Janese Johnson

The Pentagon created a program leading up to the war in Iraq that was called the Pentagon Military Analyst Program. The goal of this program was to hire retired military analysts for the purpose of spreading information through the media in support of the war in Iraq. The news of this program was broken The New York Times in April by David Barstow.

This is an important story that needs to get out to expose this method of lying and using “authorities” to lie about other countries so that the U.S can justify a preemptive strike. It appears that the war drums for Iran have been pounding again. But hopefully with the recent break of this program, and the awareness of how propaganda has already been used, we will no longer tolerate information without a lot of evidence; especially in regard to a future war.

During a White House press briefing, journalist Eric Brewer of Raw Story brought up the story for the first time since it broke out a week earlier.

In his question to Dana Perino, he stated: “over the last six years the Pentagon conducted a secret operation designed to sell the war in Iraq and the war on terror to the American people. It recruited more than 75 ex-military officers, many with financial ties to the defense industry, provided them with talking points and an extraordinary degree of access not available to ordinary members of the press, including meetings with the Secretary of Defense, and it got them higher supposedly independent military analysts by every U.S. television network.”

Media Matters has an article showing that since 2002 the ex-military analysts “collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR in segments covering the Iraq war both before and after the invasion, as well as numerous other national-security or government policy issues.”

So after hearing how we need to go into Iraq and “liberate” them 4500 times, many were willing to go. Those who disputed it were called unpatriotic, and left voiceless in the dark.

As it turned out, those who challenged the “experts” were correct in their assessment. The information on weapons of mass destruction and the dangers of Iraq were all false, and part of this propaganda program.

In recent months we have heard some “experts” using the same strategy that was used for the war in Iraq, but this time the focus is on Iran. New York Times Military Analyst Michael Gordon, who contributed false stories leading up to the war in Iraq, has recently written articles claiming that Iran is responsible for the militia in Iraq. Senator John McCain even sang about bombing Iran at a gathering he was at. According to a May 28 article in the Asian Times, an informed inside source says that George W. Bush plans to launch an air strike against Iran in the next few months.

Whether it is true or not that this administration intends to take us into war with Iran, we do not know — but we should be very leery about believing anything negative that is said about any situation. Since this same behavior has happened before and we ended up in a war with bad information, it is important to stand up to the information that is being given so we do not make the same mistake again. We cannot afford on any level to go to war with Iran.

Using force as a way to solve problems has already shown that it does not work, whereas diplomacy has worked in the past in many instances. Every country has allies now that it once was enemies with. After all, look at our relationship with England.

We must try all avenues towards peace that are possible, and not buy into the idea that destroying another country is a way of accomplishing anything other than more unrest and suffering.
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Janese Johnson has been doing intuitive counseling nationally for more than 20 years. She may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .