Bush White House Shows No Respect for 'Opinions of Mankind'

"O that God the gift would gie us;

to see ourselves as others see us."

"If we ask what it is that has our friends across the Atlantic and elsewhere around the world so upset, it is not that we plan to declare war on another country in violation of every international law ever written; it is that we act so arrogant and cavalier about it. In a period in which we should be witnessing a display of the best of prudent leadership, we are treated to a Texas swagger that boasts of getting our enemies "dead or alive," of an "axis of evil" that, so named, implies we can do whatever we choose to get rid of it, that describes Saddam Hussein as "stiffing the world" about his weapons arsenal and that generally uses language for public discourse more fitting for a barroom brawl scene in a cheap-budget Western movie than for discussions by a head of state."

Legally it is the Security Council truce and resolutions that Iraq is violating and they have to be the ones to enforce it.