Stardate 20020227.1812

(On Screen): Last fall a poll was taken which tried to gauge public opinion in the Muslim world, and it was badly botched; the sample size was tiny and it used leading questions.

Now the Gallup organization has done a more reasonable job. It finds that the majority do not believe that the September attack was actually carried out by Arabs, and it shows a high level of disapproval of the US attack on Afghanistan, and of the US in general.

You know what? I don't care.

We're not fighting this war to be popular. It's hardly surprising that those who sympathize with our enemies don't sympathize with us. We're not fighting Islam, but we are fighting Islamic radicals, and we're trying to remove a cancer in the world.

These results do not convince me even slightly that we should change course. We were right to attack Afghanistan, and I think we'll be right when we take out Saddam Hussein. He's too dangerous to be permitted to keep living.

Iran's foreign minister is in Europe now and is trying to push "multilateralism" yet again. And it is clear from context that yet again the point of multilateralism rhetoric is immobility. He doesn't want the Europeans to get involved in the war, he wants them to restrain the US. It isn't going to happen; it's clear that the Bush administration is both ready and able to prosecute this war alone if need be.