[iwar] [fc:Office.of.Strategic.Influence.wanted.to.plant.fake.stories]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-02-25 06:28:18
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 06:28:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Office.of.Strategic.Influence.wanted.to.plant.fake.stories]
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Coyote Rummy
February 24, 2002 
By MAUREEN DOWD
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/opinion/24DOWD.html?ex=1015598622&ei=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/opinion/24DOWD.html?ex=1015598622&ei=1>&amp;
en=97faf21f36c586a1

WASHINGTON - The secretary of defense fires off lots of
memos, known as "snowflakes" or "Rummygrams." 

I want Rummy to send a Rummygram telling the Pentagon to
kick its addiction to fiction. 

A day after we learned that the military's Office of
Strategic Influence wanted to plant fake stories in the
overseas press, we read in Variety that the Pentagon is
teaming with Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of "Top Gun,"
"Black Hawk Down," "Pearl Harbor" and "Coyote Ugly," and
Bertram van Munster, of "Cops," to make a TV docudrama
about the war on terrorism. 

The 13-episode "reality" series on ABC will profile our
troops abroad. 

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon would also
cooperate with a VH1 show called the "Military Diaries
Project," which will turn 60 soldiers into Josh Hartnetts
as they star in their own war movies, training digital
cameras on themselves. 

"I'm outraged about the Hollywoodization of the military,"
Dan Rather told me. "Somebody's got to question whether
it's a good idea to limit independent reporting on the
battlefield and access of journalists to U.S. military
personnel and then conspire with Hollywood." 

He said the Bush administration had gotten overly fawning
"Hans Christian Andersen" press coverage and was now doing
"the equivalent of moonwalking in the end zone." 

An ABC News executive said it was "ridiculous" and "very
awkward," since the news side had been pounding the
Pentagon for months for "bare-bones access" to the war, to
see Pentagon officials roll out the camouflage carpet now
for ABC's entertainment division. 

An ABC Entertainment executive said the Pentagon was eager
to "produce what Americans want to see" because they regard
it as "an Army recruiting film." 

Military reporters say they are more handcuffed now than
during Desert Storm. They have had only the most restricted
and supervised access to Special Operations units. Even
reporters who went to Afghanistan with the Marines found
themselves quarantined in warehouses and handed press
releases from Central Command in Tampa about casualties
less than 100 yards away. Some who got close to the action
had film confiscated and guns pointed at them by Special
Operations soldiers or their mujahedeen bullies. 

The Pentagon said one reason it couldn't give more access
was because it was too dangerous. But reporters like Danny
Pearl are more than willing to assume that risk. More
journalists have been killed in Afghanistan than American
soldiers have in hostile fire. 

When Don Rumsfeld finally conceded that Special Forces had
killed the wrong guys, 16 pro-Karzai Afghan villagers,
thinking they were in Al Qaeda, he wouldn't admit an error.


Rummy does not make mistakes. And when the war on terror
becomes a Bruckheimer production, you won't be seeing any
mistakes either. "We're not going to criticize," Mr. van
Munster told Variety. Bruckheimer is the new Patton, and
his macho, obvious, hyperpatriotic blockbusters suit the
Bushies - and Karl Rove and the Republican National
Committee - perfectly. 

The Navy even gave Mr. Bruckheimer an aircraft carrier to
have the premiere party for "Pearl Harbor" in Hawaii last
spring. 

The White House and the Pentagon want to write the
narrative of the war on terror, and they are willing to use
their own soldiers as cameramen and actors in comic book
versions of a messy, dirty war. 

They would rather make troops available as props in gung-ho
videos than available to explain how the commanders let
Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda leaders escape or targeted the
wrong villages. Mr. Bruckheimer said his program would not
usurp reporters' access. "Reporters are after breaking
news," he said. "We're doing profiles." He said the
Pentagon would check the show before it aired, as it did
with "Black Hawk Down": "It's not censorship, but we do
have a conversation." 

Posters of Bruckheimer war epics hang near the Pentagon's
public affairs office. Down the hall is a painting of Ernie
Pyle bent over a typewriter, a relic from the days
reporters were allowed to cover wars. 

The only question is: Will reporters be permitted on the
set of Bruckheimer's war, or will that war, too, be closed
to the press?

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/opinion/24DOWD.html?ex=1015598622&ei=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/opinion/24DOWD.html?ex=1015598622&ei=1>&amp;
en=97faf21f36c586a1

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com">http://www.nytimes.com>
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

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