Posted on 06/03/2008 4:52:18 AM PDT by prairiebreeze
Congressional Democrats want to ban Pentagon propaganda on the Iraq war, but they are likely to find that enforcement is easier said than done.
An existing legal prohibition, for example, didn't deter a Pentagon program aimed at influencing retired military officers frequently interviewed in the media. It also didn't prevent a culture within the Bush administration that former White House spokesman Scott McClellan claims favored propaganda over honesty in selling the war to the public.
And what is propaganda anyway? Nearly every press briefing involves a military or civilian official trying to influence the interpretation of events.
"At the end of the day, a lot of what the Defense Department is doing is trying to raise support for the military," said Ken Bacon, chief Pentagon spokesman during the Clinton administration.
Last month, the House passed legislation to prohibit the military from engaging in "any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly."
The bill reinforces a propaganda restriction already on the books, included in the Pentagon's more than half-trillion-dollar annual budget bill and long embraced as Pentagon policy. The law exempts any program specifically authorized by Congress, such as military recruiting, but is supposed to shut the door on spin.
"I think it would be difficult to implement," said Anthony Pratkanis, co-author of the book "Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion," of any law attempting to prohibit the military from promoting itself. Interpretations of what constitutes propaganda can vary, and U.S. efforts to influence a foreign enemy — which is allowed under the law — often seep into American airwaves anyway, he said.
"What we really need is a norm that respects the role of the military" as independent from the executive branch, said Pratkanis, a social psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "It's more the responsibility of a president to sell his policies and not hide behind the military."
On April 20, The New York Times uncovered a six-year Pentagon program that cultivated several dozen military analysts to generate favorable news coverage on the war. These retired military generals were fed talking points, taken on trips to Guantanamo Bay prison and Iraq, given access to classified intelligence and briefed personally by senior defense officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to e-mails, transcripts and other records provided to the Times and eventually released by the Defense Department.
That the officers maintained extensive ties to the Pentagon after retirement wasn't surprising, as is custom among military's senior ranks. But the program seemed to unfairly reward these new media personalities and the defense companies that employed them as lobbyists with plum access to the department so long as the retired officers spoke in favor of the war.
Also alarming was that the Pentagon may have given the retirees false or overly optimistic information about progress in Iraq, even as violence was increasing. The program was particularly noteworthy because it relied heavily on active-duty military officials to provide the positive information.
In most cases, the retired officer-analysts were more than eager to hear good news on the war. In one April 2006 conference call, as sectarian violence was on an uptick, an unidentified military analyst asked then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace what the officers could say on television that would convince Americans that the war wasn't going that badly.
"What can we say to the American public to say ... there are some things you can see that will make you feel better about what our military is doing and any progress we have made?" the analyst asked.
The Defense Department has shut down the program pending an internal review. Both the Defense Department inspector general's office and the Government Accountability Office are investigating whether the effort violated any rules, including if it gave some contractors a competitive advantage by employing the retired officers as lobbyists.
New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes, who co-sponsored the House bill with Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said the recent House legislation shouldn't affect the Pentagon's day-to-day operations, including factual updates on the war given to the media.
Rather, the legislation makes clear that Congress won't tolerate behind-the-scenes efforts by the Bush administration to manipulate public opinion, he said.
"I hope it inspires the Pentagon to tell the truth," Hodes said of the bill.
Not everyone on Capitol Hill agrees the military overstepped its bounds. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a tireless advocate of Bush's policies in Iraq, says the military was fairly trying to promote what it saw as the facts on the ground.
"The idea that we call the people who disagree with us propagandists" and those who agree "great seers and statesmen and philosophers doesn't make any sense," said Hunter, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.
The House included the propaganda ban in its 2009 defense authorization bill. The Senate plans to debate its version of the defense bill this summer.
Has George W Bush decided to run for a 3rd term?? Perhaps that's why RAT congresscritters are trying to pass legislation that "makes clear that Congress won't tolerate behind-the-scenes efforts by the Bush administration to manipulate public opinion."
Up next in the Senate. This what we get with an elected RAT congress. Thank God for people like Hunter.
And little Scottie McClellan must be fidgeting in his chair with excitement from a second paragraph name-drop.
Sure. As long as the Senate and House democrat party reps and media are included.
I share your level of loathe. Although I sometimes have even more contempt for the wishy-squishy moderates who swing whichever way the wind blows on important issues.
The left actually believe in their principles, wrong-headed as they are.
Sick.
Also termed "disinformation". Often highly effective, just ask Hillary Clinton.
:^)
The left and the media hold the US military to a unique standard.....
Perfection is required.....mere excellence will not be tolerated!
Think about it, pedophile teachers are accepted as an anomoly to that profession. Corrupt lawyers,incompetent physicians, reporters who fabricate entire stories, unethical amoral politicians are passed over with a quick “sorry about that”. It is understood that a few rotten apples surface in all other professions....but that should never happen in the military.
This article adds a new wrinkle to the bias....the pols and pundits will never properly acknowledge good done by the troops and they want no one else to do it either.
Is is against the constitution to give aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war. This includes seditious statements by the shadow government in a time of war.
John Kerry is a traitor for his Vietnam war activities (post service).
John Murtha has fueled the terrorist “insurgency” by giving credence to a partisan witchhunt that isn’t ending up with much merit.
I had to glance up at the source to see if this was an article from "The Onion".
The greatest force multiplier that America's enemies have is the Democrat Party. After that comes the liberal news media which marches in lock step with the Democrat Party.
That implies that the Left desires and would be happy with a perfect military. They would not be.
The Left demands an impossible standard of our military not be cause they seek perfection but, rather, because what they really seek is an American DEFEAT.
Precisely. This country will never again be able to fight a war properly and with an effectiveness that would actually limit overall casualties and shorten combat effort because of the determined anti-war, anti-military, anti-defense positions of the donks and their puppet press.
Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Barbara Walters et al have a lot of blood (past, present and future) on their hands. So do the donks.
I had to glance up at the source to see if this was an article from "The Onion".Congressional Democrats want to ban Pentagon propaganda on the Iraq war, ....
The greatest force multiplier that America's enemies have is the Democrat Party. After that comes the liberal news media which marches in lock step with the Democrat Party.
My theory is that the causation runs the other way. The Democratic Party exists in the "liberal" form that it does because it conforms itself to the natural ideological implications of the news industry. The news industry is "liberal" because liberalism is simply cheap talk, and self-promotion at the expense of those who take responsibility for getting things done. Which is the default position for the news industry to take. And the news industry is unified, and freed from competition, by the Associated Press monopoly. Within the AP, all journalists are "objective" because without that conceit no newspaper has any justification for relying on the reports of other papers' reporters.Newspapers in the founding era, and well into the Nineteenth Century, were truly independent of each other and made no affectation of being anything other than representative of their editors' POV. The advent of the telegraph and the Associated Press put the newspapers into a different line of business than elucidating their editors' and publishers' POV - suddenly the newspapers actually had national and international news which the public did not have access to independently of the AP newspapers. And the idea that the public's access to the latest news is vital to the public interest traces directly from the business interest of the Associated Press newspapers.
With its emphasis on the superficial, negative, and unrepresentative, the Associated Press distracts the public from the enduring and important. That is the propaganda wind down which the "liberal" politician sails.
"I hope it inspires the Pentagon to tell the truth," Hodes said of the bill.
Not everyone on Capitol Hill agrees the military overstepped its bounds. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a tireless advocate of Bush's policies in Iraq, says the military was fairly trying to promote what it saw as the facts on the ground.
The military is under constant scrutiny from Big Journalism, and gets accused of a "rosy scenario" at the drop of a hat. So the military cannot afford to open itself to that charge - and in reality, claims that it is putting out propaganda cannot be substantiated because the military is being watched, and knows it.
BTTT
Liberals wish Congress to control the military, not the Executive branch. It would ruin the military and our national defense. The press is more than happy to help.
Thanks for the ping!
Thank you for the ping too!
The Democratic Party exists in the "liberal" form that it does because it conforms itself to the natural ideological implications of the news industry.Well said! Democrat pols excel at pretending to embrace the mass media oligarchy's proffered zeitgeist.
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