Today's memorial service for Michael Jackson at the privately owned Staples Center reminds The Times editorial board of a sad fact of life in Los Angeles: It's a city without a public square. Though the backers of LA Live once promised that the downtown entertainment mall would become L.A.'s version of Times Square, the fact remains that it's a private space whose owners can bar the public anytime they choose.

We also weigh in on President Obama's trip to Russia, which isn't expected to accomplish much -- but even a small thaw in relations between the two countries, and the modest improvement represented by the nuclear weapons pact concluded Monday, is better than the chilly status quo.

And we ponder the lessons to be learned from the example of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died Monday at 93. Though many see parallels between the mistakes made in Iraq and the mistakes made by McNamara in Vietnam, we think the larger lesson is that using yesterday's solutions to today's problems is often the pathway to failure.

Over on the opposite page, columnist Jonah Goldberg thinks all the sturm und drang over the canceled "salons" by the Washington Post, in which lobbyists were invited to pay heavily to attend get-togethers with the newspaper's journalists and top politicians, amounts to little more than posing. After all, many publications offer similar meet-and-greet opportunities, Goldberg says.

The hand-wringing over genetically modified foods, meanwhile, reminds author Tom Standage of another food-related hysteria from a few centuries ago -- over the potato. When the tubers were first discovered in the New World, Europeans feared they were a dangerous, unholy poison. They got over it, just as they'll probably eventually get over their irrational fears about improved crops.

And psychiatry professor Sander L. Gilman cautions against jumping to conclusions about Michael Jackson's cosmetic surgery. True, the King of Pop clearly was fond of surgical reshaping, but that doesn't necessarily indicate self-loathing.

* Illustration by Bob Daly / For the Times

On the Op-Ed page today, Paul VanDevelder, author of "Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America's Road to Empire Through Indian Territory," discusses an impending ruling by U.S. District Judge James Redden in Oregon that may determine the fate of salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers. VanDevelder argues that dam removal is the best option for the salmon's survival, but it's also the most politically turbulent:

The Columbia-Snake corridor is the salmon's only option for survival, and Redden is probably their last hope. He is the one person in this entire drama who is legally obligated to use science and the law to protect the fish from extinction and from the whims of politicians. If the law and science are unable to trump politics to save this fishery -- a fishery that was the most productive in the world just two generations ago -- how will we ever meet the towering challenges posed by global climate change?

Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, released a report today accusing Israel of "wanton destruction" and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas of "war crimes," each committed during the 22 violent days last December in the Gaza Strip.

But both Israel and Hamas deny the claims and are shouting, yet again, about why the other side didn't receive more of a rebuke for the atrocities committed.

Said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, "Things presented as facts are untrue and have no connection to reality." He was most likely referring to the high death toll the report cited and the judgment that Israel's attacks could not "be justified on grounds of military necessity."

On the other side, Hamas rejected the report because it did not chastise the Israeli military enough for the actions it committed against Palestine.

The report, as with the United Nations' inquiry that is currently gathering evidence on the conflict, sought to dispel the myths and rumors that have added to already high tensions in the region, particularly the assertion that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields (a claim the report said had no basis in fact). Instead, the report said Israeli soldiers effectively turned Palestinians into human shields by forcing them to stay in the homes that soldiers used as makeshift military bases.

As with any dispute between Palestinians and Israelis, there was no admission of shared fault, no statement that "we both committed war crimes, killed civilians and launched rockets across borders." That seems hard to contest, yet each side tried its best to do so -- as it always does. A microcosm of the larger conflict, the reactions to the report show why no progress is being made, and why this event will leave a scar on the relationship for years to come.

Photo: Palestinian children play in front of their ruined houses, hit during Israel's 22-day offensive over Gaza, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip today. Credit: Said Khatib / AFP/Getty Images

In the Waziristan province of Pakistan, a stronghold of the militant Taliban group, a U.S. drone killed more than 40 people and wounded dozens of others attending a funeral for a Pakistani who was killed earlier that day -- by a drone. 

Though there are conflicting reports over whether these casualties were civilians or Taliban militant fighters mourning the death of their comrade-in-arms, the fact remains that such an attack on a funeral will have a backlash, no matter who was hit.

The drone, according to Reuters, was gunning for Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Taliban movement and the alleged plotter behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Of course, he escaped unharmed -- a familiar tag line in these tales.

Though the drones -- pilotless, missile-packing aircraft that patrol Pakistan's treacherous terrain -- are amazingly capable of spotting and hitting their targets, doing so at a funeral is only fanning the flames. Funerals are no less important a ceremony to Muslims and Pakistanis as they are to Americans. Is desecrating such an important cultural occasion -- Taliban or not -- a smart thing for the United States to do? 

While the drone's sortie Tuesday could be seen as making a dent in the Taliban militia, perhaps even more dangerous than the militia itself is the passionately angry sentiments that may come from such an attack -- and the retaliation that anger provokes.

Photo: Supporters of Islamic political party Jamat-e-Islami shout slogans in Peshawar Pakistan on April 24 during a protest against US drones attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas near the Afghan border. Credit: Arshad Arbab / EPA

Monday's Los Angeles Times Opinion pages feature Palestinian parliament member Mustafa Bargouthi, who calls on President Obama to be firm in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Don't be like Clinton, Bargouthi writes, and don't be like Bush:

I am increasingly convinced that if Obama fails to speak out now, it will doom the two-state solution forever. Further fiddling in Washington -- after eight years of it -- will consign Jerusalem, the West Bank and the two-state solution to an Israeli expansionism that will overwhelm the ability of cartographers to concoct a viable Palestinian state.

Bargouthi was runner-up to Mahmoud Abbas for president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005 voting. He has written for the Times opinion pages before, here and here.

A quite different view is offered by Netanyahu's former ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, who argues that -- two-state solution aside -- the U.S. and Israel are on the same page. Dore says the Israeli prime minister wants something, if not statehood, for Palestine:

The reality is that although Netanyahu has not embraced this formula, he has stated that Israel does not want to rule over the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He has added that he wants the Palestinians to have all the power necessary to rule themselves, but none of the power to undermine the security of Israel. What that means is that if a Palestinian state were to arise, it would have to be demilitarized and could not sign defense pacts with, say, Iran, allowing it to receive a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (as Lebanon did in 1982).

Dore Gold, who heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was in the Los Angeles Times opinion pages in 1998.

More Obama: The editorial page applauds the U.S. reversing a Bush policy and joining the United Nations Human Rights Council. Now, how about setting a human rights agenda, and following it at home?

Obama administration decisions last week to withhold photographs of detainees being abused and to continue Bush-era military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects cast doubt on the president's commitment to cleaning house. So too does a threat to halt intelligence-sharing with Britain if a British court makes public details of interrogation techniques used against a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

More torture: What did Nancy Pelosi know, and when did she know it?

And, oh yeah, elections. Again. Gregory Rodriguez checks out tomorrow's election day and says enough is enough. And it's true, enough is enough, but that doesn't stop us from telling you how we think you should vote.

Photo: AP Photo / Amar Awad / pool

The Times' editorial board in the coming days will most likely address President Obama's decision to block the release of new photos showing alleged abuse of prisoners by U.S. personnel in overseas prisons. The administration's policy is a reversal of the Defense Department's previously stated position on the issue.

Here's the administration's position:

"The president was concerned about harm to the troops," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday afternoon. "The president, as you all know, met with his legal team last week because he did not feel comfortable with the release of the photos."

Gibbs added, "the president reflected on this case and believes that they have the potential to pose harm to the troops. ... Nothing is added by the release of the photos."

Click here to read reaction from other blogs, newspapers and the like.

Before we weigh in, we're interested in hearing what you have to say. Tell us what you think by taking our unscientific poll, leaving a comment or both. 

Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images

The Obama administration has abandoned the "war on terror" -- semantically, that is -- and author Reza Aslan says good riddance. In a pointed Op-Ed, Aslan argues that the phrase was counterproductive:

By lumping together the disparate forces, movements, armies, ideas and grievances of the greater Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia; by placing them in a single category ("enemy"), assigning them a single identity ("terrorist"); and by countering them with a single strategy (war), the Bush administration seemed to be making a blatant statement that the war on terror was, in fact, "a war against Islam."

That is certainly how the conflict has been viewed by a majority in four major Muslim countries -- Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Indonesia -- in a worldpublicopinion.org poll in 2007. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe that the purpose of the war on terror is to "spread Christianity in the region" of the Middle East.

Also on the Op-Ed page, former Justice Department attorney David B. Rivkin Jr. bemoans the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to examine a West Virginia Supreme Court judge's refusal to recuse himself from a case involving his largest campaign contributor, and columnist Tim Rutten calls on the Los Angeles Unified School District to entrust its over-budget and behind-schedule arts campus downtown to a competent charter-school company.

On the other side of the Opinion divide, the Times editorial board again urges Washington to push Iraqi's Shiite-led government to reconcile with former Sunni insurgents. It shows little sympathy for former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), despite the prosecutorial misconduct that contributed to his defeat at the polls in November. And it calls on Sacramento to scrutinize why medical care costs in the workers' compensation system are rising so rapidly:

...[T]he mechanisms that insurers use to keep a lid on healthcare expenses are becoming increasingly expensive. And no wonder -- in the overhauled workers' comp system, more people are likely to review an injured worker's paperwork than his X-rays.

Credit: Anthony Russo For The Times

The Times editorial page sums up President Obama's tour of Europe and Turkey as an impressive show that won the president accolades, but very little else; Obama's hopes for more stimulus spending by the G-20, more troops for Afghanistan and more condemnation of North Korea's nuclear ambitions went largely unrealized. We also find much to like in Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' military budget proposal, which aims to shift the emphasis from fighting big conventional wars to taking on insurgencies like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gates and Obama hardly aim to disarm America, but there's no question that they intend to buy less ammo. Given that the United States spends nearly as much on defense as every other country on Earth combined, that's not a bad plan.

Finally, The Times praises Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts to wrest sacrifices from city employees, who must accept pay cuts in this tough economy if they want to avoid widescale layoffs that would only worsen local unemployment.

Over on the Op-Ed page, American Prospect associate editor Ezra Klein compares "nationalized" healthcare systems in Britain and Canada to the private health system in the U.S., and finds that both systems find ways to ration care. The choice comes down to occasional waiting times for elective surgery, or excluding many people from getting care at all:

So although Britain and Canada have decided that no one will go without, even if some must occasionally wait, the U.S. has decided that most of those who can't afford care simply won't get it.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg assails the Obama administration for opening its arms to the discredited United Nations Human Rights Council, a pack of nations that ignores rampant human rights abuses in places like Sudan and Cuba while taking every opportunity to condemn Israel. Rather than trying to change this reprehensible group from the inside, Obama should cut all ties and delegitimize it by ignoring it. And novelist Susan Straight finds that her husband's simple advice to the girls' basketball team he coaches applies as much to everyday life as it does to the court.

Editorial cartoon by Lisa Benson / Washington Post Writers Group

The editorial board continues to parse President Obama's budget intentions, noting that though his blueprint is indeed transparent about the costs of the Iraq war, it is less forthright about the probably near-term future of the economy. The board also bemoans fractured immigration policies that provide residency to some refugees but not others, and sides with a student who gave a religiously-based speech in class about his views against same-sex marriage, after which he allegedly was taken to task by the professor.

As long as he was opposing same-sex marriage on religious grounds -- and not harassing individual students -- he was making an argument that figured prominently in the public debate about Proposition 8. It's not an argument this page finds persuasive, but we wouldn't try to suppress it. Neither should a college preparing students to live in a contentious democracy.

On the other side of the fold, political journalist Marc Cooper chides Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for his  fuzzy response to questions about whether he will commit to serving out a full second term if he is elected. Take a pass on running for governor and pay full attention to the city's tremendous needs, Cooper advises. And Joel Stein reflects on how everyone loves science, until it contradicts what they want to believe.

People on the far right don't believe in evolution, global warming or doing stem cell research. Most of their opposition is rooted in the fact that these ideas challenge the Bible, which is the oldest book they know. I'm guessing Greek conservatives are OK with killing your dad and making love to your mom.

But since I moved to L.A., I've discovered that liberals hate science just as much as conservatives, and they talk about it a lot more. They'll reject any study that contradicts their Mother-Nature-is-perfect myth, which is oddly similar to the conservatives' thesis."

Friday's Letters to the editor features responses to this column by Tim Rutten urging Barack Obama to authorize the release of photos of soldiers' coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base. 

Most correspondents think it's a bad idea.  Ned Rice, of Marina Del Rey, cites politics:

As usual, Tim Rutten's column is interesting, thoroughly researched, well written -- and totally wrong.

The government's ban on the release of photos or video of the remains of American soldiers was instituted in 1991 for one simple, compelling reason: The United States of America does not desecrate its war dead.

If President Obama lifts this ban, we can expect to see these sacred images in shrill, partisan attack ads, from both Rutten's side of the aisle and mine, that would exploit our fallen heroes -- their bodies, mind you -- for craven political purposes.

As Rutten observes, the American people are not infants. We do not require visual aids to understand the costs of war, nor cynical media campaigns to comprehend what is meant by the last full measure of devotion. Here's hoping that our new president, in his infinite wisdom, does not add the lifting of this ban to his already impressive list of blunders.

Gail Johnson-Roth, of Los Angeles, brings up more personal concerns:

My survey of families of the fallen indicates that more than 90% say no to taking pictures of flag-covered coffins before families can have a private moment to welcome their hero home.

My son, Spc. Daniel P. Cagle, died in Iraq in May 2007. I want to remember how and why he lived, what he fought for and his bravery. Families deserve those first moments out of the public eye to say their final hellos and goodbyes.

Yes, people should remember that these young men and women sacrifice everything for us here at home -- but let us remember why they lived. Do not reduce their service to a flag-draped box. My son believed in what he was doing, and I believe in him.

Reacting to this Op-Ed by former Bush speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen, Sherman Oaks' William Seaton questions whether worrying much about Al Qaeda trying to bring down the U.S. financial system is the best target for American vigilance:

After the subprime fiasco, Wall Street greed and deregulation gone amok, [Osama] Bin Laden will need several dozen nuclear-tipped missiles to do more damage than we have already inflicted on ourselves.

While we are trying to hunt down some robed fanatics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we might want to spend a little more time keeping an eye on the financial terrorists at home who move from the boardroom to the trading floor to congressional chambers, wearing the clever disguise of a suit and a tie.

More on California's budget, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and plans to run "green" transmission lines through the desert, too.

Photo: Coffins carrying U.S. military personnel arriving at Dover Air Force Base.  Credit: Reuters.