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--> --> Arafat has the most important choice to make The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Fla. With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon now saying his country will take a "low-profile" approach toward the United States-led fight against terrorism, attention shifts to Yasser Arafat. Recent events showed dramatically that of all the worldwide leaders with a decision to make, he has the most important choice. Since he signed the Oslo Accords eight years ago, Mr. Arafat has frustrated Israeli and American politicians and negotiators with his inconsistent attitude toward terrorism ... While some Islamic countries criticized the attacks on Afghanistan, a top Palestinian official did not. Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaath said, "We do not need anyone using Palestine as a pretext for their own purposes." ... Predictably, terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad criticized the campaign against the Taliban and called for retaliation against the United States and Israel. For Mr. Arafat, the alternatives are clear. He can give in to those organizations for whom violence is the only answer, or he finally can act like the statesman he has claimed he wants to be. Recent history offers two reminders - Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin - that the right choice carries personal risk. But Mr. Arafat has insisted it is the option he prefers, and this is the chance to prove it. Be careful of that `reaction gap' By Molly Ivins AUSTIN - Afghanistan is to nation-building what Afghanistan is to war - pretty much the last place on earth you'd choose, if you had any choice at all. I point this out not to oppose the idea, about which I think we have no choice, but to underline that the task is hard, long and incredibly complicated. President Bush has said that from the beginning, but it cannot be said too often. There are some signs of what could become a dangerous division in what has been an unusually unified America since this crisis began, and they have to do with a class difference in information. To oversimplify, those who are getting their information from the Internet and/or a broad range of publications are having conversations with one another that are radically different from those heard on many radio talk shows. This is more than the simplistic jingoism that is a constant in American life; this is simplistic jingoism with a dangerously short attention span. The "let's nuke 'em" crowd is still looking for a short, simple solution, and there just isn't one. More stark evidence of this is the poll of Pakistanis just released by Newsweek, and the numbers need to be read carefully: While 51 percent support their government's cooperation with the U.S. during the crisis, 83 percent are sympathetic to the Taliban, and almost half believe Israel was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Fortunately for us, bin Laden and the Taliban are taking care of that theory. I think one of the few mistakes the Bush administration has made so far in this was to criticize the networks for putting on bin Laden - we want everybody to hear him claim credit for those attacks. While some of us search for the answer to the question, "Why do they hate us?" the voices on radio talk shows are answering, "Who cares? Nuke 'em." Those inclined to think that's not a bad plan might keep in mind the already-classic lead by Barry Bearak of The New York Times: "If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have far to go. This is a post-apocalyptic place of felled cities, parched land and downtrodden people." One downside to the short-simple-answer school is that those folks are going to become extremely frustrated. As others have observed, talk radio is often not so much a forum for discussion as it is a medium for venting anger, so perhaps it serves a useful purpose. But it also seems to foment anger. In a continuing effort to focus on the practical, I see no reason not to lay out the evidence against bin Laden. It's being leaked to the media so widely one can only assume that's a policy. The Taliban are now saying they will turn bin Laden over to a third party if they see evidence. We don't want to negotiate? Fine, we don't have to talk to them. We can just make the information public for everyone, with the exception, obviously, of shielding investigative tools. The money trail offers insights on the daunting complexity of what we face. Some of the charitable money we are questioning, from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, goes to the madrasas - religious schools of varying quality. Some offer education, some educate solely for jihad; many of the Taliban are graduates of these schools. The madrasas, in addition to religious education, provide room and board for the boys of poor families. In Pakistan, where almost the entirety of the budget goes to the military and debt service, the madrasas represent almost the whole of civil society for the poor. When experts talk about building a civil society, they mean from scratch. While some of us are talking about how to build a civil society, achieve energy independence and settle long-standing international disputes, others are reacting like the waitress in an Austin drinking establishment, who refused to serve the East Indian guest of a regular patron, repeatedly calling him a terrorist and insisting that he leave. That's the reaction gap that concerns me. Molly Ivins is a syndicated columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Fire in the forest: Is it a dream or a nightmare? By Jack E. Williams Forest Supervisor for the Rogue River and Siskiyou National Forests Wildfire is a natural part of our forests. Wildfires will come to southwestern Oregon, the question is whether we will have high intensity burns over vast areas or more numerous, mixed-intensity fires that cover smaller acreages. Many people questioned the need to suppress the Craggie Fire, which burned 275 acres in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Craggie was ignited by a lightning bolt on September 15th and the Forest Service spent $2.2 million in control efforts. Many of us in the Forest Service also would like to see more managed wildfires (naturally-occurring fires managed for resource benefits) and more prescribed fires (agency-ignited fires). Unfortunately, with conditions of this fire season, risks often were too great to allow wildfires to burn. Because of extremely dry conditions and large volumes of down wood in the vicinity, our models predicted that the Craggie Fire had the ability to burn well beyond the wilderness borders. Because of our desire to have minimal human impact on the wilderness and because of concerns for firefighter safety, we employed a relatively small ground attack on the fire. Much of our firefighting effort, and a large majority of the cost, went towards aerial tankers and helicopters. Much has been said about our inability to let the Craggie Fire burn because we did not have a final wilderness fire management plan. Many factors must be considered in deciding whether to manage a wildfire for resource benefit or to suppress it. These factors include fuel loads, moisture levels, weather predictions, location of the fire, and available firefighting resources. The Siskiyou National Forest does not have a completed fire management plan for the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, but I promise we will have this for next season. When forest and weather conditions warrant, we should look for opportunities to manage wildfires for resource benefits. But it is important to note that even if the fire management plan was complete, conditions that existed at the time Craggie ignited would have required the Forest Service to suppress the fire. Fuel loads, drought conditions and warm weather all argued towards suppression. The Forest Service has a variety of options relative to how a fire is suppressed. Natural topographic features, such as ridgelines or rock outcrops, offer fuel breaks to manage a wildfire. We can decide whether bulldozers or other equipment will be used. And, we must always hold public and firefighter safety as our primary concern. We realize that suppression efforts from bulldozers and other heavy equipment may cause more environmental harm than do the fires themselves. In fact, even large fires mostly are positive from an ecological perspective, although there may be short-term degradation. In the high-intensity burn areas of the Quartz Fire, soils already are showing signs of life as numerous plant species are sprouting above the nutrient-rich ash. For the Quartz Fire, however, homes were threatened and the fire clearly had the ability to spread to a much larger area. Ground and aerial suppression efforts were necessary. So, in each incident, a tradeoff analysis must take place to consider risks, uncertainties, and benefits. To the appropriate extent, minimal impact suppression techniques will be used. Fires will come in one form or another. The task before us is to manage for the long-term health of our forests. Ultimately however, we must learn to live with fire as a natural part of our landscape. Our process to arrive at such a point must be scientifically sound and well conceived. How we choose to live with fire will determine whether we can dream of the positive role of fire or whether we become mired in the nightmares of human and resource risk that accompany fighting mother nature at a grand scale. Email your... 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