War Made Easy

A film adaptation of media critic Norman Soloman’s 2005 book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” This is an outstanding documentary that exposes the manner in which US presidents manage to sell war, like clockwork, through the same fallacious arguments, largely with the help of a compliant media. The movie features footage of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and the current president making frighteningly similar arguments about the motives for wars. All claim that violence is a means to peace and that war is the last resort. As the film points out, the mainsteam media only turn against war when it is too late. Needless to say, there are also some lessons to be drawn from the film relative to Canada’s continued participation in the war in Afghanistan.