Norman Solomon

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Category: Media Beat column

  • The Next Phase of Healthcare Apartheid

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    In Washington, “healthcare reform” has degenerated into a sick joke. At this point, only spinners who’ve succumbed to their own vertigo could use the word “robust” to describe the public option in the healthcare bill that the House Democratic leadership has sent to the floor… Read the full column

  • Uncle Sam in Afghanistan: Good Help Is Hard to Find

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    Almost eight years after choosing Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan government, Uncle Sam would like to give him a pink slip. But it’s not easy. And the grim fiasco of Afghanistan’s last election is shadowing the next. Another display of electioneering and voting has been ordered up from Washington. But after a chemical mix…

  • Starting Another Year of War in Afghanistan

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    October 2009 has begun with The New York Times reporting that “the president, vice president and an array of cabinet secretaries, intelligence chiefs, generals, diplomats and advisers gathered in a windowless basement room of the White House for three hours on Wednesday to chart a new course in Afghanistan.” As this month begins the ninth…

  • Men Toting Guns, In Kabul and Washington

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    For those who believe in making war, Kabul is a notable work product. After 30 years, the results are in: a devastated city. A stale witticism calls Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai “the mayor of Kabul.” Now, not even. On block after block in the Afghan capital, AK-47s are conspicuous in the hands of men on…

  • A Little Girl in Kabul

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    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…