posted 12-11-2001 09:08         

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From a Marine Captain

Hello,

Just outside of Ab Gach (in the northwest panhandle of Afghanistan between
Tajikstan and Pakistan)November 11, 2001

Bizarre, it's f***ing freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between
rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains along the Dar 'yoi
Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave.
Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles. I also
glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid
another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers ants
and fleas, but them goddamn scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod.
Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid but God
bless the Marine Corps for the 5 vials of it in my pack. One truth the
Taliban(dits) cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human
beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires
couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy; I
track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type
the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link
that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads
for a while, then I track and record the new movement. It's all about
intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying
rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting
off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on
his throat as I spit a bloody ear into his face and plunge my nickel-plated
Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not
even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no
government. This is an inhospitable, rockpit hole ruled by eleventh century
warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or
join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can
also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and
squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that's your idea of a party.
But the smell alone of those "tent cities of the walking dead" is enough to
hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours
a day. And let me tell you something else. I've been living with these
Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month
and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of em, are
Huns. Actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's
ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families or
for each other or for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of
life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five year old sons
into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of
savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Goddamn cavemen
with AK 47's.
Then again, maybe I'm just cranky. I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid
hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice and I can't recharge it
until the sun comes up in a few hours.
Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor:
Write a letter to CNN and tell Judy and Bernie and that awful, sneering,
pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban "smart." They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is
"cunning." The Taliban(dits) are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and
wolverines; they are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly.
They are hateful, malevolent, cowardly parasites who create nothing and
destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft!! Yeah, they're real smart. They've
spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one!, as
books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the
devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a
Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach
an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you
in the eye with it. OK, enough.
Sun'll be up soon so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in
the snow takes a lot of practice but I'm getting good at it. Please tell my
fellow Americans to turn off their TV sets and move on with their lives. The
story line you are getting from CNN is utter bullshit and designed not to
deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control. The worst
thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here because you have no idea what we're doing and, really, you don't want to know.
We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

IP: Logged

posted 12-11-2001 09:46            

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I smell propaganda.

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posted 12-11-2001 12:12         

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posted 12-11-2001 12:12            

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*sniff* *sniff*
Amazon could be right.

Where did you get it from?

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posted 12-11-2001 13:49            

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I got the same mail. I didn't buy it then, I don't buy it now.
I still say propaganda.
But that's just MY opinion.

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posted 12-11-2001 15:41            

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Hahahaha! MAD props to Dave. Now come clean the coffee off my monitor, fucknut.

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posted 12-11-2001 15:40            

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Well, if it is propaganda, it's got the right attitude to it. I work with these guys and let me tell you, this sounds like an email I'd get from one of them.

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posted 12-12-2001 06:06         

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quote:

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Originally posted by grendelkhan:
Well, if it is propaganda, it's got the right attitude to it.

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I concur.

Now let's put our tinfoil hats on and
try to surmise WHY the US would have ANY
need to manufacture "propaganda" regarding
a USMC Captain in a fox hole in Afghanistan.

Let's see.........the government has overwhelming public support for the "war" in Afghanistan.

The public is "aware" special forces/marines are being used in said war.

The description of the "Hun" Afghan warriors is consistent across the board.

Aaron Brown is the most irritating coverage person ever seen.

Nope, try as I may. I just can't fine and "propaganda" or conspiracies in this note.

Perhaps I didn't make this tinfoil hat correctly
::crumples up tinfoil hat and throws in trash::

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posted 12-12-2001 08:50            

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http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

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posted 12-12-2001 10:29            

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quote:

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Now let's put our tinfoil hats on and try to surmise WHY the US would have ANY
need to manufacture "propaganda" regarding
a USMC Captain in a fox hole in Afghanistan.

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Not "regarding"- USING a USMC Captain. Heck, the whole letter could be real- but the use of it is still propoganda. See http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/plain.htm and http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/testify.htm

quote:

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Let's see.........the government has overwhelming public support for the "war" in Afghanistan.

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Which is fading. "The West Wing" is beating presidential addresses in the polls again. We also need to drum up support for attacks on the rest of the Muslim world, since we need to string this whole thing out at least through the next election year. How is that "proof" that this isn't propoganda? Hitler had overwhelming support too, but that didn't slow the propoganda machine. Same goes for the U.S. during WWII.

quote:

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The public is "aware" special forces/marines are being used in said war.

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So what? How is that "proof" that this isn't propoganda?

quote:

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The description of the "Hun" Afghan warriors is consistent across the board.

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WTF does that mean? Consistantly bigoted? True enough then. The various tribes are NOT all the same race, don't have the same culture, and don't like each other much. To say they're all the same is just ignorant. See http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/name.htm Either way, how is that "proof" that this isn't propoganda?

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Nope, try as I may. I just can't fine and "propaganda" or conspiracies in this note.

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How is it that this guy, camped out in the snow and freezing cold- is being attacked by some magically enhansed breed of scorpion that is able to move in said climate?? Either the person who wrote it is making it up, or this letter has been edited for optimum effect. See http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/intro.htm

Messages of this "Letter":
1) Afghans are "Huns" - not equal in humanity or intellect to you and I.

2) Soldiers are over there sacrificing for us.

3) We will "win" this "war".

4) Islam is flawed (the Koran is not a very good book)

5) Please silence Aaron Brown

6) Don't question what we're doing or how we do it, or you may cause us to fail.

How is that NOT propoganda?

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What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt.
- George Carlin

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posted 12-12-2001 11:08         

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quote:

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Originally posted by Der Senfmeister:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

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Thank you, this is the most worthwile information in this thread. I like the
way they smooth the corners.....

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posted 12-12-2001 15:53            

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Why do you assume it would be "the US" manufacturing the letter, as opposed to some random retard with time on his hands?

That damned faux Dr. Seuss rhyme that got mailed out to people the week after 9/11 was certainly propaganda, but I highly doubt it was originated by a government agency.

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posted 12-12-2001 16:00            

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quote:

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No doubt this piece is so popular because it contains much that Americans would find appealing. Besides the interest (and novelty) in hearing from a soldier right on the front lines of a war in which we're engaged, it gives voice to ideas that many of us want to believe: that our soldiers are brave and tough (neither a scorpion's sting nor its supposedly transmission fluid-like antidote fazes Saucy Jack the Marine); that our armed forces are a well-organized, technologically advanced fighting machine up against a primitive enemy from a backwards country; that our foes are our inferiors, morally as well as militarily; and that the media often don't know what they're talking about, and we'd all be better off if they just butted out and let our servicemen do their jobs.

Is the story at least believable? Not really -- the narrative is rife with errors and inconsistencies (such as the fact that Ab Gach, the panhandle, and the Hindu Kush mountains are all in the northeast portion of Afghanistan, not the northwest), and a true "Recon Marine" wouldn't be broadcasting specifics about his position and mission to the world at large. Still, we can't yet rule out that it could be the work of a serviceman (possibly even one in Afghanistan) who was simply trying to be funny, and whose work ended up being taken as a literally true account of his experiences rather than as a bit of humor.

The "Saucy Jack" letter is as popular as it is because it purports to give insight into the day-to-day reality of a soldier in the field that CNN fails to provide. News emerging from the war in Afghanistan seems rigidly controlled, and the people back home are hungry for information that is not forthcoming. A missive such as this one thus falls on highly receptive ears.

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http://www.snopes.com/rumors/freezing.htm

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posted 12-12-2001 19:24            

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Originally posted by Jimbo?

"MAD props"

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uhh... thats way to hip hop for the likes of you...

Peter..

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posted 12-13-2001 10:42            

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Now what the hell is a marine doing all alone in afganistan with a laptop capable of surfing the internet. The only way to comunicate is with a radio who's use is Strictly Prohibited and the occasional letter that he can write by hand, which in his situation, i doubt that he can stop by a post office to mail. Even if he can use snail mail, it would take 4-6 weeks to recieve it in the US.
This letter just plays on the ill informed minds of today who easily overlook the simple logistics of emailing friends and family from some mountain bluff in the middle of a country that doesn't even have cell phone towers to transmit his email.
I know that he probably has some sort of satalite uplink, but he would get court martialed for comprimising his position by using the restricted access uplink to send a friend a little "hello"

Now even the writers of the propoganda have succumbed to the stupidity virus, its an epidemic

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"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not even sure about the universe."
-Albert Einstein-

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posted 12-13-2001 11:04            

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He said right in the letter that he had a palm pilot with a sattelite uplink. I believe that is standard USMC issue.

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posted 12-13-2001 12:54            

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quote:

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Why do you assume it would be "the US" manufacturing the letter, as opposed to some random retard with time on his hands?

That damned faux Dr. Seuss rhyme that got mailed out to people the week after 9/11 was certainly propaganda, but I highly doubt it was originated by a government agency.

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Didn't mean to say it WAS produced by the US government. It's possible, I guess, but I doubt it would be as flawed if it had. When I used "we" in the summary, I was speaking for the narrator, as in "we, the fighting men who are doing something while you sit on your fat asses."

More likely some inspired citizen wrote it during commercial breaks in the Rush Limbaugh show. Probably one of the same jackasses that keeps rehashing the "Bad American" chain letter, with a differrent celebrity's name each time.

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What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt.
- George Carlin

[This message has been edited by joshy (edited 12-13-2001).]

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