"War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death"

First of all, props to the RagTag for keeping me up to date on the under-the-radar movies I would've otherwise missed. Second props to video.google for hosting the entire movie and NOT having it be in 121321 parts.

War Made Easy (Video)

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged ... all » the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

Notes:
- Remember that just about everything you read/watch is biased, but that doesn't make it any less potentially amazing. Watch it with a critical eye.
- Being a big hater on the media, I loved this documentary. A lot of it probably won't (or shouldn't) be news to you; in reality, they really just explore the same tactics used to begin/continue popular opinion of a war.
- It made me realize I had never written about/reviewed the books I read in Pakistan (namely, 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman') on the blog. I'll have to get on that.
- I liked the point made about how the media begins to simply report what the government says ("government officials tell us..."), as though those officials are the ones with who create the biased picture that has to be portrayed to the nation.
- Man, the Phil Donahue thing was freaky. The whole "we'll make you feel like a traitor if you don't support the war" bit made me think of Jon Stewart. Which subsequently made me swoon, a little.
- The section on civilian casualties was nauseating:

(paraphrased) "During WWI, 10% of all casualties were civilian. During WWII, the number rose to 50%. In Vietnam, 70% of all casualties were civilian. In this Iraq war, civilian casualties comprise 90% of the death toll"

1. I'd like to know how they defined 'civilian,' particularly in the Iraq war. Though I have no doubt the number is ridiculously high, it seems that, at the very least in the Iraq war, it's difficult to distinguish between civilians and combatants.
2. Can someone find me their source for these numbers? I can't go around quoting without a source! Thanks.
- Hey, look, it's also a book.
- Note to self: Look into collections of MLK speeches.