Pentagon Pro-Troop Group Misspent Millions, Report Says

Wired, TruthOut by Noah Shachtman | Dec. 13, 2008 (News Report)

Barber used the Stars & Stripes newspaper as a kind of money-laundering service, to pay Davis and Semel. The paper is partially financed by the Pentagon, and was part of Barber's American Forces Information Service. But Stripes has a decades-long tradition of fierce independence. Editors were galled to discover that Barber's office was pouring money into the paper's coffers — and then paying Davis and Semel out of accounts with less congressional ... Full Story »

Posted by Dwight Rousu

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Subjects: U.S., Politics
Topics: Bush Administration, U.S. Military, Money and Politics
Member Tags: corruption in Executive Branch
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Posted by: Posted by Dwight Rousu - Dec 13, 2008 - 4:53 PM PST
Reviewed by: Dwight Rousu (review), Tanya J. Maurer (review), Marsha Iverson (review)
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Edited by: Dwight Rousu - Dec 14, 2008 - 1:27 PM PST

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Marsha Iverson
4.0
 by Marsha Iverson - Dec. 17, 2008

Solid summary of Defense Department Inspector General report on the lamentable misuse of funds intended to support military service personnel. According to the report, $9 million US has been siphoned off into a series of brainless and inbred PR programs to fool the public into thinking that the Department of Defense was actually assisting military personnel.

As a PR professional, I take particular offense at the idea that a government agency would steal money from services to military personnel in order to pretend that it is actually serving military personnel. If an agency is doing a good job in the first place, good PR will accrue from beneficiaries by word of mouth--FREE. It is impossible to cover up negligence and failure with PR for long. I hope to see detailed investigations, and prosecutions of any and all illegal actions, from ... More »

A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The ... More »

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Dwight Rousu
4.8
 by Dwight Rousu - Dec. 13, 2008

The story reveals Bush administration cronies corrupting the public airwaves with propaganda, while at the same time lucratively lining the pockets of these republican cronies. The Stars and Stripes has been corrupted. The source seems to be the Inspector General report. Kudos are due for reporting the story, I have not seen it in the big corporate pro-war media yet.

This Rumsfeld setup of a domestic pro-war propaganda arm should never have been allowed. Are there not laws prohibiting such things under which he could be prosecuted?

Dwight posted this story.
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Tanya J. Maurer
4.3
 by Tanya J. Maurer - Dec. 14, 2008
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