Generals Parrot Bush War Propaganda for Money and Influence
by Charles Carreon, April 20, 2008
On the front page of today's Sunday New York Times, there's a stunner article backed by 8,000 pages of documents extracted from the government by court order, that reveals the inner workings a pro-war propaganda network that has blatantly targeted the American people as the victims of a disinformation campaign. The article indicts the usual suspects — the White House, the Dept of Defense, the media networks, and, somewhat of a shocker, those icons of martial legitimacy, the retired generals who claim to analyze military issues.
The article reveals that, as the centerpiece of what insiders including Rumsfeld called a “psyops war”, retired generals have been parrotting the Bush line from their gilded perches as talking heads, helping sell the war initially, concealing the post-mission-accomplished sipiral into chaos, and most recently, selling the wisdom of the “surge” to an American people bled sick from the costs of forcing our generosity on an armed people acting in defense of their homeland.
I'm fairly inured to the shock of betrayal, but this one seriously made me queasy. I went to military school in Virginia, and must admit that I assume the good faith of a military man, most times, speaking about the conduct of the war. On the other hand, you all know I'm a big hater, and finding someone to really hate these days isn't always easy. You keep coming up with the same people, and you can only hate them so much. But the generals are fresh meat. These dirtbags in uniform were incentivized with a lavish three-part perk-package of free travel, classified information, and “access,” i.e., influence over Dept of Defense contracting decisions, which the generals resold to their bosses, the military contractors, i.e., Dick Cheney's cadre of big eaters.
In the wake of this revelation, that was compelled by the NYT lawsuit and otherwise would've remained just a secret propaganda project, the media are certainly not apologizing. Fox news refuses to discuss the matter, and the rest have offered nothing but empty palaver. NPR is right in there with the other purported dupes who are shocked, shocked to discover that the generals would deviate from perpendicular truth in the performance of their sacred duties as impartial guides to the martial destiny of the nation. The truth is of course that it did not bother the propaganda grinders in TV newsrooms that the generals were reciting Bush-provided talking points because that is what everyone does.
The talking-head generals should be tried for treason. They have helped criminals who explicitly laugh at the Constitution as they plot to subvert the truth, as the NYT reports Rumsfeld did when one of the generals declared that they were simply doing “psyops,” psychological warfare, on the American public, prompting the retort from Rumsfeld, “You mean you don't believe in the Constitution?” Rumsfeld should go the penitentiary over that line. Rumsfeld, infected with arrogance, used an iron fist approach with his military minions, overrluing even mild objections with a terse “get in line,” and adjourning quickly to provide the pet generals with treasured access to Rumsfeld's private souvenir vault. The details of the plan are copiously provided in the article, here at the American Buddha Online Library.
