A few days ago, we noted the revelations by Stars and Stripes that the Pentagon was using a shadowy PR firm to identify the political leanings of journalists trying to cover the "Good War" in Afghanistan (as well as the "Forgotten War" in Iraq). The idea, clearly, was to encourage and reward "pro-war" reporters while planting a big red flag on the backs of any writers considered less than gung-ho about the imperial bloodshed in Muslim lands.

Naturally, the Pentagon denied that the vetting program operated by the Rendon Group – which was hired by the Bush gang to help instigate the mass murder in Iraq – was in any way a sinister, slimy attempt to manipulate the news in order to make the endless slaughter of the Terror War more palatable for the folks back home. Perish the thought! declared the brass. Why, goodness mercy me, the only aim of the program is to help reporters tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. As Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman put it after S&S first broke the story: "It’s a good article if it’s accurate. It’s a bad article if it’s inaccurate. That’s the only measurement that we use here at the Defense Department." Makes you want to puddle up, don't it?

Well, Stars and Stripes has done something almost unheard-of in modern journalism – followed up on a story with a skeptical stance toward the bland assurances of authority – and guess what they found? Go ahead, try – you'll never guess. They found that the Pentagon was lying! From S&S: 

Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”

Moreover, the documents — recent confidential profiles of the work of individual reporters prepared by a Pentagon contractor — indicate that the ratings are intended to help Pentagon image-makers manipulate the types of stories that reporters produce while they are embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Well, I never! The Pentagon -- run by honest Brother Bob Gates, who is such a straight arrow that the saintly progressive Barack Obama carried him over from the Bush Regime to keep running our "overseas contingency operations -- has been caught lying through its teeth! What next? Obama spending his vacation playing golf with sleazy Swiss bankers or something?

Back to S&S:

“The purpose of this memo is to provide an assessment of [a reporter from a major U.S. newspaper] … in order to gauge the expected sentiment of his work while on an embed mission in Afghanistan,” reads the preamble to one of the reporter profiles prepared for the Pentagon by The Rendon Group, a controversial Washington-based public relations firm.

S&S also shreds the post-revelations denials by the Pentagon and Rendon, including the lie by Gates' mouthpiece that the vetting program (that isn't a vetting program, of course) ended last October, in the bad old Bush days:

But the Rendon profiles reviewed by Stars and Stripes prove otherwise. One of the profiles evaluates work published as recently as May, indicating that the rating practice did not in fact cease last October as Whitman stated.

And the explicit suggestions contained in the Rendon profiles detailing how best to manipulate reporters’ coverage during their embeds directly contradict the Pentagon’s stated policies governing the embed process.

By week's end, the Pentagon was in full retreat on the story (in public, at least), pulling out the old stand-by used to cover a multitude of sins, from torture to corruption to atrocity to systematic deceit: a "review" of the program. Whitman, who days before had been loudly trumpeting the program's decency and goodness, was now declaring -- what else? -- that he didn't know the first thing about it, but he was sure enough gosh-dang-diddley-darn going to find out:

“For me, a tool like this serves no purpose and it doesn’t serve me with any value,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters as some of the affected war correspondents began demanding to see their secret military profiles....“I haven’t seen anything that violates any policies, but again, I’m learning about aspects of this as I question our folks in Afghanistan,” Whitman said. “If I find something that is inconsistent with Defense Department values and policies, you can be sure I will address it.”

And we're sure a grateful nation gives its thanks for this great diligence. Whitman, a former Special Forces op whose last wetwork was back in the bug-out from Somalia, has long shown a dogged fealty to the truth: here, for example, planting stories of Iranian "threats" to U.S. boats in the powderkeg of the Strait of Hormuz; or here, early on in the mass murder in Iraq, ardently peddling the Pentagon's knowingly false stories about the "heroic" rescue of Jessica Lynch. There is perhaps one aspect of his promised "review" that might trouble a cynic, however:

Whitman told Pentagon reporters that he was inquiring about the issue, but he added that the Pentagon is not launching any formal inquiry to the matter.

No "formal" review, then. No official inquiry. Just a couple of phone calls from good old Bryan to a few top brass and their mercenary manipulators: "You doing something dirty over there?" "Nope. Everything's jake." "Cool."

Whitman, by the way, is not really a holdover from the Bush Administration, like his boss, Bob Gates. He is actually a holdover from the Clinton Administration, having ascended into the higher Pentagon PR ranks back in 1997, where he helped shape the presentations of Clinton's "good war" against Serbia in 1998, then went on to serve the the cause of imperial message massage into Afghanistan and Iraq.

As we always say around here: Continuity! It's what makes America great!

Comments (13)

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Richard S. Lowry said:

Pulp Journalism Sir, You stated, "...ardently peddling the Pentagon's knowingly false stories about the "heroic" rescue of Jessica Lynch." Please provide me with legitimate references that gives any truth to the statement above. I am an author and military historian. I spent three years studying the battle for Nasiriyah and I assure you that the Pentagon DID NOT 'knowingly pedal false stories' about Jessica Lynch's rescue. In fact, she was 80 lbs and near death when Navy SEALS carried her from the Saddam Hospital in downtown Nasiriyah. By the way, the Saddam Hospital was behind enemy lines in a city which produced the bloodiest day of fighting in the entire war. Her's was the first successful rescue of an American POW since WWII. I am certain you would have expected nothing less, if it had been your daughter. Please check your facts before you write such slander. I makes your entire article suspect.

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August 28, 2009 | url
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Sean O'Neil said:

Wow, an Imperialist arrives to utter lies. How ironic. Please check your comment before you issue a comment containing such lies. Because really, after we finish alternating the vomit arising from disgust with the howls of laughter at your delusions, we are forced to consider your comment as nothing more than an ideologically motivated lie, or series of lies. How ironic that you would be accusing Mr Floyd of falsehoods. How ironic indeed. You should consider going into comedy, Mr Lowry.

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August 28, 2009
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BrotherRay in Canada said:

Some free research in her own words: "Nobody likes to believe our military would mislead people—but they wanted a war hero so badly that they portrayed me as one. They didn’t get their facts straight before talking about what happened, and neither did the media. They said I went down guns blazing, like Rambo—but I never fired a shot, because my rifle had jammed. They later corrected the story, but I’m still paying the price. People write to me and say, “You don’t deserve all the attention.” I’ve received thousands of letters and calls like that. People think I lied or helped create the Rambo myth—that I wanted it. But I’ve always told the truth. I could have chosen not to. It would have been so easy to say, “Yes, I did those things”— except I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. Honesty has always been very important to me. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that this is my life and I have to stand up for myself." http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2007/06/jessica-lynch I'm sure Mr Floyd has some much better sources. military historian. an oxymoron like military intelligence.

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August 28, 2009
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C Quil said:

Restrictions on Canadian reporters Control the message and you control the war. From Scott Taylor at Esprit de Corps (Canadian military magazine) Press Freedom Takes Hit with U.S. Troop Increase, May 6th, 2009 "Previously, Canadian journalists were issued with ISAF passes which allowed them unrestricted access inside the military base. The Americans, upon taking control of the airfield security in January of this year, altered this process, whereby journalists are now given only visitor passes instead of full accreditation. This meant that Canadian military officials had to escort these individuals everywhere they went during the day—from showers to the dining hall—and that they would be confined to their sleeping quarters at night."

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August 28, 2009
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C Quil said:

	Link to Esprit de Corp article and question Sorry. Too fast on the send button. Here's the link: http://www.espritdecorps.ca/Ontarget 090506.htm ----- Completely off-topic but how is Arthur Silber? I first linked to his site from yours and was really sad to hear he was so sick.
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August 28, 2009
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Yankee 30 said:

... Dear Mr. Lowry, "...One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths' only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society... ...The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath's control system... ...The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends... ...When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience..." (from Word gets around: Twilight and the trick of the psychopaths, by Dr. Kevin Barrett and Silvia Cattori) Arthur Silber has much to say on this topic, too. Delve into his archives.

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August 28, 2009
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Ovid said:

... Hey, is that Rich Lowry of the National Review? Three years studying one battle? Hahahahahahaha! But it's even funnier that everyone is arguing with him. The fact that all war is based on deception goes all the way back to Sun Tzu, and the whole officer corps thinks the American public, not the unvanquishable American military, lost the Vietnam war. But I guess since we suck in more military propaganda than oxygen in the U.S., I shouldn't be surprised that people still have to be convinced that the military would ever lie. But I am a little surprised that some dumbass like Rich Lowry or somebody using his name can start an argument at this site with a ridiculous comment like that. There are something like 1,200 media and public relations personnel stationed just at Fort Bragg. Is somebody seriously considering that they are all being truthful and objective? Even the host of this fine site seems to occionally accept unproven assumptions about how everythign actually works. Maybe, just maybe, President Obama accepted Secretary Gates sometime back before the election as a precondition to his getting support he needed to have any chance of being President, such as the support of Langley and the sponsorts of Langley, those banks that control the New York Fed. In that sense, the people who employ Secretary Gates also agreed to hire the "you say saintly" President Obama, subject to his references checking out and his judgment about staffing proving reliable. The hiring of a President is accomplished through control of the media, a large part of which is in Langley's pocket. And that's a lot more scandalous than the Pentagon influencing journalists. A hell of a lot more scandalous. But the post is good, as they usually seem to be here. I even like the snark.

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August 29, 2009
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D R Alexander said:

	... I did a little research on the Rendon Group. Seems they go quite a way back,starting with Democratic administrations of the past. Very connected was the term I recall reading. Apparently so. Rendon is married to Sandra Libby,Scooter's sister. Her name is listed as a contact person for the firm. This firm has been paid millions upon millions of dollars over the years for plum contracts.
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August 29, 2009
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Aditya said:

Lynch, Whitman, Jerry Bruckheimer, etc. I don't have time to excerpt this article right now or add comments but it will explain the matter sufficiently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.../iraq.usa2 The truth about Jessica Her Iraqi guards had long fled, she was being well cared for - and doctors had already tried to free her. John Kampfner discovers the real story behind a modern American war myth John Kampfner The Guardian, Thursday 15 May 2003 08.27 BST

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August 29, 2009
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Jimmy Montague said:

I once spent three years -- I once spent three years studying stylometry. I read buckets full of journal articles with titles like "Hapax Legomena in Prescribed Positions." Occasionally, I wept. Had I done all that work only to find out, after I published, that I'd been scooped by 'Glamour' magazine, I probably would have killed myself. But I DO understand how, to some of us, a job at The National Review might seem a better alternative.

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August 30, 2009 | url
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Blaqfather-1403 said:

PENTAGON COST OVER-RUNS; 300 BILLION PENTAGON COST OVER-RUN PROBLEM 2009 I must confess I am at a loss to explain the Giant Pentagon Deficit Reduction Plans, which are ill conceived in my opinion. In addition to the run-away budget problem, I had learned years ago, that several hundred thousand guns are “missing and unaccounted for” also. (Not to mention ammunition) This has left an obvious trail of un-accountability that shows very small signs of improvement. As of June 2009, the Pentagon and its agencies face a 2.5 billion dollar deficit coupled with a snow - ball effect of overspending that has left the GAO at a loss to explain how to deal with the problem. “ Pentagon planners don't do a good enough job of analyzing those requirements to understand whether they have the technologies and designs to build to them," GAO analyst Michael J. Sullivan said. "So they begin with an unrealistic baseline." Overall, the cost overruns associated with the military's major weapons systems have decreased slightly compared with a year ago, but they still total near $300 billion, and the average program delay has stretched from 21 to 22 months, Gene L. Dodaro, acting comptroller general at the GAO, said in a report. Too often, the report said, development begins before the technologies needed to build the systems are mature and have been demonstrated to work, and before designs can meet cost and schedule requirements. All of these references have been D-Linked for accuracy. Just drag and drop them into your browser search window or type them in manually. All of these links start with ( http:// ) www.gao.gov/docsearch/locate?searched= 1&keyword=Defense appropriations www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/fy09_dod_request/ news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

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Sean O'Neil said:

	... Jimmy -- excellent! Blaqfather -- great to see you back here.
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Yankee 30 said:

... I must confess that I can't explain the loss of 2.3 TRILLION dollars from the Pentagon's budget accounting. ___________________ "We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service... ...Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the "accounting games." He's still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse. "Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year," he said. Another critic of Pentagon waste, Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, commanded the Navy's 2nd Fleet the first time Donald Rumsfeld served as Defense Secretary, in 1976. In his opinion, "With good financial oversight we could find $48 billion in loose change in that building, without having to hit the taxpayers." CBS Evening News, Jan. 29, 2002

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