New York Times
The Bush administration has floated a succession of possible justifications for war with Iraq -- Saddam Hussein's purported links with international terrorism, Baghdad's membership in a worldwide "axis of evil," Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Few firm facts have been offered in support of any of these claims, but there have been frequent allusions to secret intelligence information that officials are unwilling to make public.
This is a troubling pattern, especially now that President Bush has said he will base his decisions about Iraq on the latest intelligence reports. Intelligence findings should guide presidential policy. That is their principal purpose. But the country ought not to be led into war on the basis of information the American people are not allowed to share. That is not how our democracy works. ...
The case for publicly presenting the evidence is all the more compelling since many of the administration's past claims on Iraq have been challenged by independent experts. Administration officials themselves acknowledge that there is no convincing intelligence evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. ...
What top national security officials claim to know but refuse to discuss isn't good enough. Americans cannot seriously deliberate issues of war and peace while they are denied the relevant facts.
Chicago Tribune
Palestinian police officers are once again patrolling the streets of Bethlehem, having taken over early Tuesday from withdrawing Israeli troops. The Israelis, who reoccupied seven of the eight major West Bank towns two months ago after a spate of suicide bombings, have agreed to ease their military clampdown gradually if the Palestinians can keep a lid on the violence that has erupted almost daily for the past 23 months.
Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip are the initial proving grounds. If Palestinian security forces can keep the peace in those areas, Israel has said it will pull out of other West Bank population centers, one area at a time, in hopes of arriving at a lasting cease-fire. ...
The fact that Israeli and Palestinian leaders were able to reach even this tentative security arrangement is praiseworthy. It was the first direct agreement sealed by the two sides since the current intifada began in September 2000, and the ongoing violence has deeply eroded trust. ...
The Mideast tends to breed cynicism along with despair. Chances are slight that the current deal will work. But it's a fair bet that if it doesn't, the parties will not get another opportunity for a long time.
Dallas Morning News
In the 22 years since he became Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to betray his people.
The latest perfidy is his callous orchestration of a food crisis that portends to destroy what remains of Zimbabwe's drought-crippled agricultural base.
This has been a brutal year for farming across southern Africa, where the worst drought in a decade has taken a toll in Malawi, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Angola. Once a major regional food producer, Zimbabwe now has a starving populace. ... Zimbabwe's food crisis only deepens the threat of massive internal violence and of a humanitarian and refugee crisis spilling across borders into South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana.
The tragedy of Zimbabwe is Mr. Mugabe's failure to put aside the ideological fervor of a freedom fighter to adopt the leadership mantle required of a president. Instead, he has chosen to wield a decidedly unjust land resettlement scheme as a tool of political power at the cost of starvation. ...
Zimbabwe still has time to curtail a greater disaster. Change, however, will require continued international pressure, including from neighboring African nations, to economically isolate Mr. Mugabe and to force the restoration of the rule of law. Only then can Zimbabweans hope to have a future.
Los Angeles Times
Egypt's interior minister said recently that the government was taking exceptional care in the case of jailed activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim because he had U.S. and Egyptian citizenship and was Egypt's most prominent democracy proponent. That statement turned out to be so much hot air July 29 when a judge peremptorily proclaimed Ibrahim's guilt on trumped-up charges. The judge turned what was supposed to be a routine hearing into judgment day.
The Bush administration quickly and rightly criticized the verdict and 7-year prison sentence. Last week Washington sent an even clearer message when it rejected Cairo's request for more money on top of the $2 billion the U.S. sends annually. It is clear that Ibrahim was convicted not for the ostensible reason, receiving foreign funds without authorization, but for criticizing the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak.
Ibrahim, 63 and in poor health, was a sociology professor at American University in Cairo and director of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Social Development Studies. He monitored Egyptian elections and pointed out the vote-rigging that canceled out democracy. The government decides what political parties can function and wins elections so overwhelmingly that many Egyptians don't bother to vote. Ibrahim also documented discrimination against Egypt's Coptic Christians and the country's poor human rights record.
Ibrahim's activities were too much for Mubarak's regime. Two years ago Ibrahim was charged with receiving illegal funds from the European Commission to monitor elections and with defaming the country in his human rights reports. ...
The Bush administration should keep urging Egypt, a nation that depends on U.S. aid, to move toward political freedom. Aside from Israel, the Middle East is a wasteland when it comes to representative government. Ibrahim was only trying to change that.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
After 40 years, the U.S. economic embargo of Fidel Castro's Cuba has become one of the most dismal failures in the history of U.S. diplomacy. It has endured in no small measure because its most ardent supporters -- mostly Cuban expatriates -- became a highly organized and well-financed lobby that won friends and influenced politicians in the halls of Congress.
In recent years, however, criticism of the embargo has gained some horsepower -- driven in part by businesspeople who realize that, among its many other failings, the embargo represents a missed economic opportunity. ...
Right now, the Cuban economy is a shambles, crippled by more than 40 years of communism. Ending the embargo won't transform Cuba overnight, but the economy will change for the better over time. Maintaining the current policy, given its failure to alter Cuba's political arrangements, makes no sense at all - especially if the objective is, as it should be, to end the dictatorship of Castro and his cronies.
Las Vegas Sun
In 1986 seven horses were killed during the chuckwagon races at the Calgary Stampede in Canada, bringing the world's attention to this activity in which horses are regularly injured and killed and cowboys too are at grave risk. Ten years later in Calgary, three horses and a well-known young outrider named Eugene Jackson were killed. This year no fewer than seven horses have been killed on the Canadian chuckwagon circuit. Now, the city of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority are excited about the coming debut of chuckwagon racing here during the first Las Vegas Stampede, scheduled for Sept. 19-22.
The races are scheduled to take place on a temporary track that will be built on the 61 acres of still-vacant land in downtown Las Vegas that someday may contain a medical center and other projects that will boost the city's reputation. Although chuckwagon races date back to the early 1900s and draw huge crowds, we cannot see them boosting the city's reputation among the people Las Vegas is trying to attract as it matures into a world-class city. We wouldn't risk our reputation to host cock-fighting events, even if they were legal in Nevada. We wouldn't host the National Finals Rodeo if injuries to animals were a certainty.
We were embarrassed when a video made here featured homeless people intentionally hurting themselves. We should be equally embarrassed to host an event in which severe injury to animals is an accepted part of a spectacle in which cowboys risk life and limb. The city will earn $100,000 for leasing the land and the expected 10,000 fans will bring business. But is there no act too shameful if the money is right?
(Compiled by United Press International.)
