NY Times, WaPo national security reporters serve at pro-war Pentagon-funded think tank
The Center for New American Security provides residencies to top national security correspondents while raking in massive funding from the arms industry, Pentagon and State Department.
Imagine a country where there’s no separation between the government, the military, and the media. A lot of Americans would think of China, Russia or North Korea, but it’s a perfect description of the United States today. Located in Washington, the Center For A New American Security (CNAS) is the clearest example of the unholy merger.
CNAS is the premier foreign policy think tank of the Democratic Party. It is funded by the State Department and Pentagon and has taken more money from weapons companies over the last several years than any other think tank in Washington. It’s also funded by oil companies, big banks, and right wing governments – basically the most destructive forces on the planet.
For President Joe Biden, CNAS serves as a farm at which key positions in his administration are cultivated. At least 16 CNAS alumni are now in key positions in the Biden Pentagon and State Department.
But what’s most shocking is that several national security and foreign policy reporters from elite U.S. media outlets are affiliated with CNAS – and therefore indirectly affiliated with, and likely paid by, the U.S. government and corporations – the very forces that they should be holding accountable.
For more than twenty years, New York Times Washington correspondent David Sanger has relentlessly pushed deceptions to con the public into supporting U.S. aggression and war.
From the George W. Bush administration’s lies about WMDs in Iraq to lies about Iran attempting to create nuclear weapons and evidence-free claims from intelligence agencies about Russian cyberattacks – these incendiary allegations were taken at face value with a clear goal to pressure then-President Donald Trump to ramp up aggression against Moscow while conveniently filling the pockets of Sanger’s weapons-industry benefactors.
Sanger’s neocon cyberwar fantasy was even turned into a movie by HBO. Today, David Sanger is onto the COVID-19 lab leak theory. He’s been at the forefront of every propaganda campaign that not only provides justification for aggression and war but also helps generate huge profits for CNAS funders.
Sanger is just one of several New York Times, Washington Post and Foreign Policy reporters who have residencies at CNAS. Presumably, that comes with a sizable financial component. I emailed CNAS to ask whether it pays these reporters but they didn’t respond.
Sanger’s colleague Eric Schmitt, senior correspondent covering national security for The New York Times, is also in residence at CNAS.
In 2020, Schmitt pushed the obviously false Russian bounties story, which was eventually discredited, but not until it helped corner Trump as he mulled a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Of course, Schmitt was a reliable promoter of intelligence claims about Russian hacking – never displaying a scintilla of skepticism.
And he dutifully portrayed the Trump administration’s aggression against Iran as defensive.
The Washington Post, at one point, found this kind of blatant media corruption at least questionable. In 2011, Time magazine launched a series in collaboration with CNAS to promote war propaganda; the Post published an article questioning the ethics of that partnership.
Fast-forward to 2013: billionaire Jeff Bezos buys the Post, and its correspondent, David Finkel, becomes a writer in residence at CNAS. During that time, Finkel wrote two books on the U.S. war in Iraq: “The Good Soldiers” and “Thank You For Your Service.” Just the kind of whitewash of the war that CNAS’s funders would want the public to consume.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/09/ny-times-wapo-national-security-reporters-serve-at-pro-war-pentagon-funded-think-tank/