Trickle-Down Responsibility

When the pictures of American soldiers taunting and humiliating detainees at Abu Ghraib surfaced in 2004, and subsequently the conditions at Guantanamo Bay came under more scrutiny, there was an immediate push to blame any perceived transgressions on "a few bad apples." In other words, sure, there may have been some incidents which crossed a boundary, but it was the effort of a few misguided souls, not a direct result of US policy.

Four years later, it has become increasingly clear that this defense bears little resemblance to the truth. President Bush, himself, recently admitted that he was aware of meetings in the White House held to plan just how far harsh interrogations were allowed to go.

This Thursday, Phillippe Sands met with Amy Goodman to discuss his recent Congressional testimony and added even more evidence to the top-down approach to torture and Guantanamo, in direct contradistinction to the administration's official position.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers?

PHILLIPPE SANDS: There were two points. Firstly, as everyone knows, the President took a decision that none of the detainees at Guantanamo would have any rights under the Geneva Conventions. It seems that General Myers was unaware of that. He was under the impression they had decided that Geneva would apply...as we went through the techniques of interrogation one by one, that he had thought that these came out of the US Field Manual guide for interrogations. They were all prohibited. And as we went down the list, his jaw literally dropped. So I got the sense that the most powerful military man in the United States, indeed probably in the world, was blissfully unaware of what had been decided.

As Sands inferred from his conversations with Myers, one of the most powerful military men in the world was seemingly unaware of the legal wranglings and positioning going on behind the scenes and above his head. That suggestion syncs with much of the other information regarding questioning at Guantanamo which indicates that most military officers were opposed to the proposed questioning techniques. A large portion of that objection was the belief--well-founded, I think--that violating the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture would put future American POWs in danger of having the favor returned.

Because of the military commanders' opposition to harsh interrogation techniques, the administration was forced to go above their heads, and the void was filled by the Bush-Cheney legal team.

Part-and-parcel of the upper-echelon approval of torture at Guantanamo and abroad is the political spin campaign by the Pentagon to ensure that public would be unaware of the true scope of the administration's policy of interrogation.

Glenn Greenwald illuminated one such example on Friday, after examining the documents released by the Defense Department.

Greenwald expounds upon the specific case of Gen. Don Shepperd, and analyst employed by CNN, and member of a chaperoned tour of Guantanamo in 2005 designed to persuade the Pentagon's analysts (read: puppets) to present a positive spin in the face of bad publicity. The tour of the facility consumed just under 3 hours. Several pertinent quotes from Shepperd appear in the released documents, one of which summarizes his purpose quite nicely:

Did we drink the government Kool-Aid? Of course, and that was the point.

When he asked how he could help, top Rumsfeld aide Larry Di Rita replied "OK, but let's get him briefed on Khatani so he doesn't go too far on that one" (Third-person because response was via forwarded e-mail.) Khatani was thought to be the 20th hijacker, and considered one of the more egregious breeches of human rights at US facilities.

Shepperd apparently took the hint:

In numerous appearances on CNN talking about Gitmo, no mention was ever made of Khatani or other specific, documented abuses.

When he was finally asked about watching an interrogation, Shepperd assured the viewers that the interrogators could not have been more cordial. Presumably, he expected to be treated to an interrogation indicative of common practices on a PR trip, which could speak to his judgment one would think.

Support of the war has no bearing on finding this program not only immoral, but illegal. Whether one agrees with the war or even cares not about torture should find the elite levels to which the torture program reached and the scope of the Pentagon propaganda campaign alarming.

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Crickets at the Pentagon

It's now been 10 days since the New York Times ran its piece exposing the propaganda machine in which the Pentagon utilized retired military commanders, who stood to gain from defense contracts, to propagate its message--unattributed--in the mass media outlets. In those 10 days, not a single major news outlet has discussed it, clearly indicative of the significant role played by the outlets themselves.

Consider the implications here. In the run up to the war, and in its early stages, the press of a free nation willingly disseminated the government's propaganda message in support of the war. A free press that is supposed to speak truth to power, thereby enfranchising the public, instead chose to serve, unadulterated, the meal the Pentagon was dishing out.

Until last Sunday, it seemed that the embed program was the biggest embarrassment for free press in decades. Now that pales in comparison, yet not a single major news outlet has seen fit to even broach the subject or offer apologies for committing crimes against intellectual honesty and serving the will of the state before their viewers.

Finally asked about it today (probably by someone other than a regular member of the White House press corps), Dana Perino repeated the company line that the program was okay because "it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it." The law, however, disagrees.

The GAO addresses just such a program:

Because the Department’s role in the production and distribution of the prepackaged news story is not revealed to the target audience, the prepackaged news story constitutes covert propaganda. We disagree with the Department’s contention that the prepackaged news stories are not covert propaganda because they contain only factual information. To constitute a legitimate information dissemination activity that does not violate the publicity or propaganda prohibition, the Department must inform the viewing public that the government is the source of the information disseminated.

In two successive sentences, the administration's argument (along with Max Boot and John Podhoretz) loses two of its main ingredients. Namely, that the factual basis of the information disseminated is immaterial to the question of propaganda and that failure to cite the government as the source--regardless of intent--qualifies as covert propaganda. The Pentagon met the government's own criteria for propaganda.

As is par for the course in this administration, the Pentagon, who has suspended the program, and its spokespeople are relying on recipients of the party line to forget that words have definitions. Words like occupation and invasion and torture. But propaganda does have a working definition, and the Pentagon program surely meets it.

The Office of Legal Council has insisted that the Executive Branch is not subject to the GAO, but even its legal semantics don't do much to alter the basic premise. The OLC claims that publicity doesn't meet the standard for propaganda so long as it is factual in nature and not meant to support a particular program or department policy.

Consistent with that view, OLC determined in 1988 that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for "publicity or propaganda" precluded undisclosed agency funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that "covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties" would run afoul of restrictions on using appropriated funds for "propaganda."

Assuming that they are correct in this assessment, the test is still met by the Pentagon program, as the military analysts were clearly supporting a specific policy, not merely disseminating facts. Those that didn't were denied access and those that did were rewarded. Documents obtained by the Times prove as much. Support of the administration's war policy was a prerequisite for participation, so clearly the program fails to adhere to the OLC's own standards for legal communications.

No matter how you slice it, the Pentagon's propaganda campaign was at the very least immoral and dishonest, and by many standards--the GAO, the OLC, and the US Code--probably illegal.

The possibility that there will be consequences aside (there won't), the mass media owes the American public at least a cursory story about the program. Voters deserve to know that the government of a free country is engaging in covert propaganda to push its policies through a complicit media.

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Ducking the Point

Yesterday, I examined the New York Times piece detailing the Pentagon's efforts to promote its policy in the media via retired military officers who were less-than-retired from positions from which to profit from the war.

Predictably, supporters of the war were less than impressed with the article. Specifically, Max Boot and John Podhoretz, writing at Commentary. To take on Boot's objection first:

Hold the front page! Heck, on second thought, hold three full inside pages as well. Notify the Pulitzer jurors. The New York Times has a blockbuster scoop. Its ace reporter, David Barstow, has uncovered shocking evidence that . . . the Pentagon tries to get out its side of the story about Iraq to the news media.

After getting past the obligatory condescension, Boot opens with the premise that the Pentagon deserves to disseminate its side of the story. Undoubtedly, this is fair, but Boot misses the point in framing his argument this way. Namely, that the Pentagon wasn't simply disseminating its side of the story. It is more than welcome to do so, as that's what press conferences are for. I do contend, however, that portraying the presentation of its talking points as efforts of a detached, autonomous group of retired generals who in fact were being fed their lines offstage is not comparable.

The Times piece illustrates as much when it claims, "the access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon."

It is the effort to conceal the influence of the government propaganda mechanism that, by its very existence, exhibits the folly of Boot's supposition. These military men were not rolled out as agents of the Pentagon's "side of the story," they were presented as objective commenters expressing their own opinions.

The second objection is perhaps more thoughtless than the first:

As I read and read and read this seemingly endless report, I kept trying to figure out what the news was here. Why did the Times decide this story is so important? After all, it’s no secret that the Pentagon–-and every other branch of government-–routinely provides background briefings to journalists (including columnists and other purveyors of opinion), and tries to influence their coverage by carefully doling out access. It is hardly unheard of for cabinet members–-or even the President and Vice President–--to woo selected journalists deemed to be friendly while cutting off those deemed hostile. Nor is it exactly a scandal for government agencies to hire public relations firms to track coverage of them and try to suggest ways in which they might be cast in a more positive light. All this is part and parcel of the daily grind of Washington journalism in which the Times is, of course, a leading participant.

Here, after yet more condescension, Boot employs the well-worn tactic of 'yeah, well everybody does it.' It would not be much further for Max to have opted instead for the 'well, they started it' routine.

He seems to be suggesting that because the Times relies on government sources--and thus access--that it's merely part of the game for the Defense Department to spread half-truths and outright lies to the public, and thus nothing to be concerned about. But, really, all he's doing is illustrating a second issue, as I noted yesterday:

..the crux of our journalistic problem in the States can be found [here:] In an effort to gain--and maintain--access to 'sources' or 'government contacts,' journalists have sacrificed skepticism. How can we expect journalists to speak truth to power when they rely as their main sources on cogs in the incarnation of that power?

So in saying that journalists do it too, Boot thinks he's made a point of some significance, though clearly in reality he has simply illustrated the second half of the main point, that journalism as a whole relies too heavily on access and succombs to the pressures to maintain that access, sacrificing integrity in bits and pieces along the way.

Certainly, the Times failed to turn the spotlight back on itself, which it absolutely should considering its performance from 2002-2004, but in saying so Boot does not dispel the central theme of the article. He merely extends it to its logical conclusion. This is not, I think, what he had in mind, but I won't argue his point.

Yesterday's article merely covered but one spoke in the propaganda wheel. My objection to Boot though, is that he sees the collection of spokes circling the hub but doesn't think to throw a stick in between.

Podhoretz, contrary to Boot's proximity to a logical conclusion, simply spins toward the edge without hope of re-gaining traction. He's not really sure what all the hubbub is about since the Pentagon was simply looking for "good coverage."

But, of course, it's not 'good coverage' that is of concern. It's, well, 'false' coverage. The Times:

Mr. [Robert] Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq’s purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. … Mr. [Robert] Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being ‘manipulated’ to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

One…participant [of a hosted trip to Iraq in Sept. 2003], General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly ‘artificial’ that he joked to another group member that they were on ‘the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,’ a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had ‘brainwashed’ him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965.

Podhoretz's opening salvo:

I think, based on many years of experience working at various newspapers, that there is an explanation for the extreme length — 7800 words — of the story and the fact that it manages to find nothing more than an effort by the Pentagon to get good coverage. The Times thought it was on to something very big, ended up with something very small, and then took what little they had and tried to make a silk purse from the sow’s ear that was reporter David Barstow’s investigation.

Claiming "many years of experience working at various newspapers" is nothing more than an erroneous implication that his conclusion is not to be confused with mere opinion. He knows about papers, so you just shut your mouth and listen to him, okay?

His conclusion?: That the Times failed to persuade a fanatical believer in the war, namely John Podhoretz, and thus must admit that they "tried to make a silk purse from the sow's ear." Mind you, Podhoretz offers nothing in the way of support of his thesis, but he knows papers, so that would just be superfluous.

Barstow’s endless tale reveals nothing more than that the Pentagon treated former military personnel like VIPs, courted them and served them extremely well, in hopes of getting the kind of coverage that would counteract the nastier stuff written about the Defense Department in the media.

Both Boot and Podhoretz mention the length of the article several times, ostensibly in an attempt to elicit sympathy from the reader for their having to have turned a page or two. I can think of no other reason to continuously mention it, other than perhaps some relationship I've missed regarding the inverse nature of article length and accuracy.

Other than that, though, this sentence is incredible. First, the Pentagon didn't have "hopes" they would receive friendly coverage. They had a team of military men they knew to be sympathetic who had an added financial incentive they were unlikely to opine against. There was no hope involved.

Second, neither Boot nor Podhoretz ever broach the subject of whether the information provided was true. They both seem adamant that the Pentagon's side should be included, even if delivered under cloak of darkness, regardless of its veracity. That journalism should be a vehicle for truth seems anathema to both theses.

Maybe they believed the Pentagon, maybe they didn't. But whether it was being honest with the American people clearly is of minimal concern. Both pundits are merely concerned with the right of the propaganda machine to exert its influence on public discourse, not the right of the public to honesty.

My favorite line:

I intuit that this story, which features extensive use of Freedom of Information requests...

One need look no further. The obvious disdain Podhoretz has for the mere idea that the public has even limited access to facts from within government illustrates clearer than anything I can imagine why he must cling to his dismissal of the story. One would suppose, based on this aversion to government documents being viewed, that he would support the alternative method of public fact-finding endeavors. Namely, that the public would graciously accept the government talking points delivered to them in stealth form. After all, if democracy can rest on nothing else, shouldn't it be able to preside happily over the ignorance of its constituents?

Other than eliciting a chuckle or two, I have yet to find after several readings any significant analysis of why the story was unimportant, misleading, inappropriate or any other adjective.

Podhoretz feels strongly about the issue, we are left with no doubt about that. But all one can ascertain from his parable are his imaginative suppositions as to the process of development of the piece itself. Even the phrasing of the title--What the Times Was Up To--in the form of the affirmative rather than the inquisitive leaves no question as to his premise.

It can be surmised, I guess, that somewhere in America, someone was clamoring to hear John Podhoretz's opinion as to how the story came to be printed, though I'm at a loss to comprehend where this might be.

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Truth From Power

Another day, another incredible revelation of the true scope of the Orwellian fantasy world that has been constructed in just a few short years in the United States.

Not that it should come as a surprise. That pundits and military analysts began selling a fallacious stock of goods in the run up to and in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq is not news. That it was the product of active collusion with the Pentagon and the Bush administration should, though, elicit more outrage than it probably will.

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.

It is in that last sentence that I believe the crux of our journalistic problem in the States can be found. In an effort to gain--and maintain--access to 'sources' or 'government contacts,' journalists have sacrificed skepticism. How can we expect journalists to speak truth to power when they rely as their main sources on cogs in the incarnation of that power?

Often in the media, there is a drive to present 'both sides' of a story. This is to be applauded, certainly, but only if both sides are playing fair. To have a supporter of the war who speaks glowingly of it of his or her own misguided volition is one thing. To present someone who is simply relaying the Pentagon's talking points in order to defend a policy upon which their financial standing depends is entirely another.

If the government talking points were trustworthy, journalism wouldn't be necessary. We could simply read the White House press releases and be done with it, assured that "we are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia" or "2+2=5" and move on with our lives. But that isn't so.

One of the most essential feats for a budding dictatorship is to render control of the press. There's a reason for that. There's a reason that the people of North Korea, some of the poorest and most downtrodden in the world, don't rise up against a 5-foot-tall laughingstock of a man. Military force is certainly part of that, but control of the press goes even further toward explaining how a small percentage can control the masses.

We need journalists as a check on power, not beholden to it. The press in this country presided over the marginalization of the war opposition, often holding up these financially-dependent military analysts as evidence of their folly. But the folly lies with journalists. Having spent a year graciously disseminating the government line in the run-up to the war, pleasantly granting air time to false prophets, and failing to present the slightest bit of skepticism, it is time journalists come clean.

Journalists have a duty to American citizens. A duty that lies in skepticism and truth. The White House disseminates its own line, there's no reason for the press to engage in the redundancy of doing that as well.

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