By Kathy Kelly, The Progressive, June 14, 2023
Following a string of U.S. “forever wars,” a profusion of well-written, often riveting novels, memoirs, and analyses have been published. Talented authors have aimed to promote understanding about the human cost of war.
In the same period, mainstream media sources have continually developed ways to make war appear normal—something necessary, justifiable, or in some cases, “humane.”
Norman Solomon’s War Made Invisible erects an edifice of evidence showing deliberate, consistent, coordinated, and well-funded efforts to squelch movements opposing the vicious consequences of war.
In this book, Solomon asks why people identify more with the bombers rather than the bombed. Then he traces the history of embedded reporters. He shows how the presence of “embeds” (journalists who live with and travel with units of the military) has changed the way wars are covered. They are beholden not only to the soldiers that protect them, but also to corporate heads who collude with war profiteers and war planners.
Militarists’ justifications for wars often emphasize the terror wielded by insurgents using bloody tactics. Solomon points out the similarities between suicide bombers causing slaughter on the ground and sophisticated warplanes maiming and killing civilians from the air, a comparison often conveniently ignored.
The legendary peace activist Phil Berrigan once likened racism and threats of nuclear war to the many heads of the hydra from Greek mythology. Cut off one head and another appears. The many-faced hydra of racism and war now turns to all corners of the globe. Any country refusing to subordinate itself to serving U.S. national interests risks being devastated by U.S. military and economic wars. Increasingly, war planners invoke the nuclear threat.
War Made Invisible highlights some of the people who have attempted to show the public the true cost of war. History has shown that authors and orators who challenge the status quo of glorifying and justifying wars face well-organized opponents with deep pockets and a vice-like grip on mainstream media. Astonishing efforts in U.S. history to outlaw war and denounce the “merchants of death” reached millions of people after the industrial slaughter of World War I.
Eugene Debs, the indefatigable socialist campaigner imprisoned for opposing U.S. foreign policy, ran for president from his jail cell and won nearly a million votes in 1920. The Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war was written into U.S. law in August 1928. In April 1935, The New York Times reported that more than 60,000 students went on strike, declaring they would never enlist to fight in a foreign war. Former U.S. Representative Jeanette Rankin voted against entering both World War I and World War II. Solomon shares the moral compass and honorable intent of these heroic resisters. His highly worthwhile book invites readers to embrace his clarity and campaign to end all wars.
