Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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Oct. 6
The Washington Post on Hurricane Helene, FEMA and misinformation
An underwater arts district. Health-care workers and patients stranded on hospital rooftops. Isolated residents pointing mirrors at the sky to catch rescue helicopters’ attention. The tragic scenes from Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction are nothing short of heartbreaking. In the week and a half since it made landfall, subjecting coastlines across the Southeast to storm surges and downpours, the tempest struck forcefully where few expect such events: inland, high in the Blue Ridge mountains. Consequently, even “ climate haven ” cities such as Asheville, N.C., felt the impact.
Dubbed the deadliest hurricane to hit the United States since Maria in 2017, Helene has already claimed 232 lives, with many more still unaccounted for. Making matters worse, only a small fraction of households in the hardest-hit counties had flood insurance. Policies are not cheap, and many living on high ground might have thought the risks were too minor to warrant the expense. As Helene makes clear, tropical storms are no longer an exclusively coastal threat. Heavy rains can rapidly flood hill-country streams and ravines, and there is only so much federal aid can do to compensate for homeowners’ and businesses’ losses. This disaster should spur long-overdue reforms in the federal government’s troubled flood insurance programs.
According to some early analyses, the storm could have caused $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage across the Southeast, along with $5 billion to $8 billion in lost economic output. The storm’s impact on human life could be magnified by the supply chain disruptions it is causing: Hospitals across the country are already experiencing a shortage of intravenous solutions after flooding from Helene caused a Marion, N.C., plant to shut down.
Affected communities remain in the early stages of recuperation, in many cases still lacking access to water, power, food and other necessities. Even as search-and-recovery efforts continue, officials in the coming weeks need to treat this humanitarian crisis with the urgency that phrase implies. We have no doubt they intend to do so, but as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard and other aid organizations navigate downed trees and mud-choked roads to reach affected residents, they face yet another challenge: rampant misinformation.
Because it plowed through two swing states just over a month before Election Day, politicians were bound to pay extra attention to this disaster. Both presidential candidates rerouted their campaign trails to visit Georgia and North Carolina. This is par for the course in a democracy. What is neither normal nor acceptable is for former president Donald Trump to exploit the situation with inflammatory falsehoods. He claimed that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, diverted FEMA funding to house illegal immigrants; and he accused North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, of withholding aid from Republican-leaning counties. Misinformation about FEMA’s actions has become so widespread that the agency created a webpage dedicated to “rumor response.” The agency should not have to spend scarce resources dispelling misinformation spread in part by someone running for our highest office.
No doubt, FEMA has its limitations. The Post spent a year chronicling how the agency is struggling to keep up with the demands of disasters intensified, in part, by a changing climate. Destructive storms always spotlight both the strengths and weakness of government’s disaster-response capabilities. Even as Helene provides lessons for policymakers, though, it highlights the country’s profound capacity for spontaneous, empathetic, often heroic actions by individuals and communities. Tying political accusations to disaster response is doubly unseemly in light of so much selflessness by ordinary people.
For now, affected communities from the Gulf Coast to the Carolinas deserve swift and generous support from government and the private sector alike. Indeed, new research shows that the lingering effects can indirectly lead to excess deaths in the months and years after storms occur. A consistent flow of resources even after immediate relief efforts could help stem those impacts. Experts might not be able to predict which storms become the next Katrina or Helene. But one thing we do know is that they will happen, possibly with greater intensity because of climate change. Indeed, the current Atlantic hurricane season, which had been relatively mild until recent weeks, is not yet over — and indeed coincides with the stretch run of the presidential campaign. Effective government will help everyone in the storms’ paths get through it. Demagoguery will not.
ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/06/helene-misinformation-disaster-fema/
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Oct. 6
The Wall Street Journal on U.S. ports and dockworkers
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has reached a tentative agreement to return to work after winning a 62% pay raise over six years, but the labor dispute isn’t over. Round II will be fought over the union’s demand to protect its jobs forever by banning any automation at American ports.
The union’s demand is no automation—ever. In a Sept. 7 letter to fellow ILA members, union boss Harold Daggett and his executive vice president and son Dennis put it this way: “We want ironclad language, and we want the intent of that language in writing. Bottom line: the ILA does not support any kind of automation, including semi-automation.”
What they mean is they don’t want any technological advances that would make loading and unloading ships faster, safer and more efficient—e.g., smarter cranes, gates, and container-moving trucks that require fewer workers to operate. In other words, they want higher pay with no productivity gains, which is unsustainable in a competitive global economy.
The World Bank global port ranking helps show what this means in practice. The Container Port Performance Index 2023 ranks ports by the amount of time a ship spends in port. Not a single American port cracks the top 50, with top-ranked Charleston, S.C., coming in at 53. Yangshan in China is No. 1, and China is investing in ports throughout Latin America.
This isn’t the longshoremen’s first tangle with technology. In the 1960s the container revolution marked a shift from stuffing cargo inside the holds of a ship to putting cargo inside steel containers. Containers reduced the number of dockworkers needed, and the ranks of longshoremen declined as it was adopted. Today other nations are automating faster than the U.S. That means they are becoming cheaper and more productive.
By now the 78-year-old Mr. Daggett should have learned that the fight against productivity is a losing battle. Look at what happened to the British miners who thought they could oppose the closure of unprofitable coal pits and preserve their jobs. British textile workers a century earlier revolted against the introduction of mechanized looms.
The hard truth is that technological advances that make companies more productive often mean they need fewer workers. The longshoremen would do better in the long-term if the union negotiated sweeter buyout packages for senior workers who have grandfathered job protections, rather than trying to hold off the inevitable. It would also help displaced workers if they could count on a healthy and growing economy that created new and better jobs.
Fighting productivity tools that the rest of the world is adopting harms the U.S. economy and millions of Americans workers beyond the ports. Mr. Daggett—and his pal President Biden—owes his 50,000 members better.
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Oct. 2
The Guardian says war in the Middle East accelerates American decline
On Tuesday, as Israel sent troops into Lebanon, Iran fired almost 200 missiles at Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tehran that it “will pay”, the august magazine Foreign Affairs published the US secretary of state’s thoughts on rebuilding leadership. If he correctly diagnosed the issue – “A fierce competition is under way to define a new age in international affairs” – Antony Blinken’s assertions about the renewal of American authority were considerably less convincing.
Some have dated the end of the American century to Vietnam or the “war on terror”. But Donald Trump’s presidency quickened US decline. It wasn’t only Vladimir Putin who was emboldened. Though Mr Trump turned the screws on China, its increasing forcefulness in recent years has reflected not only its growing might and Xi Jinping’s leadership but also its perception of the US as a dwindling superpower. Other nations decided to hedge their geopolitical bets. Yes, the US is in a stronger position today than four years ago, but the erratic isolationism of the Trump administration is a shockingly low bar, and no one can erase its memory. Allies and rivals alike have drawn their conclusions about the long-term reliability of the US.
Joe Biden deserves credit for solidifying western support around Ukraine and restoring relations with Europe. The US showed itself to be prepared, committed and able to coordinate action. It has sought to build partnerships elsewhere too, such as in the Indo-Pacific. The authority it regained, however, has been squandered. The stark contrast between the anguish that the administration has shown over Ukrainian deaths and the apparent indifference towards the lives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza has sharpened widely held cynicism and anger about American double standards. A dozen of the administration’s own officials have resigned. US diplomats warned that its stance “is losing us Arab publics for a generation”.
Mr Biden’s embrace of Mr Netanyahu was meant to forestall the war now under way in Lebanon. A country reliant on the US for security uses the weapons that the US supplies to conduct offensives that the US warns against – and Washington then acquiesces. Yonatan Zeigen, whose mother, Vivian Silver, was a peace activist killed by Hamas on 7 October, described to the New York Times his bafflement at speaking to US politicians and officials: “(They’re) talking like, ‘We’re trying, we’re hoping’ … What do you mean? You have leverage.”
The dynamic may not be new. But it is now more painful and consequential. Mr Biden, so hasty to get out of Afghanistan regardless of the cost, has had to build up forces in the Middle East. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has said that it will work with Israel to ensure “severe consequences” for Iran’s attack, and Mr Netanyahu doubtless hopes that a Trump administration would back action against Iran even if Mr Biden balks.
The Democrats have lost Arab-American and other voters – Kamala Harris has differed from her boss in tone more than substance – while Mr Trump will seize on higher oil prices due to the crisis and anything that can be portrayed as weakness towards Iran. He says that “the world is on fire” – yet he is the pyromaniac who quit the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accord, and who has said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to Nato allies who didn’t meet spending targets. The shrinking of America’s status could accelerate.
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Oct. 2
St. Louis Post-Dispatch the 2024 presidential race
Two things can be true at once. Here are two things that are true about this year’s presidential race:
One, Donald Trump is the most fundamentally unfit presidential candidate ever nominated by a major party. He’s a congenital liar, a dangerous demagogue, a convicted felon who has long shown contempt for the Constitution and has increasingly shown symptoms of psychological instability. Worse even than all that, he was the only sitting president in U.S. history to attempt to illegally, violently retain power after losing an election. For the good of the country — and virtually regardless of the electoral alternative — America must not return Trump to office.
But — two — Trump’s unprecedented, incontrovertible unfitness is not justification for even a “normal” candidate like Kamala Harris to sidestep the rigorous public vetting process normally required of prospective presidents. Nor is it justification for America’s mainstream media to abdicate its own crucial role in that process.
The caricature of Harris as an intellectual lightweight who is lost without a teleprompter is and always has been at odds with reality. Formerly California’s widely lauded top cop, and later a brutally capable cross-examiner on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Harris has long demonstrated a depth of substance and intelligence that isn’t (or shouldn’t be) negated by this or that stray rhetorical gaffe.
Further, in her brief time as a presidential nominee, Harris has shown that, unlike her opponent, she is capable of course-correction and growth. The woman who stumbled her way out of the 2020 Democratic primaries was unrecognizable in the Harris who perfectly stuck the landing with her August nomination acceptance speech and then kicked Trump’s proverbial behind all over the debate stage in September. She has since largely diffused early criticism for policy vagueness, and now routinely showcases specific proposals regarding the economy, foreign policy and the border.
All of which begs the frustrating question: Why is she still hiding from substantive media interviews, and dodging hard questions during the few she has sat for? And why is so much of the media meekly acquiescing?
The Republican complaint that Trump was vigorously fact-checked by the ABC News debate moderators last month while Harris was allowed to slip out of answering questions is, at one level, almost comical. Harris was indeed playing the old political game of answering the question she wanted instead of the one she was asked. But Trump babbled semi-coherent fantasies about house-pet-eating immigrants, “post-birth executions” and economic data made up out of whole cloth. Those who lie more should be fact-checked more.
But, again, Trump’s well-established abnormality doesn’t justify throwing out normal vetting standards for everyone else. In the same debate, Harris was allowed, with zero pushback, to give unrelated talking points instead of answers to questions about Biden administration tariffs, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, her reversed policy positions and more.
As of this writing, nominee Harris hasn’t conducted a single formal press conference and has sat for just two interviews with national media outlets.
In one, CNN’s Dana Bash pressed her (too gingerly) on whether she has “any regrets about what you told the American people” regarding President Joe Biden’s cognitive state. It’s a relevant question, given the all-too-apparent fact that Biden’s handlers clearly hid his decline from the public. Harris non-answered by lauding Biden’s loyalty and judgment. Bash moved on.
Harris also non-answered the question about her shifting positions on fracking and immigration, with the lofty-sounding but meaningless declaration that her “values” haven’t changed. If there was ever a Wait, what? moment in an interview, that was it. But Bash again moved on.
In a subsequent interview on MSNBC, Harris was asked about the fact that, for all her (fully justified) criticism of Trump’s tariff plans, the Biden administration has kept Trump’s previous tariffs in place and has even considered expanding them. Harris quickly steered the issue to the friendlier territory of her own plan for a $6,000 child tax credit. Instead of nudging her back to the original question, interviewer Stephanie Ruhle declared her tax proposal “a real plan.”
Even those kid gloves look like anvils compared to what Harris faces in her more frequently chosen interview forums: friendly podcasts, star-struck local-news outlets, Oprah Winfrey.
Yes, Trump limits most of his own interviews to the fawning sycophants at Fox News, who smile obediently as he blathers and lies. But the subterranean bar set by Trump cannot be allowed to become the new standard of media scrutiny.
Major media outlets should be demanding in unison, loudly and publicly, that Harris — who, after all, has positioned herself as the “normal” candidate here — do what nominees normally do in the final stretch and engage in frequent, substantive press conferences and national interviews. There is, instead, only the occasional grumble from the press about Harris’ inaccessibility.
It’s clear that Harris and her handlers consider this aloofness the safe play. Harris is smarter and more capable than much of the country gives her credit for, and more frequent and forthright interviews could confirm that to many fence-sitters. But why risk confirming the caricature instead with an irrelevant slip of the tongue that would be amplified by her critics?
Here’s why: Because those few fence-sitters, in a few states, will decide this election. They need a reason to reject the Trumpian devil they know for someone they still don’t know well enough.
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Oct. 7
The Philadelphia Inquirer on the anniversary of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza
It has been a year since the vile attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, yet neither side appears ready for a cease-fire. The impasse continues to take innocent lives in Gaza, and leaves 101 Israeli hostages in captivity, their families desperately urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to free them.
Meantime, Israeli and world attention has shifted to Israel’s move into Lebanon to try to defang the Hezbollah terrorist group — armed with around 150,000 rockets and missiles by Iran — which attacked Israel on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas. And Israel could very soon be at war with Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran, which (unsuccessfully) fired 180 ballistic missiles at the country last week.
News clips showing Israelis being murdered at a music festival and forced at gunpoint out of their homes do not convey the full magnitude of the atrocity that occurred on Oct. 7. Hours earlier, hundreds of missiles were launched from Gaza into Israel. Then came the invasion by Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, followed by hundreds of Gazan civilians, which somehow caught Israel off guard.
A Human Rights Watch investigation concluded numerous war crimes were committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that participated in the operation. The attackers shot civilians at close range as they tried to flee, fired rocket-propelled grenades into homes, and set houses on fire, burning families alive. At least 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage.
The horror didn’t end that day for the hostages. Only about half of the remaining 101captives are believed to be alive. The bodies of 36 others have been recovered, including six who were murdered and left in a tunnel; among them an American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was abducted from the Nova music festival. A United Nations report also confirms that some female hostages were raped before being killed.
Israel retaliated by all but destroying the Gaza Strip — geographically about the size of Philadelphia — with bombing and other military assaults that have left more than 40,000 people dead and at least 100,000 injured, according to the British Red Cross. Famine also became a reality after the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the main artery to receive food and medical aid, was closed in May.
Hamas attempted to justify its attack as a response to Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and control of the Gaza Strip. “We want the international community to stop atrocities in Gaza, against Palestinian people, our holy sites like Al-Aqsa. All these things are the reason behind starting this battle,” said Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qaddoumi.
Netanyahu has focused on an all-out military response to the Oct. 7 attack without any apparent plan for “the day after.” Israeli air attacks aimed at destroying Hamas’ underground tunnels have devastated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, damaging or destroying 70% of the buildings. Two-thirds of the Palestinian dead are believed to be civilians, mostly women and children.
Netanyahu has repeatedly rebuffed U.S. efforts to broker a meaningful cease-fire that would also lead to the release of the hostages and the prospect of Arab nations providing a peacekeeping force and funding to rebuild Gaza.
He has taken advantage of President Joe Biden’s firm support for Israel’s security and efforts to craft a regional peace plan that would offer Palestinians a political future and, in return, lead to Saudi Arabian recognition of Israel. Netanyahu is clearly hoping for a Donald Trump victory over Kamala Harris as the next U.S. president, assuming Trump would back Israel in permanent occupation, or even annexation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Yet, Trump has no hesitation in tossing out antisemitic tropes against U.S. Jews, out of ire that the majority of Jews vote Democratic. He recently told an Israeli-American Council audience that if he loses, “it’s only because of the Democrat hold, or curse, on you.” (In reality, Trump is far more dependent on the votes of evangelical supporters of Israel.)
A decisive military victory in Gaza and Lebanon might dull criticism of Netanyahu for not preventing the Oct. 7 attack in the first place. For over a decade, Netanyahu allowed huge cash transfers to Hamas from Qatar, even though the Gazan group seeks the destruction of Israel, because he thought he could buy Hamas leaders off. At the same time, he undermined the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which supported a two-state solution.
Many Israelis also blame Netanyahu for refusing to take any responsibility for Oct. 7 and trying to shift the entire blame to military and intelligence officials. Moreover, continuing military action rather than planning for vital diplomacy for “the day after” wars in Gaza and Lebanon clearly helps Netanyahu avoid new elections and postpone facing the consequences of scheduled trials on fraud and corruption charges. Yes, he and Trump have that in common, too.
Yet, military action alone cannot achieve “decisive victory” in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon. Nor can military reoccupation of Gaza and continued occupation of the West Bank destroy popular pressure for independence. Rather, lack of any prospect for a Palestinian political future is more likely to lead to Hamas 2.0 and more West Bank violence. And before thinking of reoccupying southern Lebanon, Netanyahu should recall that Hezbollah arose in protest to the 18-year occupation of the area from 1982-2000.
Cutting off Iran’s support may help suppress its proxies, but occupation will produce new insurgencies. Recall that all the strength of the U.S. military didn’t enable the United States to stamp out the Taliban after a 20-year war on terrorism in Afghanistan. It is easier to defeat a country or national government than to kill a movement based on repelling foreign troops repressing rights on Lebanese or Palestinian land.
Israel’s scorched-earth tactics to destroy Hamas have diminished the group’s fighting capability, to be sure, but they have also led to a humanitarian crisis, left innocent children and other noncombatants dead, and sown seeds that will likely sprout future terrorist organizations.
Decades-long talk of an eventual two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians is meaningless when a large part of one prospective state has been reduced to little more than rubble. And an end to the two-state solution means endless civil war within one Greater Israel. Retaliation for the Oct. 7 massacre was justified, but it is long past time for the remaining hostages to be freed, and for the indiscriminate carnage in Gaza to end with a cease-fire.
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