Hidden Pentagon Hand Helped Shape Network Military Analysts

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded "the gulag of our times" by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration's communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as "military analysts" whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[callit]

I don't care how late this story was in coming, if the press had any integrity left, this story, complete with meticulous documentation rather than unnamed sources and mere (if accurate) hunches, should be the top story of every news outlet.

Unfortunately, the media is controlled by the same corporate interests that benefit from the continued presence of the U.S. in Iraq.

So much for a free press.

[paixa3]

Charge them with treason........PERIOD, along with chimp and company.

[brend]

We need to do away with the united nations, what good do they do. nada.

[rollingdivision]

Stop the presses, on second thought, hold three full inside pages as well. Notify the Pulitzer jurors. The New York Times has a blockbuster scoop. Its ace reporter, David Barstow, has uncovered shocking evidence that . . . the Pentagon tries to get out its side of the story about Iraq to the news media.

Are you surprised? Outraged? Furious? Apparently the Times is: it"s found a new wrinkle in what it views as an insidious military propaganda campaign. You see, the Defense Department isn"t content to try to present its views simply to full-time reporters who are paid employees of organizations like the New York Times. It actually has the temerity to brief retired military officers directly, who then opine on TV and in print about matters such as the Iraq War.

[Harrier]

Whatever method you use, its not working in convincing the country very much. We are clearly losing in both Iraq and Afghanistan

[shadow7]

Most Americans will not read this story, because they get their 'news' from TV networks, and there is no network that will post a story about its own criminal activity. Alternative news sites on the Internet will keep the story alive...but, it will go the way of all truth in the US in the end....and that is nowhere.

Good read on this: Pimping for the Pentagon:
http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/reggies-commentary/20-regs-thoughts/1263-tv-news-pimping-for-the-pentagon-

[loki]

Oh my! Tell me its not true. Our own government would lie to us ? Why , that would not be possible!

And I bet even after this many people will still blindly believe every lie that they puke out of the pentagon, Congress, and the white house. We are the pawns, and they are the chess masters. At least in their minds. But we seem to help them by eating it all up and being morons , going along with them all the way. I can see why we have become the laughing stock of the world. We only think we are the greatest country on earth, and thats because the majority of Americans have never been anywhere else, they just eat the BS and regurgitated as ordered.

[Marnie1]

Uniformed and exuniformed service men have been shilling White House lies, for pay, at least since Vietnam; as well as so called "experts" for hire.

What the hell took you so long to figure that out?

[Nova16]

The only thing worse than a career politician is a career military hack. Bush has used the military as his personal praetorian guard. The decepetion to involve this country in a phony illegitimate war that has been so badly mismanaged in terms of planning , strategy, tactics, logistics and an exit maneuver cannot be smoothed over by the TV commentary of the supporters and apologists for the greatest foreign policy blunder in our history. From the very start of this debacle in Iraq, the conspiracy betweeen the Bush administration and its enablers in and out of congress, the MSM and these so-called partisan military analysts was discernible. While our honorable soldiers and marines were losing life and limb in Iraq, these charlatans were "spinning" out of control in favor of a war that the majority of Americans now know they have been duped into and want it stopped before more are killed and the nation is bankrupt.

[wayoutleft]

i thought everyone who gave it any thought presumed that all these old heroic guys matthews pees in front of were government shills as soon as they got a load of His Eminence The August Most Reverend Really Really Major Generalissimo Colin Powell lying his little behind off at the UN. but i guess some people have to have things like this painstakingly explained in such a way as to avoid the conclusion that antidemocratic capitalists are manipulating the free institutions of this country: the press, freedom of association, privacy rights and possibly the free ballot.

[Moka11]

Did anyone notice if the "propaganda generals" wore flag lapel pins? Because THAT would be an Outrage!!
Now do we wait to see the same networks report their own complicity?
Why do the "propaganda military analysts" not "support the troops" or is it that they were supporting their corporate interests while "supporting the troops".
To me, this story is one of the ugliest of all coming out because it covers conspiratorial corruption and direct war propaganda efforts from the Pentagon, the Bush Administration, Department of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, AND Mainstream Media.
Journalist David Barstow and the New York Times have done an amazing job but this story will trickle away because the "corporate media" won't report it.
And people like "No Spin Zone" Bill O'Reilly should be outraged because he is directly named in some of the emails and communication as being easily "duped" and a "target show" to get booked on.

[CTmom13]

Not sure if anyone watched FACE THE NATION today, but this was good and hopefully some of the older voters in PA still watch him and listen to him!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-4elxJouBY&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/20/14840/3341/838/499528

[Abycat]

This is a familiar story. Is Judy Miller a General? Do the Generals sleep with members of the Bush Administration too?

[willo]

Just disgraceful, we all know it's true. This is treaon in my opinion, and I would like to see these guys with stiff prison sentences. It would be a warning to other's who might think about selling out our coountry for a paycheck.

[SouthFloridaDem]

["We lost the war " not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped," he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars " taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach "MindWar" " using network TV and radio to "strengthen our national will to victory."]

No, we lost the Vietnam war because we backed a corrupt regime that couldn't raise an army to fight. Sort of like now.