BRITAIN

BRITAIN
The Telegraph, London, Dec. 23: The questioning of Pakistani scientists about alleged nuclear assistance to Iran places the West in a dilemma. On the one hand, President Pervaiz Musharraf is a key ally in the war on global terror. On the other, he heads a country with good claim to be a leading secondary proliferator of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Gen. Musharraf's government says that any help given to Iran was done in a private capacity, a questionable claim given the army's control over the drive for an "Islamic bomb." It also argues, more persuasively, that the co-operation took place under a previous regime.
Islamic fundamentalists
Washington and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) understandably want to question the "father" of that bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and his associates about their alleged dealings with Iran. But to hand over scientists regarded by many as national heroes would leave Gen. Musharraf vulnerable to the charge of betrayal by Islamic fundamentalists. Indeed, were Dr. Khan to be extradited to America, the president could be replaced by a leader far less sympathetic to Western goals. The challenge with Pakistan is to determine past complicity without undermining a valuable ally.
CANADA
The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Dec. 20: In separate rebukes to President George W. Bush this week, two U.S. appeal courts have shown why judicial independence is a cornerstone of democracy.
Mr. Bush has been fighting a ruthless terrorist foe, but in doing so he has sometimes acted as if the state were a law unto itself, and beyond legal reproach. It isn't, said the appeal courts, in declaring illegal the detention of foreign terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and of a U.S. terrorist suspect in a South Carolina brig. Even in times of national peril the rule of law needs to be preserved, and that task properly falls to the judicial branch of government. No doubt it is inconvenient for a country facing a ruthless foe to have to worry about a detained person's right to retain counsel, to have a hearing before an impartial judge and to be charged promptly or set free. Terrorists do not fight according to recognized rules of war. They do not wear uniforms. They aim their weapons at civilians.
Constitutional requirement
But President Bush has acted as if he had carte blanche. He is acting as if the Constitution did not exist, just as -- in the case of Guantanamo Bay itself, where nearly all the foreign terrorist suspects have been denied access to counsel -- he has acted as if both international and U.S. law were irrelevant.
The rule of law is only as strong as its defenders. How good to see it still has some very strong defenders.