Why should the rest of the world care what Americans think? The rest of the world: it's their world too you know. Just out of interest, a couple of friends and I took a poll of 500 people in the Sydney CBD over the last week. The question was: "Have the unilateral actions taken by the US against Iraq changed your views on the September 11 terrorist attacks on America?" 1 I now have less sympathy for the Americans. -- 73% 2 The action in Iraq hasn't changed my views. -- 24% 3 I never had sympathy for the Americans. -- 3% (My preference was to have response (2) read, "the action in Iraq hasn't substantially changed my views", to weed out those who might only feel a tiny bit less sympathy, but I was outvoted.)
This alleged poll is highly suspect by virtue of item #3. You obviously don't know your Aussies very well.
What a sophomoric exercise! You obviously know very little about constructing polls, especially about attempting to conceal the pollster's own biases and expectations from respondents. You and your friends probably even thought you were bending over backward to be fair and objective.
Which is cool because I live in America. We need to focus on #1, ourselves. I'm sick and tired of seeing all the taxpayer dollars we give away to countries and in turn their people hate us, well screw them, cut them off. I think your poll speaks for itself. Oil and American bases in Iraq next to Syria, Iran et. al. Kill two birds with one stone. It's like my Dad told me, "Not everyone is going to like you, the ones who don't, screw 'em".
We are stealing from Iraq just like we stole this land from the American Indians and I sleep just fine at night. I wasn't one of those naive types who actually believed it was about the Iraqi people. However I do think they will benefit long term as opposed to Saddam's rule. This kind of stuff has been going on since Cain slew Abel. Every country has blood on their hands, some you have to go further back than others to find it.
I think what is really sophomoric is your reaction, Kymar. Firstly, the poll itself wasn't my idea, and my I had my own ideas about how to better pose the question, but I went along because I was quite interested to see the results. If you have specific qualms over the wording of the question or a better way to have addressed the topic, please, put your ideas forward, instead of just kicking and screaming because the numbers aren't too flattering. Otherwise it's you (not me) that comes across sounding like a juvenile whinger. You can see what the question was, you can see what the responses offered were, just make your own mind as to what the results mean. Pretty simple. And Max, lol, just what the hell was the problem with including an option to say that no sympathy was ever felt over 9.11? Sydney is a very multicultural city, you know. Many Asians and Arabs here. Many who, as the poll indicates, didn't -- *shock* *gasp* *horror* -- see 9.11 as the Tragedy of the Ages.
That's quite a frank response khorne, and it's quite representative of the way I used to feel. However, I no longer find any comfort in just throwing my hands up and saying, "hey, it's always been a dog-eat-dog world, there's never been a time when the world was fair, why expect it to ever be? I think I'll just go and look after me and my own.".