Class notes:
Dr. Gareth ****ter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S.
national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of
university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. ****ter is the author of four books,
the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the
Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has
written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and
Iran since 2005.
Dr. ****ter was both a Vietnam specialist and an anti-war activist during
the Vietnam War and was Co-Director of Indochina Resource Center in
Wa****ngton. Dr. ****ter taught international studies at City College of
New York and American University. He was the first Academic Director for
Peace and Conflict Resolution in the Wa****ngton Semester program at
American University.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/21/8435/
Dr. James West, Ph.D. wrote:
>
> The Pentagon’s Corrupt Sock Puppet ‘Military Analysts’ Exposed
> by Gareth ****ter
> April 21, 2008
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/wa****ngton/20generals.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
>
>
> In Sunday’s New York Times, investigative re****ter David Barstow exposes
> television’s “military analysts” on the Iraq War as sock puppets of the
> Pentagon who consciously peddle the Bush administration’s talking points
> on Iraq while hiding their own vested economic interest in selling the
> public on the Bush administration’s happy talk about the war.
>
> This very long and very well-documented story lays bare the most
> blatantly obnoxious feature of the “Military-Industrial-Media Complex”
> which ensures that the airwaves convey the administration’s major
> messages on the war day in a day out. The story should mobilize the
> blogosphere and news media figures who still have some integrity to
> demand immediate reform of a massively corrupt network system of
covering
> military affairs.
>
> For starters, the networks should be forced to fire every “military
> analyst” who has been recruited accepted all-expenses-paid trips to
Iraq,
> uncritically mouthed the administration talking points while concealing
> their special relation****p or maintained vested financial interests in
> Pentagon contracts through business relation****ps with contractors.
>
> Based on 8,000 pages of email messages, transcripts and records, Barstow
> recounts a successful effort by Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to use
retired
> military officers to create a “media Trojan horse” on the Iraq War. Not
> only did the “military analysts” routinely violate basic ethical
> standards of journalism by accepting trips completely arranged and paid
> for the administration; they were consciously participating in its
> strategy to manipulate public opinion by regurgitating the pro-war
> arguments they were given in top-level official briefings — which they
> had to promise to keep secret.
>
> But even worse, Barstow shows how they had a personal financial stake in
> parroting the administration’s war propaganda. He re****ts that several
> dozen military analysts who appear constantly on Fox, CNN and other
> networks and invariably sup****t the administration’s line “represent
more
> than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives,
> board members or consultants.”
>
> Even when they knew they were being fed Pentagon BS, these agents of the
> war system could not utter a critical word about administration policy.
> They were afraid of retribution from Pentagon officials who could affect
> contracts for which their companies were competing. One corrupted former
> television analyst told Barstow he refrained from even the slightest
> criticism of the Pentagon’s policies because of the fear “some four-star
> could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’”
>
> Several of these officers told Barstow that even the “mildest criticism”
> would bring telephone calls expressing official displeasure within
> minutes of being on the air. When one analyst went so far as to say that
> the United States was “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq, the
> Pentagon immediately “fired” him from the analysts group which had
> received privileged access to high-ranking administration officials.
>
> In the most egregious cases, such as retired Air Force general Thomas G.
> McInerney of Fox News, “analysts” operated just like employees of the
> Pentagon. McInenery assured the Pentagon in an e-mail in late 2006 that
> he would use in his on-air appearances the latest talking points that he
> had just been given.
>
> The story of the Pentagon’s “media Trojan horse” should bring
> overwhelming public pressure for the immediate termination of any
> “military analyst” who has been compromised by links with the Pentagon
> and/or its business allies. The television networks should adopt
> transparent rules about who can and can’t be hired as analysts on
> military issues that would keep out paid agents of the war system.
> Unfortunately the networks themselves appear to be such an integral part
> of that system that they couldn’t care less about conflicts of interest.
>
> Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gareth-****ter/the-pentagons-corrupt-soc_b_97598.html
>
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