London terror and Noam Chomsky

I refer to the article After the bombs, London searching for the root cause of terrorism published in your paper on July 20 and must say that the writer had given a very clear and candid picture of what happened on July 7 in London.

However, upon further reading, I found that there was nothing written to describe the "search for the root cause", instead the writer strayed away to mention feelings and sentiments from the people at large, bombings were connected to al-Qaeda and George Bush used fear on the American electorate to achieve his election agenda -- all of which seems redundant.

With hindsight, the BBC did say that there were two groups (linked to al-Qaeda) which claimed responsibility on the London bombings but this has yet to be verified. Until today, even Tony Blair and his security forces have not established a shred of the root cause but have embarked on his "evil ideology" message to the Muslim community.

If Noam Chomsky said that George Bush did use fear as a tool for his re-election, it would have been a personal opinion as the American electorate is intelligent enough to decide for themselves. The result of the election and the narrow win by Bush over John Kerry endorses the point regardless of any attempt by Bush to manufacture consent to threaten or display any form of a claptrap.

Apparently, these two words form the title of Noam Chomsky's first book (Manufacturing Consent), written in 1988. He is a Professor with the Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) whose political views are invariably respected.

SONNY LOO Singapore