Bush’s Psyops Against You

The NY Times has a lengthy, yet informative, article on the psyops perpetrated by the Bush administration. Anti-war folks figured this out a long time ago, but we’ll give the NYTimes kudos for printing history.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

There is a relationship that only a fascist regime would love.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.

So much for the Fourth Estate! Not only was the Bush administration able to give the American people false information, they waged a brainwashing war to keep up support, that was not only perpetrated by lobbyists dressed up as military analysts, but the Fourth Estate couldn’t be bothered doing their jobs, that of checking the validity of statements coming from the government and the analysts they paid.

This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam.

“We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” — using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.”

Funny that some in the M$M are printing truths now that Bush has lost so much support. On the other hand we have to say, “better late than never.”