New York Times
Administration officials annoyed at California's support of the medical use of marijuana have found someone on whom to vent their frustration. Last week, at the urging of federal prosecutors, a judge convicted Ed Rosenthal of charges that carry a five-year minimum sentence. Mr. Rosenthal is a medical-marijuana advocate who grows the drug for use by the seriously ill. His harsh punishment shows that the misguided federal war on medical marijuana has now escalated out of control.
Mr. Rosenthal, who raised marijuana in an Oakland warehouse, was acting within state and local law. California's Proposition 215, which voters approved in a 1996 referendum, permits marijuana use by seriously ill people. In addition, Oakland has its own medical marijuana law, and Mr. Rosenthal was acting as an officer of the city. Nevertheless, the judge refused to allow the defense to mention any of this at his trial, since it is not a valid defense against federal drug charges.
Prosecutors were thus able to present Mr. Rosenthal as an ordinary, big-time drug dealer. ...
The Bush administration's war on medical marijuana is not only misguided but mean-spirited.
The courts should not allow Mr. Rosenthal's conviction to stand. It would be a serious injustice if he were to serve years in prison, as he well may. Meanwhile, the administration should stop tyrannizing doctors and sick people and focus on more important aspects of the war on drugs.
Dallas Morning News
At today's memorial service in Houston for the Space Shuttle Columbia crew, the families, friends and co-workers of the seven lost astronauts will grieve together for the person - the father, mother, child, spouse - who will no longer be there to share the hugs, laughs or laments of life. Later this week, a service in Washington, D.C., will honor the lives of these seven who sacrificed in a quest that has become a truly cooperative endeavor.
People around the world mourn the loss of the Columbia because space exploration has become such an international quest. It finally has become, as Neil Armstrong predicted when he stepped on the moon, a leap for mankind. Soviet cosmonauts may have incited America's space ambitions in the 1960s, but now Russian cosmonauts help sustain them.
Such international cooperation in science can help this politically fractured world heal some of its differences. Science itself doesn't change with language or racial or religious differences, it just is. ...
A world striving together to make gains is much better than a world fighting over differences. As Columbia astronaut Kalpana Chawla remarked, "When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system."
We all need this view. Perhaps that should be the legacy of this mission.
Christian Science Monitor
As US Secretary of State Colin Powell prepares to convince UN skeptics on Iraq Wednesday, now is the time for a cease-fire in the war of words between Washington and Europe's biggest holdouts on a war: Germany and France.
Recently, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to these two countries as "old" Europe, because they are in the minority among European government leaders in their disapproval of US policy toward Iraq. Indeed, last week, leaders of eight European countries -- including "new Europe" players Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary -- published a statement supporting President Bush, going against public opinion in their countries.
The "old" Europe label triggered great resentment in Paris and Berlin, and while the remark was off the cuff, it reflects a view among some in the Bush administration that America doesn't need Europe -- at least, not the stubborn Germans or French. ...
The Iraq issue can serve to move all parties to an honest discussion - and, let's hope, resolution - of differences, but it should not be a litmus test of friendship. What will impress nondemocratic countries most is the way in which the strength of an argument, not strong-arming of friends, unites like-minded countries. An Iraq war could be a milestone in defining how the US as a superpower either ignores, or respects, partners that share its values.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Israel's voters have handed Labor a historic loss and Likud a stunning win.
The Labor Party, architect of liberal Israel, stumbled to its worst showing ever, losing a quarter of its parliamentary seats. The even more dovish Meretz Party sank by nearly half.
By contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- who has worked tirelessly to make sure there is no partner for peace -- now has the mandate to use even harsher measures to put down the 28-month-old Palestinian uprising.
His Likud Party nearly doubled its parliamentary seats. The hard-charging 74-year-old already has rejected Yasser Arafat's peace overtures and begun talking about even more tweaks to a still-evolving U.S. "road map" to a provisional Palestinian state. ...
Arafat has been written out of the script, without any real effort to identify and elevate an alternative. The result has been to radicalize all Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Arafat's friends in the U.S. administration are being replaced by hard-liners.
To defeat the bomb-throwers, both Sharon and the White House have to do more to help Palestinians see their stake in a peaceful future.
San Francisco Chronicle
Space exploration must continue. In eulogies for the seven lost space shuttle Columbia crew members, President Bush and many others rightly note that it's human instinct, as well as a scientific imperative, to explore the heavens as part of stretching the bounds of knowledge.
The questions are, how and when?
For starters, the disintegration of the Columbia must be thoroughly analyzed. The team of outside investigators chosen by NASA appears to have the right credentials and seasoning. Also, Congress will likely weigh in, as it did after the shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, with its own hearings and conclusions. The public should have the answers. ...
This recent decline shouldn't mean an end to NASA. The gleaming rockets and space-suit heroes are a cherished part of the American character. Other countries are equally inspired, providing crews for the shuttle and building their own satellite programs. No one is turning away from exploring outer space.
But the loss of the Columbia crew unavoidably starts a new conversation. It's not just about what went wrong, but what should come next. The heavens await a convincing answer.
Baltimore Sun
On Oct. 27, 1989, the police in communist Czechoslovakia hauled in a red-headed, chain-smoking, truth-speaking playwright whom they viewed as a threat to the regime. Less than two months later, that playwright was elected president of what had by that time become an ex-communist country. "History has accelerated," Vaclav Havel told a joint session of the U.S. Congress that winter.
Mr. Havel -- who entered office as a rumpled dissident, fond of rock music and of making himself intolerable to authority -- stepped down on Sunday. After 13 years on the job, he had become the grand old man of democratically elected world leaders; you'd have to turn to the likes of Saddam Hussein or Fidel Castro to find anyone with longer tenure than his.
He has been a treasure that the Czechs have shared with the world. Here was a president who spoke modestly, who made it a point not to lie, who strived to exercise what he understatedly called "good taste" in matters of state and politics. ...
The politics of post-Soviet Eastern Europe have been pretty dreary, and the enthusiasms of 1989 soon faded. History decelerated. Some of the old dissidents went back and crawled under that boulder again. Mr. Havel stayed in the ring; that was harder. With clarity and tact, he very publicly stuck to his ideals of liberty and decency.
"The way of a truly moral politics is neither simple nor easy," he pointed out, and democracy is always on the horizon. Well, that just makes the trip more of a challenge. Vaclav Havel, more than anyone of his generation, set the standard for meeting it.
Hartford Courant
It is becoming increasingly untenable for the United States to sit on the sidelines while other industrial nations take steps to reduce greenhouse emissions that cause global warming.
Although the United States has 4 percent of the world's population, it emits one-quarter of the carbon dioxide that acts like a blanket, gradually warming the atmosphere, with potentially long-term catastrophic consequences.
Two U.S. senators -- Democrat Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican John McCain of Arizona -- are sponsoring legislation requiring mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by industry. The bill would force polluters to cut emissions to the 2000 level by 2010 and to 1990 levels by 2016. ...
The realistic Lieberman-McCain approach differs sharply from that of President Bush, who favors a voluntary approach to reducing the output of harmful gases.
As the world's leading industrial nation, the United States has a responsibility to curb dangerous emissions that affect the entire world. America should be a leader, not a laggard, in combating global warming.
A good step would be to adopt the legislation sponsored by Sens. Lieberman and McCain.
Kansas City Star
Little by little, the administration is moving to protect Americans from more terrorist attacks. The latest welcome step went into effect Sunday and is designed to prevent nuclear bombs or other large weapons from entering the United States on cargo ships.
The U.S. Customs Service begins enforcing new security rules that will require shippers to provide detailed descriptions of cargo 24 hours before a ship sails.
These rules became effective earlier, but shippers were given a grace period to meet requirements. That ended Sunday.
Any changes in international shipping rules almost inevitably will cause disruptions. Shippers that use the busy Hong Kong port are worried about being able to comply. Hong Kong ships about 6,000 containers to the United States each day, more than any other port. And because shippers there have long operated with few rules, they often wait until the last minute to send cargo to the docks for loading. ...
Studies of the vulnerabilities at the nation's 50 biggest ports aren't even scheduled to be completed for nearly five years. So although these new customs regulations may help prevent disaster, they can't guarantee terrorists won't find other avenues of attack.
Los Angeles Times
While the U.S. focuses on Iraq and North Korea, it has 9,000 troops risking their lives in Afghanistan to rid the country of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda troops. The largest battle there in 10 months gave graphic evidence last week that the war is not over. Although there were no American casualties in at least 12 hours of fighting in the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan, days later four Americans were killed when their Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed near the Bagram air base not far from the capital, Kabul.
Army officials said an accident, not hostile fire, downed the helicopter, but rocket attacks on U.S. forces and allies along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan have occurred in recent months.
There is something even more worrisome than rocket fire: Taliban forces that had dispersed under withering air and ground attacks are re-forming in units of 50 or more to challenge U.S. troops. That means a longer, costlier presence than Washington had hoped for. It also requires a renewed commitment to prevent Afghanistan from slipping back into the chaos and warlord rule that let the Islamic fundamentalist fighters gain control of the country. ...
The United States went to war in Afghanistan because the Taliban sheltered the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked America on 9/11. It cannot let the nation become a haven for terrorists again, for the sake of Afghanistan and for U.S. well-being. Rebuilding the country's institutions will provide needed stability for a strong central government.
Philadelphia Inquirer
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will address a full house tomorrow at the United Nations Security Council. All 15 members have said they will attend to hear him offer evidence of the menace Iraq poses to the world.
Millions more people will be listening closely. Americans, especially, need answers about why war, why now, and how, once the battle is won, the peace will be kept.
Strange how, even as President Bush has warned that war with Iraq is only weeks away, the U.S. administration has yet to lay out all the information it says it has that supports speedy and preemptive use of military force.
You'll get no dispute here with the notions that Hussein is a thug who eagerly seeks forbidden weapons and that Iraq and the world would be better off were he ousted.
But where the Bush administration has come up light so far is evidence that Saddam Hussein represents such an imminent danger that world attention should shift from dismantling the international terror network to dumping the Baghdad bully.
This is why so many American citizens and allies who have no illusions about Hussein remain queasy about this preemptive invasion. ...
Iraq is one of those painful riddles to which there are no fully satisfying solutions. There may be sound evidence and logic for a preemptive strike against Iraq. But Mr. Bush and his advisers have not made the case by simply repeating the obvious -- that Hussein is a bad actor who can't be trusted -- while evading the really hard questions.
(Compiled by United Press International)
