More on the Generals
A good friend of Kip's had this to say about the Bateman response to the NY Times article on graybeards being used, tsk tsk, for information operations. An interesting civilian perspective on the whole thing (reprinted with his permission)--Kip is still more inclined to agree with Bateman on this one (mostly because he doesn't really understand "myopic expediency").
The whole point of the NYT article, as I read it, was the access, regurgitation, further access, while simultaneously using those very connections to further financial self-interest. If true, this, in my opinion, was damning mostly for the individual analysts involved, and more broadly the system complicit in it (i.e., the news networks negligently turning a blind eye and the military knowingly exploiting it).Here is Dr Irack's post from yesterday on the same topic.
The example of the general who was 'cut off' seemed relevant only in this regard. While acknowledging that this is 'legit', he [Bateman] normalizes it by analogizing to lawyers and doctors on the air (which is a problem in its own right), but doesn't give any weight to the idea that lawyers and doctors aren't speaking to the most fundamental aspects of self-governance in our society.
Aside from this relativity perspective, he also wipes away all agency on the part of the analysts by asking how they were 'supposed to know about the journalism ethics?' The point, as I see it, is how could they be so blind to the basic ethical dilemma of conflicts of interest, specifically and especially when the stakes are so high and their words carry the weight of every soldier wearing the uniform before them? Furthermore, the entirety of his piece washes the hands of the military clean through historical examples. In my opinion, history repeated is not a logically valid argument for ethical behavior.
That being said, I have sympathy with the idea that institutions and organizations, like any living thing, tend to follow the objective facts of history: fly where you can eat. The short-term perspective of running a war efficiently, including on the home front, forgives the officials reasoning to use whatever means necessary, even if this means exploiting an inherently corrupted system. That, however, is the very reason that institutions and organizations need policies to avoid the long-term detriments of myopic expediency.
Furthermore, I think it would have been worth mentioning similar actions from this particular administration including the planted 'journalists', the bought and paid for editorial writers, the prepackaged 'news' clips, the attempt at creating a propaganda office, etc. (especially if you're going to take a jayson blair shot).
4 comments:
The short-term perspective of running a war efficiently, including on the home front, forgives the officials reasoning to use whatever means necessary, even if this means exploiting an inherently corrupted system.
The entire concept of waging the "war on the home front" seems like a waste of time from a military standpoint. Ideally the American people would elect representatives who would make the decision to go to war, and it wouldn't require a whole lot of public relations messaging to the American people to trick them into thinking the war was a just cause if it really wasn't. The military conducting information operations on its own people is dangerous and subversive to democracy. Besides isn't that what the politicians are supposed to do?
Domestic propaganda is always a feature of war, because the real reasons for wars are usually mostly economic, and it's hard to whip up patriotic fervor over Middle East oil concessions. Let's look at a great example:
Take the Great War, touched off in August 1914 when the Ottomans signed a deal with the Germans regarding German access to Mideast oil:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2005/Jun/aboul-eneinJun05.asp
". . .This culminated in a secret pact signed between the Germans and Ottomans in August 1914. Iraq, at the time was divided into three sanjaks (Ottoman governing regions) of Mosul, Basra, and Baghdad."
"Nadeem opens with a strategic assessment and highlights the reorganization of British Indian auxiliary forces in 1904. . .A decade later this force would be called upon to defend several key strategic interests:"
"The 140-mile Anglo-Persian oil pipeline.
The oil refineries at Abadan."
"The central debate of the Mesopotamian campaigns was whether to secure Arabstan and the British oil interests only or press forward and drive out Ottoman forces from Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) in a bold strategy called forward defense."
The typical public level of awareness on all that is mostly limited to what was portrayed in "Lawrence of Arabia"- what the British called "the sideshow".
Point being, all the British papers of the day were full of endless reports of the "brutalization of Belgium by the evil Hun" - not a word about the British Navy's decision to switch to oil (a damn good idea by one of the masters of gunboat diplomacy, Dear Old Winston Churchill..) or the secret deal with France to split the oil after the Hun was driven out of the Middle East, which came to light in 1920 or so.
By the time you've explained all that, the soundbite opportunity is long gone. Attention span deficit? Or just really bad history education?
I mean, what kind of rube would listen to retired Pentagon generals and not at least think that they might be pushing a set of talking points?... kind of a gray area. Were they given lists of talking points? Were they recruited for the job? Touchy area... the ban is on covert propaganda, not press releases.
It's the press's fault, not the Pentagons. The press could have put on a retired Soviet general with experience in Afghanistan, who could have given an alternative view as to the probable success of military intervention in a large country with porous borders and a well-armed and war-hardened population - and plenty of outsiders willing to provide the insurgents with arms.
In this situation, our overwhelming military superiority is almost more of a burden than an aid. You have any idea how much it costs to keep a whole aircraft carrier battle group on alert for months on end? Every day is just more bleeding.
Lt N,
The Commander whipping up the people and the troops is as old as war itself, presumably as inescapable and necessary as well.
If Athens and Rome could survive it, so can we. The Republic will not fall because of wartime propaganda, or Information Operations.
The big problems I have with this are that they can't get it on centralized management, in this case I.O, and that money changed hands. My suggestions would be that the message be decentralized (that would be us milbloggers) and that they start dismembering and downsizing the Pentagon. We can't keep going with both the Senate and the Proconsuls (The Pentagon and the Regional CINCs) both managing the war.
Also we need to get as many warriors as possible out of the Beltway Brothel. It's like the wiseguys talking about their guys in Vegas; sooner or later everyone gets corrupted.
The real reason for the Pentagon was so we never again found ourselves in the position of the 1930's/1941...in the 30's no money to procure, train or maintain, and playing a costly catch-up in 1941. Made perfect sense for Industrial Age warfare. Given the Regional Command structure and the new distributed economy it's counterproductive. And corrupting.
10-4 gd. Really, who they hell did believe those guys? Even the rosiest of msm coverage couldn't cover up the disaster taking place. This is a non-story for Congress to dutifully display their self-righteousness without having to do anything of substance. Just think about all the softballs thrown down the middle of the plate that would have allowed them to take down this government and try Bush for numerous crimes, and instead they're gonna stomp their feet about fibbing old dudes. Sadness washes over me...
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