...This trusted core group will be more than willing to work closely with us because we are their bread and butter...

A few commenters here so far are trying to say that these "analysts" are motivated by duty, idealism, or some sort of loyalty to a Commander in Chief. That would be honorable, wouldn't it?

I seem to remember reading that more than a few of them work for military contractors.

Please forgive my cynicism, and please quit calling it a "war". You military folks should know better.

I reread the post. I Notice the small print.

`Sent from a wireless blackberry hand carried. huh.

What happen to the days when humans ate strawberries and had clean H2O?

Their decisions to become a street mimi for a corporate scheme to rob, steal,

and murder, evokes many blood curdling screams, swears, and somewhere....

It's written the deaths of certain ilk is Horrible. Ponder to consider immortality?

I don't have a text, poll, or exact verse, however, literature writes 8,000 pages?

Immortality.

The curse is heard.

The screams are from graves?

Isn't it written people give an account? Ya did what?

If you stole, lied, and worked as a hack? Yikes. Lookout.

It be wise to do a metanoia in preparation for a metamorphoses.

Glen,

Thanks again for thoughtful analysis on a truly dispiriting story about how our media and government collude to fool the American public. It's sad to say, but I don't buy anything I see on any cable news show without research myself. The level of incestuous contacts between the media and the people they are supposed to be reporting on is disgusting.

I do have to wonder, however, if we will see the same level of energy and vigor to get the real story out when we have a more politically friendly administration in office come next year, assuming, of course, the Dems take the WH in the fall.

I hope that you do because I think what you do is too important to let things fall by the wayside because you do not want to harm your political allies. I would encourage you to do so, but I understand the realities if you do not.

I just wonder if the level of repulsion and urgency will be expressed that we have come to expect of you. I will wait and watch and see if you are able to do what you do without political interference. Sorry, if I sound cynical, but I'm guessing we will see a shift in tone and substance in your articles. I think we'll find that you will not be that different from these generals you bemoan in regards to pushing a particular angle, because otherwise it would not be in your best economic interest to do so.

Not to pick on you, but the truth and the reporting that we need is so much bigger than a political ideology and a particular point of view. I'm sure we'll have to rely on the center right pubs to do a more thorough review of a new Dem administration when that time comes.

We need a truly independent media, but how do we get that when the truth is not a profitable business? (And obviously, I understand truth has perceptible differences, but I hope you get my point.)

Regards,

Dan

I think it's also important to keep in mind that this story is just one manifestation (among many) of the larger sickness of militarism that continues to grip our media and political establishment.

We cannot separate the psychology motivating these media outlets to showcase propaganda "force multipliers" from the overall psychology that got us into the Iraq War and its attendant abuses in the first place.

I got to know the guy who co-wrote this classic text, mike aquino, to some extent, because I briefly attached myself to his 'temple of set.' I wasn't terribly impressed : he's nothing like as sophisticated as the aleister crowley people are - but he does bring out a lot of practical aspects of psywar just by being a 'setian.' Most of his memoirs are on his personal web page, including "from psyops to mindwar":

http://www.xeper.org/maquino/

The fact that aquino was able to exploit the freedom of religion provisions to ensure that setian (and church of satan) 'chaplains' should be available within the US armed forces to any soldier who wishes to consult them is entertaining, but it isn't the fundamental point, which is much simpler and much more subversive : the basis of psywar is convincing the other guy that YOU - not HIM - are 'evil.' That is, if you want to frighten your opponent, painting yourself as 'good' and him as 'evil' is not the way to go.

People may recall the madman theory in nuclear deterrence : Reagan, or Nixon, or whoever it was, was counseled to give the soviets the impression that he was irrational, slightly nuts, liable to flip and press the button, and needed to be handled with kid gloves. The problem here is that, while giving your opponent the impression that you are 'evil,' you have to try to give your own public, and the world public insofar as it is already predisposed to support you, the idea that you are 'the good guy.' So the finesse of this is delineating two psychological realms, in one of which (the 'friendly' realm) you paint yourself as 'good,' while in the other (the 'hostile' realm) you paint yourself as 'evil.'

You won't find this in Aquino and Vallely - it's just my own inference, so that you can see how easy the basic ideas of psywar are, once you have overcome naive moral realism. Nor do I mean to suggest that Vallely is or ever was involved in satanism (or 'setianism') - he would probably be more interesting if he had been. The scariest people of all, in the sense of naive moral realism, are the jesus freaks in the air force, anyway.

In case anyone missed it, here are two links to letters sent by the military analysts (who are not all generals, TBC)in response.

(NYT)

http://tinyurl.com/3ppflf

Some excerpts:

We object to “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” (front page, April 20) and its assertion that military analysts are tools of a Pentagon propaganda machine.

We have never stated anything about defense or national security that we did not believe to be true. Equally important, we also have served the essential wartime function of helping civilians be better informed about our military, our enemies and how the war is being conducted.

Those of us who had a similar arrangement with the Clinton administration are confident that what you have been reporting is really old news.

We have said and will continue to say what we truly believe after looking at all information and facts available to us through the prism of our extensive professional military experience.

Suggesting that we intentionally misled the American people for partisan political purposes or some quid pro quo personal gain is an unconscionable attack on our honor and long service to this nation.

(snip)

The letter is signed:

Thomas G. McInerney

Paul E. Vallely

Charles T. Nash

William V. Cowan

Wayne Simmons

Clifton, Va., April 25, 2008

The writers are, respectively, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, a retired Army major general, a retired Navy captain, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and a retired United States intelligence officer.

I'd like to compare the data dump, especially emails to/from the signatories, to what they've asserted here. Given his cite in Barstow's story, I would think Vallely is especially vulnerable.

Note also the non-sequitur about how 'it's really just old news', which has been the general (pun intended) response. Done all the time, nothing to see here. As if that made it ethical, or that no damage resulted from it, or that it was somehow less mendacious because 'everybody does it' ... something military officers of flag rank should know goddamned well is not the case.

A second response, from Col. Allard:

http://tinyurl.com/45jzdd

Allard's main complaint is that his book, "WarHeads", wasn't cited in the article. The book is a rather gently critical exploration of the same material, which does contain some useful insights about the mechanics of how this works. His secondary complaint is that it's basically the fault of lazy 'CouchPotatoes', his contempt for which he doesn't do much to hide.

To be fair, there is a legitimate, though somewhat peripheral point here about the yawning information gap between the public, the media and the all-volunteer military which has been exploited by the warmongers. Though many of them have been involved in efforts to address this (I was involved in exploring a similar unrelated effort during Kosovo, sort of an 'owner's manual for the military' for civilians to enable them to avoid being manipulated),these officers seem either willfully or blindly ignorant to how they have been used for political purposes (to say the least).