Political evolution in the Middle East

Lebanon's U.S.-backed government called gunbattles with Hezbollah militants in the street of Beirut "an armed and bloody coup" as it tried to rally support in the battle for control of the Mediterranean country. But the government continued to lose ground to Hezbollah fighters backed by Syria and Iran. Militants took control of the Muslim half of Beirut on Friday, the Reuters international news service reported. The outbreak of street violence comes after 17 months of deadlock between the anti-Syria ruling coalition and Hezbollah rebels that has paralyzed the government and left it without a president. At least 18 people have been killed and 38 injured in three days of fighting, Lebanon's worst internal unrest since the 1975-1990 civil war, Reuters said. The fighting erupted when the government tried to dismantle Hezbollah's military communications network. Hezbollah, which governs large swaths of Lebanese territory on its own and wants more say in the government, said the government had declared war. The United States has spoken with France, Saudi Arabia and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to discuss options. Hezbollah kept its weapons after the civil war to fight Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon at the time. Israel withdrew in 2000.

Making a profit

Yesterday's decision by Microsoft Corp. to withdraw its $42 billion-dollar offer for Yahoo Inc. may not be what shareholders in both companies wanted, but it's probably the best thing for everybody else. Yahoo's board wanted $37 a share for the company, one of the world's largest Internet firms, but Microsoft, the world's largest software firm, refused to offer more than $33 a share. Microsoft initially bid $31 a share for Yahoo three months ago. Competition in the high-tech world has been great for consumers but this deal would have concentrated much more power in the hands of Microsoft, which already dominates the software industry. Besides, U.S. companies have made their money buying and selling each other, rather than building and improving actual products, for far too long. Shuffling money back and forth doesn't put better products on the shelves, doesn't build better cars and doesn't put more people to work -- in fact, the motivation behind these kinds of combinations is to employ fewer people.

Right idea, wrong reason

First the good news — unnamed U.S. officials say the Bush administration could be planning to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of its term in January, according to the Reuters international news service. Closure of the prison on the U.S. Navy Base on Cuba will remove an enormous black mark from the record of the United States, which has used the facility to imprison hundreds of foreign nations suspected of terrorism without formal charges or trials. Even President Bush acknowledges the damage Guantanamo has done to the country's reputation around the world. Then there's the bad news — the U.S. government is not planning to close Guantanamo because it violates due process rights guaranteed by the Constitution but because it anticipates a scathing ruling by the Supreme Court in the next few weeks. The court is expected to issue a ruling shortly on whether Guantanamo inmates are entitled to civil rights under U.S. law, and the administration obviously wants to get ahead of the decision. "If the Supreme Court concludes that the detainees have constitutional rights, then there would be little legal difference between holding them in Guantanamo or holding them on the mainland," one senior official said, according to Reuters. "It's possible the Supreme Court decision could provide an impetus to a policy decision to close Guantanamo." One official who spoke to Reuters on the record, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, said the Bush administration has accepted the need to close the prison. "Everyone is agreed that we need to find a way that eventually leads to the closure of Guantanamo, which is the president's policy decision," Johndroe said. "It is a very complicated matter." There still are more 270 prisoners at Guantanamo and many of them have been held for years, Reuters said. "We would like to move towards the day when we can eventually close Guantanamo," Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon said. "We do not want to be the world's jailer." said Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon. Nevertheless, the Pentagon is making plans to relocate Guantanamo inmates to military prisons on the U.S. mainland, such as the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and naval facility in South Carolina, Reuters said.

Democracy returns to Pakistan

The post-dictatorship era in Pakistan took another step forward yesterday when the four political parties that make up the new governing coalition in parliament agreed to reinstate Supreme Court judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf last November. Removal of the judges, reportedly on the eve of a ruling invalidating Musharraf's re-election as president, set off a political crisis that saw the return from exile and assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and led to the defeat of Musharraf supporters in February's parliamentary elections. Another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was forced to leave the country when Musharraf overthrew his government in 1999, also returned from exile to lead one of the parties in the new coalition. Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower who took control of her Pakistan People's Party, the coalition's largest member, held two days of emergency talks in Lahore that ended with yesterday's deal. "The meeting has made progress in a very positive way — we are now satisfied," Sharif said after the talks, according to the Reuters international news service. Sharif said a resolution to reinstate the judges would be introduced soon. "There is no ambiguity, there is no doubt about it," he said. "The restoration would take place through a resolution." A united government will help Pakistan resolve an Islamic insurgency along its northern border with Afghanistan and mounting economic problems.

The great pretenders

Not even the United States has much hope for progress this weekend when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Israel and the West Bank for talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials. Rice, one of President Bush's longtime advisers, plans to meet with leaders from both sides separately and together in an effort to find out what is blocking progress in peace negotiations and how to put the talks back on track, according to the Reuters international news service. The Bush administration is trying to arrange an agreement to establish a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza before it leaves office in January. Good luck. It would be difficult enough to settle the historic differences between Arabs and Jews if both sides wanted to settle them, much less when they don't. The rhetoric coming from Ramallah, not to mention Hamas, which occupies Gaza and makes no secret of its enmity toward Israel, demonstrates the near-impossibility of her task. Word last week that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was angry when he left the White House after meeting with Bush and, presumably, Rice may be a harbinger of things to come. If the administration told Abbas to stop pretending and start facing reality, he probably would rather be angry than helpful. The Israelis could take steps to ease the economic crisis in the Palestinian territories, short of endangering their own security, but Abbas apparently does not have enough authority in his own territory to move the peace process forward. It is no help to peace if the end result of giving financial and military aid to the PA is that all the material and materiel ends up under the control of Hamas. The Palestinian Authority could start to change the hopeless dynamic by ending its pretense that Israel is the cause of all of its problems — the territories already are in open revolt. Abbas is like a leader without a country. The situation will not be able to change until the Palestinians stop educating their children to hate Israel and Israelis — what is going on in Gaza, where Hamas kicked the PA out, is the harvest of this sowing of hatred. Rice's trip begins Friday in London with meetings on the Palestinian economy, Iran's nuclear program and support for Kosovo.

'D.C. Madam' cashes out

A Northern California woman convicted last month of operating a high-end prostitution ring that catered to Washington's elite was found dead today after apparently hanging herself at her mother's property in Florida, CNN reported. Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, who ran the Pamela Martin & Associates escort service and was known as the "D.C. Madam," vowed last year to kill herself rather than return to prison. She left several suicide notes to that effect, police in Tarpon Springs, Fla., said. Palfrey ran her escort service, which operated in Washington, Baltimore and northern Virginia, from her home in Vallejo, Calif., a city of 120,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lived in a well-cared-for house in an older section of Vallejo, which was California's capital from 1851-1852. Palfrey was convicted April 15 of money laundering, racketeering and mail fraud after a two-week trial and faced a maximum 55-year prison term at her sentencing, which was scheduled for July 24. But Palfrey released her telephone records before the trial, and they resulted in the resignations of a U.S. senator, Republican David Vitter of Louisiana, and a top state department official, Randall Tobias, after their telephone numbers were identified. Palfrey maintained that she operated a fantasy service and discouraged sexual contact between her employees and clients. "There's no violence, there's very little if any drug activity. There's very little if any fraud. Basically a bunch of benign women who want to make a living. This is not racketeering by any means -- this is running a business," she told CNN Radio in March. Palfrey was working on a book when she died, according to Time magazine.

Constitutional riots

Like so many things about Bush administration foreign policy, today's release of an al-Jazeera cameraman held without charge for six years at the U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, raises a lot of very troubling questions. Of course, it's a great day for Sami al-Hajj of Sudan and his family. "I've been dreaming of this moment for the past seven years," al-Hajj told the Arabic news service, according to the Reuters international news service. Al-Hajj was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 by Pakistani intelligence officers and turned over to the United States, which accused him of being an enemy combatant and sent him to Guantanamo Bay, even though he had a work visa and al-Jazeera said he was on assignment. The United States has labeled captives being held at Guantanamo Bay as "enemy combatant" to deny them many rights under the U.S. Constitution, including access to the U.S. court system. The fact that al-Hajj was acting a journalist when he was captured raised even more questions. Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organization that had campaigned for al-Hajj's release, said the cameraman was suspected of smuggling guns for al-Qaida and running an Islamic Web site, even though he was never charged and no evidence was ever produced. "U.S. authorities never proved that he had been involved in any kind of criminal activity," the group said, according to Reuters. An attorney who visited al-Hajj three weeks ago said al-Hajj had been on a hunger strike for more than a year and was being force-fed. "We are delighted that Sami al-Hajj can finally be reunited with his family and friends," said Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "But his detention for six years, without the most basic due process, is a grave injustice and represents a threat to all journalists working in conflict areas."