New York Times
By welcoming French, German, Italian and Turkish troops to the war against terrorism, the United States is shoring up international support for its campaign against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. The addition of these forces, some of which may be involved in combat operations, will render military decision-making more cumbersome. That is an acceptable price for ensuring the diplomatic solidarity needed to sustain an extended and difficult armed campaign.
After barely a month of bombing in Afghanistan, signs of public unease have already appeared in several European countries. Involving European NATO members directly in the conflict will make it harder to portray it as a purely American war.
Germany has agreed to contribute nearly 4,000 soldiers, the first German military units to operate outside Europe since World War II. Italy is offering 1,000 ground troops and an aircraft carrier. France has 2,000 commandos in the region whom it is willing to make available. Poland and the Czech Republic are ready to send military units, and Turkish Special Forces are already on the way. These European contingents will join the American, British, Canadian and Australian forces already operating in or near Afghanistan. This Saturday at the United Nations, President Bush is planning to exhort more countries to contribute directly to the military effort.
Some American strategists, recalling the restraints placed on NATO targeting in Kosovo by the political concerns of participating governments, would have preferred relying almost entirely on American and British forces in Afghanistan. That approach might prove militarily adequate. Yet if the world came to see this conflict as pitting a narrow set of English-speaking allies against a Muslim Central Asian foe, battlefield successes could be undermined by growing diplomatic isolation. A wider coalition mitigates these dangers, particularly when it includes countries like Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member. There will be some politically sensitive missions in which only American and British forces are likely to participate. That does not require excluding other countries from broader military operations.
Washington also sensibly looks to NATO to supplement food deliveries to Afghanistan, beyond the current system of American air drops. Ideally, food distribution would be left to independent humanitarian organizations, not armies. Current conditions in Afghanistan do not allow this, and six million Afghans near starvation from the effects of more than two decades of warfare urgently need relief as winter approaches.
After the frustrations of Kosovo and the fiasco of Somalia, Washington is understandably wary of waging war by international committee and of entangling military tasks and famine relief. Yet there can be no lasting military victory in Afghanistan without corresponding successes on the diplomatic and humanitarian fronts.
Washington Post
The anti-globalization movement has grown quieter since Sept. 11, which is one reason the trade summit that begins tomorrow in the Persian Gulf city of Doha has a chance of succeeding. But suspicion of the world trading system lurks beneath the surface and has seeped into the negotiating positions of the developing countries attending Doha. The kernel of truth in the anti-globalization argument -- that many countries remain mired in poverty and that some trade rules inhibit their progress -- has emboldened developing countries to assert themselves in trade diplomacy with new force. If the Doha summit is to succeed in launching a new round of trade talks -- and if those talks are subsequently to make progress -- free traders must demonstrate that their agenda really is the best strategy for pulling millions out of poverty.
Trade has already delivered better results than is widely realized. A recent World Bank study divided developing countries into two groups: a club of 24 globalizers that have doubled their ratio of trade to GNP over the past two decades and a residual group that on average trades less than it did 20 years ago. In the globalizing club, which is home to 3 billion people, income per person grew by an impressive 5 percent a year during the 1990s. In the non-globalizing group, comprising 2 billion people, average incomes fell by nearly 1 percent a year over the same period.
These numbers point up a central flaw in the anti-globalization argument. The persistence of poverty is cited as proof that pro-trade policies aren't working, yet persistently poor countries are not the ones where trade is actually expanding. In countries that have genuinely globalized, the benefits have been encouraging. Vietnam's level of absolute poverty has been cut in half as it expanded trade over the past decade. Uganda's poverty rate has fallen 40 percent, and school enrollment has doubled. In the World Bank's 24 globalizers, life expectancy has risen close to levels prevailing in rich countries around 1960.
Despite what anti-globalizers say, the best weapon against poverty is not less globalization but more of it. But the anti-globalizers have a point when they say that trade rules can be unfair to poor countries. The industries in which most poor people work -- agriculture and low-tech manufacturing -- are subject to particularly high trade barriers: The United States imposes a tariff of 48 percent on imported sports shoes and controls textile imports with quotas; it discriminates against agriculture in poor countries by lavishly subsidizing its own farmers.
If the trading system is to retain legitimacy, rules that discriminate against poor countries need to be avoided. This will involve some measures that critics of globalization will applaud, such as the creation of poor-country exceptions in the intellectual property regime. It will also involve changes that anti-globalizers may hate, such as further liberalization of textile and farm trade and caution in embracing environmental and labor standards. By linking the case for trade to the case for poverty reduction, free traders can respond to their critics' humanitarian passion while avoiding their flawed policy prescriptions.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Since the United States began its war on terrorism, Pakistan's textiles industry has taken a hit. Concerned about internal turmoil, U.S. clothing companies have cut back on their usual orders -- 40 percent by some estimates. Pakistan's government says 10,000 textile workers have lost their jobs.
As a result, Pakistan is seeking major concessions regarding the tariffs and quotas on its textile imports to this country, adding trade concessions to a wish list of aid it hopes to enlist from the United States as a reward for its support in the war on terrorism.
The Bush administration would like to help Pakistan, and it's critically important to do so.
Already, many Pakistani Muslims oppose the U.S. military presence in their country, and laid-off workers make easy recruits for anti-U.S. ferment. American offers of debt relief and financial assistance should strengthen the resolve of Pakistan's government and aid in taking the wind out of the opposition's sails.
But there is a tricky balance here. The domestic textiles industry -- including companies here in Georgia -- has been in a protracted recession for many years, much of it due to foreign competition.
In Georgia, 56,000 textile workers, about a third of the work force, have lost their jobs over the past 15 years.
The issue of allowing subsidized imports from countries that ban competing U.S. products is an ongoing trade issue. The war shouldn't be used as an excuse to unilaterally resolve the question in favor of Pakistan.
The current problem is not the general tariffs and quotas but the uncertainty regarding Pakistani stability that has led U.S. clothing companies to cancel or withhold their orders. The Bush administration should find some way to give the Pakistani textile industry enough relief that it can resume exports to this country at the pre-Sept. 11 level -- perhaps by temporarily reducing the amount of the tariffs or by allowing a temporary surge of imports.
A return to pre-Sept. 11 level imports would help Pakistan without exacerbating the financial pinch for American textile companies.
Boston Globe
Belatedly, President Bush and his advisers have begun to take part in a global debate about their policy of combating Osama bin Laden's terrorist network by going to war in Afghanistan. It is necessary to engage in that debate because otherwise the United States could topple the Taliban from power, eliminate bin Laden and much of the leadership of Al Qaida, yet lose the larger war.
Dangerous as bin Laden might seem, that danger pales in comparison to the specter of Pakistan with its nuclear weapons or Saudi Arabia with its oil reserves falling into the hands of Islamist extremists sharing bin Laden's apocalyptic notions.
The political project of bin Laden and his fellow travelers is to provoke a war with ''infidels'' that might culminate in the overthrow of governments in Muslim lands that are seen as too secular, replaced by Islamist regimes in the image of the Taliban.
In the days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush was properly careful to reject the noxious concepts of a conflict between religions or a clash of civilizations. But now that American bombs are falling on Afghanistan, killing civilians, however unintentionally, the brief for America's war against terrorism as not being directed against Muslims has became more important than ever, and more difficult.
The administration is wise to make officials such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice available to the TV network Al Jazeera, which is seen across the Arab world. It was also a good idea to have a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Christopher Ross, who speaks Arabic well, appear on Al Jazeera to answer the perverse propaganda of bin Laden.
However, there have been mistakes that must not be repeated. Bush's use of the word ''crusade'' to describe America's response to the Sept. 11 attacks was a blunder, and he ought to explain that he did not mean to validate bin Laden's central thesis. In a message delivered Tuesday via a satellite video link to Eastern European leaders gathered in Warsaw, Bush compared the current war against terrorism to the antifascist and anticommunist struggles of Europe in the 20th century. These misleading analogies suggest that America does not understand the difference between totalitarians wielding enormous state power and bin Laden's terrorist cult.
The administration should not be relying on the techniques of the advertising industry to win a geopolitical debate about its war on terrorism. Instead, American officials should reveal as much of the evidence as possible about bin Laden's culpability and prove by deeds that the United States will do everything in its power to help Afghans rebuild their war-blasted country after bin Laden is defeated.
Daily Oklahoman
Over the past few days, various Bush administration officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have made clear the United States will not interrupt military operations against terrorists hiding in Afghanistan for the holy month of Ramadan, which begins Nov. 17.
It's a wise and courageous decision.
It tells the American people that the threat facing them is grave. It also lets the world know that the Sept. 11 attacks have motivated this country to spare no effort in the war against terrorism.
Certainly the perpetrators of the attacks would like nothing better than to hide behind a Muslim holiday to rest, to relocate and to rearm themselves. To afford them this courtesy would be silly in a military sense and undermine domestic support for what promises to be a long and arduous campaign.
The administration's forthrightness on this issue has support of not just Republicans but some Democrats as well. The Democratic Leadership Council, in an essay for its online publication New Dem Daily, urges the White House not to cave into calls for a halt for Ramadan:
"In the long run, the best thing we can do to earn respect for the United States internationally, not to mention to deter others who might attack us, is to remain unshakably resolute in pursuing our war aims," the Democratic essayists wrote in the article, entitled "No Pause for Justice."
"Giving our enemies a month off would send a terrible signal to friends and foes alike that we're not willing to fight to victory, and perhaps are not even sure about the justice of our cause."
Truth is, according to news reports, Osama bin Laden and his gang view most Muslims with contempt, holding that their beliefs aren't "pure" enough. So, while the rest of the Muslim world observes a month of prayer and fasting, bin Laden's thugs will be plotting to kill more innocent people.
Thanks to stout hearts within the Bush team, they'll also spend Ramadan dodging the U.S.-led coalition's munitions.
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Lack of public access to the law-enforcement and judicial systems inevitably leads to concern about the rights of the accused or, in this anti-terrorist climate, the suspected. Talk has surfaced about the possible use of torture against those being detained in the United States. Such speculative rubbish should be confined to barroom chitchat while the government provides constitutional protections to those being held.
More than 1,100 people have been detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The White House says the "lion's share" have been released, but hundreds remain behind bars. Officials say about two dozen are believed to have important information about terrorism, and about half of those are suspected of having ties with al-Qaida, the terrorist network.
Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter has suggested that something short of "cattle prods or rubber hoses" should be considered "to jump-start the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history." Alter, considered a liberal until now, suggested that Americans "keep an open mind about certain measures to fight terrorism, like court-sanctioned psychological interrogation" or "transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies, even if that's hypocritical."
Historian Jay Winik wrote in The Wall Street Journal that torture of convicted terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad by Philippine authorities in 1995 led to foiling a plot to crash American commercial planes into the Pacific and another into CIA headquarters in Virginia. Torture works, Dahlia Lithwick concluded.
"Torture is bad," conceded conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on CNN's "Crossfire." However, he added that torture "may be the lesser of two evils. Because some evils are pretty evil."
Such talk understandably has prompted concern by Sir Nigel Rodley, a British law professor who is the United Nation's investigator on torture. He shares concerns by human-rights activists about excesses in interrogation.
"I haven't received any specific allegations at this stage," he says, "but I am worried as to whether people in detention have had any access to the outside world, especially legal advice, which is a very important protection against the temptation of authorities to resort to torture or similar ill treatment in interrogation."
Rodley, who has investigated alleged torture in 15 countries, says use of extreme measures would send a message "that the values of the international community are no better than the travesty of values that the terrorists themselves purpose to espouse. That way they win."
In short, if someone proposes torture, just say no.
Houston Chronicle
Italy's pledge this week to deploy 2,700 troops to the U.S.-led war against terrorism is the latest in a series of allies' commitments to the effort. In Europe, Britain, France, Spain and, historically significant, Germany already have committed troops. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Turkey also have contributed or pledged forces.
The war in Afghanistan is being carried out primarily with U.S. forces, and American commanders rightly fret over their command-and-control abilities and simplicity of the chain of command for the militarily complex campaign.
Maintaining the anti-terrorist coalition, however, will require making efficient and meaningful use of the allies and not keeping them sidelined. There is grumbling about U.S. reluctance to fully accept combat assistance.
Necessary as that acceptance is, it will be difficult for many in the Pentagon.
Force protection -- the safeguarding of the lives of our service personnel -- is always paramount.
But the United States requested military help, and we need to be willing to take "yes" for an answer.
Los Angeles Times
Running top U.S. officials in and out of Pakistan to show support for its president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is smart, but it's not enough. Washington and its allies must now bolster this impoverished nation's economy so that the moderate majority of Pakistanis remains immune to the allure of the raucous few -- fundamentalists who cannot forgive Musharraf for turning against the fanatical Taliban rulers in neighboring Afghanistan.
One good move would be for the more than a dozen industrialized nations known as the Paris Club to extend payment deadlines on loans made to Pakistan. The nation owes nearly $40 billion to foreign countries, an amount that requires it to pay out more than 50 percent of its budget revenues just to keep up. Japan is owed $5 billion, the U.S. $3 billion and other countries significant sums as well.
The country got into such fiscal straits primarily because it spent too much in its arms race with its unfriendly neighbor, India. Several Pakistani officials have said recently that they recognize the need to channel money away from the military and defense and into schools, health and programs to help the unemployed. Pakistan's main export is cloth and clothing. The European Commission recently eased trade barriers on Pakistani textiles, a helpful action, though one that upset competitors in Portugal, Greece and Spain. U.S. textile makers too have objected to any easing of tariffs on exports to this country. But there must be an accommodation.
The war so far has disrupted few of the plants where Pakistanis make shirts, slacks and even U.S. flags. But worries that manufacturers will eventually be put out of business have prompted some companies to delay orders. It's up to private companies to decide whether to buy from Pakistan, but for the U.S. to reduce tariffs and allow more imports would boost the economy of a nation that is a key partner in the anti-terror coalition.
Musharraf, who seized power in a coup two years ago, cast his lot with Washington soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, he has purged top military leaders considered too sympathetic to the Taliban. Even before the attacks, he promised to restore civilian rule by next October. With Islamic political parties in open rebellion against his support of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, Musharraf will have a hard time meeting that deadline. But he needs to continue in that direction, and the West has a big stake in supporting Pakistan's move back toward democracy, in part because an open society would undermine the repressive impulses of Islamic fundamentalism. Financial aid would help Pakistan on its steep climb out of poverty and toward political stability.
New York Newsday
While the world was looking the other way -- toward Afghanistan and the war on terror -- legislators in Northern Ireland and voters in Nicaragua made significant and welcome choices in two key elections.
In Northern Ireland, the moderate Protestant leader, David Trimble, was re-elected Tuesday to head Ulster's unity government, a fiercely contested victory over Unionist hard- liners that ended in a nasty scuffle among lawmakers outside the legislature's doors.
Trimble's return to office in the power-sharing government gives reason for hope about the future of peace in Northern Ireland. His win was made possible with the support of three lawmakers from the neutral Alliance Party, which represents both Catholics and Protestants -- a powerfully symbolic gesture of unity.
In Nicaragua's presidential elections, voters Tuesday decisively rejected the political resurrection of Sandinista revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega, who was voted out of office 11 years ago. Nicaraguans did not buy Ortega's attempts to reinvent himself from a radical firebrand into a moderate, business-friendly centrist. Ortega sourly blamed his defeat on the Bush administration's opposition to his bid. But he has mostly himself and his history to blame.
Like many revolutionaries, Ortega turned out to be an incompetent, blundering chief executive when he attained power. He had become the darling of the American left, largely in reaction to the Reagan administration's woefully wrong-headed military intervention on the side of the anti-Sandinista Contras.
But to his own people, Ortega brought little but economic and governmental entropy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Sandinistas' chief sponsor and financial backer, Nicaragua's economy went into a tailspin and Nicaraguans kicked Ortega out.
They were wise on Tuesday to reject his try at a second coming, choosing instead Liberal Party candidate Enrique Bolanos, who had been jailed by Ortega for protesting the nationalization of his businesses in the name of the Sandinista revolution. For Bolanos, the irony must be sweet.
Sacramento Bee
With a speech by satellite to an antiterrorist conference in Poland, President Bush has begun a propaganda counteroffensive against terrorism, denouncing the crimes of the al Qaida terrorist network and abuses by Afghanistan's Taliban regime against its own people, particularly women. Whether this war can be won is far from clear, but it must be fought as ardently as the military campaign.
Many observers say the administration is losing the propaganda war. The accuracy of that judgment too is unclear. What is clear is that images of U.S. bombing and of dead and injured civilians, including children, beamed by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television station to an audience of more than 30 million in the Muslim world have had an impact. Indeed, support for U.S. airstrikes also has begun to weaken in Europe. Yet there is a strong case to be made against the Taliban, and Bush made some telling points Tuesday, calling the Taliban as brutal as fascist and Communist regimes of the past.
But the U.S. propaganda effort must go beyond speeches by the president and other senior officials. Recognizing that, Congress plans to fund a Middle East Radio Network and a Radio Free Afghanistan; the administration, with Britain and Pakistan, will open information centers to answer questions and rebut diatribes from the Taliban and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
America must make the world aware of facts that the terrorists never mention: that the United States has fought to defend Muslims in Kuwait, in Bosnia, in Kosovo; that long before Sept. 11, it provided by far the most humanitarian relief to Afghans threatened by starvation and disease after two decades of war and four years of drought; that the current disruption of aid has been caused mainly by Taliban attacks on relief workers and looting of supplies; that millions of Muslims are citizens of the United States; that among some 5,000 people killed on Sept. 11 were citizens of 80 countries, and that some of them were Muslims.
All of this could be done more effectively, and sooner, had this country not dismantled its outreach program to Afghanistan once U.S.-backed Afghan fighters drove Soviet forces from the country. The U.S. government and American society are woefully lacking in the language skills and the political, cultural and historical knowledge needed to cope with Afghanistan and other countries across a vast region of the world. (A happy exception is a former U.S. ambassador who went on Al Jazeera and, in fluent Arabic, responded to bin Laden's rant against the United Nations and Muslim leaders whom he called "infidels.")
Those deficiencies cannot be quickly remedied, but the effort must begin and be sustained. And the message about the evils perpetrated by al Qaida and its intolerance of dissenting views must come from a range of sources, including scholars, statesmen and other public figures, including Muslims.
There's an equally important element of the face this country shows the world that's mostly been missing. That is a two-part vision. The first part envisions a world in which the glaring inequalities between rulers and the ruled that feed popular discontent and draw frustrated young men to groups such as al-Qaida are eliminated. The second envisions how this country plans to help make that happen.
Nothing can ever justify what the terrorists did on Sept. 11, but neither can an appeal for popular global support succeed if it fails to acknowledge the need to wage war also against disease, poverty, ignorance and oppression.
Salt Lake Tribune
President Bush's decision that America's war on terrorism in Afghanistan will not stop for Ramadan was welcome news. It means the administration views the bombing campaign and related military activities there as war, not a silly demonstration of martial ardor that comes and goes like a morning mist.
Some have urged that the United States suspend military operations during Ramadan, a month-long religious period of daily fasting in Islam that begins this year in mid-November, on grounds that it might demonstrate that the United States and its allies are not fighting a war against Islam.
Fortunately, Bush was not buying this buffoonery. From day one to now, the United States has been engaged with the people who planned, arranged and carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Maybe they were Muslim extremists all. Maybe they see the struggle as one between Islam and the West, or maybe they truly are animated by some idealistic vision in which Islam, under a caliphate, will preside over the world.
While important in understanding the nature of the foe, these things have nothing to do with why the United States is at war. It is because it was brutally attacked. Just as the defeat of Japan became this country's goal after Pearl Harbor, the defeat of Osama bin Laden, his buddies and the nation states which use al Qaida as a surrogate is the goal today.
Rain or shine, night or day, air or ground, Christmas or Ramadan, the work must go on until it is finished. This is the least that the federal government owes the citizens whose protection it primarily exists to provide. Muslim operators, whether ad hoc terrorist groups or national governments, have never let their own, let alone anyone else's, religious holidays stand in the way of war.
It is well that President Bush realizes this by dismissing any notion that this is something much less than a war or that the United States is so paranoid about performing only before a nodding international audience that it would pull its punches as part of a silly and dubious effort to curry favor with some folks in the Muslim world.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
