Side Note: Bush: "It's not my job..."

Just a quick note. I guess Bush said yesterday, "It's not my job to take an international poll; it's to defend the country." He meant that he doesn't have to get world support to defend the United States.

Of course I agree, but this is the "fallacy of diversion" he has been using forever now, hoping that the American people are too stupid to notice (OK, that's an overstatement because I think he is being sincere in his own conscious mind. But it was effective, wasn't it?).

To quote Bush from Thursday night, "I know that Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that." But he's hoping the American people won't notice and think it was actually Saddam Hussein who masterminded 9-11.

Bush has every legitimate right to pursue those who have attacked the U.S. He may even have the right to go it alone in pursuit of those who are just about to attack us (I would require him to have nearly indisputable proof before I would allow this exception). But he doesn't have the authority to attack someone who hasn't attacked us or that might attack us in 10 years or that might support those who want to attack us.

Only with broad international support after every other reasonable avenue has been exhausted might I grant legitimacy to an action of this nature. In other words, I'm afraid President Bush is not God after all. I guess you will have to take a poll on this one.

This president is a fearfully dangerous man. My five year old son has no intention of shooting me, but I'm not going to give him a gun. This misguided president has a gun called the United States armed forces, and I don't trust his aim.

P.S. It's not too easy to find anyone else in the world who does either, a comment I make as someone who has lived in England and Germany for three and a half years of my life, including the three months I spent in Germany this last spring.