New York Times
A spike in tensions between India and Pakistan is just what the world does not need right now, but it will be hard to avoid after Thursday's bloody assault by a suicide squad on India's Parliament House that left 12 people dead. Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan condemned the attack. Nevertheless, Indian leaders charge that two groups operating within Pakistan were responsible for this assault and another in October on the legislative hall in Kashmir, though they did not disclose any supporting evidence. Pressure on India to retaliate is bound to rise. Because of the unsettled situation in Afghanistan this is a particularly dangerous time for India to act precipitately. The United States must do all it can to persuade India to respond with restraint.
The two groups that India says carried out the attacks have operated openly in Pakistan. Both are viewed by the United States as terrorist organizations. One group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, is believed to have ties to the terrorist network Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The other group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has considerable support within Pakistan because of its extensive education and health programs.
The American-led war in Afghanistan has scrambled the equation in South Asia. President Bush has sought to improve ties with both Pakistan and India, not an easy task with two countries that are prepared to go to war against one another at any time. Mr. Bush has asked India not to exacerbate tensions by cracking down on Muslim rebels in Kashmir, its own Muslim-dominated state. India has acceded but, in return, has made the reasonable demand that Pakistan not try to stir unrest in India. That precarious agreement could now be undone by the attack on Parliament in New Delhi.
Mr. Bush has offered help to India in investigating the attack. The administration is also said to have urged General Musharraf to arrest the leaders of Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba who have been engaging in terrorist attacks. India, in turn, needs to couple its demands for action in Pakistan with a renewed effort to negotiate a settlement with indigenous Kashmiris. In a region already rattled by the war in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan cannot let Thursday's attack turn into the starting point of a new conflict.
Washington Post
The key to arresting the rapidly escalating bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians before it becomes a full-fledged war still lies with Yasser Arafat. The authority and international credibility of the Palestinian leader are rapidly crumbling; he can save himself only by launching a convincing offensive against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations, and making the break between them and his Palestinian Authority irrevocable. Though he has taken some steps in that direction in the past two weeks, Mr. Arafat has not acted decisively. Consequently, Hamas's abominable suicide attacks against Israeli civilians have continued, Israeli retaliations have grown fiercer, and Mr. Arafat's own position has weakened. Rather than act, Mr. Arafat waits for a rescue -- from the European Union, the United Nations or the United States. All have tried to tell him that no help is coming, that only he can save his government and people from another catastrophe.
It may be that Mr. Arafat is not capable of rescuing himself. But the best interests of both Israel and the United States lie in his doing so -- which is why Israel's relentless military pummeling of Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority during the past two weeks, and its announcement Thursday that it would no longer have contact with him, are counterproductive. Israel is right to respond to the horrific suicide bombings and ambushes it has suffered, including by arresting, as it did yesterday, the militants that Mr. Arafat won't. But though the bombings were carried out by Hamas, the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has focused its firepower on the security forces and governmental infrastructure of Mr. Arafat -- all the while demanding that that same government and those same security forces suppress Hamas. ...
For all his failings, too, Mr. Arafat is different from the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who, unlike him, do not accept Israel's existence or the possibility of peace negotiations. Rather than go to war with either side, Mr. Arafat has burrowed into his bunkers, predicting he will ride out Mr. Sharon's attacks just as he did during the Israeli siege of Beirut 20 years ago. Quite possibly he is wrong, and this will prove his last stand. If so, the only winners will be the extremists on both sides -- those who hope to destroy any chance of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, now and for the foreseeable future. The Bush administration knows this; but its frustration with Mr. Arafat, and reluctance to pressure Israel as it suffers from outrageous terrorist attacks, seem to have impeded action at this critical moment. The administration's envoy, Anthony Zinni, broke off his mission yesterday. The United States will not save Mr. Arafat -- but if he goes, the administration as well as Israel will have to suffer the consequences.
Honolulu Star Bulletin
Regardless of the motives for indicting alleged al-Qaida terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui in federal court instead of by military tribunal, the decision is encouraging. Military tribunals authorized by the Bush administration because of wartime constraints should be used sparingly and only in cases where rules governing civilian courts would cause intelligence concerns.
In the case of Moussaoui, Attorney General John Ashcroft -- and ultimately President Bush -- apparently decided justice can be achieved through the U.S. court system. Otherwise the Department of Defense would have been contacted to set up a tribunal to try the French citizen of Moroccan descent. ...
Military tribunals are troublesome because they can be held in secret, only two-thirds of a panel can arrive at a verdict and impose the death penalty and no appeal can be made. Those aspects understandably cause consternation among civil libertarians. ...
Military tribunals are to be used in instances where divulging evidence could jeopardize intelligence. For example, the government is unwilling now to provide specific information about the origin of the bin Laden videotape released yesterday or how it came into U.S. hands. Federal prosecutors are not likely to be allowed to present the bin Laden videotape as evidence in the Moussaoui trial without providing that information to the defense.
The decision to try Moussaoui in civilian court means either that Ashcroft is confident that the videotape is not needed as trial evidence or that prosecutors will be willing to provide the particulars. For now, that is a relief.
Boston Globe
The Friendship Bridge into Afghanistan from Uzbekistan opened for the first time in four years last weekend, allowing more food and other emergency supplies to reach refugees in the north. But the crisis of starvation and disease for the Afghan people is far from over. The United States bears a special responsibility to ensure that humanitarian efforts not be sloughed off as military objectives reach their conclusion.
International relief organizations report hundreds of refugees have already died, even as the agencies rush to restart operations that were suspended during the two-month US bombing campaign. UNICEF estimates that up to 2 million children are at risk of dying this winter. The UN World Food Program determined last week that 850,000 people living in Kabul do not have sufficient food. Near Khandahar in the south, Oxfam International expressed concerns that supplies are not reaching refugees. Conditions born of chronic drought, war, and poverty have been exacerbated by the latest military action.
The Tashkent government agreed to open the Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya River after a visit from Secretary of State Colin Powell. But America's new allies in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan alike continue to stall delivery of food aid with bureaucracy, looting, and corruption. ...
And food relief is only part of the solution. Many refugees and displaced Afghan families need medical attention. Water often is not potable, and wretched, unsanitary conditions cause diarrhea and dehydration, especially dangerous for infants.
The US military took special care not to harm innocent civilians in the bombing raids on Afghan cities and other Taliban redoubts. But the millions of refugees displaced by bombs, drought, and famine are innocent war victims as well. Keeping transport lines open and ensuring the safety of relief workers must be priorities for the new ruling authority in Afghanistan and all its international backers.
Baltimore Sun
A little economic freedom is a dangerous thing. People will want more freedoms than that.
This is what Syria's young President Bashar Assad must ponder. He finally sacked the cobwebbed government he inherited upon the death of his father, the dictator Hafez el Assad, in June 2000.
Bashar Assad moved more slowly than many hoped. But now he has fired 36 ministers under Prime Minister Mustafa Miro, and asked Mr. Miro to form a new government with some of the same faces. The young president feels strong enough to loosen the grip of his father's servants, a bit.
His goal is to free the economy. Syria has applied to join the World Trade Organization, which will require it. The Bashar regime has already invited in foreign banks, because many Syrians were boycotting the state banks for institutions in Lebanon and Cyprus.
Mr. Assad has also let some political prisoners out of jail. But he put some new ones in, and cracked down on journalism and dissent as his father did.
To enter the modern world, Syria needs more reforms than the few apparently contemplated. It needs dissent, legitimacy and even democratic choice. It needs to free its grip on Lebanon and restore that country's sovereignty.
Most of all, it needs to stop support of terrorists based in Lebanon, particularly Hezbollah, which has been credited with bombing the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and other groups that shoot and bomb Israeli civilians.
The 36-year-old ophthalmologist, who changed career paths only when his older brother Basil died in a speeding car crash in 1994, is a modern man. He wants to spread computer literacy.
Bashar Assad also knows the majority Sunni Muslim businessmen hate the corruption favoring a few of his family's Alawite clan, the young want to see what the censors keep from their eyes, and the Lebanese want Syrian forces out of their country. As a true contemporary, he must know that terrorism has gone out of fashion.
The new government with the young president's stamp was announced Thursday.
It will have to embrace more change than has been hinted for the world to take notice.
(Compiled by United Press International)
