larisa and the military industrial complex

* Larisa has a great new post up about the propaganda element of Operation Shwarma, full of snark:

Or are the reporters feeding the networks and papers this nifty ad campaign actually military contractors planting their own nifty stories in the news wire?
[]
The question is, do they do it domestically?

In the States there has been some speculation that someone is on the dole or may have actually planted a few false news pieces, given the shockingly all-but incompetent reporting by the mainstream press leading up to the Iraq war. One need only say "Judith Miller" to get the full scope of the damage this kind of pay-per-write ethics has done to the press and real journalists. []

We know that the military is prohibited from running the kind of propaganda (or psyops) in this country that it runs loose with abroad. Miller, well no, she can float lies camouflaged as news quite legally, but not the military. Yet the nagging feeling is there of course, given the shocking complicity of our corporate press which in most cases shares the same bosses as the military industrial complex does or rather, is part of the same military industrial complex."

two interesting things - firstly, i have no idea what Operation Shwarma was supposed to accomplish, and who the audience is supposed to be. Was it for the american domestic audience to show some progress on the anniversary of the invasion? It surely failed at that. Was it sposed to show that the iraqis can fight? it sure failed at that. all that 'largest air campaign' stuff? they backed off that immediately - what's going on?

second - larisa touches on the idea that certain journos are on the take - i wonder how many different scams there are - we've got:
a) the Elizabeth Bumiller model where she is writing a book about condi - probably with some pre-sale guarantees as reward for her fluffing
b) the Judy Miller model - where she got paid by getting laid
c) the jodi wilgoren model - pay-to-pray (i dont really know how that one works)
d) the tweety matthews 'pay-to-spray' speaking circuit model
e) the direct Ketchum model - as per Armstrong Williams and that stupid 'marriage' woman margaret whatever her name is
f) the Jane Arraf model - she's now the Edward R Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (cue orwell, spinning)

the remarkable thing is that many more beneficiaries havent been uncovered.

larisa is right that it is simply part of the military industrial complex - and that a lot of the benefits/payments (and punishments) are hidden - not hidden in any nefarious sense, but simply via the recruiting and promoting of 'like-minded' individuals. I partially described the process here, calling it the "military industrial entertainment complex"

Here's Keith Olbermann, appearing on C-SPAN, just last week:

"There are people I know in the hierarchy of NBC, the company, and GE, the company, who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all. ... There are people who I work for who would prefer, who would sleep much easier at night if this never happened."

President Dwight Eisenhower noted that the exact same thing happens in congress when he (nearly) coined the phrase "military-industrial-congressional complex" which is why there are so many war-mongers in congress (well, that plus they have all been spied on and are being blackmailed - hence their effusive support after they got their exclusive 'briefing' of the program last week)

update: i meant to include this comment from ron: "The CIA is the most trusted leader in news."

update - i added jane arraf