New York Times
President Bush is heading to his Texas ranch today, but his administration will get no break from rising tensions in South Asia. Just as a new government in Kabul has begun moving to rebuild a ravaged Afghanistan, a new crisis is brewing next door. It is one that the United States must try to temper. In recent days India and Pakistan have been building up forces along their border, and Tuesday the leaders of both countries gave belligerent speeches raising the possibility of war. India has threatened military action against Pakistan if it does not do more to shut down militant groups that New Delhi believes have carried out terrorist attacks, most recently at the Indian Parliament building. Pakistan has taken action against some groups, but the situation remains highly combustible.
The inauguration of Hamid Karzai as interim leader of Afghanistan demonstrates that progress is possible when warring factions seize a rare opportunity to make progress and tap aid from outside.
It would be nice to see the leaders of Pakistan and India act with the same good judgment. As Indian forces have cracked down on an uprising in disputed Kashmir, India's only Muslim-dominated state, Pakistan has too freely permitted groups operating on its soil to send forces into Kashmir to support the rebellion. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is only the latest Pakistani leader to call these warriors "freedom fighters" over whom he has little control. In fact, there is every reason to believe Pakistani military and intelligence forces encourage and may even direct these groups, just as Pakistan aided the Taliban and Osama bin Laden before Sept. 11.
Washington should intensify its efforts to ease the crisis. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has communicated with both Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India. In coming days Powell, or some other American envoy, may need to intervene more actively.
After taking office President Bush unwisely shelved the intensive effort by the Clinton administration to broker a deal between India and Pakistan to curb nuclear activities, including the testing of weapons. Now, propelled in part by the war against terrorism, Washington has no choice but to build on its new friendship with both India and Pakistan to get these two countries talking to each other. Kashmir remains one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world. A war between India and Pakistan would be ruinous to both nations, and devastating to American efforts to sustain an international coalition against terrorism.
Baltimore Sun
The most reassuring aspect of terrorism, professional and amateur, real and imagined, is its capacity to bring out common sense, cooperation and heroism on the part of ordinary people.
The heroes of this holiday season are the 14 flight crewmembers and 183 passengers who were aboard American Airlines Flight 63 Saturday.
They prevented a real act of terrorism that might have killed them all when they subdued a mad bomber who had outwitted airport security.
Stewardesses Hermis Moutardier and Cristina Jones, and passengers Thierry Dugeon and Kwame James, acted coolly and efficiently in preventing the man with the British passport in the name of Richard C. Reid from igniting explosives in his shoes.
But there were more -- the 20 passengers who offered belts to restrain him; the physician who administered the sedative that is now apparently standard in airliners' first aid kits for handling unruly passengers; the other flight crew who projected calm while taking the plane to Boston.
And then the passengers, many of them Europeans headed for Christmas in Florida, sat back and watched "Legally Blonde," as if this were just another tedious flight.
There is plenty disquieting about the incident as well.
Security at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris is suspect.
So is consistency at the airline, whose own screening prevented the man from boarding on Friday but allowed him to do so the next day.
At least two previously unsuccessful attempts at airliner terrorism involved shoes. Did the aspiring bomber know about this, while security designers did not?
The only thing more frightening than a connection to a known terrorist organization would be its absence, as if any deranged copycat acting on his own might be so capable.
And while total security in every situation where strangers gather is an impossibility, confidence in daily life can be maintained.
The man with the bomb, whether trained zealot or deranged copycat, can be made to go out of fashion.
It takes determination, persistence and some degree of the common sense and cooperation exhibited by crew and passengers of AA63 on Saturday.
Chicago Tribune
Callous though it may seem for the United States to stand by while Argentina's economy collapses, that is precisely the right stance to take. Critics may variously blame American inaction, the International Monetary Fund's policies, or globalization for Argentina's economic woes. But the true causes of this debacle lie inside Argentina -- and that is where the problems have to be resolved.
Interim President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa was sworn in Sunday and his first move was to immediately suspend payments on Argentina's $132 billion public debt, paving the way for the biggest default in history. Rodriguez Saa, who will rule until new elections are held in March, replaced Fernando de la Rua, who resigned last week after street protests against his economic policies left 27 people dead.
During the past decade, international lenders have stepped in repeatedly to keep Argentina from going over the edge. That money spigot is now dry and the country has no options but to deal with the real causes of its economic malaise.
Those are runaway government spending, rampant corruption and tax evasion, labor policies that discourage private investment, an inflated peso that hampered exports--and the unwillingness of elected officials to do anything about these problems.
Some in Latin America blame the Bush administration for looking on rather than stepping in -- presumably with another loan package.
There is no reason to do that and it wouldn't help anyway. The United States faces its own economic and terrorism problems. And unlike the cases of Mexico, Russia or the Asian economies, the Argentine default does not appear to be a threat to other developing economies.
But most of all, Argentina's problems cannot be resolved by remote control, by the United States or international lenders. They must be confronted by the leaders of Argentina who this time around may finally have no other options.
Denver Post
The icy international response to Argentina's debt default crisis should alarm supporters of democracy everywhere.
The smoldering popular resentment that exploded in Buenos Aires and other large Argentine cities may be simmering in Brazil and other Latin America nations, too. In the past decade, Latin American peoples were told that globalization and privatization would deliver prosperity. Instead, in recent years many saw their economies stagnate, then slide. Argentina is only one of several Latin American societies thus trapped between rising expectations and deteriorating finances -- a recipe for political unrest.
Notably, the same pundits who now say the Argentine crisis won't spread also were shocked by last week's street violence. Clearly, these well-fed talking heads have no clue about the depth of popular anger. At stake is the stability of democracy in a region that has seen the return of civilian rule and respect for human rights only in the past 10 or 12 years.
It's true the crisis was partly of Argentina's making. Just-ousted President Fernando de la Rua took office about two years ago promising to fix the brewing economic mess. Instead, he dithered, refusing to make any of three difficult choices.
The IMF and U.S. Treasury should shake the mold out of their minds. Short-term loans and a program allowing Argentina to restructure its public debt could relieve the immediate crisis and help stabilize the political situation.
The United States spends billions of dollars propping up repressive regimes around the world. For once, it ought to help an injured democracy in its own backyard.
Kansas City Star
After a generation of war, hopes are high in Afghanistan. An interim government, led by Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, has been installed. A 29-member cabinet is taking the first steps to bring peace to a shattered country. Washington must assume a key role in leading the Western aid effort; the country must never again be used as a base for terrorists.
For Karzai, the immediate challenge is daunting. The new government has no army and no revenue. But Afghanistan's recent history gives the new prime minister a measure of political leverage: In his effort to obtain cooperation from local leaders and independent warlords, he can always evoke the searing memory of the last 23 years of conflict.
The country is so decimated that Cabinet members must depend on outside help even for desks, computers and vehicles. Millions must be fed through the winter. Roads must be rebuilt, bandits quelled, civil control reasserted in a land where many define themselves by tribe rather than national identity.
The new minister for labor and social affairs, Mir Wais Sadeq, acknowledges that the government cannot assert control over all of the country's provinces. So the rebuilding effort will be limited to areas where the threat of factional conflict has diminished.
The agreement forming the interim government declares that the Afghan people have the right to "determine their own political future in accordance with the principles of Islam, democracy, pluralism and social justice." Over the next few months, the world will learn whether the Afghans themselves are ready to shift political disputes from the battlefield to the institutions of a legitimately elected government.
Orange County Register
The terrorist attack on Sept. 11 obviously demanded a response. But actions have consequences. Making war in Afghanistan, however justifiable it might have been, could draw the United States more deeply and uncomfortably into a dispute between two of Afghanistan's neighbors, both of whom really should be friendly to the United States.
India and Pakistan, separated when the subcontinent achieved independence from Great Britain in 1947, have been wary and generally hostile neighbors for more than 50 years. Both covet Kashmir, a beautiful mountainous region, most of whose inhabitants would probably prefer to be independent of both powers, now under Pakistani control.
If open warfare, or even more intense skirmishing, breaks out in Kashmir, what can or should the United States do? Should it back Pakistan, the active ally in the war on terror, whose leader might not be able to deliver on promises to curb the activities of Islamic radicals in Kashmir? Should it back India, the larger and more powerful neighbor whose friendship might be more important in the long run? Or should it stay aloof?
Given the importance the administration attaches to the ongoing war on terror, staying aloof may not be an option. But none of the choices is attractive. The situation is a reminder that intervention in one foreign country inevitably has repercussions, some unpleasant, in other countries.
Providence (R.I.) Journal
Since the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian parliament by Kashmir separatists, in which 14 people were killed, tensions have been rising between Pakistan and India. The governments have been throwing various accusations, and charging one another with not taking terrorism seriously. There are reports of troop concentrations on the India-Pakistan border, and the Indian prime minister has talked ominously of "steps beyond diplomacy" to settle the issue.
This is serious stuff. Three times since 1947 India and Pakistan have warred against one another, and an armed confrontation between these fledgling nuclear powers -- particularly in the middle of our own war against terrorism -- could be catastrophic.
The truth, however, is that conflict is eminently avoidable. It is the policy of Pakistan that the province of Muslim-dominated Kashmir be detached entirely from India; and there are terrorist groups operating illegally within Pakistan that were behind the attack in New Delhi.
From the American view, it is essential that both sides step back from confrontation. Pakistan has been an invaluable ally in the struggle against al Qaida, and the Bush administration is cultivating closer ties with India. A war between Pakistan and India, both of whom possess nuclear weapons, would not be just dangerous to all the countries in the region, but would distract from the essential business at hand: Searching out and destroying the perpetrators of terror.
Thanks to our victory over al Qaida in Afghanistan, the Bush administration enjoys powerful prestige in that part of the world. That prestige ought to be swiftly employed to defuse this needless crisis.
Seattle Times
You've got to admire the clear-headed flight attendants and passengers on board American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami, with a most-unscheduled stop in Boston.
Once the strange-acting passenger in row 29 started trying to light explosives in his shoes, the passengers and flight crew kicked into action -- brilliantly.
Minutes after a flight attendant with sharp instincts and a nose for chemicals smelled sulfur and asked for help, passengers and other flight attendants subdued the man. Before Sept. 11, most passengers would have turned back to their books or naps. But passengers and crewmembers have changed. They learned flight attendants and a plane full of brave people sometimes can shape their own destiny. These certainly did.
Several passengers grabbed different parts of the man's tall frame. A bright-thinking crewmember called for passengers' belts, collecting 20, which were used to strap the man to his seat. Some steps taken over the Atlantic Ocean seemed drawn from a movie thriller, but in this case, the danger was frighteningly real.
Smooth conduct by passengers and crew continued as two doctors on board sedated the man. The crew's quick return to order helped passengers calm down until the landing in Boston.
The passengers and crew may have saved their own lives with a breathtaking display of smarts and courage.
(Compiled by United Press International)
