Norman Solomon

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Category: Media Beat column

  • Flares in the Political Dark

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    The winter solstice of 2009 arrived as a grim metaphor for the current politics of healthcare, war and a lot more. “In a dark time,” wrote the poet Theodore Roethke, “the eye begins to see.” After a year of escalation in Afghanistan, solicitude toward Wall Street and the incredible shrinking healthcare reform, we ought to…

  • Mr. President, War Is Not Peace

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    Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war. As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for “the continued expansion of our moral imagination.” Yet, his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify. Lofty rationales easily tell us that warfare is striving for the…

  • The Hollow Politics of Escalation

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    An underlying conceit of the new spin about benchmarks and timetables for Afghanistan is the notion that pivotal events there can be choreographed from Washington. So, a day ahead of the president’s Tuesday night speech, The New York Times quoted an unnamed top administration official saying, “He wants to give a clear sense of both…

  • Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan

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    This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop making war in Afghanistan. Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party’s 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled “End the US…

  • The War Stampede

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    Disputes are raging within the Obama administration over how to continue the US war effort in Afghanistan. A new leak tells us that Washington’s ambassador in Kabul, former four-star Gen. Karl Eikenberry, has cautioned against adding more troops while President Hamid Karzai keeps disappointing American policymakers. This is the extent of the current debate within…