Editorial Roundup: United States

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

Feb. 13

The Washington Post on strange objects in the sky

When President Biden gave the order Sunday for a fighter jet to shoot down an unidentified aerial object over Lake Huron, aides said he did so out of an abundance of caution and on the recommendation of military commanders, amid concern it was floating at altitudes that might jeopardize civilian aircraft. It’s the third such object downed over North America since the Chinese spy balloon that generated public outcry during its transcontinental voyage was shot from the sky above the Atlantic Ocean the previous weekend.

Unlike China’s craft, the subsequent trio showed no signs of having propulsion systems and did not appear to target sensitive military sites. Authorities say they really don’t know the origin or purpose of the three — but did tell people not to worry that they were sent by aliens.

That such reassurance was deemed necessary was a sign of the panic that these objects have the potential to generate, and also of the imperative to get to the bottom of what is actually going on. As Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) put it: “We need the facts about where they are originating from, what their purpose is, and why their frequency is increasing.”

The White House deserves credit for trying to be as transparent as possible about the most recent shootdowns, including candor about all the known unknowns. But to combat misinformation, it’s vital that the current openness continues as investigators are able to gather wreckage and, hopefully, discover answers to the many basic questions being asked. It is also worth noting that it is now believed Chinese spy balloons also made incursions into U.S. airspace during the Trump administration, but that those went unreported — and possibly undetected.

The three objects that have been most recently shot down aren’t necessarily cause for alarm. Officials say one reason so many unidentified aerial vehicles are suddenly being identified is because the Pentagon has widened the aperture and search parameters. The objects could turn out to belong to companies or universities, for example. “One of the reasons that we think we’re seeing more is because we’re looking for more,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “Even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we couldn’t rule that out.”

Some are demanding a nationally televised presidential address. That seems unnecessary at this juncture, unless it’s to reveal new facts.

But it also makes sense to develop a framework for how to approach future such incidents. On Monday, Mr. Biden directed an interagency team, under the direction of the national security adviser, to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks. This effort could provide important perspective. Not every balloon that appears in the sky over North America needs to be fired upon by a costly missile. It’s harder still to see the need for an even costlier balloon defense program, although military contractors will certainly try to pitch them to lawmakers. To best protect the American people, it’s important to approach these incursions clear-eyed, calmly and without partisan gamesmanship.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/13/ufo-shoot-down-hysteria/

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Feb. 12

The New York Times on attacks on the free press

The misuse of their powers to intimidate, censor, silence or punish independent news media is an alarming hallmark of populist and authoritarian leaders.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has fallen squarely into this camp, and his actions to suppress freedom of the press are undermining India’s proud status as “the world’s largest democracy.” Since Mr. Modi took office in 2014, journalists have increasingly risked their careers, and their lives, to report what the government doesn’t want them to.

India ranks 11th in the “global impunity index” of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a tally of reporters whose deaths remain unsolved, and in the annual press freedom index published by the organization Reporters Without Borders, India fell to 150 in 2022, its lowest-ever rank out of 180 countries. The United States is 42; Russia is just below India at 155, China 175.

As a result, self-censorship has spread, along with a shrill Hindu nationalism in news reports that echoes the government line.

The latest manifestation of the government intolerance for critical reporting was its invocation of emergency laws last month to block a BBC documentary titled “The Modi Question.” The documentary revived damning questions about Mr. Modi’s role, when he led the government of the Indian state of Gujarat, in a horrific episode of violence in 2002, in which more than 1,000 people — most of them Muslims — were slaughtered over several weeks.

While many salient facts about the Gujarat rioting are well known, the BBC documentary revealed, among other things, a hitherto unknown British government report from 2002 that found Mr. Modi “directly responsible” for the tense environment that enabled rioting and that accused the Gujarat state government of leaning on the police not to intervene as Muslims were beaten, raped and burned to death. Mr. Modi has long denied any responsibility for the violence, and an investigative team appointed by India’s Supreme Court ruled in 2012 not to charge him because there was not enough evidence.

Mr. Modi, who was re-elected in 2019 with a substantial majority for his Bharatiya Janata Party, remains extremely popular. But two decades later he has not been able to shake persistent questions about his role in the violence, especially as the government has suppressed an open discussion of his brand of Hindu nationalism. Instead, as a recent Human Rights Watch report noted, “the B.J.P.’s ideology of Hindu primacy has infiltrated the justice system and the media, empowering party supporters to threaten, harass, and attack religious minorities, particularly Muslims, with impunity.”

The two-part BBC documentary challenged all that. Though there had been no plans to air it in India, key portions promptly began circulating on social media. The government reacted with what has become its signature fury. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting blocked videos and links sharing the documentary, calling it “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage,” with a “colonial mind-set.” It added that YouTube and Twitter had complied with the order.

BBC said in a statement that the documentary was “rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards.”

Preventing circulation of even snippets of the film had the predictable effect of creating far more interest in it than there had been. Human rights groups inveighed against what one opposition lawmaker in India called “raging censorship.” Student and opposition groups set about organizing viewings, triggering efforts to block them. At Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, the administration shut off electricity and internet access to block a screening of the documentary, but students watched it anyway on their mobile phones.

What began as a potential embarrassment for Mr. Modi has thus escalated into a furor over press freedoms — and into a test for the rest of the world. Mr. Modi has been actively seeking a greater role in world affairs, and he has been actively courted by leaders in the United States and Europe, whether for support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, on which Mr. Modi has been ambivalent, or as a counterbalance to China’s rising economic power. Apple, for example, has announced it will start producing its iPhone 14 in India in what analysts viewed as a gradual turn from its reliance on China.

Britain’s government has emphasized the independence of the BBC but stopped short of condemning the blocking of the documentary. When questioned about the film and about Mr. Modi’s responsibility for anti-Muslim violence by an opposition lawmaker, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak affirmed Britain’s general stance against persecution but added that he was “not sure I agree at all with the characterization that the honorable gentleman has put forward.” Reuters reported that the White House is holding discussions with India on a possible state visit by Mr. Modi later this year; New Delhi will host the G20 summit in September.

India is a major power and a critical player as Russia and China work to change the balance of forces in the world. But in their necessary dealings with Mr. Modi, American and European leaders should remember that it is only as a democracy, with a free and vibrant press, that India can truly fulfill its global role. As Mr. Modi’s own party knows firsthand — the B.J.P. was suppressed and many of its leaders jailed in the dark days of emergency rule from 1975 to 1977 — when populist leaders invoke emergency laws to block dissent, democracy is in peril.

ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/12/opinion/modi-bbc-documentary-india.html

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Feb. 14

The Los Angeles Times on the GOP and criminal justice reform

Criminal justice reformers are mistakenly finding comfort in a federal court ruling last month that took Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to task for removing a twice-elected, reform-oriented county prosecutor from office.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said the Republican governor violated both the 1st Amendment and Florida law by ousting State Atty. Andrew Warren — a Democrat elected by voters in Tampa and the rest of Hillsborough County — for speaking out against Florida’s 15-week abortion ban and proposed legislation to criminalize gender-affirming care.

But DeSantis’ blatantly political and anti-democratic maneuver worked. Warren remains out of office. Voters in the historically Democratic county remain disenfranchised and are stuck with an unelected, tough-on-crime prosecutor chosen by DeSantis because, Hinkle said, there was nothing he could do to restore Warren to his office.

Reform prosecutors generally seek to divert lower-level defendants to treatment, and to reserve the harshest prosecution for the most dangerous crimes. Many reformers question the cozy relationship that more traditional prosecutors have with police, and the hands-off attitude they too often take in officer misconduct cases.

In Shelby County, Tenn., for example, recently elected reform District Atty. Steve Mulroy quickly filed felony charges against the Memphis officers caught on video beating motorist Tyre Nichols to death.

Reform prosecutors come from both major parties. But most, like Mulroy, are Democrats who represent urban areas.

Another example is Larry Krasner, a Democrat whom Philadelphia voters twice elected as district attorney. Last year, Krasner became the test case for the criminal justice counter-reformation when he was impeached by Pennsylvania’s Republican-dominated Legislature. The issue is currently pending in court.

The Philadelphia and Tampa cases illustrate the Republicans’ ominous strategy to thwart the reform prosecutor movement: Misuse state processes that were designed to protect against corrupt or incompetent county officials. Subvert democracy by, in effect, voiding local elections. Override liberal Democratic urban areas’ elected officials with Republicans who represent or are responsive to more conservative rural parts of the state. Declare the actions to be legitimate state preemption of local decision-making in the name of public safety.

Republican politicians and their law enforcement allies are now following this playbook in cities and counties around the nation, as summarized in a January report by the Local Solutions Support Center and the Public Rights Project. Attacks against prosecutorial discretion come in the form of lawsuits, legislation and state bar complaints.

Republican lawmakers in Texas are considering bills that would empower state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton — who, ironically, continues to hold office despite being indicted on felony charges — to block locally elected prosecutors from limiting enforcement of any criminal offense.

Iowa’s Republican governor proposed restructuring state government to allow the state attorney general (currently a Republican) to take cases away from district attorneys like the recently elected reform D.A. in Polk County, who is a Democrat.

And on and on.

Left unexamined, the anti-reform movement’s arguments may sound rational. For example, Virginia Republican Atty. Gen. Jason Miyares said: “Prosecutors cannot cherry pick laws to enforce and laws to ignore — that’s not how our government works, and it establishes a dangerous precedent.”

The barb was directed at Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Atty. Buta Biberaj, a Democrat, who like many of her reform counterparts in other jurisdictions ran on a promise to focus on violent crimes and not prosecute certain traffic cases and a selection of misdemeanors like trespassing and possession of some types of illegal drugs.

But in fact, selective enforcement is exactly how government does and must work. State lawmakers adopt hundreds of new laws each year, and there are too many minor offenses committed in most jurisdictions to prosecute. Voters in local elections pick their district attorneys based on how they promise to use their office’s limited resources.

Prosecutorial discretion can be abused — for example, if a district attorney goes after Asian shoplifters but not Latino ones. But the proper remedies in such situations are civil rights lawsuits, court orders and elections, not partisan preemption of local voters’ choices.

Subversion of elections like Warren’s and Krasner’s is a tactic that, if successful, will not stop with district attorneys. Republicans may see their future in Jackson, Mississippi. The Mississippi House has signed on to a plan to carve out a new jurisdiction within the Black-majority city with judges and prosecutors who would be appointed by three state officials, all of whom are white (no Black person has held statewide office in Mississippi since 1890).

The move is ostensibly a response to crime. If it succeeds, it will in fact be a case of white Republicans assaulting criminal justice reform, local government, majority rule, Democrats and the Black vote on a scale that surpasses anything that DeSantis or other Republicans around the nation have yet attempted.

ONLINE: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-02-14/reform-prosecutors-removed

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Feb. 13

The Guardian on U.N. earthquake aid for Syria

A week on, amid the tears of the bereaved and the abandoned, the unbearable scale of the death and destruction has become horrifyingly clear. At least 35,000 people have died as a result of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, making this one of the worst natural disasters of the century. Hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped under rubble, as relatives pray for their miraculous survival. The final death toll may never be known. Many millions are displaced and some communities have been almost razed from the face of the earth.

In such appalling circumstances, it seems inconceivable that whole areas in the disaster zone should be left to their fate. But as the United Nations’ top humanitarian relief official, Martin Griffiths, said on Sunday, this is in effect what has been allowed to happen in north-west Syria, which is controlled by groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. A negligible amount of humanitarian aid has reached Idlib province, through the only open border crossing from Turkey.

As anger grows, Mr. Griffiths described this as a “failure” on the part of the U.N., which was both honest and an understatement. The earthquakes in this region have compounded the inordinate suffering of a population already blighted by civil war, airstrikes, absolute levels of poverty, collapsed infrastructure and a cholera epidemic. Basic resources to cope with any of these multiple crises are lacking. It is the duty of the international community to find a way to provide them. The alternative is a terrible secondary crisis of grotesque proportions. But in a region populated by bad actors, the question is how such a path can be negotiated.

The United States has called on Mr. Assad to halt the weaponization of aid and channel international assistance equitably to rebel-held areas. Rightly, Washington has, for its part, eased sanctions on Damascus to allow maximum humanitarian assistance to be offered. Europe should follow suit. But even if Mr. Assad complies, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the hardline Islamist group that controls much of north-western Syria, is reportedly refusing to accept help from government-controlled areas.

The realpolitik of an adequate aid operation thus requires the reopening of all closed cross-border routes from Turkey. This has hitherto been vetoed by Mr. Assad’s principal backer, Russia, at the U.N. security council. Vladimir Putin’s justification for this powerplay has been the protection of the principle of national sovereignty – a professed cause that will provoke mirthless laughter in Kyiv. If Moscow cannot be persuaded to revise its cynical position in light of events, the U.N. and western states should explore legal ways of circumventing the security council. But given Mr. Assad’s brutal track record, without consent this route would come with risks attached.

Ultimately, skillful diplomacy and international pressure will be needed if entrenched divisions are to be overcome in the name of alleviating human misery. Disasters of this magnitude necessitate an appeal to universal values of human solidarity and cooperation that, at times, can transcend traditional enmities. The west bears a particular responsibility to make this case, having put Syria’s ongoing tragedy out of sight and out of mind in recent years. Among the desperate survivors in Idlib and elsewhere are those who have been turned back at European borders, met with barriers and barbed wire. Victims of war, dictatorship, extremism and now natural disaster, they require our belated support and will continue to need it for years to come.

ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/13/the-guardian-view-on-earthquake-aid-for-northern-syria-the-un-must-step-up

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Feb. 15

China Daily on train derailment in Ohio

How will the derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals affect the local environment and the lives of local residents in East Palestine, Ohio? Did Norfolk Southern, the company involved, do the right thing venting and burning carcinogenic chemicals from the crashed train cars? Will it be a “complex environmental disaster” as some have claimed?

Although none of these questions have yet been answered, the local governor’s office announced on Feb. 8, five days after the accident caused by a broken axle, that residents evacuated are permitted to return home after air quality samples measured contaminants below levels of concern. The local water treatment plant was also quoted as saying that it had not seen any adverse effects.

However, local residents have complained of headaches and feeling sick since the derailment. Some residents are reported to have said that fish and frogs were dying in local streams and people have shared images of dead animals and said that they smelled chemical odors around town.

The chemicals in the cars included vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate and ethylhexyl acrylate. Vinyl chloride is classified as a human carcinogen, and acute exposure to high levels in the air has been linked to central nervous system effects, while chronic exposure has been shown to cause liver damage, including a rare form of liver cancer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. When vinyl chloride burns it decomposes into hydrogen chloride and phosgene, according to the International Program on Chemical Safety. Phosgene is highly poisonous and was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent, while hydrogen chloride is irritating and corrosive to any tissue with which it comes into contact.

That the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that it had not detected any hazardous substances at levels of concern during or after the crash is in sharp contrast to how local residents feel and a lawsuit has been filed calling for medical screenings and related care to be paid for anyone living within a 48-kilometer radius of the crash site.

That a reporter was pushed to the ground, handcuffed and arrested for trespassing while covering a news conference about the derailment also calls into question the transparency of the information being provided. Although the reporter was released after being held for five hours, it makes people feel that there is something fishy about the way the hazardous chemicals were disposed of and it has triggered suspicions that things are being held back about the long-lasting impact on local residents’ health and the local environment.

There seems to be a sharp contrast between how enthusiastic U.S. politicians are about the so-called threats from other countries and their lack of concern for the safety of American people from hazards at home. It is also preposterous for the world’s sole superpower to habitually point fingers at other countries in the name of human rights while its poor governance at home makes things increasingly hard for its own people.

ONLINE: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202302/15/WS63ecd57fa31057c47ebaefdc.html