ANGRY LETTER: Arrested soldier blasted U.S. view of Muslims

Union Leader ^ | 2/14/04 | ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE , AP

[kattracks]

EVERETT, Wash. — A National Guardsman suspected of trying to share military information with al-Qaida is a Muslim convert who complained bitterly in a letter to a newspaper about “bigotry, hatred and mindless rage” in the United States.

Spc. Ryan G. Anderson, 26, was arrested Thursday and was being held at Fort Lewis. The tank crew member from the Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade was taken into custody just days before he was to leave for duty in Iraq.

Long before his arrest, he had made some of his beliefs known in strongly worded letters to the editor.

“In my three years as an observant Muslim, I’ve encountered nothing but kindness, patience, courtesy and understanding from them,” he wrote in a November 2002 letter to the Herald of Everett. “On the other hand, I have experienced bigotry, hatred and mindless rage from so-called ‘educated thinkers’ here in the U.S.”

Anderson also suggested that his allegiance to the United States was conditional.

In a 1998 letter published by The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, he warned: “Today I am a young soldier, sworn to protect and defend this country. But if tomorrow I find that this nation is no longer the one based upon the freedom I was taught to love, I’ll have little choice but to go where I can live in freedom.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, defense officials said Anderson signed on to extremist Internet chat rooms and tried to get in touch with al-Qaida operatives. It is unclear how the U.S. government got wind of his alleged offer to supply military information to the terrorists. It does not appear he transmitted any information to al-Qaida, authorities said.

Anderson grew up in this city 30 miles north of Seattle, graduating from Cascade High School in 1995. He then attended Washington State University, where he earned a degree in history in 2002. He began studying Islam in 1999, according to his most recent letter to the Herald in 2002.

TV satellite trucks lined the street outside his parents’ home yesterday, but no one made an appearance. His father, Bruce Anderson, issued a statement saying the family was stunned by the arrest but is confident the code of military justice will afford the younger Anderson a fair trial.

It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

[Prodigal Son]

I've lived in Germany as well. Really liked. I wouldn't move back though and my wife doesn't want to either even though she is German. Lived in France and while that was interesting, I don't see that being a good option either.

The country I most enjoyed living in outside the US was South Africa. It was still wild enough to appeal to certain aspects of my personality.

I currently live in Scotland. I quite like it. I keep meaning to move to Australia but it is quite pleasant here.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Some detail on letters to the Spokane paper:

Letters to the editor from Ryan Anderson

[Prodigal Son]

No it doesn't. I'm the sort of person that doesn't take a second or third party's word for something if I don't have to. For example, I don't care how badly a critic wants me NOT to see a film, I'm going to see it for myself.

I understand intellectually that people don't want to broaden their horizons- I mean it's evident. But I've never really understood it.

I've always wanted to see what was over the horizon- and what was over the next one and the next one etc.

If early Americans had not had that attitude, we would've never settled the West.

[LisaMalia]

No it doesn't. I'm the sort of person that doesn't take a second or third party's word for something if I don't have to. For example, I don't care how badly a critic wants me NOT to see a film, I'm going to see it for myself.

OK, let me take my mega millions and have my pilot rev up the Lear Jet so I can travel to every country in the world to see if one suits me better...:) What a gross waste of time, money, and energy that would be. I *know* I would not want to live anywhere else. You have your opinion, I have mine.

[Prodigal Son]

Travelling is a lot cheaper than many people would believe. When I lived in France and Africa, for example, I did so out of a rucksack. I lived in a guy's converted garage in Johannesburgh. My wife and I slept on a foam mattress on a stone floor. In Montepellier, France we rented a one room flat that had the bed on a mezzanine.

You don't have to go first class to travel.

In fact, if you were to travel around, you'd find many many young people who simple get a 6 month visa to a different country and then see what they can scrounge up. It requires a certain amount of faith in yourself (to find work, make things work) but a motivated individual can usually make it work.

There are a lot of interesting things out there. Things I never would've known about had I not gone out and experienced it. That's just me. But all of those experiences have not been a waste of time. In fact, I would not trade them for anything in the world.

[nopardons]

You really have little idea of what life was actually like, in America is the early part of the 20th century, or earlier. You fantasize about what it would be like, using the mentality of today.

Let's talk about what life in America really used to be like, without the hyperbole. Pick a year and let's indulge in facts V. your imagination. Okay ? :-)

[Prodigal Son]

Thanks for your input.

[nopardons]

You and your wife enjoy living like deranged hippies? Sleeping on a foam matteress on a stone floor in some guy's garage? You call THAT living ?

[nopardons]

You don't want to play that game? You just want to delusionally rant on about times gone by you don't know anything at all about?

WHY.......afraid that facts would burst your little hallucinatory bubble? :-)

[Prodigal Son]

You know, I asked you a long time ago not to post to me any more- ever. You called me a traitor back then and that was just too much. I haven't changed my mind. I would prefer not to carry on discourse with you about anything.

[nopardons]

CCP my exact words, or retract what you just said!

Come on..........prove that I directly called you a traitor.I haven't called anyone here that and you're just afraid to engage in discussing this with me.

[Prodigal Son]

It's a long time ago. I'm surprised you don't remember it. I remember it well. It was a thread about McCarthyism and the Senate hearings. I disagreed with you about it and you called me a traitor complete with exclamation points. I asked you on that thread not to post to me anymore and to this point you haven't. I would like to keep it that way. Conversation with you has no value to me.

[MEG33]

Will you be home to work for freedom.. or just take it where you find it?..Germany certainly doesn't offer more freedom.

I have freedom in the US..No jackbooted thugs have shown up.

[nopardons]

Gee whiz and golly, even. I have a far better than average memory;however, explicitly calling you a " traitor " escapes me.You must have said something extraordinarily horrible! Still, I think that you're fudging. If you were so rattled, why didn't you report me ?

Come on.....play the game and I promise to NOT call you anything at all.

How about 1916, 1895, some earlier or later date?

[Prodigal Son]

Germany certainly doesn't offer more freedom.

Which is why I don't live in Germany.

No jackbooted thugs have shown up.

Some of the posters who like to post on the Waco threads would disagree with you there I bet ;-)

I've done 8 years in the military. Spent a great deal of time standing on foreign soil on the front end of America's foreign policy. Is this enough? Probably not. But that's what I have under my belt so far.

or just take it where you find it?.

Oh aye, I'll always take it where I can find it.

[Prodigal Son]

If you were so rattled, why didn't you report me ?

I reported you to you. I would have thought that would have been enough.

Now, again- I have no wish or desire to correspond with you.

I don't care about any promises you care to make now. I'm not the forgiving type about some things and that was one of those things.

I bear you no ill will but I mean what I say. I don't want you to post to me.

[Fledermaus]

Waaaa, waaaaa, waaaaaa waaaaaa

You asked someone not to post to you any longer and they didn't! Oh my god! Call out the military.

Can't take the heat?, get out of the proverbial kitchen.

You post here, you get posts back. That's the nature of this forum. If you think you should just be allowed to say, "stop posting to me" and that's it, then go away or start your own forum.

Otherwise your request is yet another admission you just can't handle the debate and deal with those that don't agree with you. And if you feel degraded, report it as abuse and let the owners of this forum make the decision.

But to simply say, "I asked you not to post to me anymore - ever" is a cop out and a cowardly move since that's the ploy of someone getting creamed.

[MEG33]

I thank you for serving my country,but the loss of freedom is exagerated. I know a bit about the times in this century you yearn for and I can't join you in your idealization of those times.

I hate that I can no longer live so innocently as far as unlocked doors and letting the children roam unsupervised.That is because bad guys take advantage of their freedoms.

[Prodigal Son]

Can't take the heat?, get out of the proverbial kitchen.

Oh, I can take the heat. But I won't correspond with people who insult me in a personal manner. In the time I've been here that has only happened four times. I don't correspond with any of those posters any more.

Think about it. It's really about the only level of civility we can achieve- one of mutual agreement. In normal society if someone insults you you can fight about it. This is not possible in cyberspace. Where does that leave you?

I've had a poster on this forum tell me my wife stinks. Would you honestly expect me to continue talking to that person? Well, I don't correspond with that poster any longer and I don't feel it's a case of not being able to take the heat. I guess everybody's different, but there's some place I won't go.

If you asked me not to talk to you anymore- I wouldn't. The same as I wouldn't if you were standing in a pub and asked me the same thing. That's just being civil.

[Prodigal Son]

I know a bit about the times in this century you yearn for

I don't yearn for that older time. My comment might have been somewhat ambiguous but it's not as if I sit around sighing 'oh to be on the western frontier'... Not like that.

But the idea of being able to go out into a wilderness and make your way, not having to answer to anyone- that has a certain amount of appeal. To me at least. I'm sure that when a lot of people were headed West, there were lots of Americans in Boston, Philly and NYC who didn't like the thought of going to live in the mud, wilderness and scalping savages. But again, this a personal thing. For some people back then, freedom meant the gentile society that those cities represented, to others it meant an open sky and no certainty.

To put a different perspective all together on it- I know for certain that in a hundred years people will point back to the early 21st Century as a time of greater freedom and simpler life. It's the way things go isn't it.