I recieved this in an email from a friend.  I'm sure it's author won't mind if I share it with you all.....

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.

Charles Brennan

BTT

This is really good.  Pardon my ignorance, but does anyone know what "PITA" and "IIRC" refer to?

PITA is "pain in the ass".....I don't know the other either.

Rocketman

Pain In The Ass
If I Recall Correctly

BTT