AMERICANS SHOULD BE OUTRAGED. BUSH ADMIN AND PENTAGON USE "MILITARY ANLYSTS" TO SELL AMERICANS A BILL OF GOODS ON THE IRAQ WAR

The citizens of America should be outraged over the fact the Bush Administration and the Pentagon along with the three cable news networks have been lying to them for over five years with phony "military analysts" appearing all over TV when the New York Times has now revealed ALL of the "TV military analysts" are on the payroll of defense contractors or work as lobbyists for the defense industry.

The cable news stations are unfazed by the revelation the TV military analysts are "hired guns" working for defense contractors as witnessed how FOX NEWS' Brit Hume earlier this week feature TWICE former General Robert Scales on his "Special Report" show when it has been revealed by the NY Times that Scales has ties to the defense industry through an organization called Colgen, Inc.

Scales' online Fox News bio states that "General Scales is the president of Colgen, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in issues relating to land power, war gaming and strategic leadership." According to its website, Colgen "[a]ssists the landpower Services in creating future warfighting doctrine and operational concepts" and "[t]ranslates these concepts into useful strategies and actions for industry, the media, and the congressional and executive branches of government." Colgen also "provides products targeted to these marketing elements including: media commentary, congressional testimony, advice to the executive branch, published works, seminars and conferences."

Colgen's "growing list of satisfied clients" includes defense contractors such as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, as well as multiple elements of the Department of Defense, such as the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.


Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought

By John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, PR WatchPosted on April 25, 2008, Printed on April 25, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/83541/

David Barstow of the New York Times has written the first installment in what is already a stunning exposé of the Bush Administration's most powerful propaganda weapon used to sell and manage the war on Iraq: the embedding of military propagandists directly into the TV networks as on-air commentators.

We and others have long criticized the
widespread TV network practice of hiring former military officials to serve as analysts, but even in our most cynical moments we did not anticipate how bad it was. Barstow has painstakingly documented how these analysts, most of them military industry consultants and lobbyists, were directly chosen, managed, coordinated and given their talking points by the Pentagon's ministers of propaganda.

Thanks to the two-year investigation by the New York Times, we today know that Victoria Clarke, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, launched the Pentagon military analyst program in early 2002. These supposedly independent military analysts were in fact a coordinated team of pro-war propagandists, personally recruited by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and acting under Clarke's tutelage and development.

One former participant, NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, has called the effort "psyops on steroids." As Barstow reports, "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."

Clarke and her senior aide, Brent T. Krueger, eventually signed up more than 75 retired military officers who penned newspaper op/ed columns and appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts. The Pentagon held weekly meetings with the military analysts, which continued as of April 20, 2008, when the New York Times ran Barstow's story.

The program proved so successful that it was expanded to issues besides the Iraq War. "Other branches of the
administration also began to make use of the analysts. Mr. Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news leaked that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United States without warrants, Pentagon records show.

When David H. Petraeus was appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early acts was to meet with the analysts."
Barstow spent two years digging, using the Freedom of Information Act and attorneys to force the Bush Administration to release some 8,000 pages of documents now under lock and key at the New York Times. This treasure trove should result in additional stories, giving them a sort of "Pentagon Papers" of Iraq war propaganda.

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