Are we a nation of voyeurs, of paranoids, or merely one of citizens with a growing skepticism of what our leaders tell us? Kareem Fahim examines our fascination with the video depicting the killing and decapitation of Nicholas Berg in Paranoid Nation.

By the thousands, the curious still combed the Internet for poor Nicholas Berg last week....some great bulk of surfers simply craved a few seconds of ghastly footage. Others were no doubt moved by Berg's compelling and sadly concluded story, and the very public manner in which his family was forced to bear his death. But another faction was on the lookout for more obscure clues, bits of information to support a story line steeped in intrigue and, frankly, implausibility....

It was a reasonable response to the times. Faced with a war many Americans find implausible, waged by a president who lost credibility following bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction (provided by advisers with a plan for the world), this second faction blurred the line between healthy skepticism and paranoia. Many of those questioning the White House line on Berg were fringe, yes, but they fed on the doubts of a mainstream no longer sure what to believe. Last week, the U.S. either bombed a safe house for terrorists, or an Iraqi wedding. Ahmad Chalabi is either an asset and one of the fathers of the new Iraq, or a spy. And Donald Rumsfeld either authorized the kind of torture meted out at Abu Ghraib, or knew nothing.

Here's one historian's viewpoint: