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July 19, 2023 14 mins
Norman Solomon is the author of more than a dozen books on media, politics, and foreign policy. He’s the founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy and national director of the online organization RootsAction. For 17 years, he wrote the weekly syndicated column Media Beat, which appeared in major newspapers across the country. Norman has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and many other newspapers and magazines. His new book, War Made Invisible, is receiving widespread praise. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called it “a powerful, necessary indictment of efforts to disguise the human toll of American foreign policy.”
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(00:03):
Uh, this is not live.It's completely recorded, broadcasting from one of
the top recording studios in all ofNashville, Tennessee. Yeah, that's not
true at all. I'm probably athome doing this. He's been called one
of the greatest thinkers of his time. Literally, no one has ever called
me that. I knew. Kindof agree with it though, right right
here, twenty seventeen, Wassippi intothe Nobel Peace Prize. That's just a

(00:23):
flat ali talking politics, community,race, religion, entertainment, sports,
and whatever the fuck else. Podcastanother episode of the Dola White Podcast.
My guest today Norman Solomon, authorof the new book War Made Invisible.
Welcome in. Hey, thanks alot. So just a little background on

(00:43):
me. My father was was aVietnam veteran and got a purple heart and
a bronze star. And to thisday, if you ask me what the
Vietnam War was about, I probablycouldn't tell you. I know, we
were fighting communism at the time,but I don't think many Americans really asked,
like, what does that really mean? Why were we really over there?
And I think if you ask thatquestion to a lot of people about

(01:04):
any wars throughout our lifetime, alot of those answers are going to be,
yeah, well we are fighting this, Well, why were we fighting
for that? And again, alot of those answers are going to be
unclear, kind of in the neighborhoodof what your book is about a little
bit here, kind of what thetoll of the NonStop war machine that has
been America over the past several decadeshas become correct? Yes, it is

(01:27):
NonStop. You know, even duringthe Vietnam War, which we know now
from the Pentagon papers and other sources, was based on lies, people asked,
and I'm old enough to remember,I wonder when this war is going
to end. People don't ask thatanymore about the so called war on Terror.
It is the twenty four seven,three sixty five, one decade after
another, and it's like the sayingof the fish in the water, what

(01:51):
water afterwhile there are people born inthis century who are adults now who have
never known anything other than at leastvaguely, the US is at war.
So it's good for the Pentagon contractors, it's bad for most everybody else,
including the people that we send overthere. Right Like I have, I
have relatives, cousins in the military, and Um, you get sold,

(02:13):
especially in rural America. My father'sfrom rural America, and I remember growing
up and going to their local spots. I grew up in Atlanta, so
I'm not you know, I can'tclaim rural America, but I'm familiar with
small towns in America, and andyou know, going into the into military
service from those places is there's ahigh amount of people, and they sell
it to you in your entire life, like if you don't want to go

(02:36):
to college, you go to themilitary. If you don't want to stay
in this town, you go tothe military. Uh. And I think
it's I think individually for the forthe kids that do sign up, that's
a noble thing to do. However, the people that make the decisions to
send these kids to fight aren't alwaysmaking the best decisions for the kids themselves.
Correct. This is something that's beencalled an economic draft. What kind

(02:59):
of country tells people if you wantan education and you're not affluent, you
should go in the military. Imean, that is just fundamentally unfair.
One of the things I discovered whenI was researching this book was when I
read the speeches in Vietnam when LyndonJohnson as president, went and spoke to
the troops, and then Barack Obamawent to Afghanistan and spoke to the troops.

(03:22):
It was almost the same. Theyused the same rhetoric. They flattered
people, they said, you're sonoble, We love you. Everybody at
home loves you. But there's reallyno mention of the fact that every single
soldier, every service man and womanin that crowd, thousands of them assembled
before the president, not one ofthem had anything to say about going to

(03:44):
war in the first place. Sothey're used as props. I'm all for
praising troops, and when they gethome they should get excellent healthcare like everybody
else should, but that doesn't meanthat presidents should just be moving them around
on the chessboard like toy soldiers.That's the way it's worked out, and
there's a huge death toll also thatwe don't see on the other side of

(04:04):
things, the countries that we dostick around and fight in and not just
their soldiers either in the heat ofbattle, right, I mean kids that
have nothing to do with any ofthese beefs between governments or beefs between whoever,
are also dying, and they don'tshow that here do they. We

(04:24):
don't see that. You're not goingto turn on the TV and see an
Iraqi kid dying at the hands ofour military. That's part of the really
deadly invisibility of US wars, wherewe have US firepower that is tremendously powerful,
the strongest military in the world.There's a drone whistleblower from the US

(04:46):
Air Force serving a forty five monthssentence in Marion, Ohio, Daniel Hale,
who leaked documents to the press showingthat up to ninety percent of the
victims of US drone attacks or civilians. What kind of military operation is that?
And to make it worse, notonly US government covering that up,

(05:08):
but very rarely in the routine coverageor the unroutine coverage have US news media
actually portrayed that to us, youknow, quite properly. US soldiers and
their families are presented as real humanbeings. The Ukrainians are presented because they're
underassaultd by this terrible Russia invasion andwar on Ukraine. They're presented as human

(05:30):
beings. But people at the otherend of US missiles, Yeah, very
rarely do our news media portray themas people at all. Does this your
topic in your book? It seemslike something that happens regardless of if there
are Republicans in charge, if they'reDemocrats in charge. Is there a difference
between the two when when a Republicanis in office versus when a Democrat is

(05:51):
win office or is it just kindof no matter who you get, this
seems to be the way we goin terms of foreign policy and especially in
terms of war. It's very mucha bipartisan problem. And I think it's
quite a notable split right now becauseif you look at Democrats and Republicans in
Congress on a whole range of domesticissues, healthcare, education, housing,

(06:15):
voting rights, civil rights, women'srights, LGBTQ rights, a huge difference.
I mean, let's be candid.The Republican Party is run by a
bunch of neo fascists. They arerepressive, they're vicious, they hate poor
people, they hate people who aren'ton the dole from the Pentagon or some
corporate outfit. I mean, that'sI think that's fair to say. And

(06:35):
so this recent round of cuts thatRepublicans insisted on with the debt sealing negotiations,
their take, they're literally taking foodout of the mouths of children.
That's what they think is policy.So in domestic affairs, a huge difference
between the two parties. Once youget to military spending in war, tiny

(06:57):
difference, almost the same. It'sthe same, like almost with issues of
police policing, right, it's alwaysI live in Nashville, Tennessee, and
no matter who you know, ourmayors are constantly democratic, but they're also
always giving the police more and moremoney instead of you know, I think
crime prevention starts with kids, right, Like if you if you give a

(07:20):
kid access to you know, food, healthcare, and a good education,
that child then grows up less likelyto commit a quote unquote crime and then
your crime prevention starts there. Butcrime prevention for both parties, no matter
what it is, it's always morepolice, you know, more war machines
with police, more you know,tanks and you know, big weapons and

(07:44):
all these things, instead of actuallytrying to fix the problem, which is
always if you meet people's needs,crime's going to go down. We're seeing
enormous militarization of police forces. There'sa Pentagon program I write about in the
book called the ten thirty three program, and the on this unloading all of
this military equipment, MRAPs and tanksand so forth. They use them in

(08:05):
Iraq, they use them in Afghanistan, they recycle them, they send them
to police forces around the country.Jesse Jackson when he ran for president,
and I went actually to Atlanta innineteen eighty eight to the Democratic National Convention
when Jackson was a Kennedy, andhe said, and it's so true then
and now. You can put insome money on the front side, or

(08:26):
you can put in a lot ofmoney on the backside. You can help
people with healthcare and education now andgive hot housing support, or you can
wait later on and deal with thedesperation and the justified anger that people have.
Lock people up, not provide thekind of services that human beings deserve,
including the human right of healthcare.The military is a great example of

(08:48):
how extreme that disparity of it's I'mtempted to say it's really stupid, and
it is, but it's also verylucrative. It's very very profitable. And
so when you've got so many lobbyistson Capitol Hill, you got huge contributions
going into Senators and members of theHouse from these contractors. Hey, they're
walking the talk and talking the walkof those who are funding them. It's

(09:11):
up to us to become more aware. We change history if we organize.
If we don't, is just handeddown to us, and the warfare state
is a pretty awful circumstance to behanded down to It is really damaging the
future of the next generations. Agreed, of the wars that we've been in
in your lifetime, my lifetime,I was born in seventy eight, how

(09:33):
many would you say were necessary forus to be involved in? That's a
great question. The first war thatI was involved when in the sense of
alive at the time, was ofVietnam War, completely based on lives,
And in the writing I've done andthe research I've really engaged in, I
gotta say every single US war,from the war in Vietnam to the present

(09:56):
has been appreciably based on lives,not entire really lies, but to such
an extent that we haven't had theinformed consent to the governed. We've had
the uninformed content. And when peoplehear you say that, I know there's
one segment of the population that's goingto say you're anti military, anti soldier,
blah blah blah. I find thatstance more pro military than anti because

(10:20):
you have kids sign up, andit's like, we don't want to put
you in harm's way unless we absolutelyhave to. And that's not what we
do here in the United States ofAmerica, is it. Yeah, it's
like, hey, we're really goingto help you out. You go out
and fight, you go out outand be maimed and killed because we really
like you, so we're behind you. And that's really that weird thin and

(10:43):
people begin to see through that,and when they see through it, sometimes
it's too late. Yeah. Istruggle with that a lot. Whenever I
have a relative that's thinking about goinginto the military or something like that,
I'm like, I think that's anoble thing to do. But I also
think that we have people that aregoing to send you and put you in
harm's way for their own enrichment andfor no other reason, not based on
deception. And that's a pretty clearrecord, and I laid that out in

(11:07):
the book. It's another aspect ofthe invisibility of war that it has so
routinely been based on lies that aresold to the public as truth. And
unless we can get a real fixon and a real understanding of what the
hell is going on. We're justgoing to be led like sheep to keep
quiet while these wars continue. Andwe see, I know what, I'm

(11:30):
a big NFL fan, a footballfan, and I know that the military
has funded the NFL for years withyou know, the salutes and the big
American flags that cover the entire field, and the national anthem and all of
these things. And that's just onesegment of kind of the military propaganda that

(11:50):
the United States puts on us.How widespread is this thing beyond? So
widespread that we don't even notice itafter a while. It's like, you
know, the top gun kind ofmovies often subsidized one way another by the
Pentagon. You know, loan youan aircraft carrier to make a movie.
Well, that's worth a helpful lotof money. You can't really do a
movie about aircraft carriers without the cooperationof the Pentagon. They get script approval,

(12:13):
they can say we won't cooperate whatsoeverif we don't like the script.
That kind of thing has gone ontime after time. And if you know,
I see it as like a threesixty thing. Often we're surrounded in
news media and entertainment was saying,hey, wars are really great. That's
what patriotism is about. Patriotism,we're told is about waiving the flag and

(12:35):
saying, you know, let's youand them go out fight. Waving the
flag is fine if it's about helpingpeople. When it's about supporting lies and
undermining democracy, that's a whole otherthing. And you can't have democracy if
you don't have the informed consent tothe government. What we're getting is we're
getting scammed. Quite frankly, we'regetting uninformed consent of the government, which
really isn't consent at all. Mylast question, FOI lets you out of

(12:58):
here. I know you're obviously you'vebeen doing this is your life's work.
You've been doing this your entire life. But I know also when doing research
for books, you're going to runacross something that you didn't even know to
begin with. Right, What wasthe thing that you learned while writing this
book while doing the research that kindof stuck out or shot you the most
in the process. Something that stunnedme that I didn't really realize until several

(13:20):
months into research for the book isthat if you look at the so called
war on terror that began right afternine to eleven and you grasp the reality
of what percentage of the people whohave been killed at the other end of
US firepower were people of color?The answer is one. So what does

(13:41):
that tell us? You know?WB Dubois wrote about the global color line,
and this is a unspoken, hiddenin plain sight reality which is not
talked about. I mean, forgood reasons. In the last few years,
especially after the killing of George Floyd, which is emblematical, goes on
in cities and towns across this countrywith the police forces. There's been a

(14:03):
lot of talk about systemic racism.There should be talk about it, There
needs to be a lot more.But how much talk do we have about
systemic racism in US foreign policy andconducting wars. The answer is virtually none
at all. And so that againgoes to the issue of invisibility. Another

(14:24):
reason I called the book War MadeInvisible. I think we've got to get
real about this or it will justcontinue and it will undermine our humanity.
Completely agree. I could talk toyou all day about this, but I
know you've got a job. Normoussolom in the book is War Made Invisible?
Thank you so much for taking timeto do this. Hey, thank
you, I appreciate it.
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