A few days ago Stars and Stripes reported on a Pentagon program in which reporters who want to embed with American military units in Afghanistan are required to undergo background checks.
U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.
These background checks were reported to have the purpose of determining whether the reporters' previous writings about the war had been "positive" or "negative."
The Pentagon's response to this was essentially -- Heavens no!! We would never try to manipulate the news like that!!!
“We have not denied access to anyone because of what may or may not come out of their biography,” said Air Force Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a public affairs officer with U.S. Forces Afghanistan in Kabul. “It’s so we know with whom we’re working.”
Not surprisingly, the program actually is a bald-faced attempt to manipulate what gets reported out of Afghanistan as Stars and Stripes now reports that it has the documents to prove it.
One reporter on the staff of one of America’s pre-eminent newspapers is rated in a Pentagon report as “neutral to positive” in his coverage of the U.S. military. Any negative stories he writes “could possibly be neutralized” by feeding him mitigating quotes from military officials.
Another reporter, from a TV station, provides coverage from a “subjective angle,” according to his Pentagon profile. Steering him toward covering “the positive work of a successful operation” could “result in favorable coverage.”
First of all -- attempts to manipulate what a reporter writes go on every single day. Legions of PR people are paid big bucks to do exactly that. Often, it involves some company trying to get favorable coverage of its slick new widget. Or maybe someone trying to spin some damaging info about a celebrity into something less embarrassing.
And let's face it -- access is the currency that fuels all this. Reporters considered "favorable" are much more likely to get a coveted interview opportunity than someone considered "negative." It's always been that way.
But war is different.
It's fine to tolerate some bullshit spin about who is sleeping with whom in Hollywood. Nobody's life is on the line in that instance.
But when soldiers are asked to risk their lives in war they deserve to know the unvarnished truth. Their families deserve it. Taxpayers who pay for it all deserve it. We all need to know that what is being done in our names is not only justified but being conducted honorably, that lives and resources are not being squandered or put at risk for no good reason.
And then you have to question why this program is being run by the same private firm -- The Rendon Group -- linked to the Iraqi National Congress and all the BS propaganda used to justify the war in Iraq. The firm was founded by John Rendon, a former Democratic election consultant who was executive director of the DNC under Jimmy Carter.
The firm he later founded has developed close ties over the years to a lot of the government's foreign operations.
"I am not a National Security strategist or a military tactician," says John W. Rendon, Jr., whose DC-based PR firm was recently hired by the Pentagon to win over the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims worldwide.
"I am a politician," Rendon said in a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), "and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior, and a perception manager. This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"
The Rendon Group's contract with the Pentagon was awarded on a no-bid basis, reflecting the government's determination to hire a firm already versed in running overseas propaganda operations. Rendon specializes in "assisting corporations, organizations, and governments achieve their policy objectives." Past clients include the CIA, USAID, the government of Kuwait, Monsanto Chemical Company, and the official trade agencies of countries including Bulgaria, Russia, and Uzbekistan.
Why hasn't this program been shut down already? Why is The Rendon Group still doing business with the government?