Press or Propaganda? You Decide...

Journalists cover different beats or areas, eventually becoming experts in those areas. For example, the White House press corps covers what senior members of the administration are doing, where they are going, and what comments they have to make on any particular topic.  With the exception of a few, fine journalists who challenge the people they cover, the majority of the WH press corps basically reports the news as it is delivered to them.

There are also journalists who cover the Pentagon, and their job too is pretty much to report who is going where, doing what, and comments made by Pentagon officials. Again, with the exception of a few, these people also serve in basically a newsfeed capacity.  This of course is an unfortunate state of affairs, because as we saw over the last few weeks, the Pentagon correspondents laundered propaganda, which was then used by the White House to launder rhetoric through the White House press corps.

Let's look at what the brilliant Gareth Porter reports today on the Iranian-US Navy non-event that nearly caused WWIII. From his Asia Times article:

"WASHINGTON - Senior Pentagon officials,  evidently reflecting a broader administration  policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon  briefing to turn the January 6 US-Iranian incident  in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story   demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the  incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a  briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defense  for public affairs in charge of media operations, Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the navy itself."

So Bryan Whitman held an off-the-record briefing (which technically means that information provided could not be used on the record... but it was used, meaning that Whitman only wanted his name off the record), in which he provided the Pentagon press corps with propaganda and asked that his name not be used.  The reporters who cover this beat are not meant to investigate, they are wire reporters. So the story is planted just in time for President Bush's visit to Israel. The Navy now repudiates the incident, do they? Back to the article:

"Then the navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that US warships would "explode" in "a few seconds". Although it  was ostensibly a navy production, Inter Press Service (IPS) has learned that the ultimate decision on its content was made by top officials of the Defense Department.

The encounter between five small and apparently unarmed speedboats, each carrying a crew of two to four men, and the three US warships occurred very early  on Saturday January 6, Washington time. No information was released to the public about the incident for more than 24 hours, indicating that  it was not viewed initially as being very urgent. "

Okay, so clearly Whitman was not sitting in the bowls of the DOD splicing fake audio to go along with doctored video. In other words, this was an operation that included more than just Whitman and since domestic propaganda is illegal, then this is evidence of a conspiracy to mislead the public and Congress.

What is interesting too is that although the DOD reporters are not there to investigate stories, they are still supposed to actually ask questions, not just parlay unofficial government positions into stories using a single, unnamed source of information. But they did not ask the basic question about why it took the DOD 24 hours to publicly respond to this situation. Nor did they apparently ask why Whitman felt that such important information required that he be kept as an anonymous source.

I have to ask another serious question about this. What role did Stephen Hadley play in fixing this new propaganda around the policy? As we know, he briefed the President that morning:

“There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple,” Bush said during a news conference in Jerusalem. “And my advice to them is, don’t do it.”

Bush was referring to an incident in which five high-speed Iranian boats reportedly threatened to attack the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper and USS Ingraham as they were entering the Persian Gulf on Jan. 6.

Defense officials said the Iranian boats maneuvered aggressively, threatened the U.S. ships via radio and dropped objects into the water in the path of one of the ships. The U.S. president said “our ships were moving along very peacefully off the Iranian border in territorial water — international waters — and Iranian boats came out and were very provocative. And it was a dangerous gesture on their part.” Bush said that earlier in the day, Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, made it “abundantly clear that all options are on the table to protect our assets.”

Of course this was all over the news thanks to the White House press corps, which was only doing its job in getting a comment from the president in reaction to what they thought was legitimate news out of the DOD.

Now, if I were the Bush, or if I were a member of Congress, and certainly as a journalist and a citizen of the United States, I would wonder how it is possible that a group of DOD officers got together and misled the National Security Adviser to the president, as well as the president, the public, and Congress on something as serious as war?

Of course we have been here before in the build up to the Iraq war, but we were told that all of the "bad apples" were gone. Should these people not be all identified and held accountable for at the very least violating propaganda laws? To say nothing of the other laws relating to fraud and tampering with evidence that should also be considered. Now if these people did not act alone, rather, they were following orders - then whose orders were they following? Was Stephen Hadley part of that chain? Who else was part of that chain?

And in my humble opinion, every single journalist who wrote the DOD story, based on a single government source unwilling to go on the record while making such astonishing claims, should be immediately fired. If they want to work as propagandists, there are plenty of slots open in the PR industry. But covering the DOD, during a time of war, and knowing what this administration is about, requires someone with a bit more ethics than the crop of stenographers currently playing at being journalists.

I tend to think, and I am speculating based on the information made public, that because Bush was being dispatched by Cheney to the Middle East to go beg for support from our allies in building a coalition against Iran, a timely incident was needed to demonstrate the looming Iranian threat. I don't claim Bush knew that he was being used like a puppet - after all, has he not already proved to be exactly that, a puppet? But as far as speculation can take me without total proof, I am convinced that Cheney, Hadley, and the cabal were very much behind the cooking of this episode.

I suggest you read the whole Porter piece. It is illuminating and disturbing all at once.

Comments

[Henry K]

The Old Media covers old Ron Paul newsletters incessantly. Yet, John McCain was openly racist in the SC debate, read it here:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article1084.html
Unfortunately it took segregationist Governor Wallace to reveal the truth that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between" Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats willingly went along with the War in Iraq, suspension of Habeas Corpus, detaining protesters, banning books like "America Deceived' from Amazon, stealing private lands (Kelo decision), warrant-less wiretapping and refusing to investigate 9/11 properly. They are both guilty of treason.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this great nation.
Last link (before Google Books bends to gov't Will and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0

[Matt]

Very off topic, Larisa. I`ve just found out that Bobby Fischer has died.

RESPONSE FROM LARISA ALEXANDROVNA
Thank you for alerting me. As you know I am a huge chess fanatic. I will post about it shortly. How very tragic.

[Matt]

Guess who the CIA blames for the assassination of Bhutto? Go on, guess..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7195591.stm

CIA boss names Bhutto's killers

The CIA has added its support to the view that a Pakistani militant, Baitullah Mehsud, and al-Qaeda organised Benazir Bhutto's killing.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told the Washington Post that the former Pakistani prime minister was killed by fighters allied to Baitullah Mehsud.

The Pakistani government accused Mehsud of the attack shortly after Ms Bhutto's death in Rawalpindi on 27 December.

Mr Hayden did not reveal the sources for his claim.

Correspondents say that Mr Hayden's comments are the most comprehensive public assessment by US intelligence of Ms Bhutto's death.

Controversy still surrounds the circumstances of the killing.

One or more attackers shot at her and detonated a bomb as she was leaving a rally in Rawalpindi.

Baitullah Mehsud has denied involvement. The Pakistani government says it intercepted a phone conversation proving that he was behind the attack.

'Organised campaign'

CIA Director Michael Hayden is now backing the Pakistani government's view.

"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Mr Hayden told the Washington Post.

He said the murder was "part of an organised campaign" that has included suicide bombings and other attacks on Pakistani leaders.

Mr Hayden said that the same forces were responsible for a new outbreak of violence sweeping across Pakistan which was undermining the stability of President Pervez Musharraf's government.

"You've got this nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups," Mr Hayden said.

"It is clear that their intention is to continue to try to do harm to the Pakistani state as it currently exists."

Forces belonging to Baitullah Mehsud have also been blamed by the government for seizing a fort from the military in the troubled region of South Waziristan on Wednesday.

[wily1]

Wait, you mean the press are supposed to be something other than loadspeakers for whatever whimsical tale emerges from an unknown source within an administration?

RESPONSE FROM LARISA ALEXANDROVNA
Come on now. There are plenty of really great reporters like Hersh, and Landay, and Porter, etc.

[t.r. kielikello]

I know what this is all about-
,,когда товарищи идут,
с тобой - тебя не свалишь,
Тебя товарищем зовут,
Ах, Ты Бушу товарищ!"

How is it we are condemned to know when a fraud is perpetrated and cannot bring these people to justice?

RESPONSE FROM LARISA ALEXANDROVNA
Я былa закончен с целым бизнесом 'товарища' прежде, чем я мог говорить даже.

[Rob Wagner]

The real propagandists were the journalists accompanying Bush on his trip to the Middle East. Rarely did they challenge his hardline remarks on Iran while he was in Israel, Kuwait and the UAE. They essentially gave him free pass.

[jr]

The beltway Bernaysians will do anything for access to the commander guy and his band of merry Mussolinian men

[F. Frederson]

Good post, and everyone should read the details. But the very first sentence caught my eye.

Journalists cover different beats or areas, eventually becoming experts in those areas.

The rest of your post basically disproves this point. It strikes me that reporters frequently become co-opted because they learn their subjects on the job, instead of learning their subjects and becoming reporters on the job. Note that Porter is a historian by training and has the depth to take this all in stride.

Of course, hiring reporters that are subject-matter experts probably wouldn't be profitable...

RESPONSE FROM LARISA ALEXANDROVNA
F, thanks for your comment. No it does not disprove the point. Journalists on any beat can tell you who the players are, rattle off - as in the case of DOD reporters - the entire chain of command, dates, events, etc. They are experts and they can be called upon to comment because of they have the knowledge and access that others do not. They are not investigative journalists, which is a whole other branch and also has beats. So a journalist covering intel (me for example) - would dig and investigate.

[Brad Jacobson]

Hands down, the best thing I've read on this incident so far. Excellent work, Larisa.

[RickB]

So I guess the Office of Strategic Influence was shuttered, but not its activities and they stepped them up to the domestic sphere as well.
To flog the metaphor to death- I think the whole orchard is bad and the apples just change labels if needed to assuage criticism/public outcry. And by now apples includes much of the 'fourth estate'.
What is Rumsfeld doing these days anyway? I ask because I am curious and if he needs work a fellow up the road needs the inside of his septic tank cleaning...by tongue.