Richard Silverstein is stalking me now [Updated]

Only two days after making it clear to me he doesn't want me to contact him anymore, the anti-Israel pundit decides to start emailing me again. And not only me, but the Commanding General of the 1st Armored Division, and his Congressman (no word on whether or not he also lit up the bat signal to call Batman and Robin), as well as threatening me on his blog. Check this out. First he emails me this:

Pls. keep writing me John Rohan or Mike or whoever you are. If you do indeed serve in Wiesbaden the base commanding officer has received a complaint about you which will include any & every insult & abuse you write plus identifying information which will allow them to discover who you are. If you don't serve then you are a liar & will be unmasked as such publicly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: Mike [mailto:michaelvillano @ att .net]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:46 AM
>To: richards1052 @ comcast .net
>Subject: self-loathing people aren't rare
>
>R,
>
>Don’t feel singled out. If you line up with Finkelstein then the label is probably >accurate.
>
>We have many self-loathing Americans here in the US so it only stands to reason >Israel would have her fair unshared too.
>
>Mike


Remove my e mail address from your blog or I will post yours at mine. It is despicable to post someone's e mail address online allowing spammers to harvest it. If mine isn't removed fr. your site immediately yours will go up at mine.

Here was my answer, which I sent to Silverstein and "Mike":

1) I AM NOT "MIKE" AND I DIDN'T SEND YOU THAT EMAIL. You can compare the IPs if you don't believe me. In fact, I'm not sure why you would even think that. If this was just an excuse to email me, then it's pretty childish.

2) The email issue - I don't owe you any favors, and my spam filter is pretty good. But I edited my post anyway and put spaces in your email address so that it will be useless to web spiders.

3) Since I haven't done anything the slightest bit illegal, go ahead and complain to whomever you want. You can call the President for all I care. You will just make yourself look like a bigger fool than you already have. And just FYI, I don't work for the Commanding General (who is MG Mark Hertling, btw), because he is currently deployed in Iraq and I am currently in Arizona attending a class (http://www.shieldofachilles.net/2008/03/auf-reise.html). Anyway, since he's in a war zone, he has better things to do than listen to your whining.

4) You told me never to contact you anymore, remember? I expected the same thing from you. Leave me alone.

However, before I sent the email someone tipped me off that he had already ranted about me on his site:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/03/26/fakes-blowhards-and-other-pro-israel-wingnuts/

What’s interesting about this fellow if he tells the truth on his blog (which with wingnuts is, of course, always in doubt) is that his blog claims he is a military intelligence officer serving in Wiesbaden, Germany. If he does serve in the U.S. armed forces it means that your and my tax dollars are supporting military wingnuts in smearing their fellow citizens online. Don’t know about you–but I find this disturbing. Not to mention that the vitriol he spouts puts him at odds with U.S. military and foreign policy. In comments at my blog and private e-mails, he attacks erstwhile U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia by name and denounces Palestinians as a people as little short of terrorist murderers. I’d have thought that the military would want to protect itself from being associated with wingnut rage like this.

If this guy is genuine is it any wonder that our military effort in Iraq has failed so miserably (where he claims to have served training the Iraqi police, God help us–and them)? Is it any wonder that our armed forces and government as a whole have absolutely no idea how to relate to the Arab world when this is the best our military can come up with?

Just in case there’s any truth to his claims about his occupation, I’ve written to the base commander at Wiesbaden to report on “Rohan’s” activity. If I don’t receive any reply my next step will be contacing my Congressional representative.

If Rohan is lying and he is not a military intelligence officer then we’ll have yet one more example of wingnuts posing as macho wannabe gung ho types. He’ll be little more than a poor, raging fool seeking to create a life for himself based on fantasy. Given that Rohan has publicly attacked me on his own blog I’d guess he’s either a fraud claiming to be a military intelligence officer or a supremely self-confident soldier-fool who thinks he can get away with just about anything. And if he’s fake, I’d think the army would not look kindly on bloggers falsely assuming the identity of military personnel.

I have a reader who serves in the Israeli army and often disagrees with my views and tells me so. But unlike Rohan, the former won’t blog publicly about his political views or comment at my blog both because the army doesn’t want him to and because he doesn’t want his own views to reflect in any way on the army. I can respect that. “Rohan” has no such humility or modesty.

After I banned Rohan, he began sending me unsolicited e-mails. When I told him to stop writing, all of a sudden I started getting e mails making virtually the same false claims about me from someone named ‘Michael Villano.’ I don’t know whether the e-mails are from Rohan or a wingnut co-conspirator (their IP addresses appear to be different). I don’t even know if their author really is named Michael Villano–michaelvillano @ att .net.

Notice that nowhere does have the integrity to back up his statements by actually quoting me or any of his rabid screeds, because then his argument would fall apart. He is also wrong here in so many ways I don't even know where to start:

1) He told me never to contact him again, and I didn't (until he decided to start writing me).

2) I did not write that email from "Mike", nor is he a "co-conspirator". I don't even know who he is.

3) He claims I don't have any "humilty or modesty" because I don't follow the example of his friend in the Israeli Army who keeps his opinions to himself. Hypocritically, he has no such problem with anti-war veterans who speak up! For just two examples:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/02/11/idf-refuseniks-on-dave-ross-radio-show/
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2005/01/24/iraq-veterans-t/

3) If anyone doubts my service record, I have the best proof available. Just check out my Iraq photo sets on Flickr here and here.

4) He seems to forget I still have some 1st Amendment rights (the right of free speech). It's not entirely suspended to military members.

I have said this before on my site, but I'll say it now just so there's no misunderstanding. The opinions on this site are my own. I created this weblog entirely myself and on my own time. I am not here as an official Army spokesman nor do my views necessarily reflect US Army policy. I think Silverstein is flat out wrong in claiming that my views are at "odds with U.S. military and foreign policy", but that's neither here nor there. I am allowed to have opinions.

As a military service member, I do have a few additional restrictions to my blogging that most other people do not have. These are the things I am not allowed to do: 1) claim to be an official Army spokesman; 2) publicly disparage the President or any of my superior officers; 3) divulge classified information or violate operational security.

I have been particularly wary of #3, but as far as I know, I have not done any of the above. If anyone thinks differently, please show me a specific example, and I will correct it immediately.

If you are reading this, Mr. Silverstein, it is clear that you have anger issues, not only with Israel but anyone who disagrees with you. I did call you a fraud, and I still do. That is my opinion, and one that I have backed up with evidence. I'm sorry you don't like it, but when you put your invective online for everyone to see, you have no one else but yourself to blame for the damage to your reputation. If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else (and it has been). I wish you the best of luck with the choices you have made, but my personal advice is to take a break and reevaluate just what it is you are doing to "make the world a better place".

Also, write whatever you want about me on your own site (although calling me a "wingnut" five times does seem a tad obsessive), but stop stalking me. Some of us already have enough to do in the real world without dealing with such nonsense.

UPDATE 03/26/2008 10:27:00 PM:
This lunatic just won't leave me alone!! And he still thinks I sent "Mike" after him. Just during this post he writes me again:

I only wrote to you when I discovered you'd violated my right to privacy by disclosing my e mail address publicly.

You arranged for that jerk to e mail me. YOu both wrote the same bile at virtually the same time.

I've complained to the base commander listed on the website & provided examples of your insults & examples of your writing that contradicts both military & foreign policy besides attacking me. I've notified them of your violation of my right to privacy & maintained a screenshot of my e mail address displayed at yr site. The deputy to the base commander has replied that my complaint will be investigated. I will also be bringing this to the attention of my Congressmember Jim McDermott and see if Stars & Stripes might be interested in a serving officer smearing a U.S. citizen under the color of uniform.

This may be whining to you but I assure you I don't let people call me the things you have while serving in the U.S. military & spending my taxpayer dollars doing it.

My response:

Do you understand English?

I HAVE ALREADY TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE multiple times and yet you continue to harass me with emails. This is called cyber-stalking which is also a crime. Therefore, I will also be filing a complaint with the authorities in Seattle Washington.

I am also happy to answer questions from any investigator and welcome any additional publicity to my weblog.

For the third time - take your petition to the Pope for all I care but LEAVE ME ALONE. I MEAN IT.

I believe that will be my very last answer to this maniac. I could just add him to my spam filter but every time he writes me he just provides more rope to hang himself with.

UPDATE 03/26/2008 11:18:00 PM:
Like a child, this guy has to get the last word no matter what. After being repeatedly warned not to, he wrote me again three times:

You're a member of the armed forces buddy & under a whole diff. set of rights & obligations than the rest of us. In case you doubt that I'm sure you'll find you're mistaken.

The damage has been done by publishing my e mail address. It's already been harvested & the spam is flooding in. Thanks. That will be added to my complaint.

I already split apart his email on the site, so it wouldn't cause spam. So now he sends:

Remove my email entirely from that post That is a violation of my privacy.

(Now he decides this?) And in yet another email he asks:

Now who's whining?

I didn't respond to this foolishness anymore and I'm not going to. If he was really confident in his assertions he wouldn't constantly be trying to taunt me and convince me that he's right. It's even more ridiculous when consider that his blog has been up for several years (mine less than a year) and his traffic is far greater than mine. Why would he waste so much of his time arguing with a "nobody" like me unless he was emotionally insecure and/or incredibly paranoid?



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