New York Times
George W. Bush was the big winner last night. Both political parties ran campaigns that huddled around the fuzzy middle, but Republican candidates in key states were able to hang onto the coattails of a popular president. Mr. Bush's party maintained its hold on the House of Representatives and defeated attractive Democratic Senate candidates in states like Georgia, Colorado and New Hampshire. ...
But over all, the Republicans succeeded because of Mr. Bush's personal popularity and his smart strategy. ... Mr. Bush then risked his own personal political standing by campaigning long and hard for Republicans in close races, energizing the Republican base and reminding undecided voters whose side he was on. ...
Some voters may resent being cut out of the decision-making in a year when control of the Senate depended on such a small number of voters in such a chaotic series of contests. ... But we have learned the hard way that every vote really does count. We make our largest decisions as a nation in the best way we can, by the equivalent of a show of hands. Our best hope, as this strange and messy year of decisions ends, is that the people who have won will always remember the large number of hands that were waving on the other side.
Washington Post
Bush administration officials described the missile strike on a car carrying six al Qaida operatives in Yemen on Sunday as a battlefield operation in the war on terrorism, even though it occurred far from Afghanistan and in a country where no conventional military conflict is underway. Other observers called it a targeted assassination, or even an extrajudicial killing -- terms usually reserved for violations of human rights or international law. Such condemnation is not justified: The Yemen operation did not target political or criminal figures, but trained combatants of an organization that has declared war against the United States, that itself has defined the battlefield as global and that recently has landed its own military blows in Yemen. ...
The success of Sunday's operation, which seems to have eliminated one senior al Qaida figure and avoided innocent casualties, is therefore cheering. But such clean shots are likely to be few and far between.
Houston Chronicle
While Americans were going -- and not going -- to the polls Tuesday to shape their government over the next two years, Israel's Knesset was dissolved and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government became a caretaker until elections can be held in late January.
Control of the closely divided Congress was a central issue in the U.S. election, as was President Bush's ability to advance his agenda, including a possible war on Iraq and other critical Mideast policy issues.
Thus, the outcome of one election and the implications of a now pending one half a world away are inextricably intertwined. ...
The outcome of the U.S. elections and their implications are not yet fully known, but there is irony here. On the very day that one election transpired to help make the way clearer for the administration, another election was called that further complicates the picture.
The dictum that "all politics is local" spins on a global axis today.
Daily Oklahoman
Voters in Turkey last weekend resoundingly rejected the country's incumbent leadership, turning instead to a party rooted in political Islam that will present the Bush administration with new challenges as it marshals support for a military campaign against neighboring Iraq.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the victorious Justice and Development Party, moved to reassure outsiders that his party will maintain Turkey's modern tradition of staunchly secular government. "Secularism is the protector of all beliefs and religions," Erdogan, 48, told American reporters. "We are the guarantors of this secularism, and our management will clearly prove that."
Erdogan said there's concern about an American campaign against Iraq -- in which U.S. bases in Turkey would play a critical role -- but he said the U.S. is a "natural ally of Turkey" and that the relationship between the two countries would grow stronger.
The news will be welcome in Washington, where the Bush team knows Turkish opposition to a U.S.-led offensive against Iraq could be crippling. Yet comfort also could be taken by indications from Erdogan that Turkey intends to press for stronger ties to the West, including membership in the European Union. ...
It will be the Bush administration's task to maintain strong ties with an ally -- including aid to help Turkey's economic recovery, making it easier for the country's new government to keep its pledges of continued cooperation.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
There can be no doubt that Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi was a legitimate target of a U.S. counterterrorism strike. Al-Harethi was a dangerous and implacable enemy of America -- an al Qaida leader, a former bodyguard of the infamous Osama bin Laden and a key suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors two years ago. His assassination by the CIA on Sunday began a new phase in U.S. counterterrorism operations that should help to keep al Qaida operatives off balance and looking over their shoulders.
Al-Harethi and five lower-ranking al Qaida members were killed by a missile fired from an unmanned aircraft in a desolate no man's land in northern Yemen. It was the first overt attack by the United States on al-Qaida operatives outside Afghanistan. Wreckage at the scene suggested the six were riding in a car that carried weapons, communications equipment and explosives, which means the CIA strike not only wiped out six terrorists, but may have aborted a future terrorist attack as well. ...
Partly because it is so poor and its government so weak, Yemen has become a sanctuary for al Qaida terrorists and leaders. Essential to victory in the struggle against terrorism is keeping the enemy on the run and denying him a place to hide, wait and gather strength. Sunday's strike in Yemen is a step in the right direction.
San Diego Union-Tribune
It happens in democracy that ruling parties sometimes get crushed, thrown out by electorates fed up with bad government, incompetence, corruption or all of the above. The Conservatives were swept away in Canada and Britain in the 1990s, as were the French Socialists earlier this year.
Rare, however, is what happened in the Turkish elections this week, with most of the mainstream parties being wiped out to make room for huge gains by Islamists. The Justice and Development Party won two-thirds of the seats, with only one other party, Social Democrats, gaining the necessary 10 percent of the vote required to enter parliament.
The party of outgoing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit saw its vote fall from 22 percent in 1999 to 1 percent. Now, that is rejection.
This vote has the potential to further complicate Turkey's relations with the West, already complicated with the European Union because of Islam and with America because of the Bush administration's plans to use Turkey as a base for a potential war with Iraq. ...
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the new ruling party leader... says Turkey remains committed to NATO, Europe, secular government and economic reform. Polls indicate his party was elected on the basis of its leader's reputation as an honest and effective former mayor of Istanbul, not as an Islamist or opponent of good relations with the West.
His position on Iraq is so far little different from that of Ecevit. "We are bound by the U.N.'s decision," Erdogan said. "We don't want blood, tears and death. We hope the issue will be solved peacefully."
Despite the soothing words, the smashing success of Erdogan's party is a breakthrough development. It bears watching closely, both inside and outside Turkey.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
