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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by RetroGunslinger
Let me just get this straight:
The government is sending in their own plants as opposed to objective military analysts in order to make the war seem better than it really is and to keep national morale up as best as they can.
Is this the gist of what's going on?
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Much worse....the broadcast networks hire retired military officers as "consultants". The networks represented these officers as apolitical military experts....technicians who could describe what was happening in the run up to and during ongoing military operations. Actual independent investigative reporting revealed that most of these officers had investments in and seats on boards of directors of military contractors poised to reap hundred of billions of dollars in military contracts revenue. Two generals, the ones consulting for NBC news, were founding members of a group of 25 principles lobbying the congress to invade Iraq and remove Saddam via US military force.
The newly disclosed emails, available on the pentagon's website, show that the (link in this thread's OP) pentagon was intent on shaping the networks stories about the military and the war, and recognized that the military analysts could actually control which stories the Networks covered, as well as the slant. The pentagon would brief these consultants, monitor what they said on the news broadcasts, and shut out consultants who were disagreeable to the military's propaganda....by denying them briefings, and by influencing the networks to fire them.
After the NY Times reported all of this last month, all of the privately owned on-air networks have avoided reporting any of this. On his blog, NBC news network anchor, Brian Willaims, whose nightly show had the highest ratings of any nightly news show during the period from 2002 to 2007, claimed the two generals his show featured, were apolitical, "fine men", when the truth is that they were heavily invested in defense contractors, held board seats on some of these companies, were two of the 25 founding members of the neocon group actively lobbying congress to invade Iraq, and were receiving briefings from the DOD reserved for cooperative former military officers only.
Brian Williams wrote that he did not check the backgrounds of the generals, and did not see a conflict that his viewers should have or should now be informed of, but he has reported nothing about this in any broadcast.... and neither have any of the other network news broadcast outlets....
Quote:
http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/ar...29/958477.aspx
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
....A few of you correctly noted I’ve yet to respond to the recent Times front-page article on the military analysts employed by the television networks, including this one.
I read the article with great interest. I've worked with two men since I've had this job -- both retired, heavily-decorated U.S. Army four-star Generals -- Wayne Downing and Barry McCaffrey. As I'm sure is obvious to even a casual viewer, I quickly entered into a close friendship with both men. I wish Wayne were alive today to respond to the article himself.
I made four trips to Iraq with Wayne. We were together, in close quarters, for over two months at the start of the war and survived at least one harrowing adventure. I won't attempt to respond on Wayne’s behalf, and I know Barry McCaffrey has his own response to the article.
All I can say is this: these two guys never gave what I considered to be the party line. They were tough, honest critics of the U.S. military effort in Iraq. If you've had any exposure to retired officers of that rank (and we've not had any five-star Generals in the modern era) then you know: these men are passionate patriots. In my dealings with them, they were also honest brokers. I knew full well whenever either man went on a fact-finding mission or went for high-level briefings. They never came back spun, and never attempted a conversion. They are warriors-turned-analysts, not lobbyists or politicians. .....
....I think it's fair, of course, to hold us to account for the military analysts we employ, inasmuch as we can ever fully know the "off-duty" actions of anyone employed on an "of counsel" basis by us. I can only account for the men I know best. The Times article was about the whole lot of them -- including instances involving other networks and other experts, who can answer for themselves. At no time did our analysts, on my watch or to my knowledge, attempt to push a rosy Pentagon agenda before our viewers. I think they are better men than that, and I believe our news division is better than that.
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Since the following has been public for five years, while Brian Williams continued to pimp these two "hoes", Williams needs to be fired and NBC needs to have all of their broadcast licenses transferred by the FCC to some other broadcasters who exhibit actual integrity:
Quote:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030421/interns
TV's Conflicted Experts
By Daniel Benaim, Priyanka Motaparthy & Vishesh Kumar
This article appeared in the April 21, 2003 edition of The Nation.
April 3, 2003
...One might have expected a pro-military slant in any former general's initial estimation of the US invasion. But some of these ex-generals also have ideological or financial stakes in the war. Many hold paid advisory board and executive positions at defense companies and serve as advisers for groups that promoted an invasion of Iraq. Their offscreen commitments raise questions about whether they are influenced by more than just "a lifetime of experience and objectivity"--in the words of Lieut. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a military analyst for NBC News--as they explain the risks of this war to the American people.
McCaffrey and his NBC colleague Col. Wayne Downing, who reports nightly from Kuwait, are both on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a Washington-based lobbying group formed last October to bolster public support for a war. Its stated mission is to "engage in educational advocacy efforts to mobilize US and international support for policies aimed at ending the aggression of Saddam Hussein," and among its targets are the US and European media. The group is chaired by Bruce Jackson, former vice president of defense giant Lockheed Martin (manufacturer of the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and other aircraft in use in Iraq), and includes such neocon luminaries as former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle. Downing has also served as an unpaid lobbyist and adviser to the Iraqi National Congress, an Administration-backed (and bankrolled) opposition group that stands to profit from regime change in Iraq.
NBC News has yet to disclose those or other involvements that give McCaffrey a vested interest in Operation Iraqi Freedom. McCaffrey, who commanded an infantry division in the Gulf War, is now on the board of Mitretek, Veritas Capital and two Veritas companies, Raytheon Aerospace and Integrated Defense Technologies--all of which have multimillion-dollar government defense contracts. Despite that, IDT is floundering--its stock price has fallen by half since March 2002--a situation that one stock analyst says war could remedy. Since IDT is a specialist in tank upgrades, the company stands to benefit significantly from a massive ground war. McCaffrey has recently emerged as the most outspoken military critic of Rumsfeld's approach to the war, but his primary complaint is that "armor and artillery don't count" enough. In McCaffrey's recent MSNBC commentary, he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle," and added for good measure that the "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker." In March alone, IDT received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware.
Downing has his own entanglements. The colonel serves on the board of directors at Metal Storm Ltd., a ballistics-technology company that has contracts with US and Australian defense departments. The company's executive director told the New York Times on March 31 that Metal Storm technologies would "provide some significant advantage" in the type of urban warfare being fought in Iraq.....
,,,,The networks don't seem too concerned about what the analysts do on their own time. "We are employing them for their military expertise, not their political views," Elena Nachmanoff, vice president of talent development at NBC News, told The Nation. She says that NBC's military experts play an influential role behind the scenes, briefing executive producers and holding seminars for staffers that provide "texture for both on-air pieces and background." Defense contracts, she adds, are "not our interest.",,...
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Brian Williams and NBC have still disclosed none of the above, and five years after the information above was published we have Williams, in writing, misleading us about all of these condlicts of interests of Downing and McCaffrey, bur he admits in writing that he has not broadcast a word of his written lies.....
Last edited by host; 05-11-2008 at 12:54 PM..
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