What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side: Propaganda Meets Corporate Lobbying
The Pentagon launched its covert media analyst program in 2002, to sell the Iraq war. Later, it was used to sell an image of progress in Afghanistan, whitewash the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and defend the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping, as David Barstow reported in his New York Times expose.
But the pundits weren’t just selling government talking points. As Robert Bevelacqua, William Cowan and Carlton Sherwood enjoyed high-level Pentagon access through the analyst program, their WVC3 Group sought “contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq,” reported Barstow. Cowan admitted to “push[ing] hard” on a WVC3 contract, during a Pentagon-funded trip to Iraq.
Then there’s Pentagon pundit Robert H. Scales Jr. The military firm he co-founded in 2003, Colgen, has an interesting range of clients, from the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Special Operations Command, to Pfizer and Syracuse University, to Fox News and National Public Radio.
Of the 27 Pentagon pundits named publicly to date, six are registered as federal lobbyists. That’s in addition to the less formal — and less transparent — boardroom to war-room influence peddling described above. (There are “more than 75 retired officers” who took part in the Pentagon program overall, according to Barstow.)
The Pentagon pundits’ lobbying disclosure forms help chart what can only be called a military-industrial-media complex. They also make clear that war is very good for at least some kinds of business.
Some Disclosures We Would Have Liked to See
Fox News analyst Timur J. Eads works for the military contractor Blackbird Technologies. His job title there, “vice-president of government relations,” is often used to describe someone who crafts lobbying strategies but may not take part in lobbying meetings. So, it’s not surprising that Eads isn’t listed on Blackbird’s lobbying disclosure forms. (In 2007 and 2008, Blackbird lobbied Congress on “communications technologies” and the National Guard on “information systems.”)
From 2001 to 2003, Eads was in the lobbying trenches for EMC Corporation, a multinational “information infrastructure” company. Eads helped lobby Congress and a long list of federal agencies — including the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard — for “funding for data storage infrastructure.” EMC’s annual report for 2003 lists the Air Force Materiel Command and Pentagon Renovation and Construction Program Office among its U.S. government clients.
Prior to EMC, Eads lobbied for the major defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). In 1999 and 2000, he was on SAIC’s million-dollar-plus lobbying team, influencing federal spending on the armed services, foreign operations, national security and Veterans Administration, among many other appropriations bills.
Another Fox analyst and Pentagon pundit, John C. Garrett, has an even longer list of lobbying clients. He’s worked for the Patton Boggs firm since at least 1999. Thanks to the Pentagon analyst program, Garrett offers clients the benefits of his “weekly access and briefings with the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high level policy makers,” as Barstow noted.
Garrett has helped Bushmaster Firearms lobby Congress, the Defense and Homeland Security Departments on the “procurement of small arms” and “foreign military sales of small arms.” He’s lobbied Congress and Homeland Security on “government smart card initiatives,” for the Datacard Group; the Defense and Homeland Security Departments on “foreign military sales,” for Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica; on Homeland Security “open source intelligence and fusion center programs,” for Factiva; the Defense Department on “federal battery purchases,” for Interstate Batteries; and Congress and the Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security and Treasury Departments for “rules to prohibit or regulate foreign government subsidization of M&A [mergers and acquisitions] activity,” for Terex Corporation, a multinational heavy equipment manufacturer.
And those are just some of Garrett’s lobbying contracts in 2007.
The lobbying activity of Pentagon pundit and CBS analyst Jeffrey D. McCausland has been more focused on Iraq. He’s the “director of national security affairs” at the Washington, D.C. law and lobby firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.
McCausland lobbied on “private security contracting issues in Iraq,” for Securewest International in 2004. The UK-based security firm announced that it had landed a $2.5 million contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority in March 2004, to supply “guards for the military complex at Umm Qasr as well as bodyguards for Iraqi and other personnel,” according to the Herald Express in South Devon. At the time, Securewest vice-president Paul Singer said, “Kuwait and Iraq have long been our target markets. … We had a chance to visit the region only to realise how massive the market is.” But when the contract ended in late 2004, Securewest decided against seeking more Iraq work. Singer explained, “It was always a difficult place to work and … the kidnapping and execution of 12 Nepalese workers caused great concern.” Many of Securewest’s staff are from Nepal or India.
But McCausland was hardly at a loss for clients. In 2003, he lobbied Congress and the Defense and Commerce Departments for “contract procurement in Iraq,” on behalf of Al-Najat. In 2004, he lobbied on “government procurement / Coalition Provisional Authority” issues for Cross VetPharm, and on “business development in the Middle East,” for Educational Testing Service. In 2004 and 2005, McCausland lobbied the State and Commerce Departments on “healthcare development in the Middle East,” on behalf of Gemini Consulting.
Fellow CBS commentator Joseph W. Ralston is the last publicly named Pentagon pundit with a significant stack of of lobbying disclosure forms. “Soon after signing with CBS, General Ralston was named vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a consulting firm headed by a former defense secretary, William Cohen, himself now a ‘world affairs’ analyst for CNN,” reported Barstow.
Not surprisingly, Ralston’s lobbying clients include major military contractors. In 2006, he lobbied the Defense Department on “issues related to export of tactical fighter aircraft and defense technology,” for Lockheed Martin; and the State Department on “federal funding of demilitarization efforts abroad,” for General Dynamics. In 2006 and 2007, Ralston helped Fischer Properties identify “military family housing opportunities,” and Pratt & Whitney find “market opportunities for military aircraft engines.”
Multiple Media Mistakes, on Lobbying and Propaganda
As The Nation pointed out shortly after the U.S. invaded Iraq, many of the retired officers hired to provide war commentary had significant conflicts of interest. At the time, Fox and NBC brushed off questions about their military analysts’ financial and other interests as irrelevant to or separate from their on-air commentary.
Today, the broadcast and cable networks are steadfastly refusing to cover or otherwise address the Pentagon military analyst program, with very few exceptions. In this case, though, the pundits’ undeclared financial interests are only part of a larger and much more serious problem. These officers participated in a covert government program designed to shape U.S. public opinion — an illegal program, and one that relied on the willingness of major media to play along, without asking too many questions. And that’s exactly what happened.
The media outlets that featured the Pentagon’s pundits need to address both aspects of this debacle — that they failed to identify or disclose conflicts of interest, and that they helped propagandize U.S. news audiences. NPR Ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard’s recent column only mentioned the former. She pointed to NPR’s new “detailed guidelines for vetting on-air guests and looking for potential conflicts of interests” as the solution. But those guidelines don’t include questions about contacts with or materials provided by government officials, or trips funded by government agencies. Instead, Shepard concerned herself with the question of whether NPR analyst Robert Scales does or “does not spout the Pentagon’s line.”
Memo to Shepard: It’s illegal for the U.S. government to propagandize its own citizens, regardless. And instead of debating shades of gray, shouldn’t NPR be denouncing any propaganda attempt as antithetical to the ideal of a free press?
Increasingly, news audiences are realizing the many ways in which interested parties skew media coverage. Media outlets need to wake up to that reality and work to strengthen their safeguards in defense of the public interest. Their only alternative is to start composing their next weak and belated mea culpa, in a desperate attempt to protect their ever-dwindling credibility.
Diane Farsetta is the Center for Media and Democracy’s senior researcher.
It is not a mistake that the corporate media complex participated in the WMD rush to war and continues to sustain American imperialism with propaganda and disinformation presented as “news”.
It is their intention to manufacture consent for crimes against humanity while never mentioning the plain truth that Big Oil is determined to privatize Iraq’s oil.
And through this deadly process, the congressional corporate military industrial media complex has been diverting our nation’s wealth into the hands of a fascist elite with a variety of schemes creating public debt in order to subsidize private profit.
Unfortunately this 21st century gold rush of corruption and war crimes is not sustainable.
For a good read on the economics of the corporate war machine give Chalmers Johnson a read:
The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy:
Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke
By Chalmers Johnson
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19817.htm
No more words, no more words, I am sick and tired of reading about all this stuff!!!!!!
The war with words and reason is no longer working!!!!!!!
It is time for ordinary peace loving citizens to rise up and revolt. Tens of millions of citizens must now take to the streets and reclaim American democracy.
It is time for Americans to get off their asses!!!
No more words!!! No more words!
Just take to the streets in non-violent demonstrations, civil dissobedience YES!!! …..violence….NO!
Words are important. We need to keep hearing about this stuff so more people will become knowledgable and outraged about what is going on.
Street protests and civil disobedience almost always backfire because the monopoly corporate media will ignore the issues and focus on the disobedience and “radical” nature of the protests causing a backlash that will ultimately support the right wingers.
We need to have positive actions. We need to get our messages across without seeming angry or disruptive. We need to be creative.
The Smith-Mundt Act. The Zorinsky amendment. Amazing what turns up with a google ‘domestic military propaganda’.
In addition to posting and commenting here, call your reps and demand full investigation. You will have to follow up because the media, another full set of lawbreakers, won’t tell us anything.
peace coup:
Your posting was so well put. It stopped me in my tracks. I admire you and I would love to know you as a friend.
For the past 12 years, I too have spoken such words in many letters to the editor, CommonDreams postings, and guest articles in regional Catholic newspapers. But to me, time is now running out.
I have been active in two parish ministries for peace and justice, and I facilitated a course on “structural injustice”. I have read hundreds of books on democratic, economic and religious social thought and subscribe to alternate media. I am a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, Dan and Phil Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Rev. Jim Wallis (Sojourners), author David C. Korten, and the current peace activist Fr. John Dear. To be frank, I would not have my faith today but for Catholic social teaching and the progressive movement within the church.
In turn, I participated in the 1999 WTO demonstrations in Seattle and the World Bank demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and have attended two teach-ins by the International Forum on Globalization. Few people realize, but those demonstrations in Seattle led to the establishment of the World Social Forum that has essentially stopped global corporate capitalism in its’ tracks.
The world now faces the CLEAR issue of who will rule the world, corporate globalization, imperial (militant) globalization or democratic rule for a more just, sustainable and compassionate world.
Yes, I agree with all you have said. Yes, such protests can lead to a backlash that may ultimately support the right wingers. I have faced black-booted fascist America and it is scary. That is why to succeed, the massiveness and non-violant nature of the demonstrations is so critically important.
I believe our two postings warrant much positive conversation on CommonDreams. Peace coup, I wished I could agree with you.
Thank you for a very informative article, Ms. Farsetta. It goes well with David Barstow’s New York Times article… which has me amazed by how loud is the silence in response to it, on the part of the broadcasters and cable outlets involved, namely NBC, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS.
I don’t think the people at those networks and cable outlets involved in this, really care much about the charge of “propaganda” (or any other word like it)… I think maybe they see propaganda as merely being persuasion, but not necessarily involving deception… and I’d agree, not in defense of them, but in the name of speaking accurately: because I do not think that truly the word “propaganda” implies deception, or anything like a lie… because if it did, then we wouldn’t waste time calling it propaganda, but instead immediately levy the more serious charge, of deception, of telling a lie and not the truth.
As far as propaganda goes, what the people involved might plead, is that it was just a case of Pentagon spokespersons moving the line that defines their workplace, from a Pentagon Briefing Room to the studios of the broadcasters and cable outlets.
Mind you, I’m not defending them, or making their argument for them, but merely pointing how they might slip away from the charge of “propaganda”.
On the other hand, when you say CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and more specifically DEFENSE LOBBYIST and DEFENSE CONTRACTOR, then you have made the charge that makes them shrink, and leaves them mumbling and stuttering and red-faced and GUILTY… which is why they’re ignoring the matter presently, I’m sure: because of the fact that they employed and broadcast DEFENSE LOBBYISTS on air, without disclosing they were DEFENSE LOBBYISTS.
It makes being called a “propagandist”, seem little more than being called an advocate, a persuader, a promoter of some sort… which in truth is what the word means I think (and I wish to speak accurately in the matter).
But that’s the lesser charge, if it’s a charge at all… it’s about DEFENSE LOBBYISTS disguised as well-meaning “military analysts” is what it’s all about… as your article points out Ms. Farsetta, throughout it and in the title too… which is why I thank you.
As elites build walls to control people (Gaza, West Bank, Baghdad, US/Mexico border), ironically it’s walls that people must erect to control elites. The Enlightenment principles underlying the founding of the US mandated such walls between church and state, and capital and state, to control elites. The lifetimes of corporations were limited to specific projects. The lifetimes of armies were limited to specific battles. There was much political pressure to limit the extent of banking. People demanded and achieved these policies for very good reasons - to reign in elites’ massive abuses over centuries. Looks like we need to rebuild and fortify the walls to control the elites, wall off the “special” interests, the military, the media, etc. Not concrete walls but walls of ethics, limitations on behavior, to keep the elites off the people’s backs.
Stephen V: There are larger forces at work. The status quo is heading for collapse and chaos. When that happens we have two choices. Choice one, follow the Dim’s and Repug’s to more war and destruction, or, choice two, continue to build the transformative lifeways of the future. We probably cannot stop the chaos from happening, the forces for chaos are too great. We can lead ourselves out to a new a better future. We are building that future vision now by our alternative life affirming beliefs and actions. The voices of our new vision are heard in the power centers, but ignored. When chaos arrives that opposition will vanish and our voices will be the voices of the new now. Stay with us.
When ever a corporate tie in to either the war in Iraq or the Bush-Cheney administration is brought up, one should send an E-Mail to the company/corporate whores informing them of they’re goddamn asinine ways.
As stated a few posts earlier, all I can add to this debate/discussion is that it is far past time to demand a return to the basics - the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
How we get there is still in the air. That is why I rarely comment on this type of issue. I only pray that it is through massive, peaceful, civil disobedience a la Thoureau. Remember, R.W. Emerson asked Henry why he was in jail, and Thoureau responded “the question is ‘why are you out there?’.”
Again, those who know me know that I left the US on GB’s 2nd coronation. It wasn’t an easy decision. But I think of my home country everyday, and pray that somehow the pigs are overthrown. The world is on our side. The world likes people from the USA. They don’t like its government’s policies - both domestic and foriegn.
Doom n Gloom,
Thanks for your kind posting. I must admit, I lashed out to the contents in this article with arrogance and little faith. After some thought, I knew I made the error so many passionate activists make in frustration. No excuse, I just cannot believe what is happening to the U.S., and how our educated church going nation remains so clueless.
Yes, I totally agree, there are larger forces at work and that is what I often overlook. I am embarrassed to admit that I have a bronze plaque over my desk that says: “BE STILL and know that I AM”.
You are right, there is great evidence of an emerging higher global consciousness happening throughout the world and I believe it is the work of God though many people. Thanks Doom n Gloom for your wisdom.
JConrad; Good post! Hope others read the link.
Stephen V. Riley: I agree with you on your first post. No need to apologize. Words DO matter, but unless they materialize into action, not much will change. The White Rose in Nazi Germany printed words and were dealt with severely. The ruling class will do whatever they think is necessary to retain power. When it dawns on the public, and they realize we don’t have representative government anymore, things may change for the better, providing they act accordingly, as a unified group of citizens.
I second your thanks to Doom n Gloom. Good post, DG!
The 8 hour work stoppage by the rank and file Longshore men and women on May 1st, shows what concerted action can do. If more people take part in similar activities, including boycotts, things will change for the better.
EVERYTHING we take for granted today wasn’t given to us by benevolent politicians and business owners but was hard-fought for. Study and learn Labor History and definitly American History and the Bill of Rights and see the disregard for those first ten Amendments to the Constitution by the Republican Crime Family and their Democratic Party co-conspirators.
The enemy isn’t in the Middle East or Southwest Asia, it is in Washington D.C. and across America whever people prefer willful ignorance and subserviance to tyranny rather than representative democracy.
Thank you, Dianne Farsetta for this article.
I really appreciate what Diane Farsetta and CDer’s have posted here; not to leave anyone out, but Stephen V. and D&G’s words, are like musical notes I could unwind to.
Also loved the reference to Henry David Thoreau and I could recommend a book for children based on his most basic views on social action, slavery & freedom. “Henry Climbs a Mountain,” by D.B. Johnson.
Peace people.
Btw, caught a glimpse on tv of a Peace Rally in Washington State that involved violence and arrests. My first instinct is that the media focused on the violent aspect. That is what they ended up talking about. Now, whether those agitators are “Plants” or misguided youth..there is no discussion of. Of course if the ones that incite violence are Plants it is not something the media would make mention unless forced to admit. I know there is a big movement in the NorthWest to educate peaceful protesters in the ways and means of non-violence. Therefore, when I see news like this my suspicion is arisen.
barksnotbites,
Very good post. Skilled “l’agent provocatuers” or “plants” as you say, have been around forever. Hard to detect, too. But even without undercover agents, there are enough folks out there easily mislead and think George W. Bush is the greatest president we ever had.
Corporate controlled news media is worthless for covering these events. You’re better off scrolling to the bottom of Common Dreams and listening or watching the many independent stations listed for honest coverage.
> Pentagon pundit Robert H. Scales Jr. The military firm he co-founded in 2003, Colgen, has an interesting range of clients, from the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Special Operations Command, to Pfizer and Syracuse University, to Fox News and National Public Radio.
Pentagon Patent Peddlers Are Ripping Off Africa-Again!
Below is a posted response (tribenet Iboga) to a White So.African businessman who publicly slandered Gabonese (Africa) Traditional Practitioner, Nganga Mallendi.
Are pentagon funded Scientists conducting clandestine research on addicts & homosexuals in France & So. Africa?
Why are scientists researchers exploiting African Indigenous Knowledge & simultaneously going for the throats of Traditional Practitioners? To eliminate the competition?
Spiritual Neo-Colonists stick feathers in their hair, paint their faces, & systematically rip off Africa. Pentagon funded Neo-Colonists are patently damning African Indigenous knowledge into Oblivion.
Will Traditional Practitioners’ (in Africa) great great grandchildren be persecuted by the WTO for patent infringement for using medicinal plants? or perhaps be forced to use Synthetic derivatives at a high cost?
The Pentagon funds ‘Skunk Projects’ aimed at data collection, & duping unwitting guinea pigs into submitting to experimentation & unnecessary screening. Can you say ‘Medical Apartheid’?
http://blackpeople.tribe.net/thread/277f30db-786b-4e13-94e3-997d9b7cb59f