Pentagon IG Clears Pentagon Of Iraq Propaganda Push
By Steve Hynd Monday Jan 19, 2009 1:00pmI haven't seen this anywhere else but it doesn't deserve to fly under the radar (h/t Newshoggers' tireless researcher Kat).
An internal investigation has cleared the Pentagon of violating a ban on domestic propaganda by using retired military officers to comment positively about the war in Iraq in the US media.
In a report posted on its website Friday, the Pentagon's inspector general said "we found the evidence insufficient to conclude that RMA (retired military analysts) outreach activities were improper."
The report said the controversy, which erupted in April following an expose in the New York Times, warranted no further investigation.
The Times found that the Pentagon laid on special briefings and conference calls for the retired officers, many of whom then repeated the talking points as military experts on television news shows.
It also found that many of the media analysts also worked as consultants or served on the boards of defense contracting companies, but that those ties often went undisclosed to the public.
Are they freaking kidding? Of course, the slip-slide hinges on the definition of "propaganda"
US law bars government agencies from using funds for domestic propaganda, but the inspector general's report said the definition of propaganda is unclear.
The report said historically it has been interpreted to mean publicity for the sake of self aggrandizement, partisanship, or covert communications, and that by those standards the evidence did not show a violation of the ban.
"Further, we found insufficient basis to conclude that (the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs) conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD (Department of Defense) programs," it said. [Emphasis mine - C]
And on that strict interpretation the IG is correct. Because it isn't partisan to lie and use proxy puppets to boost bogus cheers for a war that the media were always gung-ho for and that even Dem leaders like the next Secretary of State voted to get into...just dishonest.
*Sigh.*
Here's Amy Goodman interviewing Col. Sam Gardiner and Peter Hart of FAIR about the Pentagon's tame mouthpiece program back in April.
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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When you get to investigate yourself, you have a great chance of finding yourself innocent.
see Warren Commission.
See OKC reports
see 9-11 Commission.
until we get to the bottom of who killed Kennedy and David Koresh, it doesn't matter whether Bush is in jail or we retain Guantanamo as a base from which to reclaim little Elian and reunite him with Terry Schiavo. Is is all hopeless in a post 11-22 world.
Propaganda originated as a euphemism for Lies by the State when it was from the Soviet Union. Now it has been adopted by the authoritarians in this maladministration, and it's still lies to mislead the public.
..has a rich tradition in the good ole US of A
It cannot be otherwise. The state cannot NOT commit propaganda, because every "state" utterance has an ulterior motive: to make the State look good, or explain some act in the best possible light.
Just as every advertisement, every psa, every item published in house organs, every press release from any/every corporation is propaganda. "Public relations " is ALL corpoRat propaganda; is nothing BUT corpoRat propaganda; will always be propaganda.
This is the CorpoRat State. In the CorpoRat State, corporate media are, always, already, State Media.
on the 'holy shit that is fucking shocking' scale, this doesn't even register a blip
when it comes to the pentagon, i have a simple rule of thumb: i don't trust anything that comes out of their collective pie-hole.
information from the State which is not an explicit warning about the date and time of an impending natural disaster.
everything else is lies...
will I know when I hear or see it?
A discussion here.
A useful neutral definition here:
Remember earlier today there was a post here at C&L about some radio guy who said he had a plan to do great harm to President Obama and any Americans who were supporting him? Of course the guy is not in jail, but today a man was arrested for throwing his shoe over the white house fence. Just saw this on MSNBC.
If anyone should be in trouble for spreading propaganda, it should be the commander in chief who lied us into a war.
the guy on the radio was very careful how we worded it. He mere made a wish.
not excusing it, but he is also likely an FBI informant. A white supremacist/racist honeypot.
It is not propaganda because they say it is not. You are free to believe as you are told. What the problem is?
Had it up a few days ago.
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Internal_investi...
Not sure why it doesn't show in their archives search. But, its good it not fly under radar. This whole politicising of the military makes me very nervous.
I'd really really like to see a C&L focus on not only domestic propaganda but also a deeper dig into broadcast, print and now internet "blogs" with government property typing away in them.
I'll never forget the spring of '72, pushing a soon-to-be-operational broadcast transmitter into a garage in Murphysboro, Illinois. WTAO was some fine station but the college bent and influence was too much. Little by little operatives would "show-up" and take a job.
Often, people like myself are mistaken for un-American when in fact events that took perhaps private turns, took the breath out of us.
But not forever.
Are WMD's, Al Queda connections and mobile weapon labs considered propaganda? Or do we just call that bad intelligence?
of using, say .... THE FREAKING OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY?:
3. "The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view. Also: information disseminated in this way; the means or media by which such ideas are disseminated. Cf. black propaganda n. at BLACK adj."
according to that definition, this video on this page is propaganda?
http://blog.indecision2008.com/2009/01/19/cel...
http://mediamatters.org/items/200811040018
... were the pledges preceeded by a puppet making prank phone calls?
Propaganda is the promotion of ideas. The merit of the idea is what we need to concern ourselves with. If caring for others, consuming less and being more responsible to each other has merit then the propaganda surrounding it and/or promoting it is not something to be worried about.
Ann Coulter's propaganda, on the other hand, is dangerous. It promotes the detention without trial of Democrats and the torture of innocents.
(Not that you needed to hear this from me, but I reckon well made arguments should be acknowledged as such).
I appreciate it. :)
It's only propaganda if you research the facts and you know it's a lie. If you choose to believe everything they tell you, then it's not propaganda.
republican supporter....or a democratic supporter...partisan politics is all propaganda all the time, not?
I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case.
[Floyd Abrams]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Abrams
It just seems basically wrong for the government to pay people to tell lies to the public for the government's benefit.
No, They're not lies.
They simply have no competition.
I'm sorry. I don't understand your comment. Could you expand on it just a little more.
every nation does it then blames others for doing it.
But these lies weren't just told to other countries, they were told to Americans. People joined the military and died based on some of these lies. How many soldiers did we hear say they joined the service and went to Iraq because of what happened on 9-11. They were hearing that there was a connection between 9-11 and Saddam. Where did they hear that from? Our own government, who knew damned well it wasn't true.
When will they ever learn?
And they still haven't learned. I got to see PP&M once live.
Is our soldiers learnin'?
of offspring of men in uniform pitching Buicks.
This just in:
Mafia clears Don Corleone of any wrong doing.
Don't you mean Mister Cor-lee-oni?
ys, the coffee on my keyboard is in honor of you
I just finished eating some quesadillas (sp?) at my favorite greasy spoon, so you don't want that coming back up, and all over my keyboard.
Kiss the ring - Get bailed out.
and what part of we, the American people, elect
the current administration. they are under oath to
protect and uphold the Constitution of the American
people. then why do they act like a self-appointed
board of directors of an off-shore corporation and
not the least inclined to respect those who
elect them?
the secrecy in the American govt. is out of control
no matter which party is in charge. with hope,
obama will be more forthcoming than the last 8 yrs.
Forthcoming with what. Sacrificial payments to a bloodless coup that hopes to show the veins of opportunity before the bloody spiller spoilers show back up?
Oh Really.
As Col. Gardiner said, one prong of the operation was the embedded press pool. This started with Reagan during the invasion of Grenada. The print press tried to fight the Pentagon, but they were at the start of their collapse, so they really didn't devote the necessary resources necessary to fight the embbed program. Today we see the result of a generation of Republican executive and congressional leadership, which always supported this program: a completely effective propaganda machine. Will Obama dismantle all of these programs?
no surprise there.....
I would like to announce that after a thorough investigation i have cleared myself of any wrong doing whatsoever since inception.
Yep, same here. I even investigated my husband and am proud to say I found him as innocent as I am. So as a result of an internal family investigation, we are good to go.
We are virgins again. Doesn't it?
"as innocent as I am" - priceless!
me, not so lucky... the results of my own internal investigation came up with some anomalies and compliance issues... damn auto-investigation
Okay I did have to change the definitions of some words before I came to my conclusion. But I don't think it's a big deal to change the words illegal drugs to legal drugs, do you? I also changed under aged drinking to over aged drinking and there was that one little sexual word I changed too.
i like the cut of your jib POP
Well no one ever told me that before. Didn't even know I had a jib, but if I do, I'm glad to know it's cut correctly.
pissed off patricia,
I prefer to use the Cheney defense. If I've not been arrested for it, then that means it is legal, YES?
Yeah, well see the vice squad guy kinda messed that defense up for me. I didn't get arrested but I got taken home to my parents by two giant vice squad guys at about one or two in the morning after I had been drinking in a club. I would have rather have gone to jail than face my mom and dad after they were awakened by that situation.
I had a borrowed ID. When they asked me my name at the club, due to the drinking, I told them my real name instead of the name on the card. I was under age and an idiot.
Be unafraid. Very unafraid.
to unfear is uncola iteslf.
All the IG is saying is that the people involved in this cannot be charged under the UCMJ. This may very well be the case. The UCMJ may say absolutely nothing about spreading propaghanda to support a war. The civilian legal system is a different matter altogether. The civilian legal system does have laws concerning this subject. There are mechanisms in place for military people to be charged in civilian courts. It happens everday. All the IG is saying is that they have no grounds to charge these people in the military legal system. I knew a guy one time that was in the Army and he went on a 3 state crime spree. The military did not have the legal authority to charge him with anything. His actions were outside of the military legal system. He was proscecuted by the civilian authorities and dropped into a Federal prison in Jessup Georgia. The military never charged ths guy with anything.
... thank God!
Isn't it more like 18? He will take the oath at noon tomorrow.
Yes, at High Noon.
See it live in Tombstone on KGUN-9 !
You say you haven't seen this elsewhere but it's been on TPM Muckraker for three days. Anyway, as I posted there, this is just a belated going away gift to Rummy and Lovely DaRita.
Actually I'm not sure if there really is any such animal as propaganda.
Every state markets their own view and denigrate the views of rivals both within and without.
Propaganda is always what "THEY" do not "WE."
An internal investigation has cleared the Pentagon of violating a ban on domestic propaganda by using retired military officers to comment positively about the war in Iraq in the US media.
Yup....
And in other news, the legal cousel representing the New York mob has, after an extensive and exhaustive internal investigation cleared the mob of any wrong doing. In fact, they say there is no mob, just a bunch of guys that like to get together for lunch.
RawStory has had it on their site for a couple of days. But yeah you're absolutely right that we can't let it fly under the radar!
Cernig says this story was "under the radar"? It appeared in the New York Times on Friday, two days ago, here...
A crying shame that such propaganda reigns supreme in late-empire USA? Yes.
A story that flew "under the radar"? Not so much. See here for a selection of NYT articles on this subject.
Cernig links to a source that itself does not credit its own publicly available source of information. The source is simply rewriting the NY Times article (or the AP article) and then not linking to its source, leaving an impression that this article is an original reporting exposing otherwise "hidden" information. This story was certainly not a secret to anyone reading major newspapers.
Beware of sites of whatever political persuasion that do not cite and link to their sources.
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