all-encompassingly

here is my fisking of jeremy branson. you’ll notice that he is under the delusion that it is better to leave the terrorists alone than to annoy them by pursuing them where they live. i am told his letter had to be edited to remove the word, “idiot” and that it originally began with something to the effect of, “i would like to address travis personally”:

to read the article that inspired the letter, go here or here. to read my fisking of another anti-me letter, go here.

love america, hate war

Like many people here, I am a registered Republican, a Latter-day Saint, and a sane and educated person. Unlike many people here, I was an Arabic linguist in the Army. I served as an interrogator in Afghanistan from 2002-2003 and was in Kuwait during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I have served my country and consider myself a patriot.

That being said, you have categorized me as ‘insane’ because I am against the war in Iraq. It is a war of choice, not of necessity.

we appreciate mr branson’s service to our country, don’t we? i can only hope he served valiantly, considering his opposition to the very military action in which he was called to participate (operation iraqi freedom). sounds a lot like john kerry. i wonder if we’ll see him heaving his war medals onto the white house lawn anytime soon…

As a Christian I believe that violence is an absolute last resort, and therefore cannot support such a war.

when would you say we could use our “last resort”? after two unpunished attacks against us? four? half a dozen? how many innocent people have to die before we are allowed to respond in kind to our attackers? 1,000? 2,000? 4,000? give me a break.

Of course I want to see an end to terrorism, I’ve put my life on the line combating it. However, I do not think that unnecessary invasions are going to persuade any extremists to stop hating and killing Americans.

persuade? PERSUADE????? what are you talking about, man? i am not interested in “persuading” a rapist from carrying out his desires on someone i love; i’m not about to persuade a murderer from killing me.

“you know, mr. murderer, there are a lot of things more fun than killing me. would you like to play a hand of euchre together? can i make you a sandwich?”

yeah, that might work.

Travis, stop pretending you know anything about the War on Terror, even with your degree in philosophy.

uh-oh. don’t mock the philosophy degree, mothereffer, or you’re going down.

It’s not something you can understand by hearing sound bites from Fox News or by the mindless rhetoric of Bush’s speeches. It’s not about the American political left being anti-American and hoping to “bring their country to its knees” (which was a ridiculous assumption to begin with). It’s about combating a borderless, fanatical ideology.

what i don’t like is you and your fellow anti-war buddies demanding for us to kneel and apologize to terrorists for the abu-ghraib scandal, while we are simultaneously wronged to an infinitely greater degree by those very same people to whom you demand we apologize grovelingly. as i have said before, they break all the geneva conventions, every convention of civilized war, yet we are expected to pander to them. who cares if they mutilate, then string up innocent civilians on a bridge? who cares if they hack off an innocent american jew’s head with a dull knife? who cares if they store their weapons in holy mosques? we used stress techniques to get information from them, gosh darnit. shame on us.

the terrorists are not divided. nobody in al-qaeda is asking for an internal investigation. i’m not saying we shouldn’t be doing that. get those stupid soldiers who took things too far–as you have shown us, jeremy, there are plenty of stupid soldiers–but every step we take to weaken ourselves gives the terrorists a small advantage. if we don’t all start looking at politics that way, we are going to be living in damascus west pretty soon.

You also say that you and the political right (a.k.a. ‘the sane’) are fighting for freedom. In what way are you personally fighting? I don’t remember seeing you wearing a uniform or carrying a rifle in either theatre that I served in. Maybe you mean figuratively fighting in some abstract, philosophical way. Or maybe you mean verbally assaulting peace-loving people who oppose the war in Iraq but love America just as much as you do. Yeah, you’re a real hero.

Jeremy Branson
Antioch CA

ouch. that hurts, jerm. that really does. listen, i’m no hero. i’m just smarter than you. i realize that, while i may not be personally fighting the war, (or in your case, opposing the war while wearing the uniform), i am engaging in what we call “politics”. i am calling for my fellow americans to support the radical concept of national defense. i support my commander-in-chief, instead of calling his words “mindless rhetoric”. i am anti-idiot, and if that means anti-you, so be it.

how logical is it to think that one must have served in the military to comment on military issues? why don’t i say the same about you when you criticize the government, particularly the president of the USA? “have you, jeremy, ever served in state or federal government in an elected position? i never saw you wearing a suit or carrying a briefcase in any government offices i’ve been in!” see how stupid that sounds, brainless? what is your major? piano? something that doesn’t require a lot of analytic thinking? the day that non-military are not allowed to opine on military operations is the day you’ll really start to see some “unnecessary invasions”.