Recommended reading: Helen Thomas

Journalism legend Helen Thomas, yet another who got it right on Iraq in 2003 and was blasted by the mainstream media at the time, writes for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the continuing effort by the pentagon to shield the public from the realities of war:

The Pentagon made a command decision after the Vietnam War to get better control of the dissemination of information in future wars. That led then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to create an office of disinformation at the start of the Iraqi war. It was later disbanded after howls from the media.

More recently, we have seen the Pentagon’s propaganda efforts take the form of carefully coaching retired generals about how to spin the Iraq war when they appear on television as alleged military experts. The New York Times’ revelations about those pet generals have cast a pall over their reputations.

Too often in this war, the news media seem to have tried to shield the public from the suffering this war has brought to Americans and Iraqis.

Photo: AP file