An email I got that Dean supporters (and everyone else) will like

[WilliamPitt]

Dear Mr. Pitt:

I am a Republican who voted for George W. Bush. On 9/11 I sat before my TV and watched the horror of these planes crash into the World Trade Center; as a Pennsylvanian, we lived only an hour from where the one of the planes came down near Johnstown. I lived in a fear I never thought was possible as a citizen of one of the most powerful nations of the world. I began to read with an obsession everything I could regarding al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

The obsessive fear I felt of another attack continued until one day it simply and calmly hit me...How was this able to happen? How were nineteen men with box cutters, no less, able to crudely bring the most powerful nation in the world to its knees? While on vacation during the summer of 2001, I had read the book "The Brethren". Hauntingly, the question kept creeping into my mind, would our own United States government "allow" such a monumental catastrophe to occur, as the plot outlined in this novel? It was unimaginable, unthinkable, yet I continued to wonder more and more - how was 9/11 able, allowed to happen?

I am not a conspiracy theorist who spends my days dreaming up plots in order to explain catastrophic events, but I do have the simplistic curiosity to ask "why is it?" I guess my most recent question is: why is it that we bombed the living hell out of Afghanistan after 9/11, never found Osama bin Laden, who many suspected was living in border territories of Pakistan (which we recently learn is providing deadly WMD material to any nation, including many U.S. enemies). Pre-emptively, virtually without an ally (even Britain balked), and with false evidence attacked Iraq because this nation was a deadly and threatening enemy of the United States.

Halliburton and Bectel marched into Iraq carrying the American flag as a banner for our beloved U.S. troops, but we found no WMD which was our war cry. Our "Oh well" second best reason to pre-emtively attack Iraq was that we did eliminate a treacherous ruler who repressed and brutally murdered many Iraqis. While no one can inheir hearts deny that to liberate an oppressed people from such treachery is undeniably the right path to take, are we an "Equal Opportunity Liberator" who will step into all nations for its people who suffer such atrocities? North Korea, an "in your face" enemy of the U.S. who has the real stuff (WMD), certainly does not serve its dissidents tea and crumpets, and the list can undeniably go on.

Meanwhile, Osama and his band of thieves have managed to elude and re-strengthen. How can this be? As our American soldiers loose their lives by the day due to the guerilla war we are now fighting for what few can understand why we went in, and how we can now get out, theost powerful nation in the world has allowed the original enemy, al Qaeda to regroup and once again become the viable threat. We are in a far threatening cold war in 2004 than we were during the Soviet era (everyone hates us now) and no foreign policy except to fight a vague war on terrorism. We have no friends on the global block; to the contrary our nation has portrayed itself as the ultimate international bully which invites even the most rogue of nations to pull us down from our "king of the mountain" status we arrogantly occupy.

We need a foreign policy and we need integrity restored to our most beloved nation. Anyone less than a rocket scientist status could figure this out, and all the Democrats can do is rip away at the front runner of the 2004 presidential race. We need answers to many many questions, and we desperately need unity.

Debra *********