Editorial Roundup: Excerpts from recent editorials

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

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May 9

The New York Times on President Donald Trump's nominee for CIA director:

Gina Haspel has shown she has all the qualities to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, except one.

For 33 years with the agency, Ms. Haspel has been on the front lines of America's greatest security challenges, rising from station chief, to deputy director of the clandestine service, to deputy director of the agency. Former bosses and colleagues from both parties praise her leadership and professionalism.

What's prevented her from being a shoo-in for the top job is her role at the center of one of the federal government's most sickening and indefensible programs, a brutal interrogation regime that used torture against terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks. It wound down during President George W. Bush's second term, then was banned by President Barack Obama after stirring domestic and international outrage.

In 2002, Ms. Haspel headed a C.I.A. detention facility in Thailand where a suspect linked to Al Qaeda, accused of orchestrating the attack on the American destroyer Cole off the coast of Yemen, was waterboarded and brutalized in other ways. And in 2005, under her boss's direction, she drafted a cable ordering the agency to destroy more than 90 videotapes of its interrogation of that man.

At Ms. Haspel's confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, she was pressed on how she now viewed torture and whether she would ever revive the program, even if President Trump ordered her to. That's a vital concern since he's spoken of bringing back waterboarding, in which a detained person is doused with buckets of water to the point of near-drowning.

"Having served in that tumultuous time," she said, "I can offer you my personal commitment, clearly and without reservation, that under my leadership, C.I.A. will not restart such a detention and interrogation program."

But she did not declare, flat out, that torture is wrong and that she regretted her role in it. Instead, she defended the torture of terrorism suspects during a fraught time after the Sept. 11 attacks when the agency was focused on preventing more attacks. She said C.I.A. officers should not be judged for their involvement in torture then.

Asked if she would stand up to Mr. Trump if he ordered her to resume an "enhanced" interrogation program, she first said, "I do not believe the president would ask me to do that," then added, "I would not restart under any circumstances an interrogation program at C.I.A."

Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, asked her to define her "moral code." Ms. Haspel said: "I would not allow C.I.A. to undertake activity that I thought is immoral, even if it is technically legal. I would absolutely not permit it. I believe C.I.A. must undertake activities that are consistent with American values."

But she would not say that torture is immoral.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, asked her whether she had called for the program to be continued or expanded in 2005-7 when the program was winding down. Ms. Haspel did not answer directly.

We are constrained in assessing Ms. Haspel because much about her record is not public. Ms. Haspel controls what of her record can be declassified, and most details released so far have been flattering. She should recuse herself and allow Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, to make the call on declassifying more of her record.

It's unlikely that anyone else Mr. Trump would pick would have Ms. Haspel's experience, knowledge of the agency and intelligence. It is troubling, though, that someone deeply associated with actions so at odds with America's values and international law should lead the agency. What signal would that send to the world?

Ms. Haspel no doubt fears she would be undercutting some of her colleagues by renouncing what she did. But the C.I.A. needs a leader who can reckon openly with the past.

Unless Ms. Haspel takes that step, she will not have demonstrated the most important quality for any official, a strong moral compass. Until then, we cannot support her confirmation.

Online: https://www.nytimes.com/

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May 9

Los Angeles Times on President Donald Trump announcing he would withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal:

President Trump on Tuesday finally did what wiser heads in his administration have been trying to keep him from doing almost from the time he was sworn in: He announced that he would withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement. In doing so, he rejected the pleas of America's closest allies and more than 100 current and former senior diplomats. He even turned a blind eye to his own Defense secretary's conclusion that the agreement has allowed robust monitoring of Iran's activities.

But as alarming as the action itself was the deceitful and demagogic speech in which he attempted to justify it. It was virtually indistinguishable from the sort of rant Trump delivered on the campaign trail - utterly uninformed by the sort of appreciation for complexity that experience confers on most occupants of the Oval Office. And much as we would like to think the president was motivated by a belief, however wrongheaded, that tearing up this agreement would lead to a better one, it's hard to escape the suspicion that he was more influenced by a compulsion to besmirch the legacy of his predecessor.

Trump spoke four days before he must decide whether to again waive the economic sanctions against Iran that the U.S. lifted to comply with the agreement, which Iran negotiated in 2015 with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany and the European Union. In his speech, Trump said not only that he won't waive the sanctions but that the U.S. will "withdraw" from the agreement, which he called a "disastrous deal" that has caused "great embarrassment to me as a citizen."

But Trump's attack on the agreement - reminiscent of his irresponsible decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement on climate change - was characteristically misleading and short on detail. For example, he described the limits on Iran's nuclear activities as "very weak," a laughable characterization in light of the elaborate requirements of the agreement. Here's one illustration: Iran had to give up most of its ability to enrich uranium and agreed to place the vast majority of its centrifuges in storage under the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Trump is rightly concerned that several provisions of the agreement - known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - expire or sunset after 10 or 15 years, a condition he called "totally unacceptable." Ideally the agreement would have made those provisions permanent. He also was right to complain in his speech about Iran's development of ballistic missiles and its support for militant groups in the region. But those were the compromises required to strike the deal in the first place. There is nothing about abrogating or repudiating the agreement that puts the U.S. in a stronger position to command concessions.

In a statement issued after Trump spoke, the leaders of Germany, France and Britain acknowledged the need to address what happens to Iran's nuclear program after some of the provisions of the current agreement expire, as well as their concern about Iran's ballistic missile program and its "destabilizing regional activities, especially in Syria, Iraq and Yemen." But the European leaders suggested that that new approaches could be identified without violating the agreement. Trump offered no convincing argument to the contrary.

What was perhaps most bizarre about Trump's speech was that it both flirted with advocating regime change in Iran - the president referred to the Islamic government there as a "dictatorship" that had seized power - and simultaneously offered to engage it in negotiations toward a new nuclear agreement. Why would he think Iran would be inclined to accept his overture?

In their statement, the European leaders noted - as they likely did in their private conversations with Trump - that the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that "Iran continues to abide by the restrictions set out by the JCPOA, in line with its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The world is a safer place as a result." Therefore, Britain, France and Germany will remain parties to the agreement and "will work with all the remaining parties to the deal to ensure this remains the case including through ensuring the continuing economic benefits to the Iranian people that are linked to the agreement."

The full consequences of Trump's decision cannot be known, but they almost certainly will include a further erosion of America's credibility with its allies and others, and tacit encouragement for Iran to revive its nuclear program. That will be bad for the country and for the world.

Online: http://www.latimes.com/

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May 7

Chicago Tribune on record lows of unemployment among black people and Latinos in the United States:

Our favorite four-letter word, the one we shout regularly to the rooftops, is J-O-B-S, because employment growth creates prosperity and security for more Americans. The good news on this front deserves a shoutout: Nine years into an economic recovery and 15 months into the Trump administration, the U.S. economy continues to expand and add jobs.

The unemployment rate is now 3.9 percent for all Americans, the lowest level since 2000, while the jobless rate for black workers is 6.6 percent, the lowest figure since record-keeping began in the early 1970s. Yes, record-low joblessness for the black population, and for Latinos, a 4.8 percent rate that ties their record low. Both still are higher than the 3.6 percent rate for whites.

There's much to lament in the inequality of opportunity for African-Americans in particular. Yet there is also clear evidence that the longer this era of economic expansion continues, the greater number of people benefit. Think back to late 2010, in the wake of the Great Recession, when the overall jobless rate approached 10 percent; it was above 16 percent for blacks.

Statistics are easy to cite and, in this case, to applaud. But what exactly is happening, and how to keep it going? Economists are less helpful once they point out the country has added jobs for 91 consecutive months since October 2010, the longest stretch of job growth on record. Experts can try to predict the future, but they are no better than the rest of us at nailing it.

Our view is that the more confidence employers feel in their prospects, the more people they will hire. President Donald Trump has given employers several good reasons to believe in themselves. One is tax reform. Another is his focus on reducing regulatory red tape; in response they're investing in their businesses. Companies are hiring, but they also are betting on themselves by plowing money into plants and equipment: Capital spending climbed 20 percent in the first quarter over the year-prior period, according to an estimate by Credit Suisse.

The most important takeaway: Momentum and confidence are keys to this robust cycle of growth. As more people work and spend, businesses experience growing demand and anticipate more, which drives their investment and hiring. Housing gets a boost too. Home prices increased 7 percent in March, while the Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index - which measures job security and other factors related to buying and selling houses - hit a record high.

The next step in this cycle should be more wage growth. Maybe you've noticed that bosses aren't handing out raises the way they might, given an unemployment rate below 4 percent: Competition for workers should create faster-rising pay. In the construction business, for example, wages are growing as employers run short of job applicants. "The marketplace has eaten up all the individual talent and we're all trying to poach each other," one St. Louis contractor told The Wall Street Journal. We hope that's a harbinger for the rest of the American workforce.

We also hope Illinois public officials learn from dwindling national unemployment in the era of Trump. Here, the March unemployment rate was 4.6 percent (compared with Wisconsin's 2.9 percent and Indiana's 3.2 percent). Springfield has some destructive habits, including high taxation, high spending and high regulatory burdens. They're bad for business, bad for economic growth - and thus bad for job creation.

Online: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

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May 9

The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer on U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger's loss in the Republican primary in North Carolina's 9th District:

Democrats' enthusiasm about potentially winning North Carolina's 9th congressional district for the first time in 58 years got two shots of adrenaline Tuesday, from Republican Robert Pittenger's surprising loss and Democrat Dan McCready's overwhelming win.

Pittenger entered Tuesday believing he was on safer ground than he was two years ago, when he beat former Baptist preacher Mark Harris by just 134 votes in a newly drawn district. But Harris pulled the upset this time, likely making the 9th District even more vulnerable to flipping parties than it already was. And McCready's dismissal of Democratic challenger Christian Cano positions him to attract even more national attention and money and to ride a blue wave in November, if there is one.

It is by winning Republican districts like the 9th around the country that Democrats could take control of the U.S. House and block President Trump's agenda. Pittenger and Harris each cast the other as insufficiently supportive of Trump. But Republican voters were tired of Pittenger, who was seen as part of the "establishment" and whom one national analyst had dubbed the biggest Republican "slacker" in the House.

Almost as notable as Pittenger's loss was McCready's performance. Not only did he sprint past Cano in his first run for office, but he also motivated voters to get to the polls in unusual numbers. Far more Democratic voters than Republicans turned out in District 9, even though it's a Republican-leaning district and had a more competitive Republican primary than Democratic one. That suggests Democratic enthusiasm in November. If Republicans can't win seats like the 9th, which went solidly for Trump, they are in trouble.

North Carolina and three other states held the first primaries of the year Tuesday. Dozens of others will follow in coming weeks and will begin to make clear how the November landscape will look. There's a buzz in the air, not of impending revolution, perhaps, but certainly of change. Voters are unsettled, some even infuriated, and they're intent on being heard more than they have in a generation.

They'll have their chance in November, when 470 U.S. House and Senate seats and 170 N.C. House and Senate seats are up for election. In Mecklenburg, they started Tuesday by kicking two incumbents - Democrats Joel Ford and Rodney Moore - out of office, as well as incumbent Democratic Sheriff Irwin Carmichael.

Those three will or are likely to be replaced by other Democrats, and Republicans are at risk of losing their veto-proof supermajorities in Raleigh. Three races in Mecklenburg in November will help determine that: Republican Sen. Jeff Tarte in a toss-up district against Natasha Marcus; Republican Rep. John Bradford in a potentially competitive race against Christy Clark; and Republican Rep. Andy Dulin against Democratic attorney Brandon Lofton, if he survives a residency challenge.

Online: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/

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May 9

The Washington Times on the release of three Americans from North Korean detention ahead of an upcoming summit between leaders of both countries:

Donald Trump diplomacy, which so offends delicate sensibilities in the United States and in the ministries of the West, nevertheless continues to pay rewards. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo comes home from North Korea on Thursday with three political prisoners released as a propaganda sweetener in advance of the president's talks with Kim Jong-un about suspending his nuclear weapons program.

This was good news for the families of the three Americans, and we all share their joy, relief and gratitude. Three lives are likely saved by their release. A long sentence to a North Korean prison is likely to be a death sentence, as the family of Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was brutally beaten and tortured for taking a propaganda poster in Pyongyang and sent home in a coma to die, learned to their profound sorrow.

The three Americans released from harsh imprisonment had done little or nothing to offend the government of North Korea, and indeed were probably, like young Mr. Warmbier, arrested only to make a political point and collect trading chips. Kim Hak-song, an evangelical Christian, had gone to North Korea to teach at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, founded by American Christians and now teachers of, among others, the North Korean elite.

Kim Sang-duk had been in Pyongyang for a month, teaching a course in international finance at the university (and volunteering at an orphanage), when he was arrested at the Pyongyang airport waiting for a flight to begin his journey home. Kim Dong-chul was a businessman, accused of taking a USB drive with nuclear secrets on it from a former North Korean soldier. In the unlikely event this actually happened, it proves only that North Korean nuclear scientists should not pass around such flash drives with such abandon.

The gratitude for the good fortune of three Americans is tempered for some in the chattering class by frustration and disgust that Trump diplomacy can work, and how the president has, in an account in The Washington Post, "become increasingly confident in his gut-driven, out-of-the-box approach to international relations and dismissive of the warnings from establishment critics who told him he should stay in the Iran nuclear deal, keep the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and tone down his bellicose language with North Korea."

Mr. Trump has accomplished things that his predecessors, steeped in the traditions of diplomatic tea-sipping and crippled by an instinct to lead from behind, did not, and that is the most irritating of all. The president rubs it in. "The United States no longer makes empty threats," he says. "When I make promises, I keep them."

The president rubbed it in a little deeper, in fact, when he said he would go to Andrews Air Force Base to welcome the released prisoners home at 2 o'clock in the morning. "I will be there to greet them," he said Tuesday. "Very exciting!" He's entitled, like the rest of us, to his exclamation point.

Online: https://www.washingtontimes.com/

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May 9

The Toronto Star on how President Donald Trump's Iran nuclear deal announcement affects U.S. foreign policy:

By now, they could probably paper all the White House walls with copies of agreements President Donald Trump has pulled out of or reneged on.

In his 16 months in office, Trump has been more demolitions expert than builder, blowing up as much as he can of his predecessor's legacy.

In withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and Trans-Pacific Partnership and in tearing up the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Affordable Care Act, what Trump has built for America is basically a landscape of rubble.

Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal is the latest instance of his unilateralism, disdain for experts or evidence, and indifference to the interests of allies, the credibility of America's word or, in fact, consequences.

The Iran agreement was signed in 2015 by five powers in addition to the U.S. and Iran. It committed Iran to curtail its nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.

The best international intelligence says there is no evidence Iran is not living up to its obligations.

Susan Rice, national security adviser to former president Barack Obama, wrote in the New York Times that evidence shows Iran has complied with obligations to relinquish 97 per cent of its enriched uranium stockpile, dismantle two-thirds of its centrifuges and its entire plutonium facility, and abide by the most intrusive international inspection and monitoring regime in history.

The deal, she said, called for "stringent verification - in perpetuity" and "effectively cut off all potential pathways for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."

But this week, Trump has "freed Iran from all those constraints," she wrote.

John Brennan, former head of the CIA, called the president's announcement "madness."

Beatrice Fihn, 2017 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, tweeted "THIS IS SO STUPID!"

Still, there is in a way an odd consistency about it.

Trump trades in absolutes, perpetually tilted in his favor. His is a mind that seems bereft of a temperate zone.

In that sense, his view of international agreements is at one with his opinion of humankind or employees. Women are either beauty queens, or objects of disdain. Men are either great guys or losers. Staff are either loyal to the point of servility, or treacherous and dismissed.

As president, agreements have to be worked utterly to his liking - not merely accomplishing incremental goals - or they are "a horrible, one-sided deal."

Compromise, give and take, progress over time - though the underpinnings of most human transactions and evolution - are to this president wholly alien notions.

Yet, they are the basics of diplomatic arrangements that advance the cause of world peace and stability.

The Iran nuclear deal was a compromise, not a means by which the repressive Iranian regime would be suddenly transformed into soul-mates of the Rotarians of Orange County, California.

As Roger Cohen wrote in the Times, "that's what diplomacy is about: imperfect solutions, arrived at between enemies, that are better than the alternatives, the worst of them all being war."

How many of these agreements Trump has actually read, or truly fathoms, is anyone's guess. To the president, particulars hardly matter.

His actions are invariably taken with an eye to his own personal political ends, designed to enhance his America-First, I-don't-make-idle-promises image of himself.

The damage to world security, global climate, international order, business confidence, trust in America's word seems not to trouble his conscience.

But with his walls and withdrawals, Trump is all but transforming America's national symbol from the eagle to the turtle, retreating ever more into its own shell, disengaged, disconnected, oblivious.

And that is more than sad.

Online: https://www.thestar.com/