A CNN report describes the Pentagon under Secretary Pete Hegseth as a “black box” in that he uses his position to polarise media viewpoints. He uses the language of official secrecy and by restricting access to information. Since he came to office most press briefings have been replaced by one-way video releases and social media posts, with the Pentagon correspondent corps largely kept at arm’s length.
Questions referred to the White House often go unanswered. Pirate Pete Hegseth has been accused of using almost exclusively Trump-aligned outlets like Fox TV. He has stifled the opportunities of journalists to ask tough follow-up questions. This vacuum forces reporters to rely on leaks, commercial satellite imagery, and unofficial channels to piece together what is happening on the battlefield and why? It makes independent verification of information difficult and leaves the public dependent on information being minced, cooked and served by the government or its opponents.
I watched a recent media release by Pete, the pirate on TV, then listened to comments about it from European media analysts. The commentators saw the delivery by the pirate as a great propaganda speech that could have been written in Hollywood and delivered by a professional actor. It was full of sound and fury with the simplistic philosophy of virtue and evil. Sinking an Iranian military ship in international waters was OK for the pirate. Bombing a school full of girls wasn’t mentioned. If this had been ancient Rome, someone close to the Roman emperor would have suggested immediately building another Triumphal Arch. This is a “war journalism” frame, portraying conflict in the simple “us versus them” terms.
To justify the bombing, Trump said he had a “good feeling” that Iran was planning to attack the U.S. Neither the U.S. nor Israel provided any evidence to support their viewpoint that Iran was planning to attack them. So as usual, the first casualty when war arrived was truth. Nothing new there. The pirates and the pirate Captain have been screwing up truth for a long time.
But STOP !!!!! There is no Iran War.
I too am guilty of not telling the truth. The pirate Captain fired his weapons without consulting the UN, Congress or the Senate. Neither the pirate or the pirate Captain worry about truth and I am thinking …. their language … reminds me so much of the language of Vladimir Putin. This is not a War … it is “Operation Epic Fury.” Putin had a ”Special Military Operation”.
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