The NY Times (11/30/2008) has a terrific article on Barry McCaffrey and other military types who work promoting defense industry clients to the Pentagon. What’s so insidious about McCaffrey and some others are their use by the news media as “objective” commentators on foreign policy, military matters and war.
“The president of NBC News, Steve Capus, said in an interview that General McCaffrey was a man of honor and achievement who would never let business obligations color his analysis for NBC. He described General McCaffrey as an “independent voice” who had courageously challenged Mr. Rumsfeld, adding, “There’s no open microphone that begins with the Pentagon and ends with him going out over our airwaves.”
“General McCaffrey is not required to abide by NBC’s formal conflict-of-interest rules, Mr. Capus said, because he is a consultant, not a news employee. Nor is he required to disclose his business interests periodically.”
Medicynic doubts both the “independence” of the reporting and recommendations of these employees of the military industrial complex. They have the same veracity problem as medical people in similar roles on the payroll of the medical industrial complex. Money rules!
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Medicynic 