Duped: The
'independent' analysts of American television news.
Le Devoir, Canada
Experts, Crooks
and the American Media
"The old adage that 'the first
casualty of war is truth' is one to which the Pentagon has stuck to with
unheard of will, strength, and consistency."
By Serge Truffaut
Translated By Ebtehaj Kalantar
April 22, 2008
Canada - Le Devoir - Original
Article (French)
The old adage
that "the first casualty of war is truth" is one to which the
Pentagon has stuck to with unheard of will, strength,
and consistency. Thanks to the Benedictine work a journalist from The New
York Times - and there is no better word to describe it- we now know that
the U.S. executive has applied itself to building a propaganda machine so
powerful, that it highlights the disdain that Bush and company feed on with
respect to democracy.
[The "Benedictine" New
York Times reporter in question is David Barstow. The headline on the over-7,500
word report is Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand ].
Well before the
tragedy of September 11, Torie Clarke, then boss of
public relations at the Pentagon, had decided to set up a group of retirees
within the military, capable of properly posing as television analysts.
Obviously, she had taken particular care to ensure that these men shared the
neoconservative views of the administration.
Quite simply, the
group's purpose was to subvert the work of traditional journalists who occupy
the media space with experts in the pay of the Pentagon. The operation was
successful beyond expectations and those of Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of
Defense, and Dick Cheney, the Vice President. Thus these 80 generals and
colonels who have regularly paraded on television screens have in fact proven
to be the true chroniclers of the war in Iraq. And this, from the moment the
White House had decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein. In other words, this slew
of men of rank simply relayed and then covered up the lies about weapons of
mass destruction.
Even worse, the
major networks; CBS to CNN, not to be outdone by FOX, NBC
and ABC, have repeatedly resorted to these soldiers without verifying
whether they were part of the conflict of interest, as they do with
journalists. However, according to the survey by The New York Times,
these retired military men were and remain vice presidents, advisors or
lobbyists for a combination of 150 companies providing the Pentagon with
weapons, miscellaneous goods and services. The more they reinforced messages
concocted by Rumsfeld and his associates, the more the military budgets
increased and the more their businesses rake in.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Quite naturally,
this conflict of interest had the perverse effect that the objective of these
so-called experts was to erase certain aspects of the Iraqi conflict. As one of
them explained, when they knew that the strategy of Rumsfeld and his staff had
misfired, they didn't mention it for fear that on the spot, they would lose
this or that contract.
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Cheney and Rumsfeld: Restoring executive power lost after Nixon
has been their driving ambition.
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Every aspect,
element and factor of this story depends on a … state of mind! … That of Rumsfeld
and Cheney. It has been repeated often enough that these veterans of the Nixon
and Ford Administrations have never digested the obligation they were given
when Ford was in the White House: to manage the diminishment of Executive power
that resulted from Watergate and the Vietnam War. When they returned, their
inclination for an Imperial America had combined with a relish for revenge and
recovering the lost mandates of the 1970s. And with the resulting great damage
we all now know of.
CLICK HERE FOR FRENCH
VERSION
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US April 24, 6:12pm]