Pentagon Propaganda Spending Explodes: 'We Have Such a Massive Apparatus Selling the Military to Us'

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 9:09 AM on February 7, 2009.

Associated Press (via Fox News):

As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls "the human terrain" of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law.

An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.

This next bit is stunning, when you think about it:

This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations -- almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department.

"We have such a massive apparatus selling the military to us, it has become hard to ask questions about whether this is too much money or if it's bloated," says Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, which tracks the military's media operations. "As the war has become less popular, they have felt they need to respond to that more."

Almost $5 billion to sell American empire. Are we getting good value for our dollar? Actually, no ...

.... According to a new BBC World Service poll across 21 countries:

Views of the US have improved modestly over the past year but remain predominantly negative, even though the poll was taken after President Obama's election.

Views of the US showed improvements in Canada, Egypt, Ghana, India, Italy and Japan. But far more countries have predominantly negative views of America (12), than predominantly positive views (6). Most Europeans show little change and views of the US in Russia and China have grown more negative. On average, positive views have risen from 35 per cent to 40 per cent, but they are still outweighed by negative views (43%, down from 47%).

"Public diplomacy" is a waste when you don't have anything morally persuasive to say. But that doesn't dissuade the foreign policy establishment from its belief that if we could only refine the message ...

Here's a bit from a post I wrote in 2006 about how ridiculous they can be:

... a few years ago I caught a discussion about "public diplomacy" by a senior official in the United States Information Agency. Among his recommendations for improving the reporting of Al Jazeera was that we should "stop shooting them."

While I wouldn't argue with that, the comment has come to symbolize for me the limitations of U.S. propaganda efforts since the inception of the War on Terra. Despite a series of "Public Diplomacy Tsars" ranging from Madison Avenue hotshot Charlotte Beers to long-time Bush "wife" Karen Hughes, we've been behind in the information war from the get-go.

You could buy airtime in every market in the world and run non-stop infomercials about the wonders of American military might, but there would still be Guantanamo.

Tagged as: propaganda, military

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.