Staff Edit: Pentagon propaganda

In a country where the United States is trying to spread the basic principles of democracy, the Pentagon is reportedly having a U.S.-based public relations firm plant slanted news articles in popular Iraqi newspapers.

Even if the stories that the Pentagon is publishing are factually based, it should not be done in a way that goes against the principles of Western journalism. The government's contracting of news stories in no way promotes a free media in Iraq, and in fact undermines it. By all accounts it is not worthwhile to carry this out in a country already struggling toward democracy.

The stories being commissioned by the Pentagon often praise the activities of U.S. and Iraqi forces, while denouncing terrorism and promoting reconstruction efforts, according to the Associated Press. The Defense Department is paying the Washington-based contractor The Lincoln Group $6 million "to perform public-relations and advertising work in Iraq," the AP reported.

But the Iraqi media should be capable of making their own editorial decisions, and pay their own reporters to cover the daily struggles occurring there.

U.S. military officials in Iraq said the program is "a function of buying advertising and opinion-editorial space, as is customary in Iraq." It may be customary in a country not supported by democracy, but that is exactly what the United States is there for, to change the custom to one supported by Western principles.

President Bush has expressed concern over this, even though the Government Accountability Office said last month that the Education Department, under his executive branch, engaged in illegal "covert propaganda" by hiring a news commentator to promote the No Child Left Behind Act, without requiring him to disclose that he was being paid, according to the AP.

Though this matter is still being investigated, the paid propaganda spreading into the Iraqi media should be put to an immediate stop by the Pentagon, before the United States' cause in Iraq becomes even more illegitimate.

Benjamin Franklin said that if he had to choose between the existence of government and the existence of fair journalism, he would certainly choose the latter. Though we support the existence of both, in a democratic country they should at least remain independent from one another.