World opinion shouldn't count

President Bush has justified U.S. military actions in Afghanistan, in part, on "world opinion."

That is a very weak argument, indeed.

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The U.S. government has a constitutional obligation to defend the United States whether or not the rest of the world supports us.

And, in the case of Afghanistan, the world most definitely does not support us.

International polls demonstrate conclusively that the world opposes our actions.

The biggest public opinion survey conducted thus far by Gallup International – taking in 37 countries in late September – found that only in the U.S., Israel and India did majorities support military action in response to the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Majorities everywhere else preferred extradition and trial of suspects.

In the United Kingdom, 75 percent said no to war. In France, 67 percent opposed the U.S. counter-attacks. In Switzerland, 87 percent thought it was the wrong way to go. In the Czech Republic, 64 percent preferred trials. In Panama, 80 percent opposed military response. In Mexico, 94 percent thought the U.S. should try to extradite suspects.

By early November, 65 percent of Germans said the attacks should end. In Spain, 69 percent said "enough." Even in Russia, one of the U.S. allies in the war, polls before and after the bombing campaign began found majorities opposed to the actions.

And that's just a sampling of the non-Islamic and non-communist world.

You might say, "Who cares?"

Exactly my point.

Who cares what the rest of the world thinks? It was the United States of America that was attacked. And it's the United States of America that must and did respond. It's our business. If every single nation in the world opposed us – which is very nearly the case – the U.S. government would still have an obligation to destroy the terrorist network responsible for the gravest attack on the U.S. in history.

My question, though, is: Why does President Bush feel it is important to misrepresent the truth? Why does he believe he must tell the American people a lie? Why does he give a darn what the rest of the world thinks?

It's about coalition politics. It's about the New World Order. It's about abrogating the constitutional imperative to defend the United States. It's about building multinational infrastructures to deal with world crises. It's about global politics rather than American sovereignty. And it's a shame.

That's the point of this column.

I believe our actions in Afghanistan are not only justified, but restrained in response to the heinous attacks on the U.S. I feel no need to justify this war by looking at public opinion polls outside the United States. But President Bush apparently does.

He has repeatedly said that the U.S. is acting in accord with the collective will of the world. It's just not so. Nor does it need to be so. Nor should it necessarily be so. Nor should we say it is, when it isn't.

The problem with fighting wars based on the will of other countries is that their attitudes are sure to change. Even the American people are sure to get tired of this war and any war that goes on for a protracted period. If and when American boys start dying in big numbers, even America's determination is sure to be tested.

But the American will is all that counts. This is a free republic. Americans are a self-governing people. It doesn't matter what others think. We choose our own course. That is what the founders created here in the New World. We are not to be bound by the dictates of Europeans or Asians or Africans or our neighbors to the south.

This ought to be a lesson to us all as the world plunges more toward political and economic unification and interdependence. That's not the road for Americans. We must take a detour. We must get off that road.

Sept. 11 should provide a wakeup call. If it's us against the whole world, so be it. America will protect its people and its borders and its interests. The Constitution is what guides us – not the United Nations, not the World Trade Organization, not the European Union, not the North American Free Trade Alliance, not the World Court.

Our friends and enemies need to understand this. And so do the American people.