Much has been written about the military industrial complex: its obscene cost overruns; the corrupt relations between the uniformed military, the contractors, and Congress; the wild threat inflation. Too little studied has been the role of ostensibly non-partisan think tanks as the semi-official propaganda arm of the complex, and as the transmission belt of propaganda themes between the government and the prestige press. While the activity of the American Enterprise Institute as a propaganda organ is widely known because of its tub-thumping for the Iraq war and its championing of Iranian spy Achmed Chalibi, the same charge applies, to a greater or lesser degree, to most of the “prestige” think tanks: Brookings, Carnegie, CSIS, the Hudson Institute, etc. They are an integral part of the government’s two-track propaganda machine for selling war. For the downscale end of the market, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Michael Savage will do nicely. Their braying voices and crude arguments…