How Not to Persuade Americans

There's an interesting story in the Guardian about how the former head of MI-5 has argued that the US response to 9/11 was an over-reaction.  I agree with the central premise that the invasion of Iraq was a bad plan -- driven through on pure emotion in the aftermath of 9/11.   Same thing with the Patriot Act.  But this is the quote that stuck in my craw:

In an interview with the Guardian, Stella Rimington calls al-Qaida's attack on the US "another terrorist incident" but not qualitatively different from any others.

"That's not how it struck me. I suppose I'd lived with terrorist events for a good part of my working life and this was as far as I was concerned another one," she says.

If it's American minds you want to change, this is not how to do it.