Do you remember "Mission Accomplished", the pithy little phrase that adorns this photograph? The photograph was taken on May 23, 2003, the day that George Bush "landed" on the USS Abraham Lincoln, all dressed up in fighter pilot gear, to announce the United States' victory in Iraq.

I've been against the invasion the Iraq from the very beginning and I still feel in my bones the horror at seeing such a lie gleefully broadcast across not just all major media in the United States, but all over the world. I knew, as many other antiwar activists did, that the banner was a lie and that it was a lie intended to confuse and distract from the truth of the occupation. Yet it is still scandalous that media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and the very pro-BushCo media outlet, Fox News went into the lie knowingly.

Back on 20th February 2002, the BBC published a report titled, Pentagon plans propaganda war. In it Tom Carver reported the following :

The Pentagon is toying with the idea of black propaganda.

As part of George Bush's war on terrorism, the military is thinking of planting propaganda and misleading stories in the international media.

A new department has been set up inside the Pentagon with the Orwellian title of the Office of Strategic Influence.

It is well funded, is being run by a general and its aim is to influence public opinion abroad.

Now comes word that the BBC report was wrong on one count. The Pentagon didn't want to just manipulate the media internationally. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew rather well that the war they were waging was here on U.S. soil.

The New York Times just published a report titled, MESSAGE MACHINE | Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand. It describes how the Pentagon used and/or deployed retired military officers to appear on US TV news shows as "unbiased" military analysts. By exploiting the reputation of some of these decorated generals, the Bush administration unleashed a disinformation campaign on the Unites States public, especially when accusations of human rights abuses in Guantánamo Bay were turned into lawsuits against the government.

Some of the analysts didn't react immediately to the manipulation because they allegedly didn't see any conflict of interest. Yet others seem to have been fully aware of it, especially those who were working for companies benefiting from the war with military contracts. One of the generals went even as far as promoting his ties to the government on marketing materials for his military consultancy company.

It's a powerful report that needs to be read carefully. Yet is it too little too late, coming from The New York Times?

This is the same newspaper that had hired Judith Miller, the infamous NYT journalist and alleged expert on Middle Eastern affairs who published the false report about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. These were one of a series of "unbiased" reports used by the Pentagon to launch the occupation of Iraq.

Either way, the report was felt as a major earthquake on Capitol Hill and the news media world. The New York Times now reports that the Pentagon has stopped "briefing" military analysts that work on broadcast and cable news; pending an internal review.

With all these stories, I am still amazed when people incredulously question the need for an alternative media and especially bloggers.