#BookReview: War Made Invisible by Norman Solomon
Russia : Ukraine :: United States : Afghanistan (and Iraq). This is the point that Solomon makes over and over and over in various forms, looking at varying facets of the same simple refrain. Not a long book at just 240 pages, 28% of which (at least in ARC form) was documentation – which is on the higher end of “normal” in my experience – a truly in-depth analysis, this book is not. But the point it makes, and the bias it openly stakes, is in stark and balancing contrast to the dominant narrative through US media – which is its very point.
Basically, Solomon’s entire point comes down to the fact that in focusing on cruise missile bombing – not even as many actual bomber planes, certainly relative to prior generations of American war as recently as Vietnam – and, more recently and perhaps even more ubiquitously, drone bombings, the US Department of Defense has shifted the conversation about war away from the dangers faced by soldiers on the ground. Complicit with this is an American media that even when showing atrocities, also “reminds” people of the tragedy of 9/11 – without ever noting that the US DoD commits a 9/11 seemingly every few days, and the constant terror of hearing a drone hover around can be even worse, psychologically. (This is particularly clear in one passage in particular where he discusses speaking directly with Afghan citizens in the southern provinces, away from US media coverage.) A generation later, with Russia invading Ukraine on just as flimsy a pretext, suddenly the American media is hyping up every remotely-connected-to-Russia instance of civilian suffering in the affected region… because suddenly, the invader is not the US itself, but an enemy of the US.
Solomon even takes square aim at Samuel Moyn’s September 2021 book Humane, where Moyn posits that the US use of drones has made modern warfare “more humane”, with some valid points here. (Though to be clear, I also believe Moyn has some valid points from his side as well, and stated so in my review of that book.)
I made it a point to read this book on Medal of Honor day, and it is a truly fascinating – and needed, for Americans – book any day of the year. It brings a refreshing balance to overall US discourse about war and its repercussions, it certainly can open eyes that are willing to be opened, and it will strengthen the views of those who are already “in the know” of this subject. Very much recommended.
This review of War Made Invisible by Norman Solomon was originally written on March 26, 2023.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for War Made Invisible:
“[War Made Invisible] builds a convincing case that too many secrets are being kept from the public. It’s a troubling and worthwhile call for change.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A powerful, necessary indictment of efforts to disguise the human toll of American foreign policy.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“An engrossing story of governmental hubris and media compliance. . . . Solomon offers a necessary beam of light on an important subject shrouded in darkness.”
—Booklist
“For decades Norman Solomon has been one of the most insightful critics of the incestuous and war-addicted American press. His new book gives us reason to weep and also to cheer. Weep to see how eagerly our media promotes foreign wars and the politicians and arms makers who design them. Cheer to know that a few clear-eyed Americans see what they are doing and write about it.”
—Stephen Kinzer, award-winning journalist and bestselling author of All the Shah’s Men
“I couldn’t put it down. This book, written in an easy-to-read style, gets to the heart of the matter. The Pentagon (with an annual PR budget of more than $600 million) has a cardinal rule: Above all do not allow American families to actually see the death and destruction that our government is inflicting on mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in other countries.”
—Ben Cohen, co-founder, Ben & Jerry’s
“The great African writer Chinua Achebe recounts an African proverb that ‘until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’ In Norman Solomon’s gripping and painful study of what the hunter seeks to make invisible, the lions have found their historian, who scrupulously dismantles the deceit of the hunters and records what is all too visible to the lions.”
—Noam Chomsky
“With an immense and rare humanity, Solomon insists that we awaken from the slumber of denial and distraction and confront the carnage of the U.S.’s never-ending military onslaughts. A staggeringly important intervention.”
—Naomi Klein, bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine
“Solomon exposes how media lies, distortions, and misdirections represent the abandonment of journalism’s promise to connect human beings to one another.”
—Janine Jackson, program director, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
“Norman Solomon exposes the cant and lies that underpin the global war on terror, indicting the policymakers, functionaries, and media propagandists who perpetuate this ‘political license to kill.’ Read it to understand how Americans were deceived and at last end what was designed to be a perpetual campaign of global violence and surveillance.”
—Charles Glass, former ABC News chief Middle East correspondent and author of Syria Burning and Deserter
“One of the singular achievements of the U.S. military industrial complex has been its relative invisibility. Enabled by a complicit media, our bloody wars fade into the backdrop of most Americans’ everyday lives, as does the insidious militarization of our culture and economy. Even in Washington, DC, the heart of the complex, one rarely sees a uniform. Norman Solomon performs a vital service with his vivid depiction of the reality behind the artfully crafted veil, and its grim consequences for all of us.”
—Andrew Cockburn, author of Kill Chain and The Spoils of War, and Washington editor, Harper’s Magazine
“When my father hit the black sands of Iwo Jima, the photograph of the flag raising atop Mount Suribachi took 48 hours from the snap of the camera to mothers and fathers viewing their sons on the front pages of their hometown newspapers. Today dozens of conflicts are unseen and unknown by us the taxpayers who pay for them. Norman Solomon now explains how this seemingly impossible situation has become our everyday reality.”
—James Bradley, author of Flag of Our Fathers
“No one is better at exposing the dynamics of media and politics that keep starting and continuing wars. War Made Invisible will provide the fresh and profound clarity that our country desperately needs.”
—Daniel Ellsberg, bestselling author of The Doomsday Machine
“It has been impossible to build an ongoing, effective anti-war movement when the mainstream media in this country has refused to explain to the American people the mendacious pretexts and horrific consequences of U.S. military adventures. War Made Invisible pulls back the curtain on the warmakers and the fawning journalists who enable them to lie and kill with impunity. It exposes the tangled web between the lives we destroy abroad and violence that tears at the heart of our community back home. The book is an antidote to twenty years of U.S. media malpractice and should be required reading for journalists and all those who long to live in peace. ”
—Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK
“Norman Solomon has been speaking necessary truths about America’s addiction to military power for decades, with clarity, directness, and unswerving principle. The message he delivers here is especially urgent in our era of extreme political division: Almost no Americans understand the true costs of our war machine, and both parties are actively deceiving us.”
—Andrew O’Hehir, executive editor, Salon
“‘The first casualty when war comes is truth,’ Senator Hiram Johnson of California said in 1929. Almost a century later, corporate media ever more closely conforms to the dictates of Pentagon planners, shutting out whistleblowers, dissenters, and those at the target end of U.S. military might. Cutting through this manufactured ‘fog of war,’ Norman Solomon eloquently casts sunlight, the best disinfectant, on the propaganda that fuels perpetual war. War Made Invisible is essential reading in these increasingly perilous times.”
—Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
About the Author
War Made Invisible
From the acclaimed veteran political analyst, a searing new exposé of how the American military, with the help of the media, conceals its perpetual war
“No one is better at exposing the dynamics of media and politics that keep starting and continuing wars. War Made Invisible will provide the fresh and profound clarity that our country desperately needs.” —Daniel Ellsberg
More than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America’s foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible, by the journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon, exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are, from military and civilian casualties to drained resources at home.
From Iraq through Afghanistan and Syria and on to little-known deployments in a range of countries around the globe, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these forays remain off the radar of average Americans. Compliant journalists add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements and by repeating the military’s talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians who die. Back at home, Solomon argues, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets that receive bipartisan approval even as policy makers struggle to fund the domestic agenda.
Necessary, timely, and unflinching, War Made Invisible is an eloquent moral call for counting the true costs of war.
Praise
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