Says it all

This letter to Eric Alterman was posted today on Altercation

Name: Withheld
Hometown: Balad, Iraq

Eric,

Tried to submit this letter yesterday using my military e-mail address, but received a strange MSNBC message. Sorry if I'm doubling my portion of mail in your inbox, but persistence is a necessary virtue if we ever want change from our current horrible direction.

I mailed my absentee ballot today, proudly casting a Pennsylvania swing state vote for change.

Since I'm on active duty in the military, I'm supposed to avoid talk of politics - So, while I won't tell you for whom I voted, I can tell you that when making my decision, I kept in mind the fact that 3 years ago, Osama Bin Laden killed 3000 Americans, and yet he is still free, in part because our "strong" leader diverted untold Special Forces, linguists, intelligence analysts and dollars from the hunt. Meanwhile more than 1000 young Americans are dead in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and that posed no threat to us whatsoever.

As difficult as it is to swallow, our servicemembers and the American people need to know that nothing we have done or will do in Iraq has any effect on making America safer, except maybe to recruit more members for Al Qaeda and like-minded groups. Perhaps Iraq will one day be a better place without Saddam, but America is a lesser place for having lost so many brave souls for no good reason.

Off my soapbox now.....Keep up the great and important work that you do - In a world increasingly devoid of ANY substantive journalism, your fact-based arguments are a light in this present darkness.

Best to keep my name anonymous in our McCarthy-esque state.