CNN, the Pentagon's "military analyst program" and GITMO

[maddezmom]

CNN, the Pentagon's "military analyst program" and GITMO
The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the New York Times regarding its "military analyst" program. Anyone who reads through them, as I've now done, can only be left with one conclusion (other than being extremely impressed with David Barstow's work in putting together this story): if this wasn't an example of an illegal, systematic "domestic propaganda campaign" by the Pentagon, then nothing is.

Despite this, the truly extraordinary blackout by the major television and cable news networks which were complicit in this program continues. Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Washington Post previously called this blackout "pathetic", and yesterday, The Politico published a relatively impressive article further documenting the "deafening silence" from the networks at the center of this story. As the article noted:

While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story — and, in effect, themselves.
Beyond the networks keeping this scandal completely concealed from their viewers, The Politico story noted that only two network executives -- CNN's President Jim Walton and ABC's President David Westin (.pdf) -- even bothered to respond to the letters sent by Rep. Rosa DeLauro to all networks demanding answers with regard to their complicity in this program. When responding, the two executives -- exactly as Brian Williams did when he was finally forced to comment (on his blog, but not on NBC) -- were casually dismissive of the entire matter, insisting that they had done nothing wrong (other than CNN's acknowledgment that they failed to detect a conflict of interest with regard to a single military analyst they had used).

more:http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/09/cnn_abc/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/greenwald

[chill_wind]

1. DUers--- please co-sign Sen, John Kerry's letter

http://www.johnkerry.com/pentagonpundits

We certainly know the MSM is not going to investigate itself in this, ever.

Not at all surprisingly, this matter has been so totally blackened out and eclipsed by all else.

Thanks maddezmom.
K&R

[leftchick]

2. wow, that is an excellent article

thank you!

<snip>

This GITMO trip and the ensuing "analysis" was but one small -- though highly representative -- episode that was part of the Pentagon's five-year propaganda program aimed at shaping domestic opinion on the Iraq war, the "War on Terrorism" generally, and virtually every controversy relating in any way to the Pentagon. It is difficult to see how this could be anything but illegal.

But what is most extraordinary about all of this is that huge numbers of Americas who were subjected to this propaganda by their own Government still don't know that they were, because the television networks which broadcast it to them refuse to tell them about it, opting instead to suppress the story and stonewall any efforts to find out what happened. As corrupt as the Pentagon was here, our nation's major media outlets were at least just as bad. Their collective Pravda-like suppression now of the entire story -- behavior so blatantly corrupt that even the likes of Howie Kurtz and The Politico are strongly condemning them -- has become the most significant and revealing aspect of the entire scandal.



Extraordinary indeed!

[enough]

3. Hair-raising details in this great article. Worth reading the whole thing. (nt)

[libodem]

4. Very important

In fact perhaps the most important issue of our time.

[libodem]

5. I like to bring this back up once in a while

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/guan-m29.shtml

It underscores the brutality in a very understandable way.