Retired four-star general Jack Keane has been all over Fox News in recent weeks, loudly criticizing President Biden for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. While his military experience is impressive, the former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army is also deeply involved with a business that has a contract with the military.
The Daily Beast reports that neither Keane, who is on the Fox payroll as an analyst, or any of the Fox hosts who have interviewed him on-camera have disclosed that the former general is the executive chairman of AM General, which makes the Humvees used by the military. The company inked a $459 million contract with the government to send some 2,000 Humvees to Afghanistan through 2023. That’s the type of conflict of interest that audiences should be made aware of when they bring on an “expert” commentator. Yet according to the Daily Beast story, despite appearing at least 33 times on-air since Aug. 16, neither Keane nor any of the Fox anchors he talked with mentioned his position with the defense firm or the contract his company signed to directly profit from the extended war effort in Afghanistan.
That’s not his only conflict, either. Keane also sits on the board of Cyalume Technologies, Inc., which makes chemical lights for the military, yet that has also never reportedly been disclosed by Fox.
The watchdog group Media Matters says the booking of guests like former general Keane and others who were part of the Afghanistan war machine by CNN, MSNBC and Fox is a major disservice to viewers. The conflicts of interest for those like Keane who directly profits from the war machine are one aspect of it. But writer Chloe Simon argues that asking people like H.R. McMaster, Douglas Lute and even noted war hawk John Bolton to weigh in on the end of a conflict they helped create and perpetuate, is especially perplexing since they were involved in misleading the American public for years about the war.
From Media Matters:
In 2019, Washington Post journalist Craig Whitlock reported on “The Afghanistan Papers,” a trove of previously sealed and private documentation showing that “U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” The documents also prove that there was an inherent contradiction between what U.S. officials were saying to Congress and the public about Afghanistan and the reality of the situation on the ground.
Jack Keane, Barry McCaffrey, David Petraeus, H.R. McMaster, Douglas Lute, and Leon Panetta appeared on cable news a combined 51 times between August 16-26, according to Media Matters research. Each of those men were involved with failed Afghanistan War strategy and advised White House administrations to keep our troops engaged in the war, even while knowing the truth about our lack of success there.
Retired 4-star General Jack Keane has made at least 33 appearances on Fox since Aug. 16 to criticize the Afghanistan withdrawal.
In none of those spots was it disclosed that he's the chairman of the company that was supplying Humvees for the war.https://t.co/8Xihcn6mNL
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 1, 2021