Norman Solomon: War Made Easy
Posted by Anders den mai 13, 2008
Norman Solomon, Truthout.org: War Made Easy
When The New York Times published its explosive “Pentagon Pundits” story on April 20, the result was a wave of criticism directed at the Defense Department for manipulating TV news coverage of the Iraq war. Critics also faulted the networks for failing to scrutinize the conflicts of interest of the “military analysts” who went on the air. Many of those retired military officers were being coached by the Pentagon to mislead the public, and many had personal financial stakes in corporations with major Pentagon contracts.
Routinely lost in the current uproar is the extent to which media managers have gone out of their way to suck up to the Pentagon. Top network executive Eason Jordan – who ran CNN’s news operation during the invasion of Iraq – is a case in point. He repeatedly asked the Pentagon for approval of the “military analysts” who were under consideration for on-air roles.
The documentary film “War Made Easy,” based on my book of the same name, shows the pervasive and long-running partnership between key news outlets and high-ranking warmakers in Washington. This video excerpt from the movie puts the “Pentagon Pundits” story in a broad and chilling context. . . .
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War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.
