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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Seaver
Please move to Paranoia. This is just like his eight 9/11 threads which were allowed to linger here way too long.
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Quote:
http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/pentagonpundits.html
<img src="http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/images/pentagonpundits.jpg">
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/wa...in&oref=slogin
..... Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.
In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.
A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.
<h3>“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.</h3>
Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.
As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.
<h2>“Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.” ......</h2>
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Quote:
http://www.reuters.com/article/lates.../idUSN22334887
grooming TV analysts
Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:53pm EDT
WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) - A newspaper report that U.S. military analysts working for television networks were coached by the Pentagon provided "very clear evidence of conflicts of interest" at the Defense Department, a senior U.S. senator said on Tuesday.
Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was sending Defense Secretary Robert Gates a letter urging him to make "sure access to the media is even, is not selective, they're not picking people for favorable treatment."
The New York Times on Sunday reported that retired senior officers received private briefings, trips and access to classified intelligence to influence their comments about the Iraq war on television networks.
"It's a very, very significant disclosure of the New York Times," Levin told reporters.
The newspaper quoted Robert Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, as saying, "It was them (the Bush administration) saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.'"
A Pentagon spokesman told the Times that the analysts were only given factual information about the war in Iraq.
Levin also complained that some of the analysts were "apparently on the payroll of defense contractors and those defense contractors apparently believe they have special access" to the Pentagon.
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Quote:
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroo....cfm?id=296687
Levin Asks Gates to Investigate Allegations that Pentagon Provided Special Treatment to TV Analysts
WASHINGTON --- Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to investigate claims laid out by the New York Times on April 20 that the Pentagon gave special treatment to retired military personnel who served as TV analysts in support of the administration’s policies.
“While the media clearly have their own shortfalls for paying people to provide ‘independent’ analysis when they have such real and apparent conflicts, that doesn’t excuse the Department’s behavior in giving both special treatment and valuable access to analysts who provide commentary in favor of DoD’s strategy, while not offereing similar access to some other analysts and cutting off access to others who didn’t deliver as expected,” Levin wrote in a letter to Gates.
A copy of Levin’s letter to Gates can be viewed here. [PDF]
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<h3>Sen. Carl Levin chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee</h3>
Quote:
http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/sup...tes.042308.pdf
Unitcd States Senate
Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing in connection with a front page story in the New York Times on
Sunday, April 20, 2008, entitled "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand."
I am deeply troubled over the allegations in the story that:
(1) retired military personnel performing media analysis were accorded special
treatment by being provided with talking points and unique access to senior
civilian and military officials with the expectation (usually realized) that they
would provide positive analysis from the Department's perspective;
(2) some analysts, who were accorded special treatment, were on the payroll of
Defense contractors with an interest in gaining or preserving military contracts.
While the media clearly have their own shortfalls for paying people to provide
"independent" analysis when they have such real and apparent conflicts, that doesn't
excuse the Department's behavior in giving both special treatment and valuable
access to analysts who provide commentary in favor of DoD's strategy, while not
offering similar access to some other analysts and cutting off access to others who
didn't deliver as expected.
would appreciate your promptly investigating the specific allegations in the
article and advising me of your findings and any actions you intend to take.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
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You've been fucking "hosed", Seaver....your "belief system" has been taken apart and exposed....suck it up. Don't try to make it my problem.
Last edited by host; 05-14-2008 at 09:28 AM..
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