for the nation and for principle. They didn't hate the U.S., they loved it, but only to the extent that their love was conditioned on the U.S. acting in the exact way in which they thought it should act.

They, like you, believed a strong U.S. was a danger to world stability. Thus, in their own warped minds, giving the A-bomb to the Soviets was the only morally appropriate thing to do. It was for America's own good, they thought.

Markos, I don't mind it when you attack one of Bush's Supreme Court nominees. That's just domestic politics. But war is different. Tearing down our troops and comparing them to Hussein's murderous Republican Guard is outside the bounds of patriotic dissent.

And please don't hide behind your military service. Plenty of traitors have served in the United States armed forces and plenty of patriots have had no military experience. Benadict Arnold, Aaron Burr, and Lee Harvey Oswald all served with distinction before they betrayed the country. Bill Clinton, a patriot in my book, had no military record.

Last, you might argue that it is the actions of the troops that have disgraced our country and not your characterization of them. This is an idiotic thing to say when the morality of the actions are in dispute.

Using white phosphorous during a battle is a fact. Calling them WMD is a characterization---a choice of words meant to equivocate them with Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds. It is your characterization--your choice of words--which degrades the soldiers who chose to use white phosphorous in the heat of battle to help the U.S. win victory over its enemies.

Facts are always morally neutral. It is human judgement that gives meaning to facts. By choosing to equivocate the use of white phosphorous to the gassing of the Kurds, you have morally judged our troops. You, in word and deed, have called our troops mass murderers. You have chosen to characterize them this way.

In light of that, I believe it would not be unfair to characterize you as a traitor. The kind of traitor that believes they are doing the right thing for the country that they love. But, alas, if you knew anything about traitors you would understand that the vast majority of them are well intentioned.

Cordially,

Rusty Shackleford

UPDATE: Apparently this has generated a lot of outrage. It should.

John Cole is pissed.
Confederate Yankee expresses righteouss indignation.
The Commissar, Dread Pundit Bluto, & Wunder Kraut agree.
Caedorioa has a slightly different nuance.
John at Castle Argghhh debunks the WP thing here.
Dean Esmay is right on here.
INDCent Bill makes up a new game out of this.

Posted by: Rusty at 11:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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