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Stuck on Stoopid: No consensus on who was behind Sept. 11
Seven years after the attacks on the United States on September 11 that left nearly 3,000 dead many people do not believe that al-Qaeda was responsible or do not know who to blame, according to a survey released Wednesday.This crap passes for thought in Arab countries. I find it insulting, especially on September 11th. But that's the whole idea, natch. The global public opinion survey found that majorities in eight out of the 17 nations polled did not believe al-Qaeda was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Nor was there any consensus on another possible perpetrator, although significant minorities in many countries blamed the U.S. government itself, and in a few Israel. In the Arab and Muslim countries polled majorities attributed the attacks to the U.S. government, Israel, or simply had no answer.
Kenya and Nigeria, the only African countries surveyed, expressed the greatest belief, 77 and 71 percent respectively, that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization was behind the attacks. "The level of confidence that people have in the U.S. is an indicator of how acceptable they are to American narrative, the way of framing it," Steven Kull, director of WorldOpinion.org, told AlArabiya.net. He found the strongest correlation between feelings toward the U.S and belief that al-Qaeda perpetrated the attacks, and therefore that belief is highest in countries friendlier towards the U.S. "But it is striking that even among our allies it was not overwhelming," said Kull. Kull noted that in the Middle East, where he has done focus groups with Muslim groups, people have difficulty accepting the idea that an ostensibly Islamic group could carry out such violence. "It's very hard for people in Muslim countries to accept the idea that a Muslim could do such a thing, the strongest factor is that killing civilians is contrary to islam -- that's the key factor," he said. Yet on average one in four people do not know who to hold responsible for the attacks. An average of 46 percent cited al-Qaeda, 15 percent the U.S. government, with the Israeli government or some other perpetrator tied at seven percent. Posted by: Fred 2008-09-12 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=249773 |