First:

Send a letter devoid of any of the emotional diatribe of Col. Boylan’s tone, as you do in all your articles, to SECDEF Gates with copies to Gen. Petraeus, CINCCENTCOM, the secretary and chief of staff of the Army, and the chairman of the armed services committees in the House and Senate.

Then:

I forgot...

to include Admiral Fallon. In fact, you could consider writing the letter to him and copying Gates.

I thought Adm Fallon was CINCCENTCOM. Has there been a change of command while I wasn't watching?

ready and able to respond immediately to your emails, sent to the address from which the email he didn't send came from. What a man. Colonel. Cadre. Whatever.

I hadn't seen the Democracy Now! clip of him "engaging" with Reuters last year, linked elsewhere. Dude creeps me out. Christ was I drunk last night, indeed.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/07/144212

(From shawnfassett's post way back.)

<<shiver>>

Just read the update.

Glenn, I am afraid the form of your question ("can you confirm") left him wiggle room.

Boylan's "no" could just as easily mean "no, I cannot confirm" as "no, it was not from me."

That would explain the ambivalence about spoofing.

Maybe we could enlist the good services of AT & T and Verizon to sort out the origin of this email in exchange for chipping in and setting up an illegal wire tap defense fund??

Never mind…..

Are you positive the first email didn't originate at FEMA.org?

It shows the same incomprehensible blather that they seem to specialize in.

This is garbled syntax similar to that of the original letter. Note the weird dangling modifier "trying."

In-teresting...

-- Enceladus

"In-teresting"--Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In

There is an expert genius out there spoofing the idiot Col.

"Yeah, that's the ticket."--Saturday Night Live

Not long ago, I commented in this space that you were to be congratulated because those who would destroy our liberties were telegraphing that you were hurting them, but I warned that you should expect to become the focus of orchestrated attacks. Now they telegraph that you are HURTING THEM BADLY, and are considered A THREAT, so much so that they have determined to try and place you on the permanent defensive with the goal of eliminating your voice. Assuming that Boylan is the channel chosen for this orchestrated attack, you are of sufficient consequence that they are effectively bringing in the Great God Petraeus, through his aide, to launch it. But even if Boylan is not the mouthpiece, this constitutes a clear warning to you to pipe down or suffer the serious consequences of a relentless, full-scale assault that will make your life difficult.

I am just one person who recognizes your value to the progressive movement, and I am hoping that you will be willing to make this sacrifice and not back down. It is a lot to ask, I know. As Thomas Paine wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls...he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorius the triumph." And you are HURTING THEM BADLY.

Glen,

first off, thanks for helping fight the cancer that

has infected our country.

Spoofing someone's email address is quite simple. It

is quite easy to send an email with any "from" address

you want. But the mail headers will reveal the IP

addresses of all mailmail relay servers that involved

in sending the message. Thus if if someone is simply

spoofing someone's email address it will revealed when

you look at the mail headers and see an IP address

that is not part of the senders mail system. Of course

you can prove via the headers that the message came

from the sender's mail system but you can't prove that

someone ( a coworker lets say) didn't access his

account and send the message as him. Of course one

would think that in this particular circumstance this

latter scenerario unlikely.

coward probably thinks of himself as a "warrior" and he can't even cop to the emails he sends.

Can you determine, Glenn, what time of day it was (in Iraq) when you received the communication(s) from Col. Boyman?

Good catch. I meant to write Admiral Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I was kind of ambivalent about RMP's earlier suggestion to send Boylan's email to various entities within the chain of command, but consequent your 3rd update, my ambivalence has evaporated. Lots of possible explanations are rolling around in my head, but they all take me to the very same place. Regardless, of any explanation I can conjure, it would seem to me that the military would want to get to the bottom of the email's origin, sender, and focus. All of the implications identified by others upthread ought to be a concern for all the reasons noted. Sorry, RMP. I ought not to have doubted you. You're pitch perfect on this I think.

I knew the young, then Major, Boylan when he started his PR career track. I see he has positioned himself well for a star. Like most senior officers, he has learned that the truth will only end your career - ask the former Chief of Staff of the Army General Shinseki.

A Retired Army Office who believes in the Constitution

...that if this email is in fact not authentic, that by now GG would have been contacted by the administrator of Colonel Boylan's mail server asking for full header information, and that traceroutes and other measures would be taken to determine the true source of this email.

The colonel seems to be fairly, um, casual about all this. I would not be if I were in his position. After all, my crediblity, my reputation, which is the only coin I have to accomplish my mission, is in peril.

G.O.-consider your life Grace. thanks.

Consider yourself damn Lucky as everyone else who is here. Me and some of 'my companies' just don't get along with pro-kill war people.

I don't think you'd find it any different, y'all here, if you saw those you loved blown-away. You can become DEAD in any illegal war. In a second. Right G. Owen? G.O. Your not dead, yet. I'm glad.

O, those war years went down the tube? I'm convinced G. Owen is no dead yet...Wow. But the experience was NO waste. Redeem. Atone.

And speak.

My twenties, the best years they say...But...sometimes I wonder how I've/you, put up with witnessing HATE so-so very-very long, right, G.O. etc.,?

I guess, home or abroad, what some people are meant to go through, WOW, and WHY?...but how do we/you put up with it/this ugly hate and animosity for so long?

I guess, as Glenn, Floyd, Digby, A.L., Pam S., and many-many unmentioned more...WHY...do we all wind up where we are today?

Now, I love my farm job, Y's know, yep, and sometimes I am weary of thinking of legal bars, pubs, saloons, taverns (i rarely enter a public water-hole), and the good Salon...and feel like inventing some imaginary Places, created in my Mind.

Castles in the air? No. I plant some fall Lilly bulbs, a evergreen shrub, and some yellowy daffodils. I try to craft everything I/Me/You do with cautious care. Gads. I'm shy to say: I love, while I'm 'banging away' here...

Dear friends and acquaintances stop bye, have a beer, bring their own favorite wine-- drinks, snacks, and in moderation we sup, and then friends leave after soft music, that what was played in the background, is turned off. The end.

They (true friends) go home.

I turn on the blogosphere, and do you know why? A damn stewing good angry veteran et. all. too, like a G.O. etc., here at home-front- seems to care, and others do too...Care.

Everybody is seeking the same-same-same thing. O, is it Peace and Love's warm embrace? It is an imaginary Place? No. It is, or can be experienced everywhere, and all the time...here. Everywhere.

Ba, Ba, Kevalam...Love is everywhere. Love can be experienced all the time. That's all there really is that's really, yea, in a brief, and important LIFE- impt.

Why not know? Experience it-Love. okay.

Everybody is seeking the same-same thing: an imaginary place, their own castle in the air, and/or, a real place, a corner, and their own special corner-place where love is known and experienced? Special.

It's everywhere. To want 'it' can't hurt.

That Love is all there really is...right?

and to experience it- love- yes...okay.

Love once. Love all our days, and love forever.