Norman Solomon

War Made Easy

In a review in the June 29th Los Angeles Times, Russ Baker calls War Made Easy "a must-read for those who would like greater context with their bitter morning coffee, or to arm themselves for the debates about Iraq that are still to come."

The table of contents and first chapter of War Made Easy are now online.

There are also more excerpts (first and second) from the book.

Norman Solomon's book tour currently includes a July 10th talk in Wilmington, Delaware, a July 11th mid-day event in Philadelphia, a July 14th event in New York City, and August events in the Bay area.

Memo to Iraq War: This Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Death

On the propaganda front, it's been another tough week for Washington's war makers. But for them, where there's hope there's death.

Let's address the Iraq war directly:

It's too soon to know whether the Bush administration's new PR offensive will do anything for you in terms of public opinion. But rest assured that the U.S. military effort in Iraq won't be curtailed anytime soon. Despite the downward trend of public backing for the war -- and in spite of the mass media's inadequate yet significant widening of debate in recent weeks -- a combination of factors is in place to sustain your deadly momentum...

Read the full column.

Iran in Washington's cross hairs

For those in Washington who are eager to confront Iran, the surprise election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a godsend. Iran's new president is a perfect foil for neocons long eager to move ahead with scenarios for regime change in Tehran.

After a White House meeting on Monday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that his country, along with Great Britain, France and the United States, will be pressuring Iran on its nuclear program...

Read the full op-ed.

Also, Norman Solomon was interviewed on Democracy Now (audio and video online).

Voluntary Amnesia in the Service of War

Forget it!

That seems to be an unstated motto for American media coverage of the Iranian presidential election. The axiom comes down to: “Don’t let history get in the way of spin.”

Evasion smooths the way to the next war.

For maximum propaganda effect, the agenda-setting must be decoupled as much as possible from clear truths -- about the current president’s mendacity in connection with Iraq, and about the record of U.S. government actions toward Iran.

Read the full article.

Picture-perfect killers

Military weapons are often technological marvels but always instruments of death

In his memoir of Vietnam, former war correspondent Jacques Leslie recalls visiting an American aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, when suddenly "I was engulfed in technology, released to a vast metallic universe where nothing grew, where doubt had no place."

The young reporter for the Los Angeles Times found that "the press officers who took turns accompanying me could tell me all about the astonishing mechanics of jet takeoffs and landings, of how the pilots got graded on their bombing accuracy, but they couldn't say if the pilots thought of people below as they dropped their bombs or ever felt regret. Most of the pilots couldn't tell me either, preferring to dwell on the marvels of their flying machines."

American media coverage has long glorified such marvels, and the hype about military technology remains profuse. What happens to people on the other side of the awesome firepower is downplayed or ignored, while the awesome weaponry is often presented as implicit further evidence of America's greatness. It's hardly objective reporting. Nor is it in any way good, old- fashioned skeptical reporting. Nor does it tell the whole story. It's mostly mindless cheerleading that avoids asking readers or viewers to think about the terrible carnage and horribly ruined lives the use of such weapons causes...

Read the complete excerpt from War Made Easy.

The Killing Street Memo

Keep them behind the war curve.

While some Americans are exposing the deception for the latest war, steadily lay the groundwork for the next one.

Focus plenty of news reports on alienated youth in Iran, spotlighting despair that borders on nihilism. Meanwhile, give scant media attention to the growth of civil society, with many thousands of Iranian young people and their elders striving to create a diffuse yet coherent social movement for democracy and human rights.

Make it easy for the U.S. public to forget -- or remain ignorant of -- key elements in the United States history with Iran. Such as the U.S.-organized 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Iranian prime minister, democrat Muhammad Mussadiq, and installed a brutal shah who ruled for a quarter century. Or the U.S. government's record of aiding the Saddam Hussein regime in its eight-year war with Iran after Iraqi troops attacked Iran in 1980.

Read the full article.

Gains for Democracy Could Jolt Iran's Theocrats and America's Neocons

Iran's most repressive clerics and the USA's most militaristic neocons share a common interest: They're very eager to see the failure of Iranian activism for democracy and human rights.

On the surface, no outlook could be farther from Washington's reigning mentality than the ayatollah-led chant of "Death to America" that I heard at a big prayer service in Tehran last Friday. But the hardliners in both countries need each other. Theirs is a perverse, mutual dependency that dares not speak its name.

In Iranian politics, extreme anti-American rhetoric is part of a theocratic package that seeks to affirm and boost repression in Iran. The more hostility that the Bush administration expresses toward Iran, in word and deed, the more the reactionary clerics like it. And "Death to America" chants -- as well as reports of human rights violations in Iran -- are music to the ears of the Bush neocons, who are working hard to foreclose any kind of détente between Washington and Tehran.

For their own reasons, the rulers in both countries refuse to acknowledge the vital significance of support for presidential candidate Mostafa Moin, now the most prominent voice for democracy and human rights in Iranian politics. The Moin campaign drew 10,000 people to a rally at a Tehran stadium Tuesday night. A number of speakers emphasized that the campaign is aiming to lay groundwork for a movement -- and this election is just the beginning...

Read the full article.

Letter From Tehran: In Washington's Cross-Hairs

Washington keeps condemning Iran's government and making thinly veiled threats. But in Iran, many people are in the midst of challenging the country's rulers, in the streets and at the ballot box.

The June 17 election for president could be a turning point or a hollow spectacle -- no one knows which -- but the Bush administration is eagerly trashing the whole thing. ''The United States has not waited for the first ballot to be cast before dismissing Iran's presidential election as rigged,'' Agence France Presse reported over the weekend.

But Iran's election is not rigged. There is a fierce electioneering battle underway here, with some significant differences between candidates. Meanwhile, hindered rather than helped by the bellicose statements from Washington, courageous Iranian activists have begun a new wave of actions against the status quo of theocracy.

On June 12, in front of the University of Tehran, nearly a hundred courageous women sat down to demonstrate for human rights in a society where women literally and figuratively are compelled to sit at the back of the bus. ''Stop Bias Against Women,'' said one handheld sign...

Read the full article and Iran's Presidential Election.

Photos of the campaign posted by a number of people in Iran.

From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

You wouldn't know it from the media focus on Deep Throat last week, but the lies that Richard Nixon told about the Watergate break-in were part of his standard duplicity for the Vietnam War. It wasn't just that the Nixon administration engaged in secret illegal actions against a wide range of peace advocates -- including antiwar candidate George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972. Deception was always central to Nixon's war policy. Thirty-three years after Watergate, echoes of his fervent lies for war can be heard from George W. Bush.

From the outset, President Nixon falsely claimed to be seeking an end to the war...

Read the full column.

War Made Easy: From Vietnam to Iraq

On February 27, 1968, I sat in a small room on Capitol Hill. Around a long table, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was in session, taking testimony from an administration official. Most of all, I remember a man with a push-broom moustache and a voice like sandpaper, raspy and urgent.

Wayne Morse did not resort to euphemism. He spoke of "tyranny that American boys are being killed in South Vietnam to maintain in power." Moments before the hearing adjourned, the senior senator from Oregon said that he did not "intend to put the blood of this war on my hands." And Morse offered clarity that was prophetic: "We're going to become guilty, in my judgment, of being the greatest threat to the peace of the world. It's an ugly reality, and we Americans don't like to face up to it."

Near the end of the 1960s, drawing on a careful reading of secret documents and a reappraisal of firsthand observations, Daniel Ellsberg came to a breakthrough realization...

Read the full excerpt from War Made Easy.