• Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad • San Francisco Chronicle, on the Fallujah attack • The Herald, Everett, Wash., on President Bush’s second term Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United
• Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad
• San Francisco Chronicle, on the Fallujah attack
• The Herald, Everett, Wash., on President Bush’s second term
Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad
Denver Rocky Mountain News, on the legacy of Yasser Arafat
On Sept. 9, 1993, Yasser Arafat signed a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin pledging that the Palestine Liberation Organization “recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” That was a lie, and it is one of many reasons the world should not mourn the passing of this petty tyrant, whenever his death finally comes.
The list of crimes the PLO chairman has incited or been associated with over the years would stain every page of a good-sized book. Highlights, however, would include the slaughter of athletes at the 1972 Olympics by Black September; the assassination of U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973; the massacre of schoolchildren at Maalot in 1974; a bus hijacking that killed 35 civilians in 1978; the slaying of Leon Klinghoffer on the Achille Lauro in 1985; the torture and execution of Palestinian dissidents, especially during the intifada of the late 1980s and early ’90s; and the suicide bombings of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in more recent years.
… Arafat’s death will provide Palestinians with an opportunity to turn away from the violence of half a century to choose a more productive course. …
Bradenton (Fla.) Herald, on Bush and his political capital
President Bush certainly is entitled to “spend the political capital” he earned by winning re-election. … The big question is, how much will his capital buy in what could be a contentious “marketplace,” a Congress and nation sharply divided by war, social-values issues and fiscal policy.
Bush’s tone and demeanor at last week’s post-election news conference indicated he sees his victory as a mandate for a broad agenda of domestic reforms on which he campaigned. Certainly, compared to some elections in which the victor claimed a mandate by a far smaller margin — John F. Kennedy did so after beating Richard Nixon by 2/10 of 1 percent — Bush’s 51 to 48 percent, 3.5 million-vote margin over John Kerry could empower the president to set ambitious goals for his second term. …
Certainly the president is entitled to push the policies that he thinks are in the nation’s best interests. But it would be a mistake to do so in a partisan atmosphere. He pledged to work across party lines to help heal the rifts caused by the campaign. If he breaks that pledge, he could find himself in the same failed-second-term syndrome as some predecessors who overreached. Bush indeed has political capital. We only hope he spends it wisely.
San Francisco Chronicle, on the Fallujah attack
The immediate military outcome of the offensive by U.S. soldiers and Marines against insurgents in control of Fallujah is hardly in doubt. Our troops, accompanied for symbolic purposes by thin ranks of newly trained Iraqis, will take charge of the city, notorious for the killings and dismemberment of four American contractors last March.
… The Fallujah offensive is supported by the interim Iraqi government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in the hope that pacifying Fallujah will help the country to hold credible national elections in January.
Yet, questions remain about the likely success of this strategy. Some in the minority Sunni community threaten to boycott the voting, while clerical leaders of the Shiite majority see it as their path to power.
… United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is not confident that Iraqi violence can be quelled sufficiently to create an effective election climate, or that a military offensive now will aid the democratic cause. He warned against launching the Fallujah offensive. …
The Bush administration’s policy for remaking Iraq faces hard testing in the next few months.
Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News, on the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh:
Many Americans may have missed the story of how Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was shot, had his throat cut and had a long jihadist manifesto pinned to his flesh with a knife as he cried out for mercy. This happened in Amsterdam, the most pacific and tolerant of European capitals, in broad daylight, last Tuesday.
Van Gogh, the great-grandnephew of the famous artist, was a provocative satirist and social critic with secular postmodern liberal views. His film “Submission,” features a woman in a see-through burka telling the story of an abusive and violent marriage from which her own family would not protect her for religious reasons. …
The suspect in Van Gogh’s death is a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant who belonged to the same Islamist cult as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who directs the jihad in Iraq. …
… There can be no place in Western civilization for people who react to those who offend them by murdering them in cold blood or issuing religious edicts calling for their death. …
… Also deplorable is the apparent answering crime to Van Gogh’s death: The bombing of an Islamic elementary school on Sunday. The bomb, whether by design or great good fortune, went off at 3:30 a.m. The most hopeful thing we could say is that the bombers were trying to send a message without sending blood into the gutters, but hate is hate, and crime is crime, and the bombing, like the murder, was both.
The Herald, Everett, Wash., on President Bush’s second term
If people learned anything about George W. Bush in his first term, it’s that he isn’t afraid to think big. Those who love him admire his zeal; those who loathe him are terrified by it.
The mild overture he made to Democrats following his re-election last week hardly signaled a retreat from his aggressive style. It was an invitation to help him implement his party’s goals, not an offer to compromise them. But even in that light, the president has a rare and real opportunity to forge consensus and make historic progress on some difficult, long-standing issues.
Two of them: Social Security reform and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Social Security, as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has warned repeatedly, cannot in its current form support the impending retirement of 77 million baby boomers. Major changes must be made, and they’ll be unpopular. …
In the Middle East, the distraction of the war in Iraq kept the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on the back burner of U.S. foreign policy. Now, with a leadership change coming to the Palestinian Authority, the president should seize the moment and reassert traditional U.S. leadership. …
Historic opportunities don’t often intersect with a leader who has the vision and political capital to take advantage of them. We hope this president realizes that.
