Our nation's growing loss of respect around the world was documented by a survey released recently by the highly respected polling agency WorldPublicOpinion.org which is a branch of the BBC. The results of the survey available here document the fact that 73% of people surveyed around the world disagree with how the Bush administration has dealt with Iraq, the so-called War on Terrorism and the conduct US foreign policy in general.

The fact that Iraq and it's leaders, at the time, had nothing whatsoever to do with the events of 9/11 make the assertion by the Bush Administration that the US is engaged in a war in Iraq against Al Qaida and the instigators of the September 11th attacks sound ludicrous.

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 -- The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday. The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.