Today's New York Times has a landmark article telling in great detail how military analysts were enlisted as stooges, propagandists, and "message force multiplers" to give the Pentagon and White House lies about Iraq to the American people as uninfluenced objective information. The story can be read in its entirety here:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
At least 75 former military officers were wined and dined and offered unprecendented access to briefings from Rumsfeld and his top deputies, along with either offering or witholding defense contracts to these same analysts; who happened to have huge financial conflicts of interests since they were defense industry lobbbyists, or sat on boards or were officers of defense contractors, all of which went unsaid to the American people.
It is my contention that these officers, most but not all I should add, be figuratively branded with the new scarlet letter P for propagandist. They were stooges at best, liars and corrupt at worst. In almost each case these officers violated their code of honor and ethics to either hide their financial conflicts of interest or to knowingly tell the administration line even when they knew it was untrue. Virtually every network and major newspaper, even the Times which reports on this astounding but unsurprising story, was influenced and used by the Pentagon and these men.
What I don't know yet is exactly who appeared where and which spoke their minds and which had financial stakes in toeing the administration line. I think we should find out, and make sure these men, who have sacrificed their deserved honor as American heroes on the altar of access and greed, do not appear in any media outlet ever again, unless they want to tell the truth about the dog and pony show they've helped foist on the American people.
I say all this with great sadness, as a veteran with great respect for the military. In fact I was swayed into supporting the war in 2002-2003 because of my respect for these so-called independent analysts. It was only later when news of things like the aluminum tubes came out that I knew I'd been deceived (anodized coating on aluminum tubes makes them unsuitable for centrifuges, something the DOE and a nuclear engineering major like myself knew).
I'd quote something from the article here, but frankly you need to read the whole thing. I didn't notice anything in the diaries about this and I consider this the next huge story that should have every major media outlet explaining itself this week (but sadly I'm not sure the media will let this one out there the way it should).
Brand these men, these liars and propagandists with the labels they deserve.