Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought By John Stauber
and Sheldon Rampton, PR Watch. Posted April 25, 2008.
Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought
By John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, PR Watch. Posted April 25,
2008.
The Bush Administration has spent millions on deceptive PR to sell
the war, as recently documented in the New York Times. Where's the
fallout?
David Barstow of the New York Times has written the first installment
in what is already a stunning exposi 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 re****ts, "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.
In 1971, when the Times printed excerpts of the Pentagon Papers on
its front page, it precipitated a constitutional showdown with the
Nixon Administration over the deception and lies that sold the war
in Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers issue dominated the news media back
then. Today, however, Barstow's stunning re****t is being ignored
by the most im****tant news media in America -- TV news -- the source
where most Americans, unfortunately, get most of their information.
Joseph Goebbels, eat your heart out. Goebbels is history's most
notorious war propagandist, but even he could not have invented a
smoother PR vehicle for selling and maintaining media and public
sup****t for a war: embed trusted "independent" military experts
into the TV newsroom. As with most propaganda, the key to the success
of this effort was the element of concealment, as these analysts
and the Bush administration hid the fact that their talking points
and marching orders were coming directly from the Pentagon.
The use of these analysts was a glaring violation of journalistic
standards.
As the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists
explains, journalists are supposed to:
* Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
* Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise
integrity or damage credibility.
* Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment,
and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office
and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic
integrity.
* Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
* Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power
accountable.
* Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and
resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
* Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money.
The networks using these analysts as journalists shamelessly failed
to vet their experts and ignored the obvious conflicts of hiring a
person with financial relation****ps to companies profiting from war
to be an on-air analyst of war. They acted as if war was a football
game and their military commentators were former coaches and players
familiar with the rules and strategies. The TV networks even paid
these "analysts" for their propaganda, enabling them to present
themselves as "third party experts" while parroting White House
talking points to sell the war.
Now that Barstow has blown their cover, the TV networks have generally
refused to comment about this matter. Further compounding their
violations of the public trust, they are blacking out coverage of
the New York Times exposi, no doubt on advice of their own PR and
crisis management advisors.
Since the 1920s there have been laws passed to stop the government
from doing what Barstow has exposed. It is actually illegal in the
United States for the government to propagandize its own citizens.
As Barstow's re****t demonstrates, these laws have been repeatedly
violated, are not enforced and are clearly inadequate. The U.S.
Congress therefore needs to investigate this and the rest of the
Bush propaganda campaign that sold the war in Iraq.
The attack and occupation of Iraq continues, with no end in sight.
Estimates of the number of Iraqi dead range from the hundreds of
thousands to more than a million. The cost to American taxpayers
will eventually be in the trillions of dollars. More than 4,000 US
soldiers have lost their lives, and this is just a part of the
horrific toll of mental and physical disability that the war is
taking on hundreds of thousands of troops and their families.
This war would never have been possible had the mainstream news
media done its job. Instead, it has repeated the Big Lies that sold
the war. This war would never have been possible without the millions
of dollars spent by the Bush Administration on sophisticated and
deceptive public relations techniques such as the Pentagon military
analyst program that David Barstow has exposed. It should come as
no surprise to anyone that Victoria Clarke, who designed and oversaw
this Pentagon propaganda machine, now works as a commentator for
TV network news. She may have changed jobs and employers since
leaving the Pentagon, but her work remains the same.
John Stauber is the Executive Director of the Center for Media and
Democracy.
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