Pentagon Fights To Protect Secret Propaganda Budget

POLITICO:

Growing by leaps and bounds, the Pentagon's secretive Information Operations budget keeps tripping over some basic information -- like how much it costs.

Just months ago, the Defense Department said it needed $988 million to help win hearts and minds in the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. When the House cut this by half in July, top-level officials landed on Capitol Hill, pleading their case but also making a startling admission: Their budget needs for 2010 are actually $626.2 million -- more than one-third less than first estimated.

Read the whole story: POLITICO

Comments

[vascopyjama]

The Pentagon don't have to fight for anything. They know they will get whatever they want whenever they want. Our economy is based on oil and we will go to war with anyone to make sure we have enough of it.

[Birdman]

Pentagon Fights To Protect Secret Propaganda Budget

They are probably doing it to hide the billions they have funneld to Faux News and the NY Times

[OliverTwist]

These propaganda efforts deceive the American people more than anyone else.

Seems like politics to me.

[pattithepolitico]

there shouldn't even be a "public" propaganda budget! why should they have this kind of budget at all except to continue useless and meaningless wars!!!!

[xilduq]

If It's no secret they're deeply involved in propaganda, I wonder what the secret really is...hmm.

[Carl Caroli]

The military indutrial complex is out of control and needs to be reigned in. Cut this budget to zero.

[addisonsteele]

Immediately after the end of WWII, the US government decided that it needed to "scare the bejeezus" out of the American public, so that the public would not reject huge increases in military spending prompted by the government's complete misunderstanding of Soviet foreign policy and of what George F. Kennan meant when he proposed "containment" (he meant political, not military containment). The government has been lying to the public about virtually every aspect of foreign and military policy since then, ranging from claims that the Soviets had more nuclear warheads than we did, when the Soviets had five and we had several hundred, to claims of progress in Vietnam, to claims of progress in Iraq. If Obama really wanted to change things in the US, he would make a good start by ending the Pentagon's propaganda operation.

[Birdman]

Actually it was fouind out after the collapse of the USSR that they had more nuclear weapins than we did.

[Coinyer101]

I'm si ck and tired of propaganda­......,

[mdchurch]

I despise secrecy, it is counter productive an usually masks some kind of illegal activity. With that said, I am particularly disturbed by the finding in the article that “At face value, much of what is being produced appears to be United States military and, more alarmingly, nonmilitary, propaganda, public relations and behavioral modification messaging,”

I can't help but recall how hard the Pentagon worked to discredit all of the people that questioned the damage caused by American Airlines Flight 77. While people were asking legitimate questions about the absence of any wreckage, the Pentagon was busy preparing to attack Afghanistan and issuing an official statement that the plane has disintegrated upon impact. Yea right!

Maybe some of this money can go to restoring a belief in Santa Claus and the Ester Bunny. I wouldn't give these people a dime! Lies, lies and more lies!

[Laws456]

MDChurch..­.You don't believe that a plane could disintegrate upon impact? What's wrong with you? Are you serious? It happens all the time. LOL.

[CigarGod]

I think she basically meant "disappear".
There was virtually no debris field at all.
Where did it go?

[SimJack]

I'd like to hear about the CIA's propaganda budget too as well as how many individuals and corporations within our own country are influenced by them and what that means in terms of the information we get from the MSM. Shining some daylight in this dark hole would be revelatory for sure.

[KindOne]

We know the major media are involved in it, it is so obvious. Plus it is documented. It is also illegal.

It is called 'propaganda' and we have been documenting it in the news media for a while now. Congress passed a law allowing them to get a free pass on it, but that looks like it might get repealed.

Wouldn't that be interesting? We could hold them accountable for lying us into war.

[outnow]

An oxymoron - a secret propaganda budget. The whole point of propaganda is to mislead people. In order to do this, you have to have secrecy. Intelligence is supposed to be in our interest as a nation. If we are a democracy, then just who decides what is going to be true? The guys that make war make undisclosed profits. So they are allowed to use our tax dollars to lie to us so that they make money. If this is called security, our nation is lost.

Wall Street and Midison Avenue also helps shape our opinions. Not good for democracy.

[helonias]

A gov by and for whom?

[Dredd]

Different day, same story. They do this for a living you know.

[lthuedk 1]

Fascism must go. While they're at it, lose the theobotic generals: They are a threat to peace.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/obama_confronts_the_corporation.html

[Paulo1]

Uhm. A secret Pentagon propaganda program which they are willing to publicly defend. What exactly about the word "secret" do they not understand? I would submit that there is a severe lack of mental ability in certain Pentagon offices dealing with "Secret Propaganda Programs"