I can’t keep up the pace every day, but when I do put one together lately, I try to combine an American “Daily Pulse” with a view of editorials from somewhere else in the world. Today, Africa. In America, Republicans question their identity, Hitler ads backfire in Virginia, and evolution remains a hot topic. In Africa, Egyptians worry about American imperialism, and Kenyans worry about starvation. Read, enjoy, and visit The Daily Pulse for regular entries, and “Your Home Town,” a place to add your own interesting, offensive, or utterly insane editorial content.
The Evansville (Illinois) Courier
But what if God is a Sunni?
Life’s impossibilities are God’s opportunities. One of those is the situation in Iraq. As long as there are radical Sunni Muslims who will kill, maim and destroy, whoever, whenever, however, in order to get back control over Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others, and as long as the general Sunni Muslim populace is content, maybe even giving support, for this radical action of indiscriminate murdering to take place, we definitely have a problem for which only God has the answer. …
Hal Branson
Henderson
The Arizona Republic
What is a “Republican”? Is it a fiscal conservative, or a religious zealot? And how long can the Republican Party hold the two together? More important, has the Democratic Party prepared itself for that division? Or will it waste the opportunity, and just lose more people to whatever comes next?
Amazing. I just read state Rep. Cheryl Chase’s alleged reasons for switching her party affiliation from the Democrats to the Republicans (“Changing parties puts District 23 in better position,” Opinions, Monday). Chase cites reasons like national security, forest health, water education, health care and immigration. …
Funny thing is, these are almost the identical reasons that I, a 45-year-old Republican, have been thinking of leaving the party for more reasonable, less intransigent clime. …
Duane Daum, Cave Creek
The Herald Standard (Uniontown, Pennsylvania)
Warning- the following will seem terribly elitist. Tough. Greyhound is dying, and it is being killed by airlines. What do I mean? If you travel a lot, you will have noticed changes over the last two decades. There was a time when air travel was expensive, something done primarily as a business expense. Families traveled by car, and individuals traveled by bus. At some point, the airlines decided that if it costs $150 to fly each passenger, they could try to make a profit by selling a LOT of tickets at $120. The result? The airlines are dying, and they are taking the bus lines with them. Many of the people flying today are the people that used to take the bus. Air travel has gotten so cheap there is no reason to travel any other way. Of course, the ultimate result will be the death of bus lines, repeated airline bankruptcies, raiding of airline pension accounts, union-busting contracts, and lower wages throughout the industry. Eventually, the whole shaky edifice will come crashing down, and the cycle will start again.
Go, Greyhound: Bus firm’s Uniontown pullout sign of times
It’s lamentable but not surprising that Greyhound Bus Lines will cease serving Uniontown Oct. 29, eliminating a public transportation mode that’s fallen victim to low ridership. Although the loss provides little solace to those who used the service out of necessity or convenience, the fact remains that no business can justify continued operations when its customer base dwindles below an even marginally acceptable level. …
Job growth and economic opportunity cure many ills. Let Greyhound be an illustration of what still needs done. If it’s not, other businesses will surely follow suit.
The News Virginian
It appears Kilgore’s campaign of hate is backfiring. That is good news for anybody that cares about the political process. Now he is trying to focus on the death penalty, something that effects a few people in Virginia each year, but stands as a blatant proxy for race-baiting of elections past. The only thing missing is Willie Horton. When will America get past its orgy of hate and vengeance, and stop looking for new and interesting ways to jail and kill its own?
Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign has digressed toward a number of trivial topics and red herrings over the past year or so.
Now it’s the death penalty. …
How did the death penalty jump over education, transportation, the environment and jobs as a valid discussion point? …
The strategy seems to be failing.
In March, Kilgore had a 10-point lead. A poll taken over Oct. 14-16 for WSLS-TV in Roanoke, which like The News Virginian is owned by Media General, found Kilgore down two points – a statistical dead heat.
Voters obviously want Kilgore to discuss real issues.
And now The Daily Pulse will take a trip across the water, to look through Africa’s editorial pages.
Cairo (Egypt) Live
This letter writer sees a conspiracy between Israel and the United States to reshape the Middle East in their own image. I wonder if this is a common point of view on the “Arab street.” If it is, the chances of “democratization” in the Middle East are about the same as the chances of Israel being unanimously selected to be on the U.N. Security Council.
Today I saw Mr. C.I.A. Woosley’s emotional comments on TV about all the wonderful changes coming the Arabs way, no matter who they might be, and I also heard about another checkpoint misfortune, with the lives of three Iraqis, including that of a two year old girl, taken away by well meaning US Marines.
And I would just like to ask my Arabs brethren: Why is it that many of us are so unwilling to forgive Iraq for its miscalculations and yet be so forgiving, so patient, so polite, to Israel’s and the US’s many adventures in our physical realm?
Have we no pride left to defend ourselves? Do we really disdain ourselves this much? Aren’t we all Arabs first? …
We have no time to waste. The Arab world in its entirety has no choice but to let those two satellite dreamers see that this is our turf and anyone invited into it will sit where they are told to sit and eat what we have to offer to eat.
There can be no bigger betrayal to our future generations than to delay ourselves in this most important task.
E.A.S. Saleh
Middle East Times (Cairo, Egypt)
This editorial argues that our failures in Iraq have actually pushed the Middle East toward increased nuclear armament, and increased the danger in the area. Is there anything here with which you can disagree? Me either.
President Bush’s national security advisor spelled out precisely why Iraq is now on course for a geopolitical train wreck. In an op-ed published coast-to-coast last weekend, Stephen Hadley makes unmistakably clear that Iraq’s new constitution is federal with provisions for regional governments that will not be allowed to intrude on the powers of the federal government.
Out of the window is any notion of Iraq as a unitary state, which it has been since its birth in 1920, through five previous constitutional iterations. Now, if the Baghdad federal government objects to “intrusions” in its prerogatives, it will simply be told to mind its own beeswax. …
The constitutional referendum left 34 important issues in abeyance. Fifty of the constitution’s 130 clauses are incomplete. They are to be determined later when laws are passed to implement the federal architecture.
Baghdad’s power to tax is up in the air, state religion is still uncertain, human rights, at least for women, are unclear, the role of the police is unspecified, and the militias are to be disbanded, but the document doesn’t say by whom. In the event of a full-fledged civil war, which some knowledgeable observers say is already underway subrosa, federal zones are tailor-made for ethnic cleansing. …
But long-time observers of the Iraqi scene seem to agree that only a strongman can keep Iraq together. And that general is yet to emerge from the new Iraqi army. Such a figure would ensure that Iraq’s three component parts stick together during a long transitory period. …
The uncertainty of Iraq’s future, and its destabilizing impact on the Middle East, has already gotten several regional players to think of a nuclear future for themselves. A British intelligence report says that both Egypt and Syria have sought to obtain dual-use capabilities from Western countries to advance their nascent, drawing-board nuclear programs. The same intelligence sources say that nuclear Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have frequently discussed a nuclear future for the Wahhabi kingdom; both nations have denied this at high levels. …
With the prospect of a Palestinian state fading once again in the chaos that followed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, the Middle East is living up to its reputation as the world’s most dangerous neighborhood.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large at United Press International
Middle East Times (Cairo, Egypt)
This writer sees the Iraq war as part of a grander American scheme in the Middle East, as scheme that began after World War II, and that is dying in Iraq. I do not believe this to be correct, though I do believe it to be an accurate description of the present White House and the neocons intent on reshaping the world at the end of a gun barrel.
BAGHDAD — US involvement in the Middle East is a fairly new phenomenon, but has been growing sharply in the past 20 to 30 years. It has now reached a critical point and stands at the brink of spectacular failure. …
The Iranian revolution, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the first Gulf war and peace treaties between Israel and some of its neighbors as well as the peace process with the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), all in their own ways forced Washington to rethink policy for the region. …
It seems that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were only the first part of a major plan that included the following: the replacement of autocratic regimes in Iran and Syria, by military action if necessary; the establishment of a mini-Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip; and the replacement of the old and traditional ruling political classes or personalities in the Gulf by a younger generation of leaders.
The initial victory in Iraq gave the US administration the impression that it could proceed with relative ease with the rest of its plan. But the impression proved wrong, and indeed has worked in contradiction to the theory. …
Iraq remains the main battleground for the time being. In failing to come to grips with the resistance and in failing to come up with any sustainable means for either staying in or leaving, Washington’s entire project in the Middle East is dying a painful death. And just like the Suez crisis presaged the end of the British Empire, Iraq could prove the beginning of the end of the American, at least in the Middle East.
Saad N. Jawad is a professor of political science at Baghdad University. Acknowledgement to bitterlemons-international.org
The Standard (Kenya)
This editorial discusses changes that can be made within Kenya to address repeated food shortages. But it does not address the BIG issue, protectionism in the United States and Europe that makes it impossible for smaller countries to compete for the agricultural markets, the only markets to which they have access. We yell at the top of our lungs about the “free market” and “competition,” but would rather see millions starve than let others into the game.
Why can’t we tame perennial famine?
More than two million Kenyans will soon be faced with starvation.
This shocking fact was revealed yesterday by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Kipruto Kirwa, at a ceremony to mark World Food Day. He blamed the approaching famine on poor food production. …
The nagging problem of food insecurity is paramount for any nation seeking to develop, because a starving people cannot work. We have said before that the Government needs to do more by putting in place the right policies and funding agriculture to boost food production. It is commendable that the minister announced that 490 field officers would be employed and posted to the grassroots and that Sh80 million has been set aside to buy relief food. …
Lastly, the Government must put in place policies to free idle land for commercial farming and encourage the use of modern techniques in food production to maximise returns per acre. If these issues were addressed, Kenya would not only be food secure, but also a major net food exporter in the region.