About Those TV Generals...

This is about the "effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis."

It's unlikely this was the only effort along these lines, there are all sorts of places that could have been, and probably were, targeted using similar means, blogs being one example. As more of this comes out, as it will (though by its nature there will be parts we will never know), people will lose more faith in government, news agencies, and others who played into this effort - and given how they've acted, that loss of faith is understandable. The costs of war are much broader than the trillions of dollars we can measure directly, especially when it's a war that has to be sold using the means described in this article. The damage this administration has done is large, and not just on this front, and it puzzles me why so many who say they hold patriotism and the constitution in such high regard put up with, and even encourage, this sort of thing:

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, by David Barstow, Message machine, NY 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.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis. ... [...continue reading...]

Comments

[anne]

I understand, I really do.
Thank you.

[2slugbaits]

I've never quite understood why the public thinks that general officers have some special knowledge about the nitty gritty of military affairs. I suppose they know more than the public at large, but not all that much more. They usually rotate through assignments every two years getting their ticket punched here, then there. General officers typically quick studies who have good leadership skills, but I've never really met one who had what I would call a deep understanding of anything. 99% of what they know comes from Powerpoint briefings that some genuine expert assembled and dummied down. Listening to those TV chucklehead generals is laughable.

[john c. halasz]

The NY Times has another Claude Raines moment! As the old saying goes, journalism is the third draft of history, or something like that... Not to worry though, since those who read historiography are a different kind of Walter Mitty than those who closely follow and take heart from the daily news. Those who obsessively re-enact the past are doomed to ignore the present.

[wjd123]

I read this rather long article. The conflicts of interest of many of these military television commentaters is incredible. Most of the networks didn't even bother to vet them.

The Pentagon providing them with power points to mention on TV and punishing those who didn't comply with less access to briefings--evidently access to these PsyOp meetings was a selling point to get more air time--and less access with those personal involved in providing contracts. And as far as I know not one of them mentioned this during their analyst on TV. "We're being fed power points by the Defense Department, and if we don't use them we are punished." That would have been sufficient.

I often wondered how these retired officers were paid for analysing the war. Most receive from $500.00 to $1000.00 per appearence--not much for deceiving the American people.

Even though the Times says its been widely reported, here is something I didn't know.

From the New York Times' article "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand"

The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, “My Year in Iraq,” that he had privately warned the White House that the United States had “about half the number of soldiers we needed here.”

“We’re up against a growing and sophisticated threat,” Mr. Bremer recalled telling the president during a private White House dinner.

That dinner took place on Sept. 24, [2003] while the analysts were touring Iraq.

http://nytimes.i2i.bz

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/opinion/20sun1.html

April 20, 2008

The Torture Sessions

Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality?

The answer, we have learned recently, is that — with President Bush's clear knowledge and support — some of the very highest officials in the land not only approved the abuse of prisoners, but participated in the detailed planning of harsh interrogations and helped to create a legal structure to shield from justice those who followed the orders.

We have long known that the Justice Department tortured the law to give its Orwellian blessing to torturing people, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a list of ways to abuse prisoners. But recent accounts by ABC News and The Associated Press said that all of the president's top national security advisers at the time participated in creating the interrogation policy: Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Rumsfeld; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Colin Powell, the secretary of state; John Ashcroft, the attorney general; and George Tenet, the director of central intelligence.

These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture.

Mr. Bush told ABC News this month that he knew of these meetings and approved of the result.

Those who have followed the story of the administration's policies on prisoners may not be shocked. We have read the memos from the Justice Department redefining torture, claiming that Mr. Bush did not have to follow the law, and offering a blueprint for avoiding criminal liability for abusing prisoners.

The amount of time and energy devoted to this furtive exercise at the very highest levels of the government reminded us how little Americans know, in fact, about the ways Mr. Bush and his team undermined, subverted and broke the law in the name of saving the American way of life.

We have questions to ask, in particular, about the involvement of Ms. Rice, who has managed to escape blame for the catastrophic decisions made while she was Mr. Bush's national security adviser, and Mr. Powell, a career Army officer who should know that torture has little value as an interrogation method and puts captured Americans at much greater risk. Did they raise objections or warn of the disastrous effect on America's standing in the world? Did anyone?

Mr. Bush has sidestepped or quashed every attempt to uncover the breadth and depth of his sordid actions....

[ilsm]

Adding to 2Slugbaits.

Why not listen to a retired field grader?

The generals are successful at 'paying their schilling' and 'breaking starch' not really admirable traits, self promotion to get ahead.

They have proven adept at going along to get along.

There are some who spoke out and who never get the DoD line to tell on TV.

Lately, as the Air Force is buying a couple hundred jumbo jets from the French Airbus, Northrop paraded out a letter signed by 22 retired generals, all on their payroll.

It took some investigation to see that little fact.

You can only rely on expert testimony about fishing gear from the folks at the outdoors shows.

Who would rely on sprting goods analysts for sending our sons and treasure off to war?

[ilsm]

Adding to 2Slugbaits.

Why not listen to a retired field grader?

The generals are successful at 'paying their schilling' and 'breaking starch' not really admirable traits, self promotion to get ahead.

They have proven adept at going along to get along.

There are some who spoke out and who never get the DoD line to tell on TV.

Lately, as the Air Force is buying a couple hundred jumbo jets from the French Airbus, Northrop paraded out a letter signed by 22 retired generals, all on their payroll.

It took some investigation to see that little fact.

You can only rely on expert testimony about fishing gear from the folks at the outdoors shows.

Who would rely on sprting goods analysts for sending our sons and treasure off to war?

[butthead]

2 slug "I've never quite understood why the public thinks that general officers have some special knowledge about the nitty gritty of military affairs"

Remember "Movie Guy?" If you ever tried to debate him, he would use the "if you could only read the classifed stuff I read" line to stop debate. Just like the rretired generals.

[anne]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/mccain-and-myth-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html

April 20, 2008

McCain and the Myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq
By Juan Cole

I am quoted in this New York Times piece today * on John McCain's allegations that the US is fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq and that there is a danger of "al-Qaeda" taking over the country if the US leaves.

Those allegations don't make any sense. McCain contradicts himself because he sometimes warns that the Shiites or Iran will take over Iraq. He doesn't seem to realize that the US presided over the ascension to power in Iraq of pro-Iranian Shiite parties like Nuri al-Maliki's Islamic Mission Party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. So which is it? There is a danger that pro-Iranian Shiites will take over (which is anyway what we have engineered) or that al-Qaeda will? It is not as if they can coexist. Since the Shiites are 60 percent and by now well armed and trained, how could the 1 percent of the 17 percent of the country that is Sunni Arab and maybe supports Salafi radicalism hope to take over?

Even if McCain only means, as his campaign manager tried to suggest, that "al-Qaeda" could take over the Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, that doesn't make any sense either (McCain has actually alleged that al-Qaeda would take over the whole country.) The Salafi radicals have lost in al-Anbar Province. Diyala Province, one of the other three predominantly Sunni areas, is ruled by pro-Iranian Shiites. That leaves Salahuddin and Ninevah Provinces. Among the major military forces in Ninevah is the Kurdish Peshmerga, some of them integrated e.g. into the Mosul police force. Hint: The Kurds don't like "al-Qaeda", i.e. Salafi radicalism. Jalal Talabani is a socialist.

So the Shiites and the Kurds among the Iraqis, now more powerful than the Sunni Arabs, would never allow a radical Salafi mini-state in their midst. They would crush them. And substantial segments of the Iraqi Sunni population have already helped crush them.

Moreover, Shiite Iran, secular Turkey, Baathist Syria and monarchical Jordan would never put up with a Salafi radical mini-state on their borders. They would crush it. Jordan's secret police already appear to have played a role in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist who had his own "Monotheism and Holy War" organization that for PR purposes he at one point rechristened "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" (he actually never got along with Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri).

McCain's whole discourse on Iraq is just a typical rightwing Washington fantasy made up in order to get you to spend $15 billion a month on his friends in the military industrial complex and to get you to allow him to gut the US constitution and the Bill of Rights.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/us/politics/19threat.html

[anne]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/mccain-and-myth-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html

April 20, 2008

The Retired Military "Analysts"
By Juan Cole

The New York Times revealed today that the Pentagon and the Bush administration has been propagandizing retired military "analysts" who appear frequently as talking heads on television, * to ensure that the Bush point of view has hegemony on the airwaves. Bill Maher has joked that we have heard from two sets of analysts, the generals and the retired generals. It is these secret networks of corrupt agents of influence that have Orwellized our society in recent years. And it will go on unless the public wakes up and demands a change. If you see a network or cable news segment with "only" Establishment commentators (i.e. two retired generals, or one and someone from the American Enterprise Institute), then get up an email campaign to complain to the anchor. Threaten an advertiser boycott. Our country is in danger from this stuff. McCain gets his ridiculous talking points on Iraq from these corrupt "analysts" and people like them inside the Pentagon.

In fact, it is well known that Defense Intelligence Agency analysts face trouble in writing reports on Iraq because they get stung by the Pentagon's own propaganda machine! The Pentagon hired the Lincoln Group which in turn deployed secret agents for someone like Michael Rubin of AEI to manufacture sermons and other material and attribute them to Iraqis. So then the analysts read Rubin in Arabic translation and report him back to their bosses as Iraqi public opinion! Then Rubin defended this sort of thing to the NYT without revealing his links to Lincoln.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html

[2slugbaits]

butthead,

"Remember "Movie Guy?" If you ever tried to debate him, he would use the "if you could only read the classifed stuff I read" line to stop debate. Just like the rretired generals."

That's just the thing. The idea that somehow there's the unclassified story and then the "real" scoop buried under some classified cover is garbage. Making something classified is all too often just a way of trying to pump up its importance and make it sound superserious. Those of us who deal with classified information know that 98% of it is useless because the higher the classification the more difficult it is to update. And so it is usually stale information. I think you'd be surprised how often DoD analysts end up using www.globalsecurity.org because a lot of the information is actually more current than some of the classified stuff.

Let me give you my favorite example of telling a lie and then hiding behind the old classification canard. Back in the summer of 2000 Dick Cheney was going around telling veterans groups that the US Army was in big trouble and that the readiness of helicopter units was 40%. Well, first of all, in the summer of 2000 Dick Cheney was private citizen Dick Cheney and although he may have had a security clearance, he did not have a "need to know" helicopter readiness rates. But did Cheney commit a crime here? No. Why? Because his claim was purely made up. He just said it, put on his serious face and hid behind the veil of classified information. Unfortunately, many high profile generals and TV generals who knew that what Cheney was saying was false were reluctant to correct him because his lies were convenient for the Pentagon. Hard to believe this today, but at the time many in the military thought Bush/Cheney was the dream ticket. Not too many feel that way today. Anyway, at the time all this was going on I happened to have been working on a 4-star tasker on the very issue of helicopter readiness. There was a problem, but Cheney got the magnitude wrong as well as the reason for the problem. But the public bought it.

[anne]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/muqtada-threatens-open-warfare-islamic.html

April 20, 2008

Jordan See Latest Developments in Iraq Destabilizing Region
By Juan Cole

Little Jordan, with 500,000 Iraqi refugees and a population of only 5.2 million, * is petrified that Iraq's instability will spill over on it.

* http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2008/April/focusoniraq_April148.xml&section=focusoniraq

[Notice the proportion of refugees in Jordan.]

[anne]

Also, of some 24,000 prisoners we are holding in Iraq, fewer than 150 are non-Iraqis. *

* http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/mccain-and-myth-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html

[ilsm]

Goebbels could not run a better machine to keep truth from the poeple.

[BJ Feng]

The Surge has largely destroyed Al-Queda in Iraq. According to reports including Frontline, the Surge removed the need for Sunnis to rely on Al-Queda for protection, and without that need, Sunnis stopped cooperating with Al-Queda and ran them out.

What we're trying to do in Iraq is establish a stable, democratic government. Yes the administration made many mistakes, but finally everything seems to be on the right track. The next time is to convince the politicians and three sects to work together for the betterment of Iraq, not just their own people and regions. That's hard because they've never known such a thing, under Saddam, the Sunnis always reaped the rewards of power while Shiites and especially Kurds were left out.

We're trying to establish institutions, like a police force and military that isn't controlled by a politician or sect. Again that's a novel concept, for the police or army to enforce laws equally, and to obey laws themselves. Of course Sadr and those of his ilk still want a system where they can use the government's resources and power for their own ends. They want the old way where one person controls a division or ministry and the law is what he says it is.

Institutions take time to develop, we should be glad that the defeatists were ignored and instead of reducing troop levels, we increased them under the Surge. Iraq is in much better shape now and as long as we see progress, we should not abandon these people. The time will come where we can call our troops back home, but as McCain said, we should leave when the job is done. I will add that we should also leave if no progress is being made after a few attempts, but clearly the gains from staying outweigh the costs and progress is being made.

[BJ Feng]

Generals, like people, have varying opinions and strategies. They know more than most, but it doesn't mean they are correct. And everyone acknowledges that the one thing you can be sure of is that plans never work out as planned. We elect the President to listen and consider the advice of the experts and then make a choice. Often there is no clear cut answer, the situation is complex, but someone has to make a decision and it's up to the President. The idea that there was this bundle of information called "the truth" and that everyone knew it was "the truth" but then somehow manufactured "a lie" to sell is nonsensical. The real "truth" is that there's a huge amount of information floating around, some that suggest one view, some that suggest another, it's up to the President to figure out what the country should do based on the conflicting information that comes in to the best of his ability. Only after the fact can we know the outcome and that a small segment of the information turned out to be more accurate than another.

[anne]

"The Surge has largely destroyed Al-Queda in Iraq."

Among the most crazed and vicious of lies, though vicious lies are as common breathing to some. Al-Qaeda was never any factor in Iraq before we invaded Iraq for no reason, and al-Qaeda was never more than a minimal factor in Iraq thereafter.

[anne]

"Iraq is in much better shape now and as long as we see progress, we should not abandon these people."

Crazed vicious cowardly lying, for the sake of crazed vicious cowardly lying.

[anne]

We immorally invaded and occupied Iraq, and because of the invasion and occupation hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and an impossible number wounded, millions of Iraqi have been driven from country and millions more from homes, there is rubble everywhere through a country that we have bombed and shelled continually and bomb and shell still more than 5 years after immorally invading and occupying.

Tens of thousands of American lives have been shattered because of the needless immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq, but there are monsters for whom needless death and destruction are as nothing. There are shameless monsters who must lie in every spoken breath to justify needless death and destruction.

[john c. halasz]

2slugbaits:

Two words: "missile gap".