NYTimes Gets it Right on CNN-Pentagon “Psyops”

When Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos were asking the candidates about lapel pins, 40 year old urban guerilla actions and Jeremiah Wright, the NYT was preparing to run a piece that these “journalists” surely knew about, but they asked nothing. The story has to do with the military industrial complex that symbiotically links the pentagon, media and military contractors together into a well planned out effort to manipulate emotions, objective reasoning and behavior.  Indeed the Times piece aptly named it for what it is, psyops.  

According to Wikipedia, Psyops is:

commonly used by governments, such as the United States, who do not wish to use the term propaganda, which would mar their image. The word propaganda has very negative connotations, and by calling it psychological operations instead, people are much more likely to support it, where they would be unlikely to support the use of “propaganda”. This euphemistic naming scheme is ironically an example of psychological operations — i.e. using psychological techniques to persuade a large number of people to support something that they wouldn’t normally support.”

The point I wish to add here is that what the Times reveals is nothing new, but rather, the pattern of the pentagon coordinating former top brass who are now hi salaried contractors to provide “expertise” for the mainstream press is the sort of practice that has been widely used since 9/11.  What the Times piece does is provide a template for examining media coverage about almost any other Bush post 911-related activity. 

For similar patterns of psyops, take a look at how the media has handled: FISA and domestic spying issue; the administration’s sanctioning and planning of torture methods, or almost any of the “Bushed” items we hear about daily on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. 

The genie is out of the bottle. Even Tim and Chris and Charlie and George cannot put her back in.