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NORMAN SOLOMON - RECENT ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS & EXCERPTS FROM WAR MADE EASY RADIO INTERVIEW - TheWorld.org BUSH SPEAKS TO CRITICS - President Bush held a news conference in Washington where he sought to quell criticism of the war in Iraq. The World's Katy Clark tells us about Mister Bush's remarks . . . and what his critics, including Norman Solomon, are saying. Click here to listen to interview (second item on list) EXCERPT - CommonDreams.org NEWSPAPERS across the United States and beyond told readers Wednesday about sensational new statements by a former top assistant to Colin Powell when he was secretary of state. After interviewing Lawrence Wilkerson, the Associated Press reported he "said that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees after Sept. 11 arose from a coterie of White House and Pentagon aides who argued that 'the president of the United States is all-powerful,' and that the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant." Click here to read COMMENTARY - CommonDreams.org BOB WOODWARD - probably hoped that the long holiday weekend would break the momentum of an uproar that suddenly confronted him midway through November. But three days after Thanksgiving, on NBC's "Meet the Press," a question about the famed Washington Post reporter provoked anything but the customary adulation. Click here to read TWO RADIO INTERVIEWS NORMAN SOLOMON ON IRAQ WITHDRAWAL - A Democratic Congressman and combat veteran called for a timetable to pull troops out of Iraq, and suddenly media are talking about a "tipping point" in debate on the war. How real a shift has there been, and is withdrawal from Iraq, an idea that garners major support from the public, really something the pundit class is ready to take seriously? Counterspin talks with author and media critic Norman Solomon about getting out of Iraq. Click here to listen to - and download MP3 - of Counterspin interview NORMAN SOLOMON ON VANCOUVER COOPERATIVE RADIO Click here to listen to - and download MP3 - of CRFO interview NEWS REPORT - Inter Press Service UN HUMAN RIGHTS BODY TO SCRUTINIZE US ABUSES -The U.N. Human Rights Committee, scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, has written to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) calling for any available evidence of human rights abuses by the United States -- particularly in the aftermath of its global war on terrorism.The 18-member committee, comprising of independent human rights experts, will take up "issues of specific concerns relating to the effect of measures taken (by the administration of President George W. Bush) in the fight against terrorism following the events of 11 September 2001," the day the United States was subject to terrorist attacks. Click here to read REVIEW - Texas Observer MONITORING THE MYTHS - To put the problems of U.S. foreign and military policy into the quip-ridden language of contemporary politics: “It’s the empire, stupid.” Understanding this big picture is crucial as we struggle to respond politically to the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. Yes, the Bush administration is a threat, but it’s not the threat. True, the neocons are a danger, but not the danger. The threat and danger — the rot at the core of U.S. actions abroad — is not a single politician or school of thought, but a project of empire building, which has gone forward through Republican and Democratic administrations alike, most intensely and recklessly since the end of World War II, when U.S. power and domination peaked. Click here to read REVIEW - San Francisco Bay Guardian LIE DOWN WITH LIONS - America's freedoms remain the envy of many. Our press is largely free to disseminate the truth. It is not, however, required to do so. Our citizens are free to speak the truth, but our government officials are also free to distort it. Eventually the truth will out, though; as Norman Solomon's new book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, makes all too clear, the deceptions used to justify wars from Vietnam to Iraq are now matters of public record. "But war happens in the interim," Solomon, a media critic and Bay Guardian contributor, reminds us. Click here to read REVIEW - williambowles.info BIG BUSINESS AD STATE PROPAGANDA - In the autumn of 2001, the Bush administration hired Charlotte Beers as 'undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.' As a former top executive with ad agencies J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather, Beers “got me to buy Uncle Ben’s rice. So there is nothing wrong with getting somebody who knows how to sell something,” said then secretary of state Colin Powell. Making the news might well be an apt alternate title for Norman Solomon’s book War Made Easy – How presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death; the chilling reality is that the corporate media, together with the state’s spin-meisters manufacture and sell consent much as Ms. Beers sold Uncle Ben’s rice to Colin Powell. Click here to read INTERVIEW - riseup.net WHITE HOUSE SHAPING PUBLIC OPINION FOR CONFRONTATION WITH IRAN - Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with author and columnist Norman Solomon who traveled to Iran for 10 days in June. He examines how the Bush administration is now shaping public opinion with regard to justifying a possible future U.S. military confrontation with the nation of Iran. Click here to read/listen to the interview REVIEW - Democrats.com SOLOMON'S UNSPINNING OF WAR - Norman Solomon's new book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, opens with a disturbing prologue. The U.S. media has refused to give serious coverage to the Downing Street Memos on the grounds that they are 'old news.' In the initial pages of his book, and supplemented by the rest, Solomon makes a case that both outdoes and undoes that claim. Click here to read WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO INTERVIEW Norman Solomon was interviewed by Gene Purcell on Wisconsin's WPR on Thursday, August 4. Click here to listen KQED RADIO INTERVIEW Norman Solomon was interviewed by Michael Krasny on San Francisco's KQED radio on Tuesday, August 2. Click here to listen COMMENTARY, TruthOut.org In praise of Kevin Benderman - "Before being sentenced to 15 months for refusing to return to Iraq with his Army unit, Sgt. Kevin Benderman told a military judge that he acted with his conscience, not out of a disregard for duty," the Associated Press reports. Benderman, a 40-year-old Army mechanic, "refused to go on a second combat tour in January, saying the destruction and misery he witnessed during the 2003 Iraq invasion had turned him against war." Click here to read BOOK EXCERPT, AlterNet.org This guy is a modern-day Hitler - Evil that warrants the large-scale killing of war needs a face. But that face cannot belong to some amorphous mass of an enemy population; in fact, it's a ritual for the president to offer assurances that civilians who may be caught in the crossfire are not among the Pentagon's targets. The bull's-eye must be painted on someone who links the nascent war to an indisputably justified one of the past. Click here to read PRWEEK.COM INTERVIEW Disrupting the media stereotypes - Norman Solomon talks about the media's constraints and hunger for narrative storylines, how the White House is handling the Rove affair, and whether or not the administration should be working with external PR agencies Click here to read DEMOCRACY NOW INTERVIEW Sidney Blumenthal vs. Norman Solomon on Karl Rove, the Democrats and Iraq Click here to read RADIO TIMES INTERVIEW Norman Solomon was interviewed by Marty Moss-Coane on Monday, July 11 on Radio Times on WHYY-FM. Click here to read CLICK HERE TO READ NORMAN SOLOMON'S INTERVIEW ABOUT WAR MADE EASY WITH ADRIAN ZUPP CLICK HERE TO READ THE TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR WAR MADE EASY CLICK HERE TO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER OF WAR MADE EASY CLICK HERE TO READ "Withdrawal Would Cripple U.S. Credibility", ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM WAR MADE EASY CLICK HERE for a FREE pdf download of Norman Solomon's previous book "TARGET IRAQ" Click here to return to the WarMadeEasy Home Page Click here for the Latest on war from the Institute for Public Accuracy Click here to read Norman Solomon's Media Beat columns