Politics | February 07, 2009 | 41 comments

Pentagon spending billions on PR to sway world opinion

source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/05/pentagon-spending-billions-pr-sway-world-opinion/

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cheller1820
The Pentagon has been making an increased investment in winning YOU over to their cause.

"As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls "the human terrain" of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law.

An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.

This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations -- almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department."
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41 comments // Pentagon spending billions on PR to sway world opinion

  • midsummerman
    • 0
      midsummerman  

    • The best PR would be our actions. Lets let go of protectionist fear and turn our defense strategy into creating a huge Peace Corps. A healthy world infrastructure. Clean water and healthy food for all. Medical support for all mothers and children
      As the poet Wendell Berry says:
      "So long as women do not go cheap
      for power, please women more than men.
      Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
      a woman satisfied to bear a child?
      Will this disturb the sleep
      of a woman near to giving birth?"
      Also Lets give the purpetrators of war crimes the opportunity to absolve their sins through public service in our newly revamped Peace Corps.

    • 3 years ago
  • RumpleDudeDude
  • birdman1943
    • 0
      birdman1943  

    • Words mean nothing.

      Action speaks louder than words.

      We as Americans like in Korea and Vietnam get out of Dodge so to speak.

      Right now we are only known as the Ugly Americans.

      How dare we interfere with other governments when our shores are not threatened.

      Weapons of mass destruction? Biggest BullS#@T story ever spread to the people of America!

      That sandlot is quicksand sucking us in....

      I say let's get the hell out.....

    • 3 years ago
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  

    • The military should NOT have a spin device. Conflict of interest . People have enough trouble thinking for themselves as is is . Mainstream media is already used to manipulate us . This will only benefit the corporate military complex . When will they get their fill of blood money ? Never .

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • Image

    • NEWS MIDDLE EAST
      Israeli air raids hit Gaza
      Palestinian fighters fired two rockets into southern Israel before the air raids [AFP]
      Israel has launched several air raids against targets in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, causing damage but no injuries, Palestinian security sources say.

      The attacks targeted "open areas" near the town of Rafah and tunnels along the border with Egypt, residents said.

      An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that the "Israeli air force intervened in the Gaza Strip" late on Friday.

      "Our planes attacked four tunnels that were dug under the border with Egypt and used for weapons smuggling," the spokesman told the AFP news agency.

      "An arms depot was also targeted and the explosives that were stocked there exploded," he said.

      The raids came hours after Palestinian fighters fired two rockets at southern Israel without causing damage or deaths, according to a military spokesman.

      Shalit talks fail

      The Israeli raids came after reports that indirect talks between Israel and Hamas over a prisoner swap to free Gilad Shalit, a captured Israeli soldier, had failed.

      Shalit was captured by Gaza groups in a 2006 cross-border raid.

      Osama al-Muzaini, a Hamas official who is involved in the negotiations, said on Friday that the talks had shown little progress and that any claims by Israel that progress had been made were "election-motivated".

      "There has been no progress in the [Shalit] file for several months and that is because [Israel] remained unwilling to pay the price," he told the Reuters news agency.

      Israeli report

      Muzini was responding to a report published on the website of Israel's Haaretz newspaper quoting unnamed Israeli officials as saying significant progress had been made in truce talks and Shalif's freedom.

      Muzaini did not mention where the talks had been held or who led the mediation.

      Hamas has demanded the release of 1,400 prisoners in exchange for Shalit.

      Muzaini said Israel had only agreed to 71 names from the list of 450 long-serving prisoners Hamas had proposed more than a year ago.

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • Image

    • Israeli attacks Gaza:
      Israel has launched several air raids against targets in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, causing damage but no injuries, Palestinian security sources say.

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • Image

    • CLICK ON LINK ABOVE TO SEE COST TO YOUR COMMUNITY

      Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America'sWar On Iraq 4,238
      icasualties.org/oif/
      =
      The War And Occupation Of Iraq Costs
      $594,674,224,187

      See the cost in your community
      nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • Image

    • Robert Fisk: War reporters used to prefer morality over impartiality
      I wonder whether we show the same power and passion as the earlier generations

      Saturday, 7 February 2009SHAREPRINT ARTICLE EMAIL ARTICLE TEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
      The "normality" of war, part two. We had a great storm in Beirut this week, thunder-cracks like gunfire, great green waves crashing below my balcony, rain like hail. So I curled up on my balcony sofa – coat and red scarf and thick socks – and opened a book sent by a kindly Independent reader, a much bent copy of Snyder and Morris's 1949 A Treasury of Great Reporting. And I began to wonder – in an age when the BBC can refuse help to the suffering because of its "impartiality" – whether we still report war with the same power and passion as the men and women of an earlier generation.

    • 3 years ago
  • passjay
  • passjay
  • Snails
    • 0
      Snails  

    • does anyone remember how the second Two Matrix movies were really different than the first one. I thought the third one had a lot of pro war themes even. I always had suspicions that the first movie had to much of a revolutionary effect on mind set of the population. i think the powers that be decided a new establishment-friendly\pro-war undertone was needed. Maybe i'm paranoid or maybe this is exactly the kind of crap that money pays for.

      there are many other examples in hollywood movies, i'm sure many of have picked up on this as well.

    • 3 years ago
  • TheColorYellow
  • LaeF1
    • 0
      LaeF1  

    • hate to say it, but judging from the military budget, ....
      largest in history and growing, more than every other nation's military budget on earth COMBINED....

      it's working.

    • 3 years ago
  • Gargaryun
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  

    • I call it spin and to prove it they are paying for it. I don't think they would need to pay for the truth. Now we get to see how much the spin has cost.

      Bottom line, why were they paying for spin? Who had what to gain? Halliburton, Black Water, KBR, (military industrial complex)? Our money was used for propaganda? What have we gotten from our tax dollars? What have they gained from such PR and for what purpose? Questions, questions, questions?

    • 3 years ago
  • nazbags
    • 0
      nazbags  

    • I love that they call this PR - this is advertising, plain and simple, just like the commercials you see for McDonalds

    • 3 years ago
  • clownpuncher
  • Denica_Cassandra
  • Conniepae
  • kennymotown
    • 0
      kennymotown  

    • This department of defense that we have brain washed to believe is nesscerary is the biggest cost of all in our budget, if you don't know this than take this as truth. Our department of defense spends more and is budgeted more than the entire worlds government defenses combined. What the hell is wrong with us, tear down this military government. We have a leader that will listen, so tell him load tear down this military industrial complex now and put people first.

    • 3 years ago
  • Alex_French
  • Gaia666
    • 0
      Gaia666  

    • Silly Americans. Your minds are too feeble to understand. This is for your own good. We watch over you with simple admiration, much like the master watches over his dog. Our utopia is nearing the final stages of completion. Once we own your banks, we will control your currency. Fighting will only make things worse. We are entrenched deeper than you can understand, and further than you can reach. We are your sisters, your mail carriers, your CEOs, your senators, your leaders. We are you.
      The world will soon march to a new order. Man will be arranged, once again, by the class which they have been ordained by the Light.

    • 3 years ago
  • Alex_French
    • 0
      Alex_French  
    • Gaia666:

      that shit will never happen. as much as you and your goth buddies would like it too, there will never be anything like that big brother 1984 bs and you know it. if you accept that as the future, then you're just a tool.

    • 3 years ago
  • Snails
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  

    • this is not some corporation electing to spend the money it made on advertising either, this is the DOD spending our tax dollars to brain wash us into complicity with their plans to funnel TRILLIONS of dollars to defense contractors, while the middle class in America lose their homes, their jobs, their savings and retirement.

      this is bs

    • 3 years ago
  • renegadeangel
    • 0
      renegadeangel  

    • The problems buffeting humankind and the universe in general will not abate until the American people realize that they are not as enlightened as other people, that there is neither equality nor free speech in the US, that the Middle East crisis will never be resolved because of America's open alliance with Israel, that it's criminally sadistic for the US to stop other nations from owning black bombs because it dropped black bombs over Japan for experimental purposes and owns a cache of countless black bombs, that Obama will not be half as effective and great as Clinton was, that America can only be great if it stops policing the world and concentrates on bettering itself.

    • 3 years ago
  • Nephwrack
  • Broadswordcallin
    • 0
      Broadswordcallin  

    • Now now girls,no throwing your toys out of the pram...

      4 billion is a lot of smoke to blow up people's asses.
      Perhaps it's no wonder that some people hate you.

      Take it easy out there,
      Sheikh Mebooty.

    • 3 years ago
  • frimer
    • 0
      frimer  

    • This reminds me of Al gore´s €300.000.000 dollar campaign for "global warming"...same principle same method...

    • 3 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
  • cheller1820
  • daboz
    • 0
      daboz  

    • I'm sure that you would rather they shut up.

      Anti-American, anti free speech, Anti-Military.

      Yes, lets all surrender without an utterance to those that have announced to the world that they want us DEAD. That is a Obama supporter no doubt

    • 3 years ago
  • cheller1820
    • 0
      cheller1820  
    • daboz:

      I'm not sure how to understand your comment, who do you mean by "you", who are you referring to as "Anti-American, anti free speech, Anti-Military. "?

      Just seeking some clarity, thanks.

    • 3 years ago
  • sk8bs55
    • 0
      sk8bs55  
    • daboz:

      i saw a bumper sticker the other day that i have been pondering for some time now, it really puts things in perspective:

      you only deserve the rights you are willing to fight for.

    • 3 years ago
  • Sexirobot
  • sk8bs55
  • midsummerman
  • pjacobs51
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  

    • Well, if they had spent the kind of money in iraq saturating the middle east with alternative opinions and open mindedness, instead of explosions, we would probably be quite close to a free middle east right now.

    • 3 years ago
  • cheller1820
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