"Trouble is, how do we get these guys into a reality detox center?
Don't forget these are the same policy makers who brought us Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Try to remember that historically people who use torture do so because they have no other way to change reality. Think back to the heretics who said the world was round, or that the Earth orbited the sun. Rather than concede to the simple evidence of nature's laws, it's more convenient to simply torture, imprison or murder those who refute you. That, or give them company stock from your friendly, local military contractor. Regardless, the Pentagon and its pliant media could surely benefit from this geography lesson: Denial ain't a river in Egypt."
Read the entire great article here at Reality Sandwich.
Here's the NY times piece:
Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden HandIn the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
Read on at NY Times
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