Recent posts about war/peace
Speaking of Monsters...
Retired U.S. Col. Ralph Peters has written an essay calling for military attacks on journalists. Writing for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Peters calls the media "a hostile third party in the fight ... killers without guns," and writes, "future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. ... The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity's interests, while our failures nourish monsters."
Astroturf Expert Forms NIMBY Campaign
The new Virginia-based group "Citizens for a Safe Alexandria" describes itself as a grassroots group, but its founder works for a public relations firm that specializes in "'grassroots' and 'grasstops' media strategies." Citizens for a Safe Alexandria's Sara Raak has appeared on local television news, urging the Obama administration not to "put those of us in the Alexandria neighborhood at risk" by bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the area to stand trial. Raak's day job is with OnPoint Advocacy, which runs Democracy Data & Communications, a member of the Public Affairs Council recently linked to an Astroturf website pushing for continued U.S. military spending on F-22 Raptor fighter jets. Raak's also worked for the DCI Group and Progress for America and managed "grassroots advocacy programs" for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She said OnPoint / DDC have "nothing to do" with Citizens for a Safe Alexandria, except for helping with the group's website. She added that the new group has "no funding," except "what she, her husband and two associates who are 'other moms' in Alexandria put into the effort." Raak said the group will be "'put[ting] out some pamphlets' against Guantanamo detainees going on trial in Alexandria and distribute them in Old Town and at area flea markets."
Army Secretary Nominee Believes in Give and Take
President Obama's nominee for Army Secretary has requested $40 million in earmarks to be added to the defense appropriations bill. Rep. John McHugh, a Republican congressman from New York, called for $4.7 million for the Lockheed Martin aviation corporation, which has contributed $35,000 to his congressional campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. "Rockwell Collins, Inc., a defense contractor with a facility in upstate New York would receive $2 million under the requests. ... Rockwell Collins until this year had been a client of PMA Group lobbying firm, which closed after it was the target of an FBI investigation into campaign finance violations. PMA’s political action committee, its employees and its clients gave $160,250 to McHugh’s congressional campaigns." McHugh is the top Republican serving on the House Armed Services Committee.
Pentagon OK's Its PR Program's Money Funneling
Once again, the U.S. Defense Department is trying to absolve itself of wrongdoing. The Pentagon's Washington Headquarters Service (WHS) has ruled that the American Forces Information Service and the Stars and Stripes military newspaper "did not break the law in how they handled money for the America Supports You program." America Supports You (ASY) is a Pentagon program tasked with boosting troop morale. Under Allison Barber, a former Pentagon official and public relations professional, ASY's funding practices, close ties to corporate sponsors and massive spending on public relations made the program controversial. Last year, the Defense Department Inspector General's office reported that ASY funneled $9.2 million through Stars and Stripes, against Pentagon rules and with so little oversight that officials "lost visibility of about $4.1 million." Yet, the Pentagon's WHS, an administrative office, ruled that the Antideficiency Act, "which prevents government agencies from spending money in ways not authorized by Congress," had not been violated.
Pentagon Rejects Its Own Pundit Program Whitewash
The continuing saga of the Pentagon pundit program just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland might say.
From 2002 to 2008, the Defense Department secretly cultivated more than 70 retired military officers who frequently serve as media commentators. Initially, the goal was to use them as "message force multipliers," to bolster the Bush administration's Iraq War sell job. That went so well that the covert program to shape U.S. public opinion -- an illegal effort, by any reasonable reading of the law -- was expanded to spin everything from then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's job performance to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to warrantless wiretapping.
In April 2008, shortly after the New York Times first reported on the Pentagon's pundits -- an in-depth exposé that recently won the Times' David Barstow his second Pulitzer Prize -- the Pentagon suspended the program. In January 2009, the Defense Department Inspector General's office released a report claiming "there was an 'insufficient basis' to conclude that the program had violated laws." Representative Paul Hodes, one of the program's many Congressional critics, called the Inspector General's report "a whitewash."
Now, it seems as though the Pentagon agrees.
Pentagon Pundit Expose Gets the Pulitzer
It was a shocking revelation. Exactly one year ago today, the New York Times published an in-depth account of the Pentagon military analyst program, a covert effort to cultivate pundits who are retired military officers as the Bush administration's "message force multipliers." The elaborate -- and presumably costly -- program flourished at the nexus of government war propaganda; the private interests of the officer-pundits, many of whom also worked as lobbyists or consultants for military contractors; and major news organizations that didn't ask tough questions about U.S. military operations while failing to screen their paid commentators for even the most glaring conflicts of interest.
The story was huge, but it wasn't easy to break. It took two years for reporter David Barstow and others at the Times to pry the relevant documents from the Pentagon. Seven months later, Barstow helped us further understand how the U.S. "military-industrial-media complex" works, with another front-page exposé on one spectacularly conflicted Pentagon pundit, Barry McCaffrey.
On April 20, David Barstow received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, for his work on the Pentagon pundit story.
Pentagon Told to Take a Back Seat on Public Diplomacy
"To distance itself from past practices that some military officers called propaganda," the Obama administration closed the Defense Department's office for support to public diplomacy. "The office was created in 2007 to be the central point within the vast Pentagon bureaucracy and far-flung military to coordinate the Defense Department's overseas information efforts" with the White House, State Department, overseas embassies and other U.S. government entities. In 2008, the office's "'talking points' ... for use in responding to queries on matters like civilian casualties" were criticized by U.S. officers in Afghanistan. The officers refused to use the talking points, saying Afghans would see them as "blatant propaganda." The Pentagon is now supposed to "play a supporting role to the White House and the State Department" on public diplomacy, though the "Defense Department has far greater resources in money, trained communications personnel and broadcast and print technology than any other government agency or department." The Obama administration also eliminated the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy, previously held by Michael Doran.
Afghan Escalation OK with MoveOn, Anti-War Insiders
Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent notes that "President Obama’s announcement today of an escalation in the American presence in Afghanistan is being met with mostly silence - and even some support - from the most influential liberal groups who opposed the Iraq War. ... MoveOn.org ... declined to make any public statement about Obama’s Afghan policies in response to my queries. An official close to the group confirmed to me that MoveOn wouldn’t be saying anything in the near term. ... Nor will we hear anything from Americans United for Change, which ran $600,000 worth of TV ads against the Iraq War in the summer of 2007. 'Americans United for Change doesn’t plan to comment on President Obama’s new strategy,' a spokesperson for the group, Lauren Weiner, just emailed. Jon Soltz, the head of VoteVets ... came out in support of Obama’s Afghan strategy in an Op Ed with The Huffington Post. ... Liberal groups don’t want to distract from passing Obama’s enormous domestic agenda. ... And officials with some of these groups don’t want to lose inside influence with the White House."
How Obama Took Over the Peace Movement
John Podesta's liberal think tank the Center for American Progress strongly supports Barack Obama's escalation of the US wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is best evidenced by Sustainable Security in Afghanistan, a CAP report by Lawrence J. Korb. Podesta served as the head of Obama's transition team, and CAP's support for Obama's wars is the latest step in a successful co-option of the US peace movement by Obama's political aides and the Democratic Party.
CAP and the five million member liberal lobby group MoveOn were behind Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), a coalition that spent tens of millions of dollars using Iraq as a political bludgeon against Republican politicians, while refusing to pressure the Democratic Congress to actually cut off funding for the war. AAEI was operated by two of Barack Obama's top political aids, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, and by Brad Woodhouse of Americans United for Change and USAction. Today Woodhouse is Obama's Director of Communications and Research for the Democratic National Committee. He controls the massive email list called Obama for America composed of the many millions of people who gave money and love to the Democratic peace candidate and might be wondering what the heck he is up to in Afghanistan and Pakistan. MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader supporting Obama's policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so.
"Change" Meets Front Groups for the Status Quo
Following President Barack Obama's first address to Congress, which highlighted policy goals "ranging from expanding health-care coverage to cutting farm subsidies to cutting wasteful defense projects," corporate front groups are fighting back. The former head of the largest for-profit hospital chain, HCA, announced "a $20 million campaign to pressure Democrats to enact health-care legislation based on free-market principles," under the name "Conservatives for Patients Rights." Joe Lucas of the coal and utility industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said his organization "will spend as much as $40 million to make sure Congress approved a global-warming plan" that includes funding for developing "carbon capture and storage" technology at coal-fired electric plants. The Aerospace Industries Association of America has already spent $2 million on ads arguing that military spending "shouldn't be slashed to offset shortfalls in other areas." Boeing recently added a new top lobbyist, David Morrison from the Podesta Group firm, and Lockheed is still trying to associate its F-22 Raptor fighter jet with stimulus efforts, via its PreserveRaptorJobs.com astroturf website.
