Thursday, July 24, 2003

Poll shows many Germans see U.S. behind Sept 11: "Almost one in three Germans below the age of 30 believes the U.S. government may have sponsored the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington... It also said 68 percent of all Germans felt the media had not reported the full truth behind the attacks, in which some 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After the September 11 attacks, there was an outpouring of sympathy from Germans for the United States. Despite misgivings, Germany joined a military campaign against the al Qaeda network that Washington blamed for the attacks."

"Asked whether they believed that the U.S. government could have ordered the September 11 attacks itself, 31 percent of those surveyed under the age of 30 in the poll answered "yes", while 19 percent overall gave the same answer. Die Zeit said widespread disbelief about the reasons given by the United States for going to war in Iraq and suspicion about media coverage of the conflict had fostered a climate in which conspiracy theories flourished. "The news is controlled," 17-year old Kenny Donaubaur was quoted as saying. "You could see that in the Iraq war. It doesn't seem to me thet you get the full truth."

Remarkable results which vividly demonstrate the incompetence of the US Administration. Worldwide sympathy over the Sept 11 attacks has been utterly squandered. Not merely incompetent, but mad, arrogant, uncaring.

Had the US taken a different path than the military one and built and sustained a global coalition to fight terrorism by political and police means its stature would have been enhanced probably to new highs. Its awesome military is more powerful in the not being used. In Afghanistan, one would have to wonder whether international presssure led by the US would have been able to achieve as much by way of arrests and shutdown of training camps as they have been able to achieve by military invasion. The the President's stature would have been enhanced had his military threatened war but if in the end he refrained.

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