David Barstow’s article “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” demonstrated how deceitful the American government, along with the help of military analysts, was to American citizens throughout the Bush term. After reading this article I was in shock with the idea that I never even heard about this situation during its actual occurrence. The idea that the American government paid military analyst—many whom of which were veterans or have participated in military divisions—to generate information in order to convince popular America to become pro-war stimulated various questions in my mind. I began to question if anything we ever hear in the media is actually true. Can we as a country listen to one media segment and be assured that everything about that segment is true? Or must we always sit and ponder which part of the story is true or which is not? Or must we wonder is this story just made up to stimulate our interest? This article highly influenced my impression on this issue. I believe that what was done by the American government, specifically Donald Rumsfeld—former secretary of state—and military analysts was absolutely disgracing to our country. America is a free country in which an individual has a choice to shape their own opinion on an issue. However, this rational of an opinion is severely flawed when given false information. With the altering of information as to convince American’s to become pro-war we are no longer given full ability to formulate our own opinions on the situations. Statements are being made to sway us towards pro-war and stray us away from what we as individuals may truly believe in. The fact that an unpaid military analyst for FOX television and radio was e-mailing the station stating, “Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay,” proves how manipulative both the American government, military analysts, and the media were being. Information obtained by the military analysts was being told to this government and media, but not to the general public. When individuals are leaving their job because they are sickened by how deceitful they must be to the public, and how much they have to change their stories, there is an obvious problem. It was quite obvious to the American government that most Americans had a negative opinion about this war and wanted it to end. However, they did not want to accept this fact. As Lawrence Di Rita—a former Defense Department worker--states, “A ‘conscious decision’ was made to rely on the military analysts to counteract the ‘increasingly negative view of the war’ coming from journalists in Iraq. The analysts, [he said], generally had ‘a more supportive view’ of the administration and the war, and the combination of their TV platforms and military cachet made them ideal for rebutting critical coverage of issues like troop morale, treatment of detainees, inadequate equipment or poorly trained Iraqi security forces,” proving the manipulation of military analysts pro-war attitudes to encourage American citizens to become pro-war. After reading statements such as this throughout the entire article I could not help but think how shameful this manipulation—imposed by both government and those military analysts working for both government and media networks such as FOX, ABC, and CNN—truly is. I commend David Barstow for bringing this issue to America’s attention, allowing citizens to formulate their own opinions on war, government, and even the media.
Links associated with this issue:
I selected this video because it involves the use of “minor” media picking up on a story that was ignored by many large media companies—because they were too involved with the scam. This video highlights the deceit of the Pentagon with use of Military Analysts in order to convince American’s to become pro-war. Specifically, I thought this was a great video because it includes various interview and clever statements as to what the government really was doing. For example, the video uses steps on “How to Sell a War”—“Step 2: Control the News at the Output” “Method: The Military Analysts Program.” These statements prove how the Pentagon, with help of the military analysts, was trying to “sell” the idea of the war being a positive event to American citizens. This would get the “Bush Administration’s version of the War in Iraq” out to us Americans—in the most untrustworthy way. This video does a great job in highlighting all the trickery involved with this American Government run program.
This political cartoon is a great representation of the Pentagon Military Analyst Program. It exemplifies the idea that the pentagon, military analysts, and media were deceiving each and every American. With the use of a US military general—someone that many people would view as heroic or admirable—stating “Go Forth and Deceive Americans,” it proves how deceitful this program was. The political cartoon represents the idea that the Pentagon thought it would be okay to give out false information to American citizens to influence how they felt about the war. I think this political cartoon does an exemplary job in representing how shameful this program was to our country. They took advantage of US citizens who may have been unaware of the current war situation and flooded them with information that would hopefully influence them to become pro-war.
This article discusses further research that was taken in regards to the Pentagon Military Analysts Program after it was brought to the country’s attention by David Barstow’s article. I selected this article in particular because it highlighted a “military-industrial-media-complex.” Many people wanted to believe that what was occurring wasn’t of this “military-industrial-media-complex” but with all the information that kept arising, it was hard to not think of it that way. I also selected this article because it too mentioned the deceit to American’s in regards to tax dollars. Senator John Kerry mentions, “There needs to be a ‘thorough investigation’ into government contracts and ‘whether American’s tax dollars were being used to cultivate talking heads to sell the administration’s Iraq policy,” furthering the thought that American tax dollars may not have been going to what citizens may think. Another reason why I chose this article is due to that fact that it brings about points not highlighted in other sources. It greatly exemplifies censorship in the media, when many major broadcasting services didn’t speak of this occurrence—“For a week after the Times story [and found that] out of approximately 1,300 news stories, only two touched on the Pentagon analysts scoop — both airing on PBS’s “NewsHour.” I think this demonstrates the idea that the mass media has a large role in downplaying certain stories that should not be.
4.) NPR Segment: Pentagon Used Military Analysts to Deliver Message
This NPR segment does a great job summarizing and revealing more information about the Pentagon Military Analyst Program. I selected this segment because it delves deeper into the actual event that occurred. It interviewed many different people and gets their opinion on what occurred at the Pentagon. John Battis—a retired army major general—states, “this is a very deliberate attempt on the part of the administration to shape public opinion,”—proving the tactics of the Bush Administration. I also found it interesting that it highlighted who was invited to the meeting to discuss this program and who was not—one of those people not invited being John Battis. The fact that those individuals that had an idea of what the Pentagon was doing and spoke up against it, further exemplifies the administrations manipulation in formulating American’s opinions on the war.
This NPR segment does a great job summarizing and revealing more information about the Pentagon Military Analyst Program. I selected this segment because it delves deeper into the actual event that occurred. It interviewed many different people and gets their opinion on what occurred at the Pentagon. John Battis—a retired army major general—states, “this is a very deliberate attempt on the part of the administration to shape public opinion,”—proving the tactics of the Bush Administration. I also found it interesting that it highlighted who was invited to the meeting to discuss this program and who was not—one of those people not invited being John Battis. The fact that those individuals that had an idea of what the Pentagon was doing and spoke up against it, further exemplifies the administrations manipulation in formulating American’s opinions on the war.
