NEED HELP!!! The "letter" from Iraq that says everything is OK

[elfwitch]

Anybody got a link that shows that the "letter" received by a bunch of newspapers a while back was a PR ploy by the * cabal.

My stupidly conservative uncle just sent me that letter in an email and I want to spank him.

DU Please help!!

He sent me this one:
The following is an email message sent to all First Marine Air Wing
and Marine Wing Support Squadron 171 from Lt Col Scot S. Seitz, Commanding Officer, on Monday 1 Dec 03.

Marines and Sailors,
As we approach the end of the year, I think it is important to share a
few thoughts about what you've accomplished directly, in some cases,
and indirectly in many others. I am speaking about what the Bush
Administration and each of you has contributed by wearing the uniform,
because the fact that you wear the uniform contributes 100% to the
capability of the nation to send a few onto the field to execute
national policy. As you read about these achievements you are a part
of, I would call your attention to 2 things :

[Mari333]

1. send him this site

http://www.bringthemhomenow.com/
and this one
http://www.channel4.com/news/2004/02/week_2/10_iraq2.html
and this one
http://www.mfso.org
and this one
http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm
and this one
http://www.vaiw.org
and this one
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks%3BBarking%20Head%20Brigade
and this one
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52735-2004Feb18.html
and this one
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/gallery2.htm
tell him these are from a mother whose kid is a teenager with a gun standing in Iraq, scared to death he will die.

[elfwitch]

2. Thanks but...

Stuff like this isn't going to work against him. He needs to see that the letter was just a PR plot.

[Mari333]

3. PNAC

http://www.newamericancentury.org

[elfwitch]

4. also sweet but...

I really need some sort of article or link to a news site that talks about how they mass sent that letter to editors around the country and that it was basically written by them.

[elfwitch]

5. Nobody has a link?

Nobody has got a link that shows that letter was just a PR ploy?

[Mari333]

6. astro turf letters will this help?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/10/14/soldier_letters2/index_np.html

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/World/iraq031013_letters.html



Boston Globe editors were disappointed to learn that a letter to the editor from a GI in Iraq had actually been drafted by his commander.
ABCNEWS.com

Letters Home
Soldiers’s Glowing Accounts of Success in Iraq Success Were Written by Commander
By Martha Raddatz
ABCNEWS.com
Oct. 13 — The letters appeared in roughly 12 newspapers across the country. From Massachusetts to California, and many places in between, family members and local newspapers received letters from soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment detailing their successes in northern Iraq.




Each letter was signed by a different soldier, but the words were identical:

"Kirkuk is a hot and dusty city of just over a million people. The majority of the city has welcomed our presence with open arms. After nearly five months here, the people still come running from their homes, into the 110-degree heat, waving to us as our troops drive by on daily patrols of the city. Children smile and run up to shake hands and in their broken English shouting, "Thank you, Mister."
Amy Connell, of Sharon, Mass., knew as soon as she received the letter from her son Adam that he did not write it. "He's 20 years old and I don't think his language or his writing ability would have entailed that kind of description," she said.

[elfwitch]

9. that is good, but not the same letter...

I did a google search and this "letter" came up quite a few times. I need to show him that this is BS.

[madrchsod]

7. do you really expect to

change his mind? if all those links mari333 provided doesn't change his mind, you shouldn't waste your time. some topics just ain't worth arguing over...

[Mari333]

8. I know how he feels tho

a lot of my relatives are on the dark side and boy do they hate me=)
I love to shove the truth in their faces on occassion. Usually I just ignore them.

[elfwitch]

12. I generally Ignore him too, but this was two in one day...

n/t

[rucky]

10. http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/combatend.asp

there's others debunked on the site, but this is the freep favorite

[elfwitch]

11. THANKS!!!

This is just the ammo I need.
Keep more coming if you have it.

[elfwitch]

13. The REASON I want to spank him in this one so bad...

I sent him once of the latest articles from Bernard Weiner. I sent him "The America I Live In: Notes for the Campaign" which is a fine read if you haven't already. Link:
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays/campaign-notes.htm

Here was his exact response to me...
Then <"SHUT THE FUCK UP" - Dennis Leary> Cast your ballot and / or pick another country to live in, how about Bosnia? Croatia? the former U.S.S.R? Cuba?, Iraq? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Turkey? Lebanon? You never know how good you've got it until you get it taken away.

And my response to him:
And that would be fine if we already lived in countries that didn't have a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, and the freedom and right to vote.

However, we do live in a place where all the things he wrote about could never have happened, much less could have been imagined to happen a few short years ago.

In three years we've gone to a prosperous and peaceful country to an international bully with a debt that could choke an elephant.

There is going to be a Draft if he it re-elected. How old is your son? Are you willing to sacrifice YOUR son for a rich bully's war? Are you willing to send YOUR son off to a desert to die in a place that neither wants him or needs him there? Are you willing to have YOUR son come home in a flag draped box after fighting for the rights of Haliburton and Betchel to rape other countries treasuries? I'm not.

When presented with this type of information you and those like you ALWAYS throw out the " Croatia? the former U.S.S.R? Cuba?, Iraq? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Turkey? Lebanon?" list. The people there NEVER had the system we once did. However we were once a shining example of how it could be done for countries that were on the path to better things and the allies of countries that were getting it right. Now the ones that never had a chance are even father away. The ones that might have been don't trust us anymore. Our allies don't trust us either.

I am going to vote, for all the good it will do in this state. And if he gets back in to office I AM leaving. I will start finding another country to live in as soon as I can manage to jump ship. If you take what they have managed to do in three years and then double it, this will no longer be the place we grew up in. If they get four more years, all those places you listed will be indistinguishable from our country when it all boils down. So I am saying no to corporatism. I am saying no to bigotry and institutionalized hatred. I am saying no to bankrupting the government while the rich get richer. I am saying no to stripping the safety nets from those in society that need them the most: the elderly and the young. I am saying no to shipping jobs overseas and creating a slave wage class of Wal-Mart drones. I am saying no to perpetual war on an enemy that cannot be beaten because a new enemy is made every time we overstep our bounds. And finally, I am saying no to those who want to turn the greatest democracy that ever graced the face of the planet in to a theocratic war machine empire.

I won't "Shut the Fuck UP" there Dr Leary. I won't be cowed in to silence and merely accept this fate. I won't stop sharing information with people who might not be getting the whole truth because they only get their news from FOX. I won't gladly be lead to the slaughter. I won't give up my son for a rich man's New World Order.

But thanks for the clinical advice.