The California Suicide Bomber and Cognitive dissonance
Reader comment on item: The California Suicide Bomber[: Ra'ed Mansour al-Banna]

Submitted by Stan Futterman (United States), Apr 4, 2005 at 16:05

Your article on the Caliifornia suicide bomber describes a person who to all appearances was pro-American until he "became distraught about developments in Iraq" and was denied re-entry to the U.S., where he apparently had established permanent residence. Yet instead of observing that this is an instance -- no doubt like many others - where U.S. policy may have created an enemy, you conclude this "confirms . . . the urgent need to keep an eye on all . . . Muslims"!

In other words, when a given policy appears to have unfortunate results, redouble it! Is this not another instance where a pre-determined conclusion determines our interpretation of the data? Have we not learned that was one of the problems in our intelligence on Iraq?

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