The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand - New York Times
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
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.
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Here is an interesting thought experiment.
The UK had a terror campaign waged against it for 30 years (IRA). The IRA terrorist were partly funded by the USA. This was by private individuals not the government(that I know of) but the government turned a blind eye to this and did nothing to stop it. Imagine if instead of the peace process that did happen the UK had invaded USA to stop this terrorism, cause several hundred thousand innocent American citizens to die in the process but succeeded in preventing any further IRA attacks against UK and toppled an unelected dictator (assuming this happened before bush's second term when he did win the election) how many americans would consider this a victory? Or are collateral causalities in the 'war against terrorim' only acceptable when it is foreigners dying?
Imagine you hired a contractor to renovate your house. You started out with a rather run-down, but still serviceable, four-bedroom, two-bath spit entrance ranch.
The contractor starts the project by essentially leveling your entire house with explosives. You end up living in a tent in the back yard, with no plumbing, no electricity, no heat. Heavy machinery is constantly tearing up the yard, sometimes backing over your tent, and once a back-hoe accidentally killed your dog.
Ten years drag by, while you live in your tent. You live through drenching rains, blizzards, and heat waves, year after year. Your youngest child dies of dysentery from the lack of sanitation. You can't work, because without plumbing you can't bathe or wash your clothes. The contractor makes very slow progress, because as becomes clear very early on, he has no idea how to build houses.
Finally, twelve years later, you end up with a reasonably okay home, which now in addition to the four bedrooms and two baths, has a patio, pool, and two-car garage. Unfortunately, your wife has left you, your two youngest children are dead, and you have to re-enter the job market after being unemployable for a dozen years.
Does your contractor get credit for building you a nice new house? How much credit?
Now, let's assume that you didn't hire this particular contractor. He just sort of appointed himself as your contractor, and rebuilt your house for you, unasked, while you shivered in a tent for a decade. How much credit do you think the contractor gets now?