*What?*

[taimatsu]

From the Times: John le Carré - 'The United States of America has gone mad'

The article is very good and very interesting. I was arrested by the following sentence, though: "A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre."

I am flabbergasted. I'd be interested to see a less indirect source for that figure, or information about that poll. As I understand it, there is *no* current evidence that Iraq is linked to Al-Quaida or the Sept. 11 attacks. None of the terrorists involved who have so far been identified are Iraqi. Saddam Hussein's regime is a *secular* disctatorship, and the Sept. 11 terrorists were Islamic fundamentalists. I can't *believe* people think that.

A similarly interesting article from the other side of the pond is in Salon: 'Sleepwalking toward Baghdad'.

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I can't *believe* people think that.

You are making one enormous assumption there...

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

There was a related thing on Radio 4 this morning, where the commentator (sorry, can't recall who OTTOMH) ... well, commented that the political map of the US has areas where liberalism (which, politically, is about where the UK Conservative Party was under Hague) is predominant on each coast. These are the areas you see in movies and on TV and usually go and visit, and to some degree are the likely points-of-origin of any US citizen that you are likely to bump into outside the US. However, there are also vast, central tracts of the country which are amazingly conservative, paranoid, etc., and it is *these* areas that voted for Bush in their millions --- but these areas and people are largely unseen by outsiders.

Mass hysteria has been prevalent in US culture since before Salem, so I'm saddened, scared and alarmed, but not flabbergasted.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

You forget rule one; people are stupid.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Citing "a recent poll" with no further details is propaganda, not journalism (whatever Americans really think).