Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 49 Location: Land Of The Scots
Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
This story is huge.
The msm are keeping well clear.
The military analysts that the media companies have been using to "guide" the public through events in the middle east have been exposed by the New York Times as having financial ties to companies profitting from the war and "manipulating the information" to suit the Bush administration's stance on the war.
......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.......
_________________ It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
-Sun Tzu
Pentagon military analyst program
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PBS NewsHour covers the Pentagon pundit story.
The Pentagon military analyst program was launched in early 2002 by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit "key influentials" to help sell a wary public on "a possible Iraq invasion." Former NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard called the effort "psyops on steroids." [1]
Eight thousand pages of the documents relative to the Pentagon military analyst program were made available by the Pentagon in PDF format online May 6, 2008 at this website:
"Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans 'in the form of their own opinions.' ... Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war." [emphasis added] Clarke and her senior aide, Brent T. Krueger, eventually signed up more than 75 retired military officers, who appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts, and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The Pentagon held weekly meetings with the military analysts, which continued as of April 2008, when David Barstow reported on the program in the New York Times. [1]
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