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Bush is Infuriating the Rest of the World
Thursday, February 21, 2002
(01:00)
By Rachel Giese
TheStar.com

The real question that should be asked now, however, is not why the rest of world doesn't like or doesn't support America, but rather why does America care so little about the rest of the world?

President George W. Bush's first nine months in office were marked by an alarming hostility toward the rest of the world. He sneered at the United Nations and rejected international treaties on global warming, biological weapons, and the establishment of an international court.

Then came Sept. 11 and along with it a new openness in the Bush administration's approach to other nations. Overtures were made to Europe, Indonesia, Russia and Pakistan.

The White House began receiving foreign heads of state. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair was hailed as a great friend of America. Canada's troops were put under U.S. command. The war against terrorism, it was said, was a global one.

Now, it seems, all that has changed. The first signs that the Bush administration was back to its old tricks? Its withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, its reluctance to provide financial aid in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and its defiance of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war. Now, with the Taliban vanquished, Washington has announced it still isn't ready to give up the fight, with a proposed expansion of the war on terror to the "axis of evil" a.k.a. North Korea, Iran and Iraq. And the rest of the world, including some of America's closest allies and partners, is furious.
(More: TheStar.com News Source)
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Dan