Norman Solomon

War Politics: Numb and Number

Playwright Lillian Hellman said, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."

The statement was in a letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The year was 1952. We tell ourselves that the McCarthy era was vastly different than our own - but what about the political fashions of 2010?

This year's fashions cut mean figures on Washington's runways. Conformities lie, and people die..

A dozen years after Hellman defied HUAC, a senator defied the fearful conformity of 1964. Seeing the escalation of the Vietnam War on the near horizon, Wayne Morse spoke truth to - and about - power. The contrast with today's liberal baseline on Capitol Hill is painfully evident if you watch footage of Senator Morse for two minutes...

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Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life

When the US military began a major offensive in southern Afghanistan over the weekend, the killing of children and other civilians was predictable. Lofty rhetoric aside, such deaths come with the territory of war and occupation.

A month ago, President Obama pledged $100 million in US government aid to earthquake-devastated Haiti. Compare that to the $100 billion price tag to keep 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan for a year.

While commanders in Afghanistan were launching what The New York Times called "the largest offensive military operation since the American-led coalition invaded the country in 2001," the situation in Haiti was clearly dire...

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Don’t Call It a 'Defense' Budget

This isn't "defense."

The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day.

Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.

"Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors," the New York Times reports this morning (February 2).

It isn't defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for healthcare, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit...

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Norman Solomon on war, conformity, and the Democratic Party

Norman Solomon interview 1/27/10 from Jon Stiffler on Vimeo.

Flares in the Political Dark

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 be able to see that the biggest problem among progressives has been undue deference to the Obama administration...

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Norman Solomon on C-SPAN's Washington Journal: December 13, 2009

More videos of Norman Solomon on C-SPAN

Mr. President, War Is Not Peace

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 noble goal of peace. But the rationales scarcely intersect with actual war. The oratory sugarcoats the poisons, helping to kill hope in the name of it.

A few months ago, when I visited an Afghan office for women's empowerment, staffers took me to a pilot project in one of Kabul's poorest neighborhoods. There, women were learning small-scale business skills while also gaining personal strength and mutual support...

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Afghanistan on Counterspin and KPFA

Norman Solomon was interviewed on FAIR's radio program Counterspin.

Sunday Sedition - December 6, 2009 at 9:00am

Click to listen (or download)

A discussion of the Afghanistan war escalation with Aimee Allison on "The Morning Show" on KPFA Radio. The 20-minute conversation comes after nine minutes of news.

The Morning Show - November 30, 2009 at 7:00am

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The Hollow Politics of Escalation

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 the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down."

But "eventually" is a long way off. In the meantime, the result of Washington’s hollow politics is more carnage.

The next days and weeks will bring an avalanche of hype about insisting on measurable progress and shifting burdens onto the Afghan army - while the US military expands the war...

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Afghanistan: Endless War

Listen to the October 14, 2009 talk by Norman Solomon on his trip to Afghanistan which aired on Alternative Radio