In Case You Missed This... 'Who’s Paying the Pro-War Pundits?' - Lee Fang/TheNation
Who’s Paying the Pro-War Pundits?Talking heads like former General Jack Keane are all over the news media fanning fears of ISIS. Shouldn’t the public know about their links to Pentagon contractors?
Lee Fang - TheNation
September 12, 2014
Retired General Anthony Zinni, retired General Jack Keane and former Bush administration official Fran Townsend
<snip>
If you read enough news and watch enough cable television about the threat of the Islamic State, the radical Sunni Muslim militia group better known simply as ISIS, you will inevitably encounter a parade of retired generals demanding an increased US military presence in the region. They will say that our government should deploy, as retired General Anthony Zinni demanded, up to 10,000 American boots on the ground to battle ISIS. Or as in retired General Jack Keane’s case, they will make more vague demands, such as for “offensive” air strikes and the deployment of more military advisers to the region.
But what you won’t learn from media coverage of ISIS is that many of these former Pentagon officials have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world. Ramping up America’s military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.
Keane is a great example of this phenomenon. His think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which he oversees along with neoconservative partisans Liz Cheney and William Kristol, has provided the data on ISIS used for multiple stories by The New York Times, the BBC and other leading outlets.
Keane has appeared on Fox News at least nine times over the last two months to promote the idea that the best way to stop ISIS is through military action—in particular, through air strikes deep into ISIS-held territory. In one of the only congressional hearings about ISIS over the summer, Keane was there to testify and call for more American military engagement. On Wednesday evening, Keane declared President Obama’s speech on defeating ISIS insufficient, arguing that a bolder strategy is necessary. “I truly believe we need to put special operation forces in there,” he told host Megyn Kelly.
Left unsaid during his media appearances (and left unmentioned on his congressional witness disclosure form) are Keane’s other gigs: as special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater; as a board member to tank and aircraft manufacturer General Dynamics; a “venture partner” to SCP Partners, an investment firm that partners with defense contractors, including XVionics, an “operations management decision support system” company used in Air Force drone training; and as president of his own consulting firm, GSI LLC.
To portray Keane as simply a think tank leader...
<snip>
More: http://www.thenation.com/article/181601/whos-paying-pro-war-pundits#
= new reply since forum marked as read
Oh. Wait. Never mind.
Follow the money.
So yes, I'm sure she's serious and smart. 
Welcome to DU. 
I appreciate the welcome. Y'all have been really nice. I think I'm going to like it here. 
Those are some cogent thoughts. I particularly like your observation that this place is like a think tank. I can definitely see that.
You should think about making this post of yours an OP somewhere on DU because it says a great deal and I think everyone could benefit from it, not just the newbies like myself.
Again, thank you.
The writing just SOARS! People here are incisive, witty as hell, eloquent beyond belief, and so much of what is written here is HUGELY well-informed. People take the time here to learn the issues and some of them are true specialists. Masters of their Domain and I DON'T mean the Seinfeld version!
But it sure seems like a think tank to me. We have input here from EVERYWHERE and EVERYONE.
We have published authors, poets, theoreticians, academics, researchers, sociologists, philosophers, analysts, financiers, stock market players, astronomers, astrologers, attorneys, magistrates, genealogists, biologists, theologists, geographers, geologists, historians, scientists of every kind, psychologists and psychiatrists, politicians both professional and amateur (posts from Alan Grayson and the late Elizabeth Edwards, plus a number of DUers who are local or regional office-holders - many inspired to run BECAUSE of this place, and others who've attempted to run for office as well). We have actors, singers, directors, producers, dancers, jokesters, orators, journalists (on air and online), photojournalists, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. We have men and women old and young. Teens and grandparents. Moms and dads. Moms and moms and dads and dads. We have every community represented - LGBT, Anglo, African American, Latino, Asian, Native American, people on and from every continent. We have singles, marrieds, divorced, widowed. We have every religion represented that comes to mind including every kind of atheist and agnostic. We have the healthy and the sick and the recovering - in whatever way you define that. We have wonks and nerds and geeks and jocks, and our share of morans, too - deliberately spelled wrong here. It's an inside joke...
[IMG]
[/IMG]
We share loves, lusts, losses, thrills and chills. We've collectively celebrated marriages and reunions and major anniversaries. We've mourned together - whether it's a DUer who just lost an aging parent or a beloved pet - or some celebrity we all loved (like Robin Williams, for example). There are amazing boatloads of things that connect us in this community!
We have sports freaks and sports dimwits (like moi!). We have the bookish and the semi-literate. We have good guys and trolls (hey, people told my son - who has a rock band - that you really haven't arrived unless you have haters!). We have artists, graphic artists, photographers, cartoonists and cartoon compilation specialists (watch for the n2doc posts!)! We have SalmonChantedEvening's Sunday LOLcats - which everybody looks forward to the same way many of us looked forward to the Sunday funnies every morning! It's a great place to vent, to share, to gush - you should see some of the photo collections that pass through here! The graphics and other original photoshop art or satire is just brilliant here! And we have activists of every sort. By cause and by state. We have doctors of all kinds, including animal specialists.
MANY people here are expert curators. kpete comes immediately to mind. She ALWAYS finds good stuff and lots of it, and she's probably single-handedly kept more of us informed than most high-priced anchorpeople out there. We have people scrounging all the other sites for links and references and further illustrations of points, INCLUDING those valiant sacrificing souls who scout the Dark Side (like Pox Noise or limbaugh or the free republic) so the rest of us don't have to! We have those who never served and numerous ranks and classifications of those who have - veterans and new enlistees. We have professionals of all kinds, from world travelers to microprocessor engineers. We have those who scan the heavens and those who probe the psyche. We have lifelong Dems and those who have proudly born the title "liberal" as long as they can remember. We have genuine conservatives, independents, refuseniks and new converts to our side. WHATEVER the subject that comes up here, you will INEVITABLY see and read posts from someone who's been there and seen it up close 'n' personal and can speak from experience.
That's why I think this is as every bit a think tank as any of the big "important" organizations out there with fancy letterhead and big budgets. And we're doing it all OURSELVES!!!
I'm totally addicted. And I've had the pleasure of annoying people here since early 2001. I found this place while scrounging the internet to find ANY opinion that wasn't rubber-stamping and/or burning incense to bush/cheney's "win." This place kept me sane through those horrible eight years and helped me get through them and make SOME sense of them. And it armed me with tons of information and data and analysis and context. I'm better able to argue and defend my views with those who don't know or are oppositional, because I learned from others here. And I have friends I've never met, whose faces I've never seen and voices I've never heard. But I still feel the friendship - indeed even a kinship. When my mom died, I posted a single little post about it late that night when everybody else had gone to sleep and I was alone with my insomnia and mixed feelings. There came a reply. Then a handful more. Then dozens. Soon there were HUNDREDS. And it kept growing through the week. I have never felt such a sense of consolation and empathy - the warmth, the sympathy, the comfort, the people reaching out to keep a vigil with me. BEYOND loving - and lovely! There are so many people I've come to trust and respect and love and admire here. And I've never met them. But they're sisters and brothers all the same. And even with all our many differences and arguments and snipings and tantrums, we're still shoulder-to-shoulder together when and where it counts. There's WAY more that unites us here than could ever divide us. We are a powerful force here on DU. And I know we've saved more than a few souls!
You and the other newer arrivals (or those lurkers who just want to check in more often) make us even richer and build us stronger and higher and mightier. It's good to have you with us.
Gosh........That would be dishonest.
All people in media are honest, upstanding people who would never lie,
or hurt America, for profit.
That would be so bad.
War is only about defending freedom and protecting Democracy
and little puppies and kittens.
And shit.
What kind of a fool would imagine that ANYONE would try to influence policy and the public for a motive as ridiculous as MONEY or POWER!?
the build up to Iraq Invasion and afterwards? They were paid to be there by the Think Tanks and the Intel/Spying industry and CNN never disclosed their affiliations. Their affiliations were discovered and there was an e-mail campaign (no Twitter, then) to CNN/MSNBC. Some of those same Generals were out there when Kerry was promoting bombing Syria last year and weren't identified. But Keane and Zinni out there are the "NEW CREW." I guess they needed new faces to go with "War on Terror, Part II"
I think Lee Fang and the "Nation" are on Twitter so hopefully its getting out there But, will the MSM identify this time or get another pass as we go to war again?
This still needs to get out on Twitter to other feeds, though. And, hopefully it will and be more effective in getting results than the "e-mails" were way back.
