A new report finds many talking heads who have been fanning the flames of war in the news media have ties to Pentagon contractors. Reporting for The Nation, Lee Fang details how television analysts including retired generals Jack Keane and Anthony Zinni and former Department of Homeland Security official Frances Townsend have appeared on television recently, but their ties to military contractors were not disclosed. Fang writes many of these commentators “have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world.” Keane, for example, is a special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater, and a board member to military manufacturer General Dynamics. He is also a “venture partner” to SCP Partners, an investment firm that works with defense contractors.
TRANSCRIPT
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NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to an investigative report that finds many talking heads who have been fanning the flames of war in the news media have ties to Pentagon contractors. In a piece headlined “Who’s Paying the Pro-War Pundits?” reporter Lee Fang says many of these commentators, quote, “have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world.” Fang continues, “Ramping up America’s military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.”
AMY GOODMAN: The ties of pundits to Pentagon contractors who stand to profit off war are not disclosed by the media where they proffer their views. One of the worst offenders in this regard is retired General Jack Keane, who, according to the piece, has appeared on Fox News at least nine times over the last two months advocating military strikes against ISIS. Let’s go to a clip from Sunday.
JACK KEANE: I do believe that the air campaign that’s taking place in Iraq now will be expanded. But also we should expand immediately into Syria. He does not need congressional authorization for that. I’ll leave it to him whether he thinks he should get that or not, but the fact of the matter from a military perspective, we should be bombing Syria and Iraq simultaneously now.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s retired General Jack Keane, speaking on Fox News Sunday. He is introduced simply as a think tank leader and a former military official. Again, what’s not disclosed is the range of his affiliations with Pentagon contractors. Keane is a special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater, and a board member of the military contractor General Dynamics. He’s also a venture partner to SCP Partners, an investment firm that works with military contractors. Keane’s think tank has also provided data on ISIS used by The New York Times, the BBCand other major outlets.
To find out more, we go to San Francisco to speak with the author of the piece, Lee Fang. He is an investigative fellow with The Nation Institute, contributing writer at the magazine.
Read the full transcript in Democracy Now!
