U.S. Military Announces Desire to “Enhance Bonds” with the Media

“A MORAL OBLIGATION TO TELL THE TRUTH”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jul. 27, 2013) — A report issued on Thursday provided an overview of a pledge from the Department of Defense to “change with the times” to interact more meaningfully with reporters and non-traditional media outlets.

On Thursday, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Dr. George Little gave an address to public affairs officers at Ft. Meade, MD on the new direction the DOD will reportedly take in sharing information with journalists, which he said will include bloggers and other new members of the media.

Ft. Meade was the location of the court-martial of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, MD in December 2010, who challenged the legitimacy of Barack Hussein Obama to serve as president of the United States.  Lakin was not allowed to present a defense by Col. Denise Lind, who is currently presiding over the court-martial of Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking classified military information to Wikileaks.

Clemency for Lakin was denied in April 2011, shortly before his release from Ft. Leavenworth.

Little said that the media has a “tremendous impact” on the DOD’s mission.  He stated that the divide between the military and the media is considerably “thinner” with the advent of news dissemination via Facebook, Twitter, “websites” and “dedicated blogs.”

Little said that frequent reporting by bloggers can “lift the curtain” on the activities of the military.  “We must constantly be listening for new voices on defense issues and develop those relationships as well.  A new blogger might end up being more influential than traditional outlets in some cases,” he said.

Little stated that with the availability of mobile devices, anyone could potentially become a reporter and urged public affairs employees to “learn new outreach techniques” while at the same time, being aware of budget constraints and furlough days.  He encouraged them to read all kinds of material, including poetry, sports columns, op-eds, “journals” and “fiction.”

“Commanders and senior civilian leaders also have a role to play as we move forward,” Little asserted. “All commanders need to be open and honest with the press,” he added.

Letters, emails and phone calls to former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen regarding the constitutional eligibility of Barack Obama went unanswered since before Obama took office in 2008. Gen. Martin Dempsey was given the job after allowing U.S. soldiers to deploy into Samson, AL in 2009, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.  Dempsey has been renominated to a second two-year term by Obama, who is likely usurping the office of the presidency.

For 23 years, a forgery has been maintained as authentic in the court-martial record of CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III, who had been under orders to report to the Naval War College in Providence, RI when he received a phone call informing him of a charge to be brought against him.  The false accusation was crafted by a team of officers who placed the forgery into his file without his even having seen the document and declared him guilty before a hearing was even held.

The same NCIS investigator who in 2005 threatened Fitzpatrick’s life if he continued to speak out about the forgery was the interrogator of Sgt. Lawrence Gordon Hutchins, III in Iraq after he was accused of murdering an unarmed Iraqi man in Hamdania.  Hutchins served six years of an 11-year sentence until his conviction was overturned late last month after the Military Court of Appeals found that Hutchins’s constitutional rights were violated when he was interrogated without counsel in the days immediately following the Iraqi man’s death.

Fitzpatrick has pointed out the unconstitutionality of the court-martial process, which is based on British military law, not the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Fitzpatrick and others have observed the military system of “justice” creeping in to American civilian courts as exampled by the state of Tennessee, which allows grand jury foremen to serve for decades at the pleasure of a judge and for jurors to serve repeat terms in violation of state statutes.

Since 2010, Fitzpatrick and other veterans have been jailed and imprisoned for speaking out against government corruption.  In 1997, Fitzpatrick was threatened with a second court-martial after he insisted that the forgery of his name in the court-martial record be investigated, exposed, and retracted.

Former Marine Brandon Raub was seized last August after Secret Service and FBI agents claimed that his Facebook posts, which were interpreted as “anti-government,” signified that he posed a risk to himself or others.  Raub is now represented by The Rutherford Institute, which is suing the government on his behalf for an unspecified amount in damages after Raub was held for a week against his will in a psychiatric facility.

Beginning in 2009, the FBI, DOD, Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security collaborated on a program named “Operation Vigilant Eagle,” which sought to identify veterans allegedly at risk of becoming “domestic terrorists.”  DHS issued a document in April of that year claiming that those opposed to illegal immigration and Second Amendment restrictions could be “right-wing extremists.”

Little said that military communications officers have “a moral obligation to the American people to explain the department’s intentions.”

No flag officer has spoken out about the questions surrounding Obama’s eligibility to serve or the forged birth certificate image posted on the White House website.  When Obama took office, he promised “an unprecedented level of openness in government.”

While answering a question from an attendee of the presser, Little said that the corporate media “looks to the blogs, just as we do.”

At approximately 27:40, a young public affairs representative said asked a question about “the bad news” which Little had said should also be discussed by public affairs personnel.  She said she did not believe that “the American people actually trust us to deliver accurate information.”  She asked Little how “putting out mindless propaganda” could be changed into a more open presentation of bad news out of the military.

Little responded that the military should “acknowledge when it has a problem.”  Little said that the military has a “moral obligation to tell the truth.”