Military General Propaganda story: Col. Allard admits: 'Conflicts of interest'
By John Amato Wednesday Apr 30, 2008 12:00pm
Howard Kurtz covered the Military General propaganda story that the NY Times story uncovered last Sunday morning and did a very good job with it. (I'm usually fairly critical of him) Colonel Ken Allard, a former military analyst for NBC, said that there certainly were conflicts of interest that these former Generals held when they went on TV as pundits selling the positive side of the Iraq war. Lawrence DiRita, the former Pentagon spokesman under Secretary Don Rumsfeld, was on to offer the "other side" of the issue. Sure thing, LDR. Kurtz did call him out:
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" It sounds like you were kind of manipulating these folks."
DiRita had a good laugh at our expense over the fact that the Times called the propaganda manipulation war machine a "sophisticated program." That's really hysterical. This is a horrible affair that has led to so much destruction and broken lives that I don't know how DiRita can even show up on the set of CNN and sit there and still peddle his destructive talking point garbage. But Allard levied the real charges against the Generals and the Pentagon when he admitted:
KURTZ: Do you think it was a conflict of interest of some of your fellow former officers to be in that kind of a...
ALLARD: I absolutely do, because the reason why you're there is to offer the public, for whatever the reason you have, however good you are, whatever your opinion matters, is an honest opinion. You offer that without any hope of remuneration, without any hope of reward. That's basically -- the reward you're getting is what CNN, Fox or NBC News pays you to be there. That's it.
KURTZ: Fox analyst Tim Eads was quoting as saying that when he talked about the war or terrorism on television, he held his tongue for fear that "... some four-star could call up and say, 'Kill that contract.'" He was involved in military contracts.
Glenn Greenwald has a great piece posted whhich typifies that MSM's non-response to this story on Salon called: Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story
After I wrote about Williams' blog item yesterday, his blog was deluged with commenters angrily demanding to know why he has failed to address the NYT expose. In response, Williams wrote a new blog item last night in which he purports -- finally -- to respond to the story, and I can't recommend highly enough that it be read by anyone wanting to understand how our establishment journalist class thinks and acts. The essence of Williams' response: he did absolutely nothing wrong. Nor did any of the military analysts used by NBC News. Nor did his network. These are all honest, patriotic men whose integrity is beyond reproach. Here's but a sampling of Williams' defense...read on
ALLARD: Look back at the election of 2004, what was not discussed. Things like manpower, things like, was the war a good idea? Should we continue to fight? If so, for how long?
Things which we're talking about now were not even talked about back then. We couldn't even get on -- we couldn't get on, on a bet (ph).
KURTZ: And wasn't the content of what you were saying, it was a lack of interest -- which we're seeing today. I mean, every survey shows the amount of time devoted to this war has gone way down.
ALLARD: Every single analyst felt the same thing, whether they worked for NBC, CNN or Fox. We simply were not getting on to talk about our story, good or bad.
DI RITA: Let me answer that just a little bit, too. During that same period we were also encouraging news organizations to keep reporters in theater...
KURTZ: Embedded.
DI RITA: ... and certainly embedded, so that they'd get a lot broader perspective than what they were getting -- for the most, receiving briefings in Baghdad. So it wasn't just analysts and third parties. We were also trying to get news organizations to do the same thing.
KURTZ: What these internal documents show is that this was a fairly sophisticated program.
DI RITA: Thank you.
KURTZ: You sent over talking points, you tracked the appearances of analysts on different news channels and networks. Fox's analyst John Garrett told me he always spoke his mind. But there was an email that he sent to the Pentagon where he said, please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay.
It sounds like you were kind of manipulating these folks.
DI RITA: No. Certainly what we were trying to do -- my colleague here is nodding vigorously -- we wanted to present aspects of this coverage that was not being presented elsewhere, and this was a group of people who were naturally more likely to understand some of these aspects -- the military operations that were taking place, the kinds of things that were occurring on the ground.
It wasn't so much our interest in these people that mattered, it was the news organizations' interest. They were hired by news organizations, and that made them interesting to us by definition.
ALLARD: And to be fair, the Pentagon did not group the war heads. The war heads were created by the networks, not the Pentagon.
Now, that said, did they have their point of view? Yes, they did. Did we have among the war heads guys who were true believers? Yes, we did.
But we also had Barry McCaffrey, Wes Clark, a number of us, including myself, who said, you know what, Mr. Rumsfeld, the troop situation here is bad. We're light on the ground and that's going to hurt us. And over time we were proven right. Over time...
KURTZ: How early did you say that? When you look up to the run- up of the Iraq war, do you wish you had been more skeptical? ALLARD: I would remind you of how Vice President Cheney himself talked as the invasion was proceeding. He said, well, we have military officers embedded in TV studios. That was directly meant as a slam at all of us. So don't, you know...
KURTZ: He thought -- the vice president thought you were on the team. Did you ever feel like you were on the team?
ALLARD: I felt I was representing NBC News and myself. That was it. I was not paid to represent the administration. I was paid to say what I thought, not what they thought.
KURTZ: All right.
Part of the controversy stemming from this particular article has to do with military analysts, former military officers, who also either worked for defense contractors or were seeking military contracts themselves, thereby commenting on the very institutions that they also hoped to get some funding from.
Were you involved in that field?
ALLARD: Never once, ever. I'm poor but honest. Let's put it that way.
And none of the guys apparently who were in the room with me ever thought to offer me a job. If they had, I probably wouldn't have taken it. But they didn't.
KURTZ: Do you think it was a conflict of interest of some of your fellow former officers to be in that kind of a...
ALLARD: I absolutely do, because the reason why you're there is to offer the public, for whatever the reason you have, however good you are, whatever your opinion matters, is an honest opinion. You offer that without any hope of remuneration, without any hope of reward. That's basically -- the reward you're getting is what CNN, Fox or NBC News pays you to be there. That's it.
KURTZ: Fox analyst Tim Eads was quoting as saying that when he talked about the war or terrorism on television, he held his tongue for fear that "... some four-star could call up and say, 'Kill that contract.'" He was involved in military contracts.
Was that an unspoken threat?
DI RITA: I don't think so. I also don't think it's at all fair to most of these analysts, several of whom are retired three and four- star officers. These are people who were, in many cases, confirmed by the United States Senate, appointed by the president, who certainly understand where the lines are when it comes to individual ethics.
And I think to broadly characterize this as a class of people who were trying to do this out of self-interest is enormously unfair to people who were -- believed in what they were doing. And, you know, we often brought in former secretaries of state for the secretary and other leaders to talk with, former secretaries of defense, important, retired diplomats and general officers on other bases.
We didn't check what boards they sat on. We brought them in because they were important, influential people who deserved sort of some additional information.
KURTZ: I talked to retired Colonel Bill Cowan, who was a Fox military analyst. He said that three years ago, after he criticized the war effort on "The O'Reilly Factor," he was booted off the group, was never invited to another briefing, never got another telephone call, never got another e-mail.
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"Conflicts on interest"...yeah right, that sounds pretty. Just confess that you were a bought off whore for the War profiteers.
MSM is doing it again. Throwing bullshit news at us (Wright, Cyrus) when we have a true scandal. Bush is just going to sail out of the White House and clear brush, while leaving the destruction they have caused to the American people. I guess we have to wait for an international effort for justice, because the leadrers of this country have no balls.
Brian Williams of course he is going to defend his work for his Pentagon lords. This is his parent company. We really must stop expecting the MSM to anything other than the witting/unwitting arm of the corrupt and misinformational. This will help us all avoid being disappointed.
I wonder how Obama will deal with this as president. Wonder if anyone can deal with this. It has been this way since well before Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. You can be assured that Hillary and McCain will only continue this aggressively.
As the Fonz would say, "Whoooaa"
I can barely see Kurtz and the two puppets. There's too much smoke and bullshit.
it's almost like thier saying fearless leader has been lying to us.
The very essence of the Corporate / Repiglican/ Government MEDIA propaganda in the form of the fucking KEN DOLL called Brian Williams defending the lies and the propaganda .... C and L posted yesterday about Naomi Wolf's book on the ten steps that are taken to create FASCISM .. and one of them was the take over and control of the Media. Williams and all that he represents is the very essence of the government/corporate control equaling fascism. They pay this piece of corporate slim 15 million dollars a year to sit there and read what he is paid to read, and what he reads is written by those corporations, GE, that have bought his faustian soul. The entire Corporate Media is an extension of the Government of the shit stain called Bush and all his fucking goons .. they are, in essence, a criminal gang of thugs who are akin to something like the mafia. They create their 'media narratives' that have nothing to do with what the average American gives a shit about. Narratives that are all created to decieve, manipulate, and lie to the American People relative to the Corporate Interests. So they 'hire' soul less buffoons like Williams, Matthews, Russert, Gregory, Gibson, Couric, Blizter, and all the rest of them and pay them millions of dollars to mouth the 'media narratives' that they are hired to mouth. They sit there on you TV screens in their million dollar suites and dresses and lie to you with a straight face. All of them should be charged, tried, and convicted for purposeful, criminal, fraud committed against the American People. They should be frog marched out of the protection of their Corporate Studios and right into jail and turned into 'bitches' for the enjoyment of the inmates.
Corruption!
Bush says!
"What me tell the American Public honestly what is going on?" "Hell, No!" "They are so easily fooled with propaganda!"
McCain says, "That's right. I can play that propaganda game too!"
Whoa!!!!! The LAST sentence or question the host asks is important because it asks about someone with a negative reaction to a non spun comment about Iraq etc...
We should be able to listen to the response of the Pentagon spokesperson in regards to it.
thx
If the gov. tells me to 'break the law', then it's 'not against the law', eh Brian? You are just a corp.puppet and your job requires to OBEY your master no matter what. Sweet dreams, news reader puppet.
you hit a home run, blue. these people should be arrested and charged with thousands of counts of murder 1. they are directly responsible for every innocent persons death in iraq, including over 4,000 of our own.
What did they do wrong...they allowed themselves to be used to lie to the american people...therefore they lost all respect and destroyed their credibility....that makes them pretty stupid in my book.........
Why are people so willing to destroy themselves and/or their reputations to protect Cheney/Bush/Rove, etc.? Cheney/Rove sets them all up to take the fall..
All the GOP media talking point puppets will fall in disgrace..wait and see..i
Can anyone believe anything that comes out of the Bush Administration?
Is this legal? I mean, is there anyway we can punish these guys for lying? Everywhere we turn, people in the government are lying, stealing and commiting fraud. How long can we put up with this crap?
No one should be surprised that the Generals were basically on the take from the Administration. Why should these guys be any different than all the Bush appointees. When the MSM media contacted the Pentagon for experts, what did they think they would get. If the MSM media wanted objective opinions they would have sought out military retirees independently and not asked the Pentagon. When they got the cheering Generals, why didn't they bring on the opposing views of the two most knowledgeable retired military men available. Former Iraq Cent-Com Generals Zinni and Hoar, who both opposed the War? These two men had more first hand expertise than all the MSM Generals combined having overseen the situation in Iraq and knowing about the inspection operations as well.
As for Biran Williams, he is a junior Tim Russert. After seeing his pandering interview of Bush at Camp David last year, I have not watched his News Program. He is not a news man, a journalist, or an honest broker. He is paid shill in a nice suit. When I see these men, I see the opposite of Patriotism. They have chosen personal status over country. I know this is a harsh assessment, but we live in deteriorating times, and these men are complicit to the demise of our country. They deserve to be treated harshy.
Don't get on Glenn Greenwald's bad side.
i am surprised that kurtz took this issue on. seems like actual reporting, does that mean the end is near?
but, before we go patting howie on the back, i think there is another aspect to the story that i didn't see covered in this interview: the msm's responsibility.
in fact, if howie were a good journalist, he would have exposed the troublesome rules, or lack thereof, surrounding the broadcasters and these pentagon-puppets. had he been a real reporter he would have questioned the practice of allowing these faux-analysts to take pentagon-sponsored junkets. but no. he didn't. and, now he is rushing to jump in front of the story as it steams past him.
don't get me wrong, i commend kurtz for finally getting around to important topics, but, i for one, think that he could have been a much better media watchdog had he *cough* actually been a media watchdog. little conflict of interest, it seems--being a watchdog and working for the Post and cnn
NBC is owned by a defense contractor, what's is one TV General with a conflict of interest compared to a defense contractor owning a news network?????
this bunch will crap out a turd and tell you its a tulip. every. single. time.
What needs to be repeated is that what the Pentagon did is ILLEGAL. That is why msm is not talking. Marjorie Cohen, president National Lawyers Guild has been on Pacifica Radio in the last few days. No doubt this is illegal.
P.D. @ 13: Hopefully not much more than 263 days...
It apparently is illegal for the Pentagon to do what they did, though not illegal for the networks to do what they did.
Glenn's piece is amazing - he has a quote from Gen. McCaffrey in which he complains that Rummy wasn't using enough armor and artillery. Sometime later he specifically states "Thank God for the Abrams tank and . . . the Bradley fighting vehicle".
Turns out McGeneral sits on the board of directors of IDT, who happens to have received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware.
This goes way beyond some theoretical conflict of interest. I can't think of a clearer example that sums up the attitude and corruption of the Bush administration. Maybe we need to expand the old term to "Military/Industrial/Media complex".
Does the military hate us for our freedoms? Of course, the presstitutes knew about this propaganda attempt, they are all part of the full spectrum dominance attempt.
Sorry for the mistakes originally. The draft wasn't ready when it posted.
Did anybody catch "Verdict With ..... what's-his-name" last night after KO?
One of the commentators brought up this story and was IMMEDIATELY talked over and down.
The "Verdict" guy said to him "We'll talk about this OFF-LINE".
END OF STORY
I wonder if they ever did. I'd like to know just what was said.
I'm sorry for forgetting the guys' names ..... but perhaps one of you guys can fill in my details .
This is a corruption so broad and deep, so massive that it will be amazing if anyone can take it on directly.
Clinton says Gates should do a review! Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!
Obama says the situation deserves further investigation, but he doesn’t say by whom.
The Pentagon says they are 'suspending' the program 'temporarily' pending 'review'. The term 'review' I take to mean: find out who talked. 'Temporarily' I take to mean: until whoever talked is fired, or whatever.
Was this illegal, it seems very likely. Do our laws mean anything? There are many reasons to have doubts, beginning with number one: George Bush.
The Democratic candidates must come out in front of this. I hope to be amazed.
We may a country completely overcome by corruption. I have said repeatedly, the 'war' in Iraq will prove to have been the greatest swindle in the history of the world.
treestump hussein @ 23:
]
not surpring, seeing as dan abrams is directly to blame, as he is the general mgr of msnbc
25 Samson- Says:
"not surpring, seeing as dan abrams is directly to blame, as he is the general mgr of msnbc"
crap:
should have been "surprising"
marys_botox_needle @ 18:
Similarly, Bush craps out turdblossums and calls them political geniuses when they're just heaping, steaming piles of defecation.
Hey Kurtz! It's about farging time you corksucking icehole!
".....after he criticized the war effort on “The O’Reilly Factor,” he was booted off the group, was never invited to another briefing, never got another telephone call, never got another e-mail."
You can't end it there !!!
When somebody says, "Don't you know who I am?" it doesn't change the rules.
For instance, when you pull over a high-ranking political figure for drunk driving, and he says, "How dare you pull me over! Don't you know who I am?", he should be taken downtown just like everybody else.
What these "analysts" are saying is, "How dare you ask me to disclose potential conflicts of interest, Don't you know who I am? I'm a four star general!". The same rules apply to four star generals as to everybody else. It's alright to have biases and conflicts. But if you are going to hold yourself out as neutral, you have to disclose it to the public. Also, if the government TELLS you to say something on TV, you need to disclose that, too.
Brian Williams' NBC Nightly News blog has been deluged, as of late, with eloquent commentary on this subject. I encourage others to check 'em out.
Folks are calling this guy out. I hope it is the beginning of some sort of groundswell. I'm ever-optomistic, of course. They'll probably just shut down the comments section, and Williams and NBC will pretend this controversy never occured.
Thanks to Glenn Greewald. Excellent work, as always.
In conjunction with this COLLUSION between the CORPORATE MEDIA/ GOVERNMENT/PROPAGANDA/THE GENERALS are two interconnected events that most of us have forgotten yet that which ILLUSTRATES PERFECTLY this COORDINATION… one is that prime time news conference just before the invasions of Iraq in which THE FUHRER BUSH ‘informed’ the American people about all the concocted ‘evidence’ to justify the invasion at hand. This ‘news conference’ was coordinated with the entire Corporate Media in such a way that not only was Bush’s performance totally ’scripted’ but so too was the MEDIA PUPPETS who had also been scripted in their answers to the scripted Bush. So here we had this prime time ‘news conference’ in which the Fuhrer ‘presented’ all his lies and the PRESELECTED REPORTERS LIKE DAVID GREGORY had their preselected ‘questions’ in which the Fuhrer gave his ’scripted’ answers .. so complete was this deception to the American People that other ‘reporters’ were ordered to ‘pretend’ that they were asking questions knowing that they would not be called upon. So from the viewing perspective of the American People one would see these reporters waving their hands in the air as if they had ‘questions’ knowing that they would not be called upon, and only those ‘reporters’ that had been preselected with the ‘written’ questions for them being called upon that the scripted president would then answer. This actually fucking happened. And is tied into this very collusion between the CORPORATE MEDIA , the GOVERNMENT, AND THE MILATARY.
The other ‘event’ that also demonstrates this collusion and coordination is the very day that 9/11 happened where the Fuhrer was at that school reading ‘my pet goat’ to the students and being informed by Card that AMERICA IS BEING ATTACKED. Bush sat there for another seven fucking minutes reading his fucking book. This actual event was on video tape. Yet this actual event was BLOCKED BY THE SAME FUCKING MEDIA FOR OVER TWO YEARS FROM ANYONE SEEING OR KNOWING ABOUT IT. THE ENTIRE FUCKING CORPORATE MEDIA. THINK ABOUT THAT. ACTING AS ONE. ASK YOURSELF JUST WHO HAS THE POWER TO BLOCK THE ENTIRE FUCKING MEDIA LIKE THAT ? ANY OF YOU HAVE THAT ANSWER ? And this event was only exposed when Michael Moore made his famous documentary about 9/11. Only then. And then, of course, THE ENTIRE CORPORATE MEDIA THEN ATTACKED MOORE FOR DOING SO. And now, of course, the entire Corporate Media is trying to block any investigation into itself relative to the GENERALS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA THAT THE MEDIA ITSELF IS IN COLLUSION WITH. This is what our once great country had come too: A STATE OF TOTAL FACISISM. Seig Heil !
things i remember , maby its ot but like the battles of the pacific war posting is like island hopping , i was on a city bus with my older sister going downtown to a movie, the bus was full and a few were standing at the back , a passenger im sure hed been drinking laughed out loud and told the guy setting next to him i hope this war never ends ive never made so much money in my life, the old fellow setting in fron of me slowly got to his feet and walked up to the guy who said it , the old man pulled the guy to his feet and smacked his face in with his fist! the guy dropped to the floor and the old man screamed to him to get up , he said you son of a bitch you filty scum , my son died on iwo jima with the marines two months ago and your wanting this war to go on so you can profit off of thoes boys dieing , my kid was 19 , my only son and ill never see him again , he once again begged the guy to get up but he refused , then the old man turned and looked towards the back of the bus as if to say anybody else want some of this! thier was rage on his face and tears welled in his eyes , the bus driver had stopped the bus and i guess was going to break up the fight but after he heard the old mans reason he hung his head and tears came to his eyes allso, the old guy walked to the bus driver and said son open that door , as he left the bus the passengers clapped for him , wouldnt it be wonderfull if we could do the same thing to the bastards who profit off our kids deaths, yrs later i can feel his rage and when i think on this incident kind of choke up and tear up a bit myself , semper fi!
Sorry general...it's not "lack of interest". Try "manipulation of the media" so that the American public can doze off and worry about finding a job, paying for health care, how to get a car that doesn't drink so much "golden gas". Give me a break!
And "good or bad" on the war? There IS NO GOOD, you worthless propaganda rag. It's BAD, BAD, BAD. People dying daily, lives ruined for this nonsense war, our national debt being passed from our children to their children to their children...all for this stupid, criminal worthless war on behalf of halliburton and the oil companies.
Wake up America!! Get your head out of your collective asses. We are being manipulated. Don't have time for war news. Buy your hummer and keep wearing that worthless flag pin and keep the ribbon on the back of your hummer....idiots!!!!
By definition it was a conflict of interest , hiring only Generals; colonels and CIA mouth pieces , can you imagine if NBC hired 10 - 20 peace advocates or anti-war analysts , the right would be in an uproar , How dare you . Only problem is , it would have been LESS likely , that George bush's propaganda campaign aided by Williams; Brokaw (member of the secretive elite Council on Foreign Relations, that creates foreign policy) would have succeeded into leading the country into a invasion and continuing occupation .
Another despicable hiring was Lt. Rick Francona and Dan Goure (PNAC member ). Francona worked for the Reagan/Bush administration as the go between with SADDAM'S military , when they provided satellite photos ; assisted in aiming their guns on Iran's military and probably a slew of many other activities , including getting cluster bombs from Chile .
As reported by the London Times , this facilitator of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of IRANIANS during the Iran/Iraq war , was chosen to give his " objective "opinion on the Iraq invasion . How devious can you get . That's just a couple of examples .
Bryan Williams is a duech, and a hack, and he needs to f*cking retire. He's become so attached to his inflated paycheck that he can no longer see the forest for the trees. If you want a text book case of what too much money does to people, assemble a montage of clips of Williams throughout his years as a journalist, and watch a man's soul die. Good Day ;)
To listen to DeRita it's like what's the problem here, there's no problem.
Then Kurtz presents a problem and another problem and another.
I wish we had Kurtz on our side because he has ability.
If a Mocrat gets in maybe we will. But then again, he is probably
for the war and is forced to engage with ppl like Michele Merkin.
(I know, it's Munchkin)
I wish the guy @ Armchair Generalist would watch this. He is right about McCaffrey
but for the most part he is wrong.
The only complaint I have with this is that Barry McCaffrey was calling Rummy out
on numbers and strategy from day one. Him and maybe two others who didn't care
about the DoD and didn't need the job. McCaffrey got an appointment and changed his
tune which is to be expected. For the most part Greenwald GOT IT RIGHT.
I've never heard Allard speak so peculiarly. Can anybody speak to whether he was (a) drunk, (b) having a denture malfunction or (c) experiencing something like a stroke?
LDR takes the Rovian tactic of pissing on the viewers' heads and telling them that it's raining. Briefing the retired officers and former SecDefs is one thing-- and it's usually done with an eye towards indirectly influencing the public perception. The "sophisticated" propaganda manipulation exemplified by this program is quite different.
I have definitely noted a difference in McCaffrey's commentary after a certain point. It would be very interesting to see if that change had anything to do with his position on military contractor IDC (as Court Jester, #20, suggests above).
BTW, none of these retired officers should be hurting from money. They get a nice retirement, free health care and other benefits from the government.
Was Allard drunk or did the Oxycontin stash he pinched from Rush Limbaugh kick in while he was on camera?
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