Barstow and Media Responsibility

It has become common to learn of new methods that the Bush Administration had used to nefariously sell the Iraq War. I had never heard about the particular practice of prepping friendly military analysts described by Barstow until I read his article. That so little respect was shown for the American people and for the democratic process in the lead-up to the war continues to depress me.

Reading this article raised some questions concerning not only executive power and dishonesty but also some important ones regarding the media's relationship with the military and its place in the military industrial complex and withing the process of militarization more generally. Either purposely or unintentionally, it is clear the the media plays at times an important role in selling the MIC and the military. The events with analysts serves as a wonderful example of this. The media must be able to protect itself from being used by dishonest forces of militarization. Equally as important, the media must not fail to report such attempts to mislead the public when they are discovered. In trying to protect themselves from the criticism that they justly deserve for failing to look-into the backgrounds of their analysts, most in the media have committed an additional disservice by failing to report a story that is highly relevant. When the MIC is purposely hidden not only by the forces directly involved but also by those whose obligation it is to reveal such instances of misdoing, it becomes difficult to see how the process can receive the public scrutiny and debate that it deserves.

Most Americans have no idea what the MIC is and what kind of influence it has over their lives, not to mention the lives of others throughout the world. It is difficult to see how this critical factor of U.S. politics can be made clear to those who are supposed to be--at least in theory--the legitimate source of the nation's sovereignty if neither our politicians or news sources provide the information necessary for understanding. What Barstow's article reveals about the government's attempts to secretly shape our opinions is deeply troubling, but equally as troubling is what it reveals about the media's complicity in the process and about its inability to act independently and honestly.

Turse and the Military Industrial Complex

Nick Turse raises some very important questions regarding the military industrial complex in today's society. He argues that any firms and corporations that receive funds from the Department of Defense or provide any type of service to the military constitute examples of the MIC in action. This covers an enormous array of businesses that provide an enormous array of services not only to the military but to all facets of our society, as Turse makes clear in his article. Accepting this view, we must admit that the MIC has penetrated our lives so deeply that it has become virtually impossible to avoid partaking in it. We cannot hope to avoid contributing to the militarization of our society without essentially giving up on basic needs that we have come to rely on, and without paying our taxes--less the focus of Turse's article but nonetheless an obviously critical aspect of the complex as he describes it.

If we are to conclude that the MIC has become a problem, we then have to ask ourselves how that problem might be solved, and unfortunately an easy or clear solution does not come to mind, nor does Turse propose one. We cannot realisticly be expected to stop buying products made by companies that recieve military funding or provide services to the military. There are simply too many. The MIC has become so deeply rooted that it seems nearly impossible to weed out without fundamentally altering the way business and government works. Perhaps providing less of our federal budget to the military would be a good start, but that seems highly improbable given our current political reality. We would have to stop using our military before anyone would suggest we stop funding it, and even if we did that, people would then have to be convinced that the likelyhood of needing to use it were small, which also seems unlikely in today's world.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I think that our society will need to undergo a number of significant changes before the military industrial comples can be diminished and eventually erradicated. Most people do not even recognize it as a problem, and I don't doubt that many would defend it. Afterall, we have seen many material benefits as a result of the MIC. I would agree with President Eisenhower that the MIC represents a very real danger to supposed American values and to our future, but unfortunately it is a hole that it will take us a very long time to dig ourselves out of, if we are able to at all.