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I can't say I'm surprised by this New York Times article depicting Bush Administration and Pentagon efforts to, essentially, build a propaganda machine aimed at convincing Americans to support the war in Iraq. Ex-military officers turned TV analysts have been pushing administration talking points in a concerted and organized effort.

Anyone who has read Orwell has to find this mildly troubling, to say the least:

Many (analysts) also shared with Mr. Bush’s national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war.

This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam.

“We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” — using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.” (Emphasis added.)

War supporters will undoubtedly suggest that the Bush Administration and Pentagon ought to be able to make their case to the American people. And you know what? They're right. But that is not what this is about -- it's about the ability of news consumers (read: you, the citizen) to expect some independence in your news coverage, or to have any conflicts of interest clearly marked so that you can judge the credibility of information you're receiving. Instead, we had -- during the early years of the war -- supposedly "independent" military anaylsts telling us everything is hunky dory in Iraq, even as things were going south. (This would be the same period during which the president was insisting that the U.S. was "winning" even though he was worried that the war was getting out of hand.)

Why would they do that?

Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

And, oh yeah:

The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.

And this, from a meeting between Donald Rumsfeld and the anaylsts.

A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.

“I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ”

“What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?”

 Some of this is definitely the fault of the TV networks. They clearly didn't do any vetting of the people they had on the air, even though as "analysts," they functioned as important content-providers to the networks.

But forgive me if I don't feel comfortable when the Department of Defense is conducting what its own people call a psyops campaign -- with Americans as the target.