User Reviews

This is based on Normon Solomon's book of the same title, and he comments at length throughout, with archive footage of politicians, news readers, and reporters. The clips support his thesis that wars are shrewdly packaged and sold to the public with little accountability, with dissenting voices quickly stigmatized as "anti-American" and silenced.

This is the way it is presented in the film, and watching it you can't blame the filmmakers for it being "one-sided." That's precisely the point. After getting nothing BUT the other side on basically EVERY news network (not just the usual suspects), these filmmakers take Solomon's argument and run with it.

It is tough to argue with his position that we the people are often lied to when it comes to selling a war, MOST if not all the time. (Solomon notes, "If you say something enough times, it starts to sound true.")

If you don't agree, at least watch this documentary before you make up your mind. It's that compelling.

Powerful, if slightly familiar examination of how the US government lies to get us into war, and how the media goes along. Interesting to see the how Bush, Johnson, Reagan, and even Clinton used such similar language and techniques to manipulate public opinion, and how the media still doesn't generally ask the hard questions. However, it does get a bit repetitive, and it's not like we didn't know much this on the big picture level already. In some ways the Daily Show does it better, if with less historical perspective. None the less, these kind of examinations of our recent history are always worthwhile and thought-provoking.

Although I am a big supporter of Barack Obama and find him to be a great leader and inspirational person, as President he is continuing to war. He may have not started a war, and is winding down Iraq (troop pullout from Iraqi cities last month) -- but our involvement in Afghanistan was increased greatly, and we are bombing Pakistan (with drones, near the border).

I guess being President requires exercising military might -- but I hope that Pres. Obama can help wind down the war machine. Interestingly enough, he has stated that he wants to rid the world of nuclear weapons and is at work on reducing the amount of stockpiles in the U.S., Russia, and elsewhere.

Perhaps it is hard after a century of war, and only 7 years after 9/11, to not fight some battles. Change is not overnight...

Terrific doc here.

I am a very critical thinker and have prided myself on not being taken in the propaganda of our business (greed) interested media. After seeing this movie at an University of Oregon symposium I am shaking my head at how easy it is to manipulate the mass population, whether it is by the right or the left, and whether they are on guard. I never connected the dots before on how easy it is to sell war and just how gullible we all are.

This movie should be shown in every critical thinking class at both the high school and college level. It is a wake up call for all of us to protect ourselves from the subtle, effective media propaganda that influences us in just about all our decisions.

Although this movies is critical of our current president and his politics, it doesn't treat kindly those who preceded him in the office of the presidency. The way things stand today the choice between Democrat or Republican is simply what ever we have been told it is and doesn't equate to the reality of politics where money rules.

I probably have talked to most of my friends about this movie more than any other movie this year. I can guarantee you more than one epipthany.

This move in my opinion is one of the most important movies of the year and for that matter the last 5 decades. The underling problem with the ideology of the leaders in this country is what this film hits right on the head. This film is not talking about victory or loss it's a move about brain washing an entire country for political and financial gain. Unfortunately as long as people take this sort of; Oh well that's just the way it is; kind of attitude and ;Oh were just oblivious and we let our government make decisions for us; the people who made this country are the ones truly being dismissed. "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. Thomas Jefferson"

This documentary verbalized everything I have been thinking for years now and some things I didn't even realize I was thinking. It reminded me why I have refused to turn on my television for 6 months in order to avoid being fed disgustingly obvious lies and propaganda day after day. The pattern of propaganda has become so obvious that it amazes me greatly how it has not become blatantly clear to more people. There can almost exist a scientific equation with CNN and other such networks used as its variables as to when the United States government will declare its next war and on what country the war will be declared on.

Watching this documentary brought tears to my eyes. They were not tears of sadness. They were tears of disgust. Listening to the way most of the people were talking about the wars and the manner in which they were being fought made me ask myself why we as human beings deserve to continue our existence.

Absolute praise to all involved in making this documentary and hope to see more of their fine work.

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke ... this evil is not just the "terrorists"

War, war, what is it good for... Sing it again. Yeah.

Oh, boy.

I have a nagging doubt that the Left doesn't really grasp the concept of war at all, or how it relates to humankind, politics, psychology, and just about everything else. The Left has an almost embarrassing way of over-simplifying every single complex issue (while over-complicating the very simple, straight-forward ones), and this they display in abundant quantities in this goofy attempt at a "documentary".

But it's interesting that as anti-war as they (allegedly) are, they would never complain if Hugo Chavez or any other Left-wing idol of theirs started a war. War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!... Except if it's a conflict initiated by Marxist rebels. Then it's a "good war". This is when killing becomes "necessary" and "acceptable".

War! What is it good for? Absolutely everything - like killing Imperialist Capitalist Western swine! Sing it again... Yeah.

On a serious note, with a title like this, the Left have once again prevented one of their numerous propaganda films from reaching those whom they wish to convert. As it is, the only people who saw this film were the already converted (i.e. brainwashed). As far as I know, propaganda films are not judged by how they were made - but by how many people of differing views they can reach.

Nice try, but no cigar - yet again.

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Basically, Norman Solomon's notion, as presented here covers modern wars from Vietnam to the recent adventures in the Middle East. Here's how the process works.

Stage One: The government, led by the president, begins beating the war drums against a perceived enemy. The enemy is manufacturing and storing weapons, is a threat to democracy, is a sponsor of an alien ideology, aims at the destruction of America and possibly world domination. The names used (or, rather, called) are always the same -- "evil," "terrorist or communist," "barbaric", "brutal," "ruthless," and so on. The media reports what the government says. Challengers are marginalized and, since the government is the focus of attention in the press, get much less coverage.

Stage Two: The war is launched. And now we can't back out because we must "support the troops" or else we are "unpatriotic." The government controls press access to combat so what we see and read becomes a combination of a Fourth of July fireworks display and a Homecoming football game with everyone rooting for our side. Our high technology weapons are lovingly described. The enemy are faceless.

Solomon would certainly agree that nothing is as simple as the picture of "going to war" that I've just presented. We get to see a lot of Norman Solomon. He's a soft-spoken, thoughtful, smart guy and wouldn't be easily bamboozled by simplicity. That's why he wrote the book.

There are a couple of things I find myself doubting. He downplays the impact of the press on the public's perception of the Vietnam war. And, in fact, the evidence is that the newspapers were laggard in their understanding. But they did come around. I guess it would be safe to say that they usually DO come around eventually and see the process from a more informed perspective.

I don't think anyone can underplay the influence of Walter Cronkite's national broadcast in which he admitted that Vietnam had become a stalemate and it was time to leave. It certainly had an effect on Lyndon Johnson. Solomon is right in arguing that it came a little late in the game, but then it's the job of journalists to report what they know, not their opinion of what they know. At least it used to be that way, before some of the cable news channels became instrumentalized.

A few new thoughts occurred to me while watching this. During the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences, the government allowed the media wide access to military operations by "embedding" reporters with selected units. But -- it didn't HELP the public. In a perfectly natural process, the reporters became loyal friends of the soldiers of their units and submitted stories favorable to them. (Imagine: A hypothetical Marine throws away his weapon and runs to the rear. Is the embedded reporter likely to publicize the incident?) There is no surer way to bond people than to subject them to the same stress at the same time. And the enemy remains faceless, distant targets to be shot at or bombed.

Some of the comments we hear on the morality of war are also thought provoking. Is it somehow more "moral" for a man to release a load of bombs on a city from ten thousand feet in the air, than it is for a man to strap on a vest full of explosives and commit suicide in the midst of those that HE defines as the barbaric enemy? When our guys commit altruistic suicide they become heroes. Why is it a surprise that when they do it, they become heroes too?

Finally, I'll cut these comments short because I don't want to run out of space, and because I've gotten so high on this soap box that I'm beginning to feel the effects of cerebral anoxia. This has nothing to do with the dynamics described by Solomon but I wonder if there isn't something within at least some of us that actually WANTS to go to war and kill others. It's not as stupid as it sounds. Testosterone prompts us to engage in aggression and sexual activity and blood levels vary between individuals and groups. (The level is higher in winning soccer teams.) And differences have been found in the brains of those who are more or less likely to go to war, especially in the region of the amygdala, an almond-shaped organ in the mid-brain that controls the fight-or-flight response. It's bigger in those who are more likely to be militant. You can probably Google it easily enough.

Finally, I DO wish we'd all stop using the term "cut and run." War at the top isn't a matter of gonads; it's a matter of brains. I'd suggest that anybody who has survived an elementary school-yard fight should outgrow it -- although I think "cut" can be a perfectly apt term to describe a military withdrawal from an unwinnable situation. It's certainly used routinely on Wall Street -- "cut your losses." The alternative can lead to things like Kamikaze attacks and Hitler's order to "retreat not one millimeter."

That's exactly how I felt after walking out at the end of this gripping, but short documentary (only about 75 minutes). I was riveted to the screen from start to finish. I thought to myself, "I'm so glad I didn't vote for the Fourth Reich (i.e. The Bush Administration)either in 2000, or 2004 (not that voting mattered much, as I'm sure the voting machines were rigged so that Fuhrer George II came out on top both times). This documentary (shot on digital video fore mat),based on Norman Soloman's book of the same name,left me angry & bitter at the way this country is heading (is heading,he says?). There is a plethora of film & video footage of just about every war mongering President (Fascist Dictator) from L.B.J., to Fuhrer George II (George W. Bush),taken from the mainstream media (any & all of the major networks,including,but not limited to Fox News--shudder!). Although this documentary is getting something of a limited theatrical run (due to the fact that most cinemas aren't equipped for digital video fore mat),the film/video is already available on DVD, so there is still a chance for you to see this important document on how our (alleged)leaders are flushing our country down the proverbial toilet.

WAR MADE EASY is a short, but powerful look at how media pundits, government officials, policy makers, and pressure groups, working in conjunction with a fawning and compliant Free Press, have conjured up a belligerent American foreign policy of Orwellian dimensions. For over a half century Americans have been duped again and again about the real reasons for the deployment of US forces. And, immediately after the first shot is fired, the film demonstrates how all opposition is silenced or marginalized by calculated misdirection and pro-war manipulation. Norman Solomon (narration by Sean Penn) presents a well reasoned and fully documented point of view, chock full of historical references. WAR MADE EASY begs to be shown in a classroom.

I dont know.. yes, war is bad, but somehow i can't help myself.. many statements in the document are cut from the context... Actually no real argument is given, no "other way on how to do it" provided.. making decisions under uncertainty is never easy, especially when it's about war.. in democracy there will always be more opinions.. on the other side comming years after, when more details are known and judge the decisions, pick only those statements supporting what the author wants to present... i actually consider this manipulative..

Didn't any of you people that think this movie is something other than Hitlerian propaganda notice that there was never any mention of the enemy's brutality against civilians? Especially the brutality of the communists in Vietnam? Wow.

In Vietnam the Ho Chi Minh regime murdered over 100,000 fellow Vietnamese, including fellow communists who didn't accommodate Ho's party line. And once the war was over the North Vietnamese communists murdered and imprisoned their fellow communists in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong.

The South Vietnamese people loved the Americans and hated the communists and the Soviets who occupied Vietnam after the war ended.

The American military performed in Vietnam as well as the American military performed in World War II.

Anyone who takes Sean Penn seriously has no contact with reality.