Paul E. Vallely

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This article is about the American soldier and military expert. For the British journalist, see Paul Vallely.

Major General Paul E. Vallely, USA (Ret. ) is currently a senior military analyst for FOX News.

Major General Paul E. Vallely
Major General Paul E. Vallely

Contents

[edit] Family

He is married to Marian Vallely and their son Private First Class Scott Paul Vallely died on April 20, 2004 while in his fourth week of Special Forces Qualification Course Special Forces training.[1][2]

[edit] Education

He graduated from West Point and was commissioned into the US Army in 1961. He graduated from Infantry School, Ranger and Airborne Schools, Jumpmaster School, the Command and General Staff School, The Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the Army War College. His combat service in South Vietnam included positions as infantry company commander, intelligence officer, operations officer, military advisor and aide-de-camp. He retired in 1993, at the rank of Major General, from his position as Deputy Commanding General, Pacific.

[edit] Center for Security Policy

Vallely serves as the Military Committee Chairman for the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and occasionally writes columns and lectures on the War on Terror. Some of his public statements have caused controversy, such as saying "we are not going to permit" a Shiite victory in an Iraqi election, and claiming that the war on terror is a war between Islam and Judeo-Christianity: "That's what's going on. If you don't understand that, then you don't get it."[3]

[edit] Tour of Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

Vallely toured the Camp Delta detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in 2006 while collecting material for a book titled "The Myths of Gitmo: Torture, Abuse or the Truth" with co-author LTC Gordon Cucullu. Vallely and Cucullu later participated in an interview with FrontPage Magazine in which he blasted allegations that detainees were being abused as "myths of the left-wing press". He also voiced support for the force feeding of detainees attempting to undertake hunger strikes, claiming the detainees were "...simply restrained for 20 minutes so they can be fed Ensure. They get their choice of four flavors of Ensure. It’s put in a very unobtrusive feeding tube smaller than a normal straw and it’s put in there for 20 minutes, so they get breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They get to go back to their detention facility."[1]

Force feeding of non-psychotic prisoners has been banned by the World Medical Association since 1975, listing it alongside torture as a form of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".[2] Vallely later admitted in the same interview that neither he nor Cucullu had actually spoken with any of the detainees to corroborate official reports of their treatment.[3]

When prompted further as to details of abuse, Vallely's co-author, LTC Gordon Cucullu, stated that at least one prisoner "...may have been roughed up a little bit", but immediately clarified "We’re not trying to do an exhaustive history of Gitmo in this thing."[4]

[edit] Jerusalem Summit organization

General Valley is also a supporter of the Jerusalem Summit organization and an advocate of the organization's proposal to "transfer" Palestine to surrounding Arab countries as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to bring about the organization's belief "that one of the objectives of Israel's divinely-inspired rebirth is to make it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets."

[edit] The Plame Affair

Vallely interjected himself into the Plame leak after two and a half years. He told the World Net Daily on November 5, 2005 that

Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Joseph C. Wilson mentioned Plame's status as a CIA employee over the course of at least three, possibly five, conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel's "green room" in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts. Vallely says, according to his recollection, Wilson mentioned his wife's job in the spring of 2002 -- more than a year before Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column identified her, citing senior administration officials, as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."[4]

Over that weekend Vallely supposedly recalled other times Wilson allegedly shared classified information on his wife's CIA status. As noted above Vallely said he was told once in Spring 2002, but the WND on November 9, 2005 reported:

After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion – the first of several conversations – that the ambassador revealed his wife's employment with the CIA and that it likely occurred some time in the late summer or early fall of 2002.[5]

On Saturday, WorldNetDaily published a story based on an interview with Maj. General Paul Vallely, a distinguished career military man and Fox News analyst, who said Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man at the center of the CIA leak case, had told him in casual conversations in the Fox News studios that his wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA employee - more than a year before this was first disclosed publicly in a column written by journalist Robert Novak.[6]

This was a serious charge to make, especially since there are 5 felony counts leveled against one White House official as of this date (See: Lewis Libby). Yet, there is no evidence of such event and this isn't the first time Vallely is known to have claimed something that is untrue. Joseph Wilson has currently threatened/pursued legal action against World Net Daily and Vallely.[7]

[edit] Works

Together with Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, Vallely co-authored a book published in 2004, entitled Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.

Vallely also co-authored a 1980 paper with then PSYOP analyst Michael Aquino entitled From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory. MindWar is defined as "the deliberate aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war." The paper contrasts a use of psychological operations such as propaganda with a new approach. The paper contains this passage:

Unlike PSYOP, MindWar has nothing to do with deception or even with "selected" - and therefore misleading - truth. Rather it states a whole truth that, if it does not now exist, will be forced into existence by the will of the United States. The examples of Kennedy's ultimatum to Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Hitler's stance at Munich might be cited. A MindWar message does not have to fit conditions of abstract credibility as do PSYOP there; its source makes it credible. As Livy once said:
The terror of the Roman name will be such that the world shall know that, once a Roman army has laid siege to a city, nothing will move it - not the rigors of winter nor the weariness of the months and years - that it knows no end but victory and is ready, if a swift and sudden stroke will not serve, to preserve until that victory is achieved.
Unlike Ellul's cynical propagandist, the MindWar operative must know that he speaks the truth, and he must be personally committed to it. What he says is only a part of MindWar; the rest - and the test of its effectiveness - lies in the conviction he projects to his audience, in the rapport he establishes with it.[8] In practice, however, the difference between MindWar and cynical or deceptive propaganda, from the perspective of the audience, is difficult if not impossible to perceive.

[edit] A Propagandist

In 2008 America learned he had been one of a dozens "military analysts" recruited by the Pentagon to spread favorable views of the Iraq war via the news. [9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ A View from Inside Gitmo. FrontPage Magazine (May 5, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-09-16.
  2. ^ WMA - Policy
  3. ^ A View from Inside Gitmo. FrontPage Magazine (May 5, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-09-16.
  4. ^ A View from Inside Gitmo. FrontPage Magazine (May 5, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-09-16.
  1. ^  "Where Does FOX Get These Military Analysts?". Newshounds. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
  2. ^  "Two years into leak investigation, Gen. Vallely suddenly claims, in contradictory statements, that Wilson revealed Plame's identity to him". Media Matters for America. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
  3. ^  "General wants Wilson apology: Threatened again with lawsuit over claim of 'outing' CIA wife". World Net Daily. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
  4. ^  "Joe Wilson's threat against me". World Net Daily. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
  5. ^  "Joe Wilson fumes over Vallely charges in WND: Demands retraction of statements alleging he 'outed' wife in Fox studio". World Net Daily. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
  6. ^  "From PSYOP to Mindwar: The Psychology of Victory". 7th Psychological Operations Group, United States Army Reserve (1980). Retrieved on November 29, 2005.

[edit] External links