Norman Solomon Quotations

Nearly 96 hours after the Observer had reported it, I called Times deputy foreign editor Alison Smale and asked why not. 'We would normally expect to do our own intelligence reporting,' Smale replied. She added that 'we could get no confirmation or comment.' In other words, U.S. intelligence officials refused to confirm or discuss the memo -- so the Times did not see fit to report on it.

But the U.S. Record, as assessed by independent organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is reprehensible.

The Bush rhetoric about democracy has little to do with Washington's actual policy goals in the Middle East.

The boast that the United States is now the world's only superpower has a grim undertow in the area of human rights; no one can tell Washington what to do or not do, no matter how egregious its cruelties.

The character of the Bush administration is such that the U.S. delegation to the United Nations will -- in practice -- indignantly refuse to recognize a single standard of human rights whenever such a standard would put the U.S. record in a negative light.

That's a very different approach to what the CAW has done in the past.

What is critical to me is that the process is a two-way street.

They should be fighting the effects of flood waters at home - helping people in the communities they know best - not battling Iraqi people who want them to go away.