Author: Norman Solomon

If Joe Biden fully meant what he said after meeting with George Floyd’s family in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he won’t nominate Rahm Emanuel to be the U.S. ambassador to Japan. But recent news reports tell us that’s exactly what the president intends to do.

After the meeting, Biden declared that the murder of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer "launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ’60s – protests that peacefully unified people of every race and generation to collectively say enough of the senseless killings." The words were valuable, and so was the symbolism of the president hosting loved ones of Floyd on the first anniversary of his death.

But the value of the White House event will be weakened if Biden names Emanuel to one of this country’s top diplomatic posts – despite his well-earned notoriety for the cover-up of a video showing the police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Continue reading “Biden’s Eloquence About George Floyd Will Ring Hollow if Rahm Emanuel Gets Ambassador Nomination”

By RootsAction.org

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams made public statements Friday in opposition to the potential nomination of Michèle Flournoy to be Secretary of Defense. Their statements were released by the activist organization RootsAction.org.

Ellsberg said: "Michèle Flournoy was wrong about Iraq, as Biden has acknowledged he was. But she was then also wrong about Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya. She is wrong right now in opposing the congressional ban on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and in planning to maintain Minuteman-type land-based ICBMs, the hair-trigger to the Doomsday Machine. Her unquestioned intelligence and competence have long been in service to her serious interventionist misjudgments and to her own involvement in a revolving-door military-industrial complex. This is ‘experience’ that President Biden should not be seeking to duplicate in his own term."

Williams said: "If President-elect Biden really has a progressive agenda in mind for his administration, he should appoint members of his cabinet and other high-level positions who demonstrate progressive thinking and do not move this fractured country backwards. Nominating Michèle Flournoy for Defense Secretary would not be forward thinking. We do not need a hawk with relationships with the weapons industry."

Continue reading “Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams Go Public With Strong Opposition to Michèle Flournoy as Secretary of Defense”

The huge crisis with Iran is more dangerous because so many Democrats have been talking out of both sides of their congressional mouths.

An example is the recent rhetoric from Sen. Chris Murphy. “The attack on our embassy in Baghdad is horrifying but predictable,” he tweeted on the last day of 2019. “Trump has rendered America impotent in the Middle East. No one fears us, no one listens to us. America has been reduced to huddling in safe rooms, hoping the bad guys will go away. What a disgrace.”

Fast forward one week: Murphy was on the Senate floor declaring “we can choose to get off of this path of escalation and make decisions that correct this president’s recklessness and keep Americans safe.”

On the same day, in Murphy’s home state, the Connecticut Mirror reported that he “has emerged as a leading critic of Trump administration hostility to Iran” and called him “the most vocal” Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee “in criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike.”

Continue reading “War With Iran Is at Stake – and Democrats Aren’t Helping”

On Thursday afternoon, the Washington Post sent out a news alert headlined "John Kerry Endorses Biden in 2020 Race, Saying He Has the Character and Experience to Beat Trump, Confront the Nation’s Challenges." Meanwhile, in Iowa, Joe Biden was also touting his experience. "Look," Biden said as he angrily lectured an 83-year-old farmer at a campaign stop, "the reason I’m running is because I’ve been around a long time and I know more than most people know, and I can get things done."

But Kerry and Biden don’t want to acknowledge a historic tie that binds them: Both men were important supporters of the Iraq war, voting for the invasion on the Senate floor and continuing to back the war after it began. Over the years, political winds have shifted – and Biden, like Kerry, has methodically lied about his support for that horrendous war.

The spectacle of Kerry praising Biden as a seasoned leader amounts to one supporter of the Iraq catastrophe attesting to the character and experience of another supporter of the same catastrophe.

Continue reading “Kerry’s Endorsement of Biden Fits: Two Deceptive Supporters of the Iraq War”

Throughout the day before the summit in Helsinki, the lead story on the New York Times home page stayed the same: “Just by Meeting With Trump, Putin Comes Out Ahead.” The Sunday headline was in harmony with the tone of U.S. news coverage overall. As for media commentary, the Washington Post was in the dominant groove as it editorialized that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is “an implacably hostile foreign adversary.”

Contempt for diplomacy with Russia is now extreme. Mainline US journalists and top Democrats often bait President Trump in zero-sum terms. No doubt Hillary Clinton thought she was sending out an applause line in her tweet Sunday night: “Question for President Trump as he meets Putin: Do you know which team you play for?”

A bellicose stance toward Russia has become so routine and widespread that we might not give it a second thought – and that makes it all the more hazardous. After President George W. Bush declared “You’re either with us or against us,” many Americans gradually realized what was wrong with a Manichean view of the world. Such an outlook is even more dangerous today.

Continue reading “Climb Down From the Summit of Hostile Propaganda”

This originally appeared on TruthDig.

I’ve written many hundreds of columns. The one below has caused me the most uncertainty about going public with it.

I’m accustomed to writing about facts, quotes, documented history, while offering assessments. But this piece extrapolates from the current zeitgeist, going into realms of events that must be speculative and—until too late—unprovable.

Diary

So lucky to be here. Tiny island of dreams.

The serenity is unbelievable, except I want to believe it. Bluest waves with silver froth. Sun through the palms is damn near orgasmic. And solitude! If I can’t finish the book here, it’ll be my own fault.

***

Sort of knew I shouldn’t bring the shortwave. That’ll teach me to donate to NPR. Just can’t resist a “thank you gift.” Will crank it tomorrow.

***

Wish I hadn’t turned on the radio. BBC World Service all there is. Downbeat.

Swim, then write. Plenty of sunblock. As for writer’s block, perish the thought.

Continue reading “It’s the End of the World, and I Feel Terrible”