War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine

Written by Norman Solomon

Narrated by Joe Barrett

More than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America's foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible, by the journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon, exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are, from military and civilian casualties to drained resources at home.



From Iraq through Afghanistan and Syria and on to little-known deployments in a range of countries around the globe, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these forays remain off the radar of average Americans. Compliant journalists add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements and by repeating the military's talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians who die. Back at home, Solomon argues, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets that receive bipartisan approval even as policy makers struggle to fund the domestic agenda.



Necessary, timely, and unflinching, War Made Invisible is an eloquent moral call for counting the true costs of war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Feb 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350895568

Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include War Made Easy, Made Love, and Got War. He lives in the San Francisco area.

Reviews for War Made Invisible

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book was well written but a bit tedious and repetitive at times. The information was important, but unfortunately nobody cares about this stuff so it was depressing as hell. Overall, well written and well researched ... just too damn depressing.

[bookanonjeff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Russia : Ukraine :: United States : Afghanistan (and Iraq). This is the point that Solomon makes over and over and over in various forms, looking at varying facets of the same simple refrain. Not a long book at just 240 pages, 28% of which (at least in ARC form) was documentation - which is on the higher end of "normal" in my experience - a truly in-depth analysis, this book is not. But the point it makes, and the bias it openly stakes, is in stark and balancing contrast to the dominant narrative through US media - which is its very point.

Basically, Solomon's entire point comes down to the fact that in focusing on cruise missile bombing - not even as many actual bomber planes, certainly relative to prior generations of American war as recently as Vietnam - and, more recently and perhaps even more ubiquitously, drone bombings, the US Department of Defense has shifted the conversation about war away from the dangers faced by soldiers on the ground. Complicit with this is an American media that even when showing atrocities, also "reminds" people of the tragedy of 9/11 - without ever noting that the US DoD commits a 9/11 seemingly every few days, and the constant terror of hearing a drone hover around can be even worse, psychologically. (This is particularly clear in one passage in particular where he discusses speaking directly with Afghan citizens in the southern provinces, away from US media coverage.) A generation later, with Russia invading Ukraine on just as flimsy a pretext, suddenly the American media is hyping up every remotely-connected-to-Russia instance of civilian suffering in the affected region... because suddenly, the invader is not the US itself, but an enemy of the US.

Solomon even takes square aim at Samuel Moyn's September 2021 book Humane, where Moyn posits that the US use of drones has made modern warfare "more humane", with some valid points here. (Though to be clear, I also believe Moyn has some valid points from his side as well, and stated so in my review of that book.)

I made it a point to read this book on Medal of Honor day, and it is a truly fascinating - and needed, for Americans - book any day of the year. It brings a refreshing balance to overall US discourse about war and its repercussions, it certainly can open eyes that are willing to be opened, and it will strengthen the views of those who are already "in the know" of this subject. Very much recommended.

[lostinalibrary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Since 9/11 and the beginning of the War on Terror, the US has been constantly at war. Yet, as Norman Solomon points out in War Made Invisible, the government, with the collusion of the mainstream media, has hidden the true human cost of these wars. No dissent was allowed. Any broadcaster who was even suspected of refusing to fall in line, like Phil Donavan, was summarily dismissed before the invasion of Iraq. The media reported the number of American casualties but rarely if ever mentioned the casualties, many deliberately targeted, of the other side. They repeated every justification the government put forward for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan without question. It was only as the US prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan after twenty years that some began to question its outcome if still not its purpose.

He also points out the hypocrisy and racism inherent in much of the reporting. Many reporters from the Global South, on viewing the reporting of US media after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, commented on how the deaths and suffering of Arabs and Asians in US wars had been treated as inconsequential while several US journalists talked about blonde and blue-eyed Ukrainians who ‘look like us’.

He also points out the other costs of these wars. Despite these forever wars, the War on Terror has created more terrorist groups and more hatred of the west. The death toll of US soldiers is far outnumbered by those left permanently disabled mentally as well as physically. And, finally, the economic cost is astronomical making one wonder what that money could have done domestically.

I finished War Made Invisible a while ago and have been struggling to write this review ever since. It is not that it was difficult to wade through like too many books like this. It is, in fact, a surprisingly easy read but it is not always a comfortable one. It is, however, powerful and, for anyone wanting to know the true cost of invisible but perpetual war, important.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and New Press in exchange for an honest review

[davidwineberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

On the one hand, War Made Invisible, Norman Solomon’s latest book, plays right to me. I have always been offended at the blatant racism of American wars. It always infuriated me that the very people America was supposedly defending were called Gooks or Towelheads or Hadjis by American soldiers in their countries. That mainstream media played up every single American military death overseas, but totally ignored the huge piles of civilian deaths caused directly by the Americans supposedly defending them. In fact, it was the Americans who were killing them.


On the other hand I understand that war is not fair, is not meant to be fair, and frankly, it is important to fool the entire population into thinking Americans are the good guys in every way. After all, how different is it than Putin forcing the whole country to call his invasion a special operation and never a war? Where the number of military deaths is a state secret, just like the USA blocked reporters from seeing caskets repatriated. As I read, I felt trapped between a rock and a hard place.


The lies Solomon cites are endless and eye-wateringly gigantic in scope as well as number. In particular, the chapter on the mainstream media is revolting in its revelations. Management at the major tv networks forced all staff to toe the government line. No criticism of the war (no matter which one of the many) would be allowed. At CNN, there would have to be constant reminders to viewers of the role Afghanistan played in 9/11 (none at all) when reporting on life there. Civilian victims were irrelevant, never worth profiling. The lies that led to the war were not to be exposed once the war got underway. It wasn’t long before the war was barely ever even mentioned. Yet it was America’s longest.


Phil Donahue lost his long running hit tv show precisely because NBC did not want to be seen as questioning America’s bogus reasons for invading both Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, which was the official excuse for those wars, along with lies about weapons of mass destruction, which the USA holds in abundance. (At the same time, Saudi Arabia, which provided ¾ of the 9/11 terrorists, still sold its oil to the US, and the US continued to sell it its most sophisticated arms and training in them.)


The same went for NBC reporter Ashley Banfield, who dared to question their legitimacy in a speech not even broadcast on the network. She was banished from the airwaves, held to her contract to show up every day, but given no office, no camera, no computer and no assignments. No one was allowed to have an opinion other than the official one. So much for the vaunted American free press, specified in the US Constitution.


Solomon’s chapters are neatly divided, and then highly detailed. Yet they are a breeze to read, and offensive in every conceivable way. They will be offensive to ultra patriots, hawks, doves, peaceniks and roadkill alike. That universal offensiveness, almost by definition, implies strong truth.


In one chapter, he shows how simple repetition of a lie or the continual omission of a fact eventually become truth themselves, a guiding principle of government in war.


Another chapter focuses on the idiotic concept of a humane war, in which Americans are so highly proficient killing machines they can take out specific targets (people) without harming anyone else. This was always farcical, and now, true figures show the extent of the lie. While America claims several thousand of its soldiers were killed in its newfangled remote wars, innocent civilian casualties number in the hundreds of thousands thanks to its humane tactics.


Along with the “highly targeted” bombings of weddings, funerals and public markets, there is the lie of the drones. Solomon cites experts admitting that seeing though the camera of a drone is like looking at scene with one eye closed and the other looking through a drink straw: “a resolution equal to the legal definition of blindness for drivers.” The man with his finger on the red button has no idea what is going on on the ground. And since drones fly fast, their sound only reaches the scene after they have passed, so no one can run for cover or know what hit them.


Another chapter focuses on race, comparing the bleeding heart coverage of all the brave suffering of (white) Ukrainian victims of Russian war crimes, to American war crimes of exactly the same nature against victims who were black, brown, Muslim – anything other than WASP. The hypocrisy of American coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war is massively offensive to the world outside the USA.


And of course, the so-called War on Terror comes in for some sane reflection. To no one’s great shock (and awe), the War on Terror has created at least twice as many armed terrorist groups as were busy hating Americans before war was declared. It has immiserated millions of victims, turning their economies back 500 years. It has also embittered them to America and Americans. And thereby perpetuated itself. Solomon cites investigative reporter Nick Turse: ”The U.S. government – responsible for up to 60 million displaced people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria and Yemen due to it war on terror – bears special responsibility.”


As US generals have publicly stated, terror is a tactic, not a target. You cannot go to war against terror. And you certainly cannot defeat terror in a classic war. You can never declare victory over terror, and terror cannot ever surrender. It’s an old saying, but a good one: every war has two losers.


While it has fooled most, and continues to, there are often a select few who see through it. Even at the time, Joan Didion claimed: “We had seen, most importantly, the insistent use of September 11 to justify the reconception of America’s correct role in the world as one of initiating and waging virtually perpetual war.” While government and the media cheer on the lie daily. Solomon cites 22 countries on four continents subject to unrestricted American bombing since 9/11/2001. The USA continues to maintain well over 800 military bases – overseas alone. War in America is a constant. It is a normal part of life, hardly noticed. There is no draft, no rationing, no war bonds, no clothing drives. It is just noise in the background of life as usual. In Solomon’s terms, it is invisible.


Russia is vilified in the media for using cluster bombs in Ukraine, but no such criticism befalls America when it employs them with the same horrific results. The simple truth is that while 140 countries agreed to cease their use, Russia and the USA refused to sign on. American soldiers are not the good guys riding to anyone’s rescue. They are everyone else’s idea of Hell. Every year, polls are taken around the world, asking what is the biggest threat to peace in the coming year. And every poll results in the same top answer: the United States.


The final full chapter deals with the unbelievable costs of war. Solomon does the usual thorough job of showing how the money spent on one Predator drone could itself finance some worthwhile program, either in the USA or in the victim nation. The trillion dollar cost of a war today is plainly unimaginable, which is precisely how administrations get away with financing them. He shows how far more veterans suffer the effects of American wars than are killed, and how much they cost the economy every year –almost as much as the military budget again. All of it avoidable and preventable. That money spent on the military is money all but totally wasted, compared to the money spent on job creation, healthcare and so on.


As I read, I also thought this is nothing new either. Starting wars has always been indefensible. The costs have always been astronomical. They have often bankrupted the nation, as happened to France for coming to the aid of the newly birthed USA, for example. The national debt soars higher with each one, all of it money that does not go to the benefit of the citizens. Solomon doesn’t even bother with how stopping forever wars would balance the budget, pay for Medicare For All as well as social security, and make the USA an idyllic place for Americans to live.


The book clearly has its place. Whole generations need to understand this. It has to be repeated continually, as new generations don’t get it.


But my God, Norman Solomon, how do you stop it?


David Wineberg