Norman Solomon

The U.S. government is waging an air war in Iraq. "In recent months, the tempo of American bombing seems to have increased," Seymour Hersh reported in the Dec. 5 edition of The New Yorker. "Most of the targets appear to be in the hostile, predominantly Sunni provinces that surround Baghdad and along the Syrian border." … Continue reading “Hidden in Plane Sight”

This week began with the New York Times noting that “all of Washington is consumed with debate over the direction of the war in Iraq.” The debate – long overdue – is a serious blow to the war makers in Washington, but the U.S. war effort will go on for years more unless the antiwar … Continue reading “Peace Too Important to Be Left to Pols and Pundits”

The huge gap between Tehran and Washington has widened in recent months. Top officials of Iran and the United States are not even within shouting distance. The styles of rhetoric differ, but the messages in both directions are filled with hostility. While visiting Iran’s capital in early summer, during the home stretch of the presidential … Continue reading “Axis of Hardliners, From Tehran to Washington”

A lot of media outlets are now scrutinizing some of the lies told by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq. Yet the same news organizations are bypassing their own key roles in the marketing of those lies. A case in point is the New York Times. On Saturday, hours after the indictment of … Continue reading “The New York Times Acquits Itself”

While indictment fever gripped the Washington press corps this month, the president’s spin doctor was incapacitated. An ailing Karl Rove could not help the Republican search for a media cure. With temperature rising, the political physician was in no position to cure himself or anyone else. Now, a media siege is underway at the White … Continue reading “At the White House, the Spin Doctor Is Ill”

By a twist of political fate, the Oct. 28 deadline for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to take action on the Plamegate matter is exactly 25 years after the only debate of the presidential race between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter. How the major media outlets choose to handle the current explosive scandal in the … Continue reading “Media at a Huge Crossroads, 25 Years After Reagan’s Triumph”

More than any other New York Times reporter, Judith Miller took the lead with stories claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Now, a few years later, she’s facing heightened scrutiny in the aftermath of a pair of articles that appeared in the Times on Sunday – a lengthy investigative piece about Miller plus … Continue reading “The Fourth Estate and the Warfare State”

When the Bush administration fires off a new round of speechifying about “the war on terror,” the U.S. press rarely goes beyond the surface meanings of rhetoric provided by White House scriptwriters. But the president’s big speech at the National Endowment for Democracy on Oct. 6 could have been annotated along these lines: “We will … Continue reading “The War on Terror: A Translation”

Dan Rather caused some ripples the other day when he lamented the state of U.S. news media. The former CBS anchor said "there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career," according to the Hollywood Reporter. Speaking at a law school in New … Continue reading “The Occasional Media Ritual of Lamenting the Habitual”

The New York Times began this week with an editorial that typifies the media mindset of the warfare state. Monday’s editorial warns of dire consequences from a growing deficit that has been boosted by tax cuts – in combination with "the pre-Katrina priorities laid down by Mr. Bush." Those priorities include a U.S. military budget … Continue reading “Confronting the Warfare State”