NYT Documents Long-Running Pentagon Psychological Warfare Op Against The American People

[elfs]

This will be my one braindump for Sunday. It's that important. Read it all.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse – an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

"It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,' " Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. "This was a coherent, active policy," he said.

The New York Times: Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand.

Comments

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

Assuming this wasn't a "drive by" post, what definition of the word "propaganda" are you using?

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Semantics. I love it.

When a small consortium of textbook publishers, developing materials purchased by committees of government bureaucrats, has de facto control over the bulk of K-12 educational materials printed in America today, what can it be called EXCEPT propaganda?

I like the definition used here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda) "information presented in such a way as to influence its audience."

Effective presentation of factual information is different from deliberately slanting information and omitting material which is accurate but disagrees with your viewpoint. The former is journalism. The latter is propaganda.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the definition... I didn't want to jump to any unwarranted conclusions.

Now, your assertion was propaganda was being used to carry on a "leftist, pro-gay, anti-Christian agenda."

Now, I don't know you, your ideology, your politics, etc. However, when I've seen assertions like this in the past, it has been my experience that they have generally broken down as follows:

"leftist" - does not absolutely and unequivocally adhere to a strict, socially conservative position

"pro-gay" - does not portray gays and lesbians as, at best, mentally disturbed, confused pawns of the Gay Agenda, and, at worst, sick, depraved animals who should be, at the very least, behind bars and kept away from "normal" people

"anti-Christian" - acts in a manner inconsistent with the absolute assumption that the only real Deity is the Christian Deity, the only real religion is the Christian religion, and all good, right, moral people are, of course, devout Christians

As I said, I don't know you, so I can't just assume that the above characterization is in any way an accurate portrayal of your particular views.

So, if you wouldn't mind, would you put your own descriptions to those terms, so that I don't end up making any false assumptions?

Thanks...