Letters to the Editor
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hquain
That's an interesting point. One assumes that the sheer gravitas generated by the literal weight of the article itself would make the theme compelling. But it is true, in my opinion, that when a paper wants to highlight an issue, it does run a week long (or whatever) expose in smaller chunks. Then add that it was a Sunday, and the inclination of Sunday readers to bypass the news pages for the hefty arts, entertainment and magazine, etc...well, it doesn't seem like anyone but the real 'heads' would have gotten through the whole thing....
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at what point does this become a crime?
glenn -
your blog and books are exceptional.
but isn't it a crime for the government to engage in propaganda? what is the line between government informing and government undertaking a propaganda program? i understand there is a federal law preventing use of government funds for propaganda of american people. have they gone too far, professor?
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The Second Story
To me, there are two significant angles to this story. The most newsworthy, and perhaps most important one, is what we're focused on in here, i.e. the media's failure to critically evaluate their sources, in this case a group of retired officers who could be presumed (by civilians) to have ideological, professional or commercial links to their former institution that would skew the information coming from them, if it would involve said media taking a confrontational stance toward a right-wing administration.
The second one is less important, but deserves some attention. Call it the 'stab in the back, Colin Powell edition' story. If you are inclined to believe that all retired military officers, or even all of these 'military analysts' are automatically shils for the administration (i.e. that the above is not really news), or that they got to be generals by being suck-ups and following orders (as someone commented on the previous thread), then you are either going to miss this angle, or just not believe it.
The NYT story was to me one of the most depressing pieces I have read in some time. Why? Because I have personally known several of the analysts mentioned there, and/or served under them, and/or known of them by reputation and am familiar with their careers. Further, I know that (for the Army officers anyway), as a matter of curriculum in the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College, attendance at which is something for the 'best and brightest', this sort of thing has been explicitly discussed since at least 1980, when Col. Harry Summers' book, 'On Strategy' related the failures of Vietnam to Clausewitz's principles about politics and war, and said, basically, that it's a bad idea to lie to the public about a war if you actually want to sustain support and win it.
None of the officers I know are suck-ups, nor are they stupid. The professional ethic is not 'do whatever the right wing civilian bosses say', it's 'perform your duties as a professional officer and uphold your oath of office, even if you have to make some really hard choices to do it'. That doesn't vanish when you take off the uniform; it didn't for me after 10 years, I don't think it did for them after 20 or 30. To a man, each of these officers failed in this instance to live up to that. Since some of them felt comfortable saying so on the record for the NYT story, you can bet that they feel deceived and are pissed about it, and know how it makes them look (which is how it should be). For my part, it makes me want to write them and say, hey, thanks for selling out something that matters a great deal to the rest of us who served and sacrificed.
What it also makes me think of is this: Everything these people (Rumsfeld, Rice, Feith, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Torie Clarke, etc.) touch turns to shit. Colin Powell will forever be branded a liar, whatever his other relative merits, because of his performance at the UN on Bush's behalf. Everyone in this group now belongs to that club, too. You don't want to minimize the effect of reputation on people who devote their lives to serving an institution. After all, that's probably what the officers were themselves counting on when they bought the bill of goods they subsequently peddled.
The reverse-Midas touch doesn't just stop at these peoples' political enemies, be they US attorneys, Richard Clarke, Don Seigelman, whoever ... it includes the very institutions they lionize when it comes to photo ops, the very tools they use to legitimize their optional war (when Petraeus comes to town), anything. They will destroy the credibility of our most trusted institutions by turning those who serve those institutions into liars and cheats.
They will eat their own children in the name of whatever it is that moves them. And we will do what about it, exactly?
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How to change all this
Put a Democrat in the White House. I'm fairly sure that if a Dem tried something like this, there would be a huge outcry from the media. But....IOKIYAR
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Liberal Media!
I'm just saying.
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We Have met the Evil Empire and It is US
The same corrupt machine controls the Media as owns the Federal Government as runs the military. Of by and for the oligarchical elite, hidden behind Corporate limited liability (= plausible deniability).
Poisoning babies with endocrine disruptors, blowing up civilians in a foreign land, laying waste to our environment, lying as a matter of habit. This is the evil done in America's name.
Limited Liability corporations are the instrument of the Devil (in vernacular terms). I suspect there are several doctoral dissertations possible on this topic.
If our beautiful planet survives, it will be despite the corporatist killing machine.
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In print media too?
My local newspaper, The Providence Journal, has, since at least 9/11, regularly printed the right-wing commentary of a local high ranking retired military officer. He always mouths the same lines and goals of the Bush/Cheney regime. I always figured he was an administration propaganda hack, likely paid for his work, probably out of the same funds that were used to pay off (formerly legitimate) journalists a few years ago for producing similar pro regime drivel.