The fallout from David Barstow's Hidden Hand article in the Sunday New York Times is yet to be fully felt, but it should spark discussion in several realms. The first and foremost is the role and responsibility of the media. Second is the debate that public affairs informs and does not influence. Third is the responsibility of America's military officers, even in retirement. And fourth, the question of whether the "Hidden Hand" was legal. What follows is a follow up to my previous post on Barstow's article.
Since 9/11, the media has been debating its own role in portraying events. It has simultaneously criticized and defended its actions. Stephen Hess and Marvin Kalb explored this in their 2003 book The Media and the War on Terrorism that captured twenty forums on the subject held between October 2001 and September 2002. The co-option of the media was frequent, if not obvious. Often the media explained its seeming pro-war position through commercial and constituent pressures, as Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman found in their interviews with Aaron Brown. As Robert Siegel noted in the book,
...in this case journalism is not providing the first draft of history. The Pentagon is providing the first draft. We get to do a second draft after the reporters come through the places that we have already heard accounts about, and they then get to see what happened. ... Reports have been reduced to rewriting what was originally reported out of various Pentagon briefings.
Greenwald touched on, but didn't emphasize, that the media uses more than retired military officers to explain the case and will be selective in who they bring on as an "expert." Let's not forget that the flag-on-the-lapel litmus test used today on presidential candidates was also used on reporters.
Further, the media enthusiastically adopted the embedded format barely questioning the soda-straw view of the war that resulted. The sympathetic tone the reporters took with the units they naturally bonded with was looked upon, and rightly so, with great pleasure by the Pentagon. What had been a suspect plan turned out to be genius. RAND's Chris Paul and James J. Kim wrote what is probably the only deep analysis of the embedded system and found examples of patriotic bias and lost objectivity.
The second point on the role of public affairs is one I've raised previously and don't want to belabor here (if you're a new reader, read this and this). Andrew Exum and I share what public affairs' role in this incident signifies: a greater attention to manage domestic perceptions than global perceptions in a war of ideas and information.
On the third point, see Phil Carter's second post on the subject as well as the comments of my friend Charlie Stevenson, an expert on American civil-military relations and Secretaries of Defense:
Retired military officers have a perfect right to make money as consultants and pundits and officials in defense firms. But when they appear in public, especially in news commentary or political endorsements, they owe it to their comrades and their former profession to be very careful about apparent conflicts of interest and professional standards. I think Kant's categorical imperative is a pretty good test: if they would be upset if any fellow officer did what they are about to do -- criticize or defend, endorse or oppose, use inside access for personal gain -- then they shouldn't do it themselves. If they want to be treated by the public as straight-talking experts in the profession of arms, they owe the public an extra dose of caution. Usually the professionals can do a good job of policing themselves. The New York Times story shows that they'd better.
Lastly, the question of legality. As I argue in an earlier post, this isn't a Smith-Mundt issue (in a strict sense, it is arguably condoned by Smith-Mundt). Another blog, Empty Wheel, does a fine job exploring the other laws that might, but I doubt, apply.
What Barstow portrayed was not unique or even, taken down to the fundamentals, novel. It was, however, more overt than per usual. I have focused on the military-media relationship, but plenty of other examples exist, but most don't incur the same (perceived) risk to national security or national treasure (including the lives of our warfighters).
In the end, I don't see this as an issue of legality, but one of credibility and trust. The Rumsfeldian Defense Department clearly failed to understand the importance of these two elements in Information Age conflict and counterinsurgency, which has been ably documented elsewhere.
See Also (external links):
- Andrew Exum's Strategic Miscommunication (and my rejoinder here)
- Phil's Pundits or Pentagon Puppets? and the follow up, Pundits or Puppets Cont.
- Kings of War's Message Force Multipliers
- Robert Bateman's, at Small Wars Journal, All the News that's...
- Abu Muqawama's Is this is a smart IO campaign or way out of bounds? You make the call
- Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal's The Big Yawn and The Wizard Does Not Care
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