Pentagon Finds No Fault In Its Ties To TV Analysts

New York Times:

A Pentagon public relations program that sought to transform high-profile military analysts into "surrogates" and "message force multipliers" for the Bush administration complied with Defense Department regulations and directives, the Pentagon’s inspector general has concluded after a two-year investigation.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[hamsteronwheel]

11:06 AM on 12/26/2011

we're all hamsters on neocon "financially engineered" and "financially innovated" wheels

EUROPEAN neocon puppet masters manipulating our politicians and making HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN DEFENSE CONTRACTS

Gingrich advisor William Schneider - "a former State Department undersecretary for security assistance, science and technology under President Ronald Reagan, is head of International Planning Services Inc.

He also serves on the board of MBDA Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of

Europe’s largest missile maker.

MBDA,

owned by BAE Systems Plc, Paris and

Munich-based European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co. (EAD) (EADS) and

Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA. (FINMY)

Schneider also serves on the board of Falls Church, Virginia-based Defense Group Inc., whose focus includes research and development in intelligence and cybersecurity.

...The Romney advisers with ties to military contractors include Chertoff, a former Homeland Security secretary; former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden; former CIA and State Department Counterterrorism Director Cofer Black; former Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim; and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Mary Beth Long.

Romney advisers also have business ties to each other. Hayden isa principal at Chertoff’s consulting company, the Chertoff Group, which in turn isa client of Metis Solutions, ownedby Mary Beth Long, another Romney adviser. Another client of Metis, according to the company’s website, is Alion, on whose board Hayden sits."

they can't wait to start as many wars as possible, it's great for their business

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/republican-security-advisers-tied-to-40-billion-in-contracts.html

[TreeBat]

09:02 PM on 12/25/2011

The Pentagon's investigation of the Pentagon found out the Pentagon did nothing wrong, nothing to see here folks.

[motoGpifupleez]

08:14 PM on 12/25/2011

Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC. Twice awarded Medal of Honor.

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man. War is a racket. It alway has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only on international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is all about. It is conducted for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes".

America will never produce another of his stature and integrity. I'd love to hear his take on the "TV analysts".

[Telemachus Sneezed]

05:29 PM on 12/25/2011

I remember government and military manipulation of the discourse about the invasion being known in real time, but was only reported on the far liberal wing blogs - which for some reason always seem to right about this stuff.

[imdesign]

05:12 PM on 12/25/2011

oops - "not a level playing field...." a sli of the keyboard.

[imdesign]

05:11 PM on 12/25/2011

When exposure threatens the power base, there is never deatiled recorded evidence of 'manipulation or coersion', even though they can provide detailed (WMD) evidence to support their lies.

The people are starting to see the cracks (hence OWS) in the have and have more's strategy and so the network will tighten on both political sides to maintain their ability to gain economic, resource and political advantage at the communities expense.

It i snot a level laying field, however it is on the turn and they know it.

[marbou]

04:10 PM on 12/25/2011

When the military did their post mortem after the Vietnam war, they concluded that the main reason for the US defeat was the failure to get the press to go along with the military's effort to win. Every evening on the 7 o'clock news, CBS, NBC and ABC had reporters in the field giving accounts of the war as it was, body count and all. My Lai and ghastly photos of civilian suffering along with thorough coverage of returning vets joining students and pacifists to protest against that war finally turned public opinion and the US left Vietnam. The military swore that next time, they would control the information. This is why news from Iraq and Afghanistan have been controlled. Embedded journalists stories have to be approved by the army, no dead or injured Americans on the news, networks are allowed only pro-war propaganda and lies are the order of the day (Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Osama ben Laden). The only way to get any semblance of truth is to go to the internet. Even that source of information might be cut off soon.

[blue3rdblues]

04:03 PM on 12/25/2011

During the war campaign to go invade Iraq, a friend who works in a top media studio sent me an amazing photo of officers in full military garments "watching over", present in the studio, while anchors were disseminating war propaganda. He titled it "Propaganda at its best", and followed to state, "a little piece of history and the sad state of affairs in the USA".
If people don't change, there will never be any changes to the ways of the Media and the Government.

[Winski]

03:34 PM on 12/25/2011

Fire them all or we'll be at WAR WITH THE WORLD FOREVER.

[shankapotomus]

05:27 PM on 12/25/2011

The war will end when they stop wanting to kill us just for who we are.

[motoGpifupleez]

07:49 PM on 12/25/2011

Yummy. The "They Hate Us For Our FREEDOM" Kool-Aid.
Frank Luntz got you hook, line, and sinker.

[Silverfern]

08:19 AM on 12/26/2011

Oh boy, you still believe that rubbish? Do a little research and see in their own words why they attacked you. And it's not for the "they hate us for our freedoms" line that Bush fed you. You must be pretty gullible to still be buying that nonsense. Get out of your slumber and look beyond your normal war supporting, propaganda feeding Faux News.

[Moxo]

03:03 PM on 12/25/2011

Time to add an "M" to the Military Industrial Complex!; from now on it should be known as, "The Military Industrial Media Complex." We can pay for it via our cable subscriptions.

(Lewis Carroll poem about it: "All MIMC were the warriors, and the public forced to give.")

[Nomccain]

02:53 PM on 12/25/2011

War is in industry in and of itself in this country and people are getting rich off young American's blood. They're being conned into believing they are fighting because of patriotism and freedom when in fact that are protecting the financial interests of major corporations and foriegn investments as well as doing the bidding of our military industrial complex. Shameful.

[Moxo]

03:06 PM on 12/25/2011

War is in industry in and of itself in this country and people are getting rich off young American's blood.
-------------------
And how did Reagan supposedly "beat the Commies"? By outspending them militarily and forcing the Soviet Union to do the same and thus forcing them into bankruptcy.

Now we are doing the same to ourselves, by spending more on our military than the entire rest of the world spends on their's combined.

[demorick2]

02:16 PM on 12/25/2011

Propaganda, pure and simple...of course these "military analysts" were there to bang the war drums for that criminal Rummy and his bosses...

[Anonmouse33]

01:37 PM on 12/25/2011

yeah. . .

anyone think the footage of an apache crew gleefully firing 30mm shells into a kid-filled ghetto ambulance would have gotten out without bradley manning? ...the us's version would have been to give them medals, like to the crew of the vincennes for shooting down a passenger jet.

"I will never apologize for the United States -- I don't care what the facts are..." George H.W. Bush in reference to the downing of flight 655

[Moxo]

03:07 PM on 12/25/2011

GHW will soon be jawboning with Bin Laden for that!

[ddanimal]

01:26 PM on 12/25/2011

For the Pentagon, controlling the media is just another war tactic, and American citizens are the enemy.

[ddanimal]

01:24 PM on 12/25/2011

QUOTE:

"The inspector general’s office said it asked 35 of these analysts whether their participation in the program benefited their business interests. Almost all said no."

This is complete BS. Military contractors make huge money from war.

[Madbunny]

03:50 PM on 12/25/2011

In other news: Police asked a well known group of criminals if they'd stolen anything in the last five years. All of them said no. Police then concluded that crime no longer existed.