America Still Has an Office of Disinformation. It’s Called the Pentagon from CommonDreams.org
In all frankness, the only thing more dishonest than an Office of Strategic Influence aimed at deceiving foreigners is the suggestion that the Bush administration, or any other since the Second World War, likes to tell Americans the truth.
“The office is done,” a seemingly hurt, aggrieved Mr. Rumsfeld told a press conference. “It’s over. What do you want, blood?” Thus, with three short phrases and a touch of martyrdom, the former drug company chief executive officer swept away the Pentagon Papers, the Church Committee hearings and the collected works of journalist Seymour Hersh, all of which speak to the vast array of lies perpetrated by the US government since the world’s greatest superpower took center stage, at Hiroshima in 1945.
The Washington Post reported Mr. Rumsfeld’s retreat as a “victory for the military public affairs community,” which “had worried that the new office would blur the line between their work of dealing with the media and the public and the ‘black’ world of covert operations, which sometimes involves disseminating false information.” When was the line ever clear?
Of course, it hardly seems to matter anymore whether the government lies or conceals, now that the war on terrorism justifies almost anything. The Bush administration set the tone immediately after the commencement of bombing with a strict military censorship policy that forbids reporters from covering US troops engaged in what was initially dubbed “Operation Infinite Justice” (unless they work for Hollywood producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Bertram van Munster, who are making a Pentagon-approved “reality TV series” for ABC).