Friday, Feb. 14, 2003 | 9:29 a.m.
Regarding George Will's Feb. 9 column, "War is necessary": He correctly states that, "People committed to a particular conclusion will get to it and will stay there;" and he promptly proves it by hoisting himself on his own petard.
President Bush's clumsy handling of international affairs continues to create more anti-American sentiment throughout the world in spite of a general consensus that Saddam Hussein is a latter-day Joseph Stalin and needs to be neutralized.
Eighty-four percent of all Europeans are now against military action, even in Britain. Bush's ridiculous "axis of evil" phrase no doubt infuriated the North Koreans and led to their present belligerent stance, enormously complicating everything for our military forces, whose assets may now be spread too thin. After all, if we can be "preemptive" (another Bush blunder), why can't the North Koreans?
When the president tells the United Nations that it will be irrelevant if it doesn't do things his way, he either doesn't realize or doesn't care that many countries throughout the world take the United Nations seriously. Result: more anti-American sentiment. Obviously, he is also enraging an already radicalized Muslim world.
The president may be a national leader, but he is definitely not a world leader. He has managed to take an otherwise legitimate policy and make us look like a bunch of school-yard bullies with the world as our personal playground.
No wonder they hate us. Even Nelson Mandela is excoriating Bush.
ROLF GOETH
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