The Pentagon’s Web of Lies, the Military Industrial Complex, and the Drive for Endless War
April 20, 2008
I was absolutely appalled to read the results of The New York Times’ investigative report into the Pentagon’s use of a group of retired military officers — most of whom have ties to military contractors with a vested interest in retaining close connections with the Defense Department — as part of a propaganda machine whose intent was to keep up public support for the war in Iraq.
The Times has discovered that these officers — whom the Pentagon referred to as “message force multipliers” — were appearing regularly on all the major television news networks as supposedly objective military analysts, even while they repeated administration talking points as if they were their own opinions.
As if this weren’t outrage enough in and of itself, the transcript of a private meeting between then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and these so-called analysts reads more like a meeting of a team of public relations professionals on behalf of a client than a briefing of military analysts by the Pentagon. It reveals a desire on the part of the whole group to encourage the American public to accept an endless war. As one of the retired military officers said during the meeting:
Mr. Secretary, one of the things that’s stuck with the American people is the long war. I don’t think you realize how effective that was…when you said “long war,” you changed the psyche of the American people to expect that this is going to be a generational event…if you could just play on that theme a little more…so something like Iraq becomes a milepost or a signpost along the continuum of the long war. If you paint it that way, then people won’t look for terminal events.
Keep in mind that this so-called “analyst” was, at that very time, posing as an objective military expert on one of our national media channels.
What we have here is the collusion of military contractors and the Defense Department to dupe the American people into war without end. This represents what Dwight Eisenhower meant to warn against when he said in his farewell address to the American people:
In the councils of government, 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.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Unless we want to witness — in our lifetimes — the complete disintegration of the American moral compass, we must stand up and deplore this outrageous abuse of the public trust. When you combine it with illegal wiretapping, torture, and the willful mismanagement of the war in Iraq, you have a recipe for a special prosecutor and a full investigation.
I wonder which one of the current presidential candidates might have the strength of character to make that happen.
While I share your outrage, I feel it’s a mistake to pretend like we can list individual names on an indictment and check this off the to-do list.
The problem is a system, a structure, a self-sustaining behemoth that is sick. You mentioned the “military-industrial complex,” but not the “agri-political atrocity,” the “medical-marketing machine,” and the “edu-political bureaucracy.” The system has been radically gamed, and not-so-special interests are getting extra-special treatment because the rules encourage it.
It took me a while to understand why the federalization of just about everything was such a problem. When the number of people you represent is small, you’re not influential enough to be a target for graft — not without someone else having a strong enough financial stake to counter it. If a business lobby tries to pick your municipal pockets for 20-million, each citizen has enough to lose that it’s worth their time to fight it. Go after the feds for 200-million, and the concept of “concentration of gain, distribution of pain” means no one has enough reason to make a peep.
Your outrage is a product of a trend where the government is so far removed from the people that we can’t possibly watch the connections and patterns. This crap is far less likely to occur at a city and state level. We’re anesthetized and numb — which makes us disengaged and dumb.
I haven’t been watching individual debates this go-round, but I have been tracking the themes. And there’s not a single utterance by any of the candidates that goes against the communication/PR playbook you describe above. It’s all scripted, the positions are polished and predictable. Those calling for alternative energy are saying exactly what those industries want them to. Those calling for tweaks to tax policy (in either direction) are saying exactly what lobbyists want them to. The constituents are no longer “people,” per se, but groups of people (special interests) that guide and shape every note of this opera.
Me? Disillusioned? Hell yes. Ever since Watergate, we’ve been on a see-saw of scandal or failed performance. We swing from one party to the other, expecting to find a savior. Instead, we end up alternating between abusive spouses, each one beating us unto the arms of the other.
I apologize if this rant was too long — if you deem it not appropriate, please send it back to me that I might post it elsewhere. I’m just weary of watching this country proceed from witch-hunt to witch-hunt, when the real damage isn’t (D) or (R) but in a system that has reduced complex issues to Yes and No and never-you-mind. Should the guilty be punished? Hell yes. Just know that regardless of party affiliation, the next five generations of liars, manipulators, and public crooks are already queued up, waiting for their shot to rape the trough and the trust. Invest too much energy in celebrating individual indictments, and you inadvertently provide the fog that will cloak the installation of the new weasels.