U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in London on Tuesday at a time when his popularity is at an all-time low in Britain. A large number of anti-war groups and members of the Muslim community are planning to greet him with one of the largest demonstrations in the history of London on Thursday.

British security officials are deploying 14,000 police officers as security for Bush. This means that the U.S. president’s visit will cost British taxpayers 14 million pounds. Such security measures have not been taken by the British government since World War II.

During Bush’s three-day visit to London, protestors will be allowed to demonstrate behind the White Hall area and Parliament, where they plan to burn effigies of Bush and other U.S. officials.

London Mayor Ken Livingston has voiced disagreement with Bush’s trip to the UK, calling Bush the most dangerous person on Earth. The mayor has supported and funded the protestors and said that he does not even accept Bush as the president of the United States because he believes he cheated in the election.

Bush's three-day trip will be the first full state visit by a U.S. leader since Woodrow Wilson’s visit in 1918.

The high security measures necessary in London should send a strong message to the White House indicating that the world does not approve of U.S. foreign policy and that the British people are not happy about Bush’s visit to London.

Ironically, U.S. officials talk excessively about world public opinion and human rights, but the protests in London will clearly illustrate the level of Bush’s popularity.

Despite the fact that the rest of the world was moving in the direction of multilateralism, U.S. officials adopted a unilateral approach toward international affairs even before the September 11 attacks and the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

The cold welcome that Bush is receiving in London shows that people are angry about U.S. unilateralism, be it the war against Iraq, the U.S. withdrawal from important international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), or its all-out support for Israel, a regime which flouts United Nations resolutions, to mention but a few examples.

Perhaps White House officials should ask themselves why they are so hated by people all over the world.

After the claims that the U.S. invaded Iraq because it allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction and the CIA report claiming that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were shown to be blatant lies, U.S. officials then said that the invasion was launched to liberate the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Surely they know that they cannot deceive the world so easily.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was greeted with flowers and applause when he visited foreign countries, but, in contrast, thousands of police have been mobilized in London to protect Bush.