Corruption is the Bush Administration

(This info comes from an article by David Barstow of The New York Times.)

Heads should roll! In 2005, Amnesty International named the Guantanamo Bay detention center "the gulag of our times." That's because UN human rights experts were alleging new abuses of the detainees by the U.S. military. Many people urged that the Guantanamo Bay detention center be closed.

The Bush administration responded to this criticism the way it usually deals with criticism -- either by denying the allegations entirely, or "proving" the allegations are wrong. In this instance, the Bushites tried to prove the allegations were wrong. Here's how they did it.

They gathered a group of retired military officers, which they called "experts," which they knew could be depended upon to spout the party line. They flew these officers down to Guantanamo Bay on one of the jets usually used by Dick Cheney. They were then led on a "carefully orchestrated tour" of the detention center to provide them "information" to offer as "proof" that all was well in Guantanamo when they appeared as "experts" on national television.

It's a truly tawdry affair that is ongoing. The military officers "are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as "military analysts" whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world."

But these "analysts" are not, in any sense, objective observers or commentators. They are used by the Pentagon to twist facts as necessary to present the Bush administration's war performance in a favorable light.

This Pentagon propaganda machine began at the same time as the Bush began the buildup to war with Iraq. And, as we said, it is ongoing. It seeks "to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."

Note this carefully: the connections between the analysts and the military contractors are never divulged to the viewing public! The viewer never is told that the "expert," or "analyst," is a paid shill for a military contractor that benefits from the war.

"Collectively, the men on the plane [in 2005] and several other military analysts represent[ed] more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members, or consultants."

According to The New York Times, the data clearly shows that the Bush administration has used these analysts to "shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks. The analysts put forth administration propaganda that sometimes they knew was "false or inflated."

David Barstow says that "A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis." Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News Analyst, said "It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.'"


Now, if all this is true, heads should roll! Those responsible within the Bush administration should be held accountable! These actions are not to be deemed as of little consequence and brushed aside for they strike a crippling blow to the heart of our democratic system!

Unfortunately, nothing will happen, no one will be held accountable - to our everlasting shame and disgrace as a nation!

This is one more example of how the Bush administration is fundamentally flawed and rotten to the core. Future historians will marvel at the manner in which truth, justice and the Constitution itself were corrupted from 2000 to 2008, and how that corruption was enshrined as national policy under George W. Bush!