TV Military ‘Analysts’ Are Part Ike's ... unwarranted influence ...by the military-industrial complex [Propaganda]

TV Military ‘Analysts’ Are Part of What Ike Warned AgainstA New York Times report shines a light on how the military-industrial complex tries to shape broadcast news. - CommonDreams.orgSunday, April 27, 2008 by the Maine Sunday Telegram
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They were the faces of nine retired military officers (there were more inside the paper) who appear regularly on network and cable television news to give viewers informed, independent assessments of the war in Iraq.

At least that was the idea.

What viewers have been getting, the Times revealed, is something quite different. The paper reported convincingly that some retired officers appearing as “military analysts” have been pushing Pentagon propaganda in return for continued access to top officials and financial benefit for themselves.

According to the Times report, “Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters. 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.

“In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated,” the report said. “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.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, an enthusiastic golfer in his presidential years, left behind more than spike marks on the White House floor. He stood at a convergence in American history. He knew it. And he gave voice to a solemn warning, delivered in 1961, three days before he left office.

Eisenhower, a renowned World War II general, declared, “Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

“In the councils of government,” he warned, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. ...