Spinning out of control.

WAR MADE EASY: HOW PRESIDENTS & PUNDITS KEEP SPINNING US TO DEATH

BY LORETTA ALPER AND JEREMY EARP

PRODUCED BY THE MEDIA EDUCATION FOUNDATION AND THE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY

77 MINUTES, 2007 (DVD AVAILABLE THROUGH WWW.MEDIAED.ORG)

War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, a documentary video directed by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp and produced by the Media Education Foundation and the Institute for Public Accuracy, is based on a 2006 book of the same name by Norman Solomon (founder and executive director of the Institute). Prominent footage of an interview with him provides both the physical structure and content focus of the film. Solomon's central claim is that the government of the United States routinely withholds information about the actual reasons for its involvement in wars and violent engagements around the world as well as the subsequent costs (in financial and human terms) of these actions. He acknowledges the existence of complicated circumstances that surround these decisions but argues that the public face of war does not reflect the geopolitical considerations behind these actions. Instead, he argues, the government provides only information intended to generate and maintain support for war. Solomon then moves to implicate the news media in the advancement of such spin.

Solomon initially highlights decades of propaganda used by foreign governments to mobilize support for military actions. Designed to legitimize war by promoting nationalism and fostering fear and hatred toward perceived enemies, it is "an easier version of war's reality ... designed not to inform but to generate and maintain support and enthusiasm for war." In his discussion of the government's selective view of reality, Solomon references Aldous Huxley's contention that it is more powerful to leave things out than to tell lies, offering the example of the U.S. government's former support of and connections to such "evil dictators" as Panama's Manuel Noriega and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

As Solomon argues, the rhetoric regarding the perceived need and desire for worldwide democratic advancement spins such actions as military strikes and invasions into acts of altruism. Military action then becomes the moral way and the propaganda machine works to convince the civilian population (read: "the audience") of this perspective. Clips include footage of the last several U.S. presidents (Republican and Democrat alike) stating they did not want to get involved in violence, but were compelled to act in the name of freedom, peace, and democracy abroad, while fighting murderous dictators and ending tyranny. "[W]ar becomes perpetual when used as a rationale for peace," says Solomon.

Turning his focus to the news media's collusion with governments, Solomon challenges the values and practices of the fourth estate in several ways, pointing out how the networks' failure to question various administrations' claims have facilitated entry into violent conflicts. Two profound examples are offered. Solomon speaks of the "press's refusal to challenge" the story of U.S. warships being attacked by North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, which resulted in Congress's adoption of the Tonkin Resolution and ultimately hastened the escalation to a full-fledged war in Vietnam. The most recent example is former Secretary of State Colin Powell's dramatic 2003 presentation before the United Nations Security Council regarding evidence of Iraq's concealed weapons of mass destruction. Powell's presentation was universally praised by the corporate media. References by commentators to Powell's appearance as a "performance" that "clos[ed] the deal" offer their own irony, furthered by Fox Network's admittedly conservative pundit Sean Hannity calling it "lockstep," a seeming Freudian slip in its startling allusion to the days of jackboots.

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It is here that the narrative moves to a focus on the rationale behind the current war in Iraq, suggesting ideological connections to historical conflicts. It is important to note that Solomon, for the first and only time in the film, offers examples of news coverage from other countries that directly questioned Powell's assertions and offered different information gleaned from numerous international sources. Critical media voices in the U.S. are, as demonstrated in the film, often silenced. As talk of invading Iraq increased, Phil Donohue invited numerous guests critical of the administration onto his program and offered his own anti-war opinions. A subsequent NBC memo stated that Donohue presented "a difficult public face in a time of war." Although the top-rated show on MSNBC, Donohue was cancelled just three weeks before the invasion. NBC later fired reporter Peter Arnett for an interview he did on an Iraqi television network in which he criticized planning for the war. The network claimed that Arnett's coverage of civilian casualties in Iraq was "encouraging" to anti-war protesters in the U.S. Solomon argues that, in terms of the comments and responses of other journalists, editors, and producers, etc., "If you are pro-war you are [seen as] objective but if you are anti-war you are [seen as] biased." The news media merely regurgitates the administration line. (Studies show that the media is far behind changes in public opinion although, interestingly, it is not explained how the tide would turn within the citizenry if it does not receive the free flow of information expected in a democracy.)

The pervasive influence of media on society is acknowledged in discussions of how many journalists maintain an aura of worship when reporting on the technology of modern warfare. Idolatry of the war machines (or "killing technology" as Solomon refers to it) is prevalent throughout the news media, including the morning and evening interview "news" shows. But a shocking fact countering the idea of the efficient nature of our improved war machines is presented here: civilian casualties have increased as military technology has become more sophisticated. The rising civilian casualty statistics for four chronological conflicts are offered in sequence on a black background, interspersed with scenes of combat--and all in silence (World War I: 10%, World War II: 50%, Vietnam War: 70%, current war in Iraq: 90%). A news conference follows showing an inarticulate Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asserting the accuracy of the technology being used in the current war in Iraq and the care (he even goes so far as to say the "humanity") that is behind the bombings effectively juxtaposed with footage of injured and dead children.

Once the country is engaged in war, "the war becomes the product," claims Solomon, and news coverage of the conflict turns into a public relations activity. The current U.S. administration obviously understands the importance of media representation as it hired a Hollywood set designer to create a $200,000 backdrop for press conferences held in Iraq. Most interestingly is Solomon's discussion of the terminology used to determine the status of war--semantics used by the administration and fostered by the news media. It is within this detailed issue that the wide-ranging influence of the media becomes most obvious. Pundits supportive of the war claim that once within a conflict, the citizenry should support the action, regardless of their beliefs about it. Citizens who question their government's actions become "unpatriotic." Much of mainstream news media follow this thinking, reminding audiences watching bombs hitting Iraq that the invasion is in retaliation for the events of September 11, 2001, with one network even going so far as to follow that footage with images of the ongoing cleanup at Ground Zero. The semantic focus on "winning the war" spun the actual potential of failure due to poor planning, lack of equipment, and misunderstanding of the Iraqi culture (among other factors) into a long-range plan with no terminus but always the possibility of success. As Solomon notes, even the term "quagmire," which became the acceptable term of debate for the administration, takes the onus off of the administration and implies that something beyond its control is acting upon it. Another catch phrase used by the administration and furthered by news media in an attempt to condemn calls for withdrawal as a weak strategy (historically) is the term "cut and run." The claim that the U.S. will instead "stay the course" has also become a familiar mantra for George W. Bush and his supporters.

Solomon blames news organizations for accepting the administration's public pronouncements and not engaging in investigative journalism, stating, "Journalists blame the government for the failure of the journalists themselves to do independent reporting." Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN, proudly confirmed (on the air) his network's selection of military experts as being approved by the administration. Thus, the collusion is spun as the media merely doing due diligence. In regard to reporting from combat zones, the embedding of reporters (which formally began in Iraq) is merely "a new wrinkle" in the old game of propaganda, according to Solomon. While the Pentagon claims this practice is about providing access to a free press, the reporters are only allowed to experience (and therefore report on) one side of the conflict and the sharing of such intimate quarters and hazardous situations often results in less objective experiences and therefore more biased reporting.