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War Made Easy
FILM
War Made Easy:
How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death
"Rarely if ever does a war just kind of fall down from the sky. The foundation needs to be laid and the
case built, often with deception."
- Norman Solomon
Scheduled for release on June 21, the new documentary film 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.
Based on the Book by Norman Solomon - Narrated by Sean Penn
www.warmadeeasythemovie.org
Marching off to Madness...
The plight of a misinformed citizenry
Review -
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
(Media Education Foundation, 2007)
Produced by filmmakers Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp
Based on the book by Norm Solomon
Scheduled Release: June 21, 2007
In the opening scene of the new documentary film War Made Easy, we see a montage of candid images showing jubilant
Americans celebrating the Japanese surrender in WWII; all the while a radio announcer harkens a new world of peace.
In the next scene - barely five years later - American troops are entering Korea, where they remain to this day.
In the end, the "War to End All Wars" was anything but.
Indeed in the years since the end of WWII, U.S. troops have conducted operations in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Cuba, Lebanon, Grenada, Libya, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq - and those are just
the official ones.
In bringing author Norman Solomon's 2005 book of the same name to the screen, filmmakers Loretta Alper and Jeremy
Earp -- with the help of co-producers Andrew Killoy and Sut Jhally -- give viewers a grand tour of America's seeming
preoccupation with flexing its muscles on the world stage. In fact, as the film shows, the preoccupation is not
American at all, but belongs to a determined few who have perfected the art of the "hard sell" helped along by a
gullible and in some cases overtly collusive media.
Narrated by Sean Penn, War Made Easy presents historical moments from political leaders of the Vietnam era including
LBJ, Robert McNamara and Richard Nixon, as well as news correspondents including Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer.
Moving forward through successive conflicts to the current war in Iraq, the movie sheds light on the continuing
effectiveness of patterns of official deception on behalf of war policies.
You may ask yourself: do we really need another documentary telling us how we got suckered into Iraq? But War Made
Easy is anything but an Iraq War movie. By dissecting the modus operandi of the political elite's march to aggression,
Solomon and his team uncover the uncomfortable truth - including the complicity of the media, the so-called "liberal"
fourth estate -- which at best has challenged America's ability to win unpopular conflicts like Vietnam, while never
attacking the rationale or morality of going to war in the first place.
Through painstaking research and fast-paced editing of archival footage, War Made Easy exposes a 50-year pattern of
deception that has dragged the U.S. into one war after another. To prove its point, the film exhumes remarkable footage
of distortion and exaggeration peddled by presidents from LBJ to George W. Bush.
At the heart of the "War Sell" is a network of propaganda that would have made Joe Goebbels proud. From the Tonkin
Gulf to WMDs, the hawks have fed the media and the media has in turn fed the public.
In describing the mission behind the film, Alper says she hopes to prove that "deception leading to war did not begin
with Bush or Iraq," and that "an informed, awakened citizenry can prevent wars of choice in the future."
But this requires a dedicated, independent and muckraking free press. So far, the mainstream media has proved itself
unprepared for the task. We can only hope that next time - and there will be a next time - a strong and critical media
will be ready and willing to guard against such deception. Our very future as a democracy depends upon it.
By the end of War Made Easy, it's easy to see why.
Screenings of "War Made Easy"
Beginning in July, house and community gatherings will be held across the country to screen and discuss the new DVD War
Made Easy, based on Norman Solomon's acclaimed book of the same title.
Click Here
to see a list of scheduled screenings.
Click Here to register your screening.
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