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Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Public Opinion: Facts forgotten
One poll shows that, despite all evidence to the contrary, 50 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003.
Another poll shows that, despite the absence of any demonstrable evidence in support, 36 percent of Americans believe that U.S. government officials either assisted in or knowingly took no action to stop the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
We trust these two demographics somehow overlap and that opinions so divergent with known facts are held by 86 percent of Americans.
No matter what political hay some have tried to make of it, "500 chemical munitions" collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion amounts to a grab basket of disparate shells, 15 or more years old, too degraded to be unusable as artillery ordnance.
As to U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 attacks, where are the facts? Where is the evidence?
Of course discussion, distrust and even dissent should not be shut down by the mere issuance of any official government report. But the mere issuance of such a report does not confirm a differing scenario. Reasoned discussion yearns for some basis in fact.
As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan insisted, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
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