An Open Letter To John Giduck

[Guy]

Now, before et al., `et alii' , `et aliae' or `et alia' get their panties in a twist and want to level some type of lawsuit against me and me alone since; I'm the one posted this message, well....I won't be hard to find if, you can move in a hostile environment.

Dear John (the irony huh?)-

Apparently by now you are wishing that you had second thoughts about intimidating the membership of SOCNET with your threats of a lawsuit for voicing our mere opinions about your credentials (or obvious lack thereof) to be instructing our law enforcement and military personnel in anything regarding anti-terrorism or counter-terrorism. You see, our opinion is a constitutional right to free speech. And, unfortunately for you, the truth is a positive defense against your claims of libel, defamation etc…So you decided to set up your own website, to expose the “truth”. I had hoped you were smart enough to let sleeping dogs lie as things here were slowly calming down, but you have chosen not to, so, let’s talk about a few things, John and see where the truth leads us.

First, the threads in question were from 2007. It was a dead issue. Your employees, I assume at your bidding, brought the issue back to life. Your credentials were discussed again, with the same result. You have none. Obviously a talented writer/story-teller and by most accounts a good public speaker. But, creds to be training AT or CT TTPs? Nope. Sorry John. Less than 60 days in the U.S. Army doesn’t qualify. So, you send a letter to SOCNET threatening to sue. SOCNET yawns in response. Every poser we have ever outed has threatened to sue. Standard Procedure. So next you try to intimidate GoDaddy for a name so you can file a lawsuit, who tells you to go pound sand and bring a warrant next time. Again, standard procedure.

During all of this, a promotional bio for you is found online, claiming you are a “Lifetime Member” of the Special Operations Association. Don’t worry, we will get to them later. So, one of our members is also a Lifetime Member of the SOA and knows that the SOA ByLaws prohibit “The advertising of Association Membership or Operational Associate status for either commercial or political purposes. Violations of this paragraph will be brought to the attention of the Board of Directors and may result in revocation of Membership or Operational Associate status.” Of course you already knew that, John, since you are the SOA’s legal counsel, right?

The member also wants to know if you actually qualify for general lifetime membership in SOA, as the standards are fairly narrow for membership and you did not appear to qualify. That member, MSG Jonathan Clouse, writes an e-mail to the President of the SOA (John Meyer) and asks if you qualify as a Lifetime Member of SOA. Meyer writes back that you are just an “Honorary Member,” as opposed to a General Member. This is a fact that you conveniently choose not to include in your bio when you play the SOA card. MSG Clouse then posts on SOCNET that John Meyer vouches for your service to the SOA as and “Honorary Member.” This is the last post MSG Clouse ever makes about you, several days before you threaten him! Why? MSG Clouse posts that he has respect for John Meyer, and John Meyer vouches for you. MSG Clouse, in a private email, also informs Meyer of his concern that you are misrepresenting yourself as a “Lifetime Member.” For reasons no one understands, John Meyer forwards his communication with MSG Clouse to you (that’s what you lawyers call “privileged communication”). In turn, you used MSG Clouse’s SOA membership information to have him served with a notice to cease and desist, and an intent to sue, as well the threat to have MSG Clouse charged with numerous criminal offenses. That was a mistake. The SOA releasing that personal information is against the law. What we still were not aware of at the time was that you CONTROL the SOA. Literally. This seems to be a pattern with you. To wit, you want to be in a martial arts hall of fame, so you just create your own hall of fame from scratch in Russia and make yourself a member. Easier to be in the club if you control the clubhouse, aint it? You have zero SOF experience so you just buy your way into the SOA and make yourself a life member, as well as the controlling interest.

Now let’s talk about MSG Clouse. Your legal notice to MSG Clouse demanded that he pay you $200K and divulge the personal information of every SOCNET member who dared post their opinions about you that you didn’t like or be sued. MSG Clouse did not respond in any way, publicly or privately. SF guys are generally uncooperative like that when threatened. So MSG Clouse informs SOCNET of your threats and extortion, as SOCNET is listed on your legal threat letter as a potential co-defendant. SOCNET does not take kindly to you threatening one of our brothers. So, since you have decided to vilify a man who had absolutely nothing to do with what was said about you on this site (he wasn’t even a member at the time), let’s look at who you are threatening. The following is the narrative to accompany the award of the Silver Star to MSG Jonathan Clouse.