American TV news, especially the 24/7 networks, would be nowhere in its Iraq coverage without its steady supply of retired military generals and other "analysts" to dissect the war and its tactics. What we didn't know until now was that these analysts were being explicitly stage-managed by the White House, turned into just another wave of mindless Bush-bots.
The New York Times exposed this propaganda campaign in a major article yesterday, explaining how retired officers were secretly enlisted to disseminate the White House point of view on TV while masquerading as impartial analysts. These officers were given classified briefings by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, carefully coached on what to say in order to get the approved message across.
Some of them spoke up and said they were being asked to parrot nonsense, only to be told they would lose that all-important "access" unless they fell into line. A few even deviated from the script, told the truth, and were fired for this offense.
But most simply went along with the program, suggesting talking points and chiming in with the Administration's innate distrust of the media. Others secretly sent to the Pentagon copies of E-mail messages with TV networks or warned of stories in the works that could be seen as unfriendly. And others simply shut up and did as they were told, fearing retaliation if they said what they really felt rather what they were told to say.
Some analysts, who went to work for major defense companies after retiring from the military, took advantage of their new inside information to win lucrative contracts. When faced with having to explain away bad news coming out of Iraq, other such retirees were careful to put on a happy face, fearful that the Pentagon could retaliate by taking away their contracts.
Of course, the Pentagon closely monitored their puppets' performance on TV, making sure they were following orders and not letting any inconvenient truths slip out. Any deviation from the script was dealt with immediately and harshly. After fourteen Marines were killed during one day's fighting in 2005, retired Marine colonel William Cowan was given the job of spinning the deaths on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor, but he suffered a spasm of truthfulness and admitted that America was "not on a good glide path right now."
The Pentagon's reaction to this burst of honesty is both telling and infuriating. Not only was Cowan fired from the program, but Joint Chiefs director of operations James Conway held a conference call the next day to keep everyone on message. "The strategic target remains our population," Conway said according to a transcript. "We can lose people day in and day out, but they're never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen."
The callousness with which the Pentagon treated our soldiers as made-for-TV cannon fodder is staggering. And none of these talking heads revealed that they were were simply saying what they were told to say rather than commenting based on their own independent experiences and expertise.
"Internal Pentagon documents," the Times reported, "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.'"
And so now we have yet another example of how the Bush Administration schemes to indoctrinate the American people in violation of federal law, morality and common sense. It wasn't enough to pay a pair of columnists under the table to shill for the White House, nor was it enough for the White House to plant a fake reporter in press conferences for lobbing softballs, nor was it enough for fake news videos to be sent to TV stations around the country. No, our very own homegrown Ministry of Truth had to go ahead and add on another layer of official propaganda to try and sell us on the Iraq War, from before it started to long after it went sour.
A prime function of the military is to be above partisan politics. By allowing themselves to be transformed into just more parroting pundits for the pleasure of the White House, the military officers who participated in this scheme have performed a grave disservice, to the nation and to their fellow soldiers.
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