'Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand' (NYT on DOD propaganda spokesmodels)

[swag]

article by David Barstow

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.

. . . more

[BlooInBloo]

1. Was an excellent expose.

[swag]

2. Great multimedia supplement here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/20/washington/20080419_RUMSFELD.html#

[leftchick]

3. wow!

very revealing!

[Ptah]

7. Three very descriptive words - message force multipliers

Thanks for the link.

[AzDar]

4. K & R....

:kick:

[Lochloosa]

5. K/R

[MinM]

6. War Is A Racket!!!

:kick:

[AndyTiedye]

8. And the TV Networks That Air Them ALSO Have The Same Sort of Vested Interests

NBC=GE etc.

[judasdisney]

9. if a South American nation did this in the 1970s

we would call it evidence of a junta

[deminks]

10. K&R nt