War Made Invisible – How America Hides the Human Toll or Its Military Machine
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The view from Afghanistan
I'm about 7,400 miles from home, but that's the least of the distances between the pleasures of Marin and the agonies of war here in Kabul. Across Afghanistan, when the call to prayer greets a new day, the most fervent prayers are for peace.
To the ears of Americans, "peace" may sound a bit wispy or abstract – but here it's a hope-laced word for a lifeline that continues to fray. Thirty years of war have decimated Kabul and much of the rest of Afghanistan.
From the air, looking out on a vast panorama of sandy-colored mountains and valleys near Kabul, I wondered: Where are the trees?
They're gone – destroyed by war and deprivation – victims of countless bombs and the collapse of irrigation.
At home, we push for green sustainability. Here, the streets are blowing with harsh dust, a brutal harvest of war…
Read the full Marin Independent Journal op-ed
Listen to a short interview
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A Little Girl in Kabul
Yesterday, I met a little girl named Guljumma. She's seven years old, and she lives in Kabul at a place called Helmand Refugee Camp District 5.
Guljumma talked about what happened one morning last year when she was sleeping at home in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Valley. At
about 5 a.m., bombs exploded. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.With a soft matter-of-fact voice, Guljumma described those events…
Read the full column (which includes a photo)
Readers who wish to assist residents of refugee camps in Kabul can make a tax-deductible donation to PARSA, a nongovernmental organization that provides vocational training and employment placement for displaced Afghans.
The contributions can be made via the website afghanistan-parsa.org or by check to: PARSA, P.O. Box 31292, Seattle, WA 98103
Robert Koehler wrote September 10th, 2009 in the Chicago Tribune:
OK, let's jump now to a refugee camp in Kabul, where journalist Norman Solomon introduces us to a 7-year-old girl named Guljumma Khan, who lost her arm in a U.S. bombing raid, and whose father has gotten nowhere trying to get redress or the least support fromthe United States, the United Nations or the Afghan government to obtain medical assistance for her or take care of his family.
Furthermore, Solomon writes, "Basics like food arrive at the camp only sporadically." The girl's father "pointed to a plastic bag containing a few pounds of rice. It was his responsibility to divide the rice for the 100 families" in the refugee camp.
"Is the U.S. government willing to really help Guljumma, who now lives each day and night in the squalor of a refugee camp?" asks Solomon. "Is the government willing to spend the equivalent of the cost of a single warhead to assist her?"
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The Afghanistan Gap: Press vs. Public
This month, a lot of media stories have compared President Johnson's war in Vietnam and President Obama's war in Afghanistan. The comparisons are often valid, but a key parallel rarely gets mentioned — the media's insistent support for the war even after most of the public has turned against it.
This omission relies on the mythology that the U.S. news media functioned as tough critics of the Vietnam War in real time, a fairy tale so widespread that it routinely masquerades as truth. In fact, overall, the default position of the corporate media is to bond with war policymakers in Washington — insisting for the longest time that the war must go on…
Read the full column
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Hope for health reform fading
A year ago, I sat with other delegates at the Democratic National Convention and cheered when Barack Obama said in his acceptance speech: "Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American."
Now, the promise is fading.Now, the promise is fading…
Read the full Marin Independent op-ed
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When the Dead Have No Say
Official Washington is buzzing about "metrics." Can the war in Afghanistan be successful?
Don't ask the dead.Days ago, under the headline "White House Struggles to Gauge Afghan Success," a New York Times story made a splash. "As the American military comes to full strength in the Afghan buildup, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won."Don't ask the dead. They don't count…Read the full column. -
The Incredible Shrinking Healthcare Reform
Like soap in a rainstorm, "healthcare reform" is wasting away.
As this week began, a leading follower of conventional wisdom, journalist Cokie Roberts, told NPR listeners: "This is evolving legislation. And the administration is now talking about a glide path towards universal coverage, rather than immediate universal coverage."
Notions of universal healthcare are fading in the power centers of politics — while more and more attention focuses on the care and feeding of the insurance industry…
Read the full column
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Spinning Healthcare: A Bad Case of Vertigo
"I want to cover everybody," President Obama said at his news conference Wednesday night. "Now, the truth is that unless you have a — what's called a single-payer system, in which everybody's automatically covered, then you're probably not going to reach every single individual. . ."
The same conventional wisdom keeping single payer off Washington's table has been spinning for various "reform" plans with such accelerated RPMs that at this point the nation's "healthcare debate" is suffering from a severe case of vertigo…
Read the full column.
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Beyond the Hype: Cronkite and the Vietnam War
Media eulogies for Walter Cronkite — including from progressive commentators — rarely talk about his coverage of the Vietnam War before 1968. This obit omit is essential to the myth of Cronkite as a courageous truth-teller.
But facts are facts, and history is history — including what Cronkite actually did as TV's most influential journalist during the first years of the Vietnam War. Despite all the posthumous praise for Cronkite's February 1968 telecast that dubbed the war "a stalemate," the facts of history show that the broadcast came only after Cronkite's protracted support for the war.
Read the full column
Obituary quoting Norman Solomon
See War Made Easy
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The North Bay needs a Green New Deal
Can the North Bay achieve a modern version of the New Deal to revive the region’s economy and promote a sustainable green future?
The obstacles are huge — and so are the imperatives. A massive recession is boosting unemployment, while severe pollution continues to fuel global warming. The need for a Green New Deal is greater than ever…
Read the full op-ed