Our Military

A poster at Daily Kos found this 2002 Mother Jones article for me, which was likely one of the first to report that the No Child Left Behind Act forces high schools to submit the names, addresses and phone numbers of all of their students to military recruiters. The final paragraph tells you exactly how much the armed forces value privacy:

Recruiters are up-front about their plans to use school lists to aggressively pursue students through mailings, phone calls, and personal visits -- even if parents object. "The only thing that will get us to stop contacting the family is if they call their congressman," says Major Johannes Paraan, head U.S. Army recruiter for Vermont and northeastern New York. "Or maybe if the kid died, we'll take them off our list."

This, despite the fact that you're supposed to be able to opt out of the provision and withhold your child's records. Not that "the law" matters to the military.

Why, in fact, our leaders at the Pentagon have no problem with breaking the moral, ethical, and actual law against using media to deliver propaganda and disinformation:

WASHINGTON — On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN and made a dramatic announcement.

"Troops crossed the line of departure," 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert declared, using a common military expression signaling the start of a major campaign. "It's going to be a long night." CNN, which had been alerted to expect a major news development, reported that the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Fallouja had begun.
   
 In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert's carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or "psy-op" — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials.

Remember that in 2002, the Pentagon tried to set up an official psy-ops arm called the Office of Strategic Influence, dedicated to planting fake news stories in the international media. This was scuttled, yet apparently the strategy is still ongoing. And the architects of this policy are still playing the familiar "I don't know" defense:

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said he recognized the concern of many inside the Defense Department, but that "everybody understands that there's a very important distinction between information operations and public affairs. Nobody has offered serious proposals that would blur the distinction between these two functions."

Di Rita said he had asked his staff for more information about how the Oct. 14 incident on CNN came about.

Exactly why are we supposed to believe anything coming out of the mouths of official sources in Washington, then? And exactly why are we supposed to believe their charges that al-Jazeera and other Arab news sources are lying when they negatively portray the effort in Iraq? It is now US policy to lie to the media. There was an excellent sermon written by a Texas minister that discusses how our current government resembles all the key characteristics of a fascist state. I think we're getting closer every day.