Paging Andy Card ...Or: From The "What If Paranoids Are Right" Department

Funny, in doing a Google search this morning, on the Obama Campaign for President, I couldn't find "A covert CIA Manipulation Program you can believe in", anywhere



Earlier this week, Adrian Chen, over on Gawker, brought to our attention the organization Wikileaks, and how the U.S. Government wants to put a serious ass-whipping on them.

Is the U.S. Government Spying on a Tiny Secret-Sharing Website?

Wikileaks.org is a website legendary in certain circles for posting documents people want hidden from the world. The Pentagon is not a fan. Now, Wikileaks is accusing the U.S. of spying on its editors.

[snip]

Wikileaks, which is run by a 9-person advisory board, has built a reputation based on its impressive record of posting secret documents like the ones that threaten the U.S. Army. These include emails hacked from Sarah Palin's private account, 570,000 pager messages from 9/11 and the infamous climate change scientist emails. They have also posted sensitive U.S. military documents—most prominently the standard operating procedures for Guantanamo Bay.

Holy Spooky Shadows Batman!



But wait, there's more!

Glenn Greenwald, today, has some startling info, in his "The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters";

A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan. The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible due to lack of interest among their citizenry: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters," proclaims the title of one section.

[snip]

It's both interesting and revealing that the CIA sees Obama as a valuable asset in putting a pretty face on our wars in the eyes of foreign populations. It is odious -- though, of course, completely unsurprising -- that the CIA plots ways to manipulate public opinion in foreign countries in order to sustain support for our wars. Now that this is a Democratic administration doing this and a Democratic war at issue, I doubt many people will object to any of this. But what is worth noting is how and why this classified Report was made publicly available: because it was leaked to and then posted by WikiLeaks.org, the site run by the non-profit group Sunshine Press, that is devoted to exposing suppressed government and corporate corruption by publicizing many of their most closely guarded secrets.

[snip]

If that doesn't sound familiar to Americans, it should. At exactly the time when U.S. government secrecy is at an all-time high, the institutions ostensibly responsible for investigation, oversight and exposure have failed. The American media are largely co-opted, and their few remaining vestiges of real investigative journalism are crippled by financial constraints. The U.S. Congress is almost entirely impotent at providing meaningful oversight and is, in any event, controlled by the factions that maintain virtually complete secrecy. As I've documented before, some alternative means of investigative journalism have arisen -- such as the ACLU's tenacious FOIA litigations to pry documents showing "War on Terror" abuses and the reams of bloggers who sort through, analyze and publicize them -- but that's no match for the vast secrecy powers of the government and private corporations.

Holy Foreign-Policy-Mess-Waiting-To-Happen Batman!

It's almost as if The Bush Grindhouse still has an office putting alongside the new Obama Administration.

Or has the Obama team launched, based on their predecessors model, a new "White House Afghanistan Group"?

Maybe they'll have to dust off Rummy's Propaganda Agency plans to sail past this one

Paging Andy Card!


Bonus CIA Riffs

We Looked In the DIY Section, But Bob Vila Didn't Have A Handbook On It ...

Top Ten Cloves: Things About The New CIA Personality Test

Paid News Scandal Widens; CIA Said To Run Network Of "Blue Hole" Newspapers ...Detainees Forced To Work As Copy Editors Or Write Stories In Isolation; Old Typewriters With No Wite-Out Used

Breaking News! ...Leak of CIA Covert Prison System May Affect IPO, Franchising Rights ...Early Heavy Investment Cools In Wake of Story; North Korea May Trade Nuke Program For Multiple Prisons

Empty Suits ... “I felt we’d been hosed" ...

Power comes from lying ... Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you ... Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls

Senator Roark, from “Sin City - That Yellow Bastard”

Yes, we've used this opening quote before.

How the hell, with the Bush Grindhouse, could you not want to use every single day!

I mean, look over the last seven years ... Christ, these guys must have a small, laminated card they keep in their wallets with this on it ...

It's a morning ritual ... A Daily Prayer ... A mantra ... Any one of the Bush Grindhouse cronies tells more lies before 9AM, then you do all day ...

And, in an article that will appear in the New York Times tomorrow (Sunday), a whole lot of rubes are going to be terribly disappointed;

Message Machine - Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

Holy Corrupted Captains, Batman! ... Are you saying that retired Military officers got paid to carry the Bush Grindhouse lies?

It's a pretty detailed account of how a whole bunch of retired military people (those talking heads you seen trotted on your television screens, on both, MSM, and Cable, news programs) have been in the pocket of the Bush Grindhouse, from the get-go, to sell the war, sell all that great progress we've been told about, to beat down criticism, and to sing pretty songs before bad news is allowed to squeeze through and reach the general population.

Not exactly earth-shattering, but it is pretty astonishing, just how easily the Bush Grindhouse cronies went about the business of setting this up.

Like riding a bicycle ...

Want a taste?

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

“Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.”

The Pentagon defended its relationship with military analysts, saying they had been given only factual information about the war. “The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people,” Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

Boy, you know this must be serious ... Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman, had to defend it with two lies, presumably, using a face so straight, you could cut paper on it.

Before we move on, I have to say, when I first saw and read this article, the first thing that came to mind, the very first thing was ...

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

It was just a few months ago, in January, that Rummy popped out from underneath is rock, and wistfully proposed an official Propaganda Agency;

Leave It to Rumsfeld ... There's Not Enough Lying Going On!

What cosmic forces came together, what asteroid-sized dice rolled a seven, to have former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld come out - the day a quantified and detailed report was released (and with a searchable database) on laying out the Bush Grindhouse's documented lying - and make a call for a new, U.S. Propaganda Agency, ostensibly, to win the hearts and minds of people who, presently, don't like us very much?

So many logistics to work out.

Would this compete with, or augment, the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and White House Iraq and Iran Group (WHIIG)?

When will this be launched - August is out, per the razor-sharp thinking of Andy Card?

Hmmm ... Maybe Rumsfeld's wishful, and wistful, statement, is a ruse? Maybe it's already in action and Rumsfeld is just out there to throw people off the scent?

And this is what was coming out of Rummy;

We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA . . . I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, pods are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas and talk about the idea of beheading, and what's it's about and what it means. And talk about the fact that people are killing more Muslims than they are non-Muslims, these extremists. They're doing it with suicide bombs and the like. We need to engage and not simply be passive and allow that battle of competition of ideas."

This wasn't some item on a wish list ... Or lamenting about "the army you may want ..."

Now, unless dementia is settling in, Rummy, pretty much, laid out exactly the program he, and Torie Clarke ran at the Pentagon!

Yes, the Little Lying Pixie (her official title was "Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs"), Torie Clarke (who had the guile to title her book "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game").
















Oh, Little Lying Pixie Torie (Friend of Mary Matalin, if that doesn't clinch it) knew how to spin, spin like a top and she certainly knew how to play the game.

Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called “information dominance.” In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.

And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit “key influentials” — movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld’s priorities.

Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what Ms. Clarke’s team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary. “We didn’t want to rely on them to be our primary vehicle to get information out,” Mr. Meyer said.

From the start, interviews show, the White House took a keen interest in which analysts had been identified by the Pentagon, requesting lists of potential recruits, and suggesting names. Ms. Clarke’s team wrote summaries describing their backgrounds, business affiliations and where they stood on the war.

“Rumsfeld ultimately cleared off on all invitees,” said Mr. Krueger, who left the Pentagon in 2004. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment for this article.)

From their earliest sessions with the military analysts, Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides spoke as if they were all part of the same team

So, let's get this straight.

Before September 11th, before the official launch of The Commander Guy's life dream, to invade and occupy Iraq, the Little Lying Pixie Torie Clarke, and her boss, Rummy, looked at retired military officers, not as towers of experience and wisdom, but mere puppets, to spoon-feed lies to, and have them carry those lies to the media, who, in turn, understood to follow their marching orders (under no circumstances, question anything) and pass those lies on to the American people.

For one thing, that's overlooked in the article, this clearly shows, how, early on, the deep, soul-clutching commitment the Bush Grindhouse had to supporting the troops.

Yesiree Bob, one big, heartwarming, fucking Norman Rockwell painting there.

And the Golden Boy, General Petraeus?

Two weeks ago General Petraeus took time out from testifying before Congress about Iraq for a conference call with military analysts.

Mr. Garrett, the Fox analyst and Patton Boggs lobbyist, said he told General Petraeus during the call to “keep up the great work.”

“Hey,” Mr. Garrett said in an interview, “anything we can do to help.”

Go out and read Message Machine - Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.

If not new news, you will find it breathtaking, the detail of the un-American behavior and practices these people undertook.

And, as you watch the news in the coming weeks, during the campaign, see how much the news programs cut back on using retired Military people on their programs, now that the cat is out-of-the-bag, so publicly, (they should require these guys to disclose that they are lying greedheads; Maybe they should put candy bars, and real scrambled eggs on their uniforms, from now on).

And I may not be posting tomorrow after this.

I think I will be busy, very busy, putting poxes on all of them!


Bonus Link

David Neiwert: When Sock Puppets Rule Our Media

Pale Rider: When the Generals Chose Lies Over Their Soldier's Lives...

Think Progress: Pentagon uses military analysts as ‘puppets’ to push talking points

Kovie: Matthews Tore Torie Clarke New One on Hardball Tonight!

IPS News: Rumsfeld Flees France, Fearing Arrest

“They’re coming here for the American experience”; Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran
Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

"He is Iraq's Katrina itself"