Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
New York Times

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.
(snip)

The Pentagon’s Propaganda Brigade
Rolling Stone

Why would these military analysts� play ball? Because they uniformly had financial ties to military contractors and saw misinforming the American public a small price to pay to secure inside access and classified information and to ingratiate themselves to decision-makers on the procurement side.

“We knew we had extraordinary access, said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that some four-star could call up and say, Kill that contract."

Here's the nut of the story, destined for a Pulitzer:

The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guant¡namo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.
(snip)

Bush administration manipulated TV military analysts: report
AFP

NYT on the Pentagon's Puppets
You Tube Video

Pentagon Propaganda & Antiwar Analysts
Yahoo/The Nation

A Guide to 'NYT' Scoop on Pentagon's Media Propaganda
Editor & Publisher

Flashback: Media Matters had documented conservative misinformation from military analysts with hidden ties to Pentagon
Media Matters

Propaganda at home
Boston Globe

House members press Pentagon for propaganda investigation
ThinkProgress

Pentagon Used Military Analysts to Deliver Message
NPR

The Pentagon’s Message, and Ours: 5 Analysts Reply
NYT

Networks again refuse to go on the record about NY Times' military analyst exposé
Media Matters

TV News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits
FAIR

‘They Were Lying’
Mary Tillman publishes her story, "Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman."
Newsweek

Pentagon launches foreign news websites
USA Today

More Revelations About Pentagon's Media 'Propaganda' Campaign -- Using Military 'Pundits'-- Emerge
Editor & Publisher

As noted in previous E&P articles, the shocking New York Times article last month by David Barstow exposing the Pentagon's use of retired military officers to carry their talking points on the Iraq war in the media has received relatively little follow-up--or response--from the news outlets involved, principally TV and cable networks. One popular blogger who has kept the issue alive is Salon's Glenn Greenwald.

The Pentagon, earlier this week, released dozens of documents that Barstow forced out by his inquiries, including transcripts of some of the meetings with the "media generals" (who are further compromised by working for companies with defense contracts) and even some audio. Greenwald, yesterday and today, has been going through some of it and offering some startling quotes about the collaboration.

Today, he quotes at length from one January 2005 internal document, which he then summarizes this way: "So the Pentagon would maintain a team of 'military analysts' who reliably 'carry their water' -- yet who were presented as independent analysts by the television and cable networks. By feeding only those pro-Government sources key information and giving them access -- even before responding to the press -- only those handpicked analysts would be valuable to the networks, and that, in turn, would ensure that only pro-Government sources were heard from.

"Meanwhile, the 'less reliably friendly' ones -- frozen out by the Pentagon -- would be 'weeded out' by the networks. The pro-Government military analysts would do what they were told because the Pentagon was 'their bread and butter.' These Pentagon-controlled analysts were used by the networks not only to comment on military matters -- and to do so almost always unchallenged -- but also even to shape and mold the networks' coverage choices.
(snip)

Saturday May 10, 2008 07:48 EDT
How the military analyst program controlled news coverage: in the Pentagon's own words
Salon.com/Glen Greenwald

On the question of whether the Pentagon maintained an illegal covert domestic propaganda program -- and on the broader question of whether the American media's political coverage is largely shaped and controlled by the U.S. Government -- I don't believe it's possible to obtain more conclusive evidence than this:

These are excepts from a memorandum sent on January 14, 2005 -- just before President Bush was to be inaugurated for his second term -- from Capt. Roxie T. Merritt, the Director of DoD Press Operations, to several top Pentagon officials, including Larry Di Rita, the top aide to Donald Rumsfeld (pp. 7815-7816 (.pdf)). It reports on Merritt's conclusions and proposals in the wake of a Pentagon-organized trip to Iraq for their military analysts:
(snip)

Quick bio: Larry DiRita
The Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Chief of Staff)

Di Rita served as acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and Pentagon spokesmen under Secretary Rumsfeld. Reportedly, he was slated to become Secretary of the Army but his nomination was scuttled due to opposition in the United States Senate. His prior position was Special Assistant to Rumsfeld. Throughout his time in the Pentagon, Di Rita was considered the Defense Secretary's right-hand aide. Even after Rumsfeld's resignation, Di Rita was authorized by Rumsfeld to speak on his behalf to TIME magazine regarding matters such as Rumsfeld's current plans and activities.
-wiki

Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law
PR Watch

The Pentagon military analyst program unveiled in last week's exposé by David Barstow in the New York Times was not just unethical but illegal. It violates, for starters, specific restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those restrictions, "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."

As explained in a March 21, 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, "publicity or propaganda" is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda." By covert propaganda, GAO means information which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third party.

These concerns about "covert propaganda" were also the basis for the GAO's strong standard for determining when government-funded video news releases are illegal:



In a related analysis, the GAO explained that "The publicity or propaganda restriction helps to mark the boundary between an agency making information available to the public and agencies creating news reports unbeknownst to the receiving audience."
(snip)

Reid promises Senate hearings on Pentagon propaganda program
Think Progress

During today’s Firedoglake Book Salon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised that the Senate would be holding hearings on the Pentagon’s propaganda program, which was first disclosed by the New York Times on April 20. Reid’s announcement is the first time the Senate leadership has indicated that it intends to hold hearings:

LISH: Senator, are you planning to hold hearings on the illegality of the Pentagon’s propaganda training program of retired military officers that was recently exposed by the New York Times and Glenn Greenwald?

REID: The answer is yes. I have personally spoken to Chairman Levin and he is tremendously concerned as I. And we are proceeding accordingly.

Pentagon document dump: E-mailer suggested ’softball’ interview with top general.
Think Progress: Think Fast

Last month, the Pentagon released an extensive document dump with details on its military analyst propaganda program. TPM Muckraker notes that in a 2006 e-mail, someone (with a redacted name) e-mailed Pentagon officials stating that Jed Babbin, a participant in the analyst program, would be guest hosting for right-wing radio talker Michael Medved. Babbin requested an interview with Gen. George Casey, then top commander in Iraq. Pitching the request to interview Casey to the Pentagon officials, the e-mailer said: “this would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation.” Allison Barber, a Public Affairs official at the Pentagon, responded:

Thanks for sending this.

Just fyi, probably wouldn’t put “softball” interview in writing. If that got out it would compromise jed and general casey.

The e-mailer wrote back: “check, check.”

How The Pentagon Propaganda Machine Worked: ‘are you telling me to tell a lie???? surely not!
Think Progress


The Pentagon document dump on its propaganda program reveals this interesting insight as to how the Defense Department worked with conservative allies to manipulate the media.

In a Feb. 16, 2006 email exchange, Pentagon media staffers discussed coordinating with the Heritage Foundation to identify someone to speak about detainee treatment at Gitmo. An anonymous employee suggested retired Army Sergeant Major Steve Short because “he seems to be on message and very articulate.”

Pentagon public affairs official Allison Barber responded by warning that the DoD could not officially “endorse” one particular speaker over another. “Important to remember that heritage can invite anyone to present and that we don’t really have an opinion on anyone,” Barber wrote.

The anonymous author then suggested he or she might lie and pretend not to have ever heard of Short:



Just two weeks after this email exchange — on March 1, 2006 — Short was invited by Heritage to participate on a panel entitled “GITMO: What You Read Vs. What You See.” And he was indeed “on message”
(snip)

Pentagon said O’Reilly, Malkin had ‘thoughtful’ views on Guantanamo.
Think Progress

Last month, the Pentagon released a document collection on its military analyst propaganda program. In a July 2006 e-mail between Public Affairs official Jeffrey Gordon and other Pentagon officials, Gordon attached several articles on detention policy by right-wing talkers, including Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin, that he said were “thoughtful.” In a later e-mail, Gordon said officials could use the articles “with military analysts as appropriate” (p. 5808). His initial e-mail lauded the right-wing voices (p. 5808):



What were the “thoughtful” remarks of Malkin and O’Reilly on detention policy? In the Malkin column, she said that a “far greater threat” than Guantanamo to America is the “unseriousness and hypocrisy of the terrorist-abetting left.” O’Reilly said there were only “minor cases of abuse” there. In fact, when news broke of suicides at the prison, Malkin’s reaction was “boo-freaking hoo.”

Rummy discusses the benefits of terrorism with his team of propagandists.



*Topic merged

Oy, I read about this first thing this morning....prepare the vomitorium.
How can a human actually say shit like that, let alone have his audience, most likely, nodding and bobbing their heads in agreement? These are the instances I weep in bewilderment for my country.

xoxox

Again, this demonstrates how sociopathic Republicans are - they REALLY need psychiatric treatment. It's like having your government being run by Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, or Hannibal Lechter.

Yet I always get flamed for calling a spade a spade when I say Republicans are mindless, soulless, mass-murdering monsters every bit as dangerous to all life forms as Ripley's Aliens.

Also isn't something how the MSM avoided this story. (Proably because they hired and used so many of them)

I remember the Generals pounding against Iran..............

In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all.

According to a report by the LA Times correspondent Tina Susman in Baghdad: "A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was cancelled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin. When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all."

The US, which until two weeks ago had never provided any proof for its allegations, finally handed over its "evidence" of the Iranian origin of these weapons to the Iraqi government. Last week, an Iraqi delegation to Iran presented the US "evidence" to Iranian officials. According to Al-Abadi, a parliament member from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance who was on the delegation, the Iranian officials totally refuted "training, financing and arming" militant groups in Iraq . Consequently the Iraqi government announced that there is no hard evidence against Iran.

In another extraordinary event this week, the US spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, for the first time did not blame Iran for the violence in Iraq and in fact did not make any reference to Iran at all in his introductory remarks to the world media on Wednesday when he described the large arsenal of weapons found by Iraqi forces in Karbala.

In contrast, the Pentagon in August 2007 admitted that it had lost track of a third of the weapons distributed to the Iraqi security forces in 2004/2005. The 190,000 assault rifles and pistols roam free in Iraqi streets today.

In the past year, the US leaders have been relentless in propagating their charges of Iranian meddling and fomenting violence in Iraq and since the release of the key judgments of the US National Intelligence Estimate in December that Iran does not have a nuclear weaponisation programme, these accusations have sharply intensified.

The US charges of Iranian interference in Iraq too have now collapsed. Any threat of military strike against Iran is in violation of the UN charter and the IAEA's continued supervision on Iran's uranium enrichment facilities means there is no justification for sanctions.

CASMII calls on the US to change course and enter into comprehensive and unconditional negotiations with Iran.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=8957

2 Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort
By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: May 24, 2008
New York Times

The inspector general’s office at the Defense Department announced on Friday that it would investigate a Pentagon public affairs program that sought to transform retired military officers who work as television and radio analysts into “message force multipliers” who could be counted on to echo Bush administration talking points about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and terrorism in general.

The announcement came a day after the House passed an amendment to the annual military authorization bill that would mandate investigations of the program by both the inspector general’s office and Congress’s investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office.

The G.A.O. said it had already begun looking into the program and would give a legal opinion on whether it violated longstanding prohibitions against spending government money to spread propaganda to audiences in the United States.
(snip)


House Votes to Ban Pentagon Propaganda: Networks Still Silent
Alternet

You probably didn't hear about the House voting to ban Pentagon propaganda -- since the networks have failed to cover the story.

But in a surprise move, a 2009 defense policy bill passed with an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), that outlaws the Defense Department from engaging in "a concerted effort to propagandize" the American people. The measure would also force an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) into efforts to plant positive news stories about the war in U.S. media.
(snip)

DeLauro Fights Use Of Retired Generals To Justify Iraq War
Courant.com

Rep. Rosa DeLauro's long-standing frustration about government propaganda has been reactivated by the recent revelation that the Bush administration recruited retired generals and armed them with the administration's pro-war message to deliver on television news shows.

The 3rd District Democrat is trying to launch a movement against the White House's use of these generals, who she believes pushed a war-justifying agenda on an unsuspecting public.

"This is a propaganda program, a secret program," DeLauro said. "The American people should never have been taken down this road."
(snip)

But other House members spoke against DeLauro's amendment Thursday.

"Of course, Americans engage in propaganda," argued Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga. "It's a vital part of the mission of the United States to promote democracy."

The military uses propaganda for recruiting and in overseas conflicts. "During war, propaganda can save American lives," he said. "Would we rather shoot our enemy or talk him out of fighting?"

Rep. Duncan Hunter, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, argued that the amendment limits free speech. "The idea that we're going to label the people we don't agree with propagandists and the ones that agree with us philosophers and statesmen is kind of a zany idea."



what's zany is these republicans telling people its free speech.