Win one for the Gipper!

In Russia, as recently as 1990, if you wanted to work for the state or join an institution of some sort you had to fill out a form declaring whether or not you, or your relatives, had ever been a prisoner of war in Germany or had been sent to the gulags. Obviously if you answered yes you were immediately treated as suspect - not to be employed or trusted. This was Russia - a country ruled by successive paranoids.

In the U.S. when you are about to enter the country they have you fill out a visa form. On the back they ask various pertinent questions. They basically boil down to:

1. Are you insane, or indeed a junkie?
2. Are you a criminal mastermind?
3. Are you a Nazi war criminal? And while we're here - are you a terrorist?
4. Are you here to kidnap someone?
5. Hang on...have we thrown you out of the U.S. before?
6. Um, do we want to arrest you?

They give you this form on the plane before you're about to land. Beneath the questions they helpfully remind you that "if you reply YES to any of these questions....you may be refused entry to the United States."

Truly, I can't think why the intelligence on Iraq was faulty...