War Made Invisible
How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
An unflinching exposé of the hidden costs of American war-making written with “an immense and rare humanity” (Naomi Klein) by one of our premier political analysts
“[War Made Invisible 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
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Solomon (Made Love, Got War) offers a sharp critique of Republicans and Democrats who advocate for military action, U.S. media coverage that makes it easier to sell wars to the public, and the often-hidden cost of civilian casualties from errant U.S. attacks. He claims that when Russia targeted Ukrainian cities during the recent invasion, the U.S. media was "all-hands-on-deck with empathetic, poignant reporting.... But, when American missiles and bombs hit population centers over the previous two decades, the human tragedies rarely got anything more than short shrift." (He also notes that the architect of the U.S. military's "shock and awe" strategy in the 2003 Iraq has "judged the Russia effort to be of inferior quality, with mild impact compared to what he had pushed the Pentagon to inflict on Baghdad.") Elsewhere, Solomon critiques the Biden administration for providing weapons and logistical support to Saudi Arabia while the country wages war in Yemen, notes that the Pentagon's annual funding for special operations has increased by $10 billion since 2001, and calls out the "U.S. media establishment" for giving "full-throated support" to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, only to offer a much harsher judgment 20 years later. Though Solomon paints U.S. journalism and foreign policy in broad strokes, he builds a convincing case that too many secrets are being kept from the public. It's a troubling and worthwhile call for change.
