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The US government doesn’t simply want Americans to support the war it launched with Israel on Iran; it wants to pump people up.
The bending of reality with propaganda videos to defend the Trump administration’s most controversial moves should feel familiar by now.
Echoing the sensibility by which the Department of Homeland Security turned mass deportation into Hollywood-style action vignettes, the Pentagon, the White House and US Central Command are meme-ifying war.
But the way these videos conflict with reports on the ground should feel familiar, too. Mass deportation has split families and ensnared talented Mariachi-playing teenagers, among other nonviolent immigrants, in addition to the criminals the administration promised.
In the US, people killed by federal agents did not turn out to be engaged in domestic terrorism as the administration initially claimed.
In war, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the administration to deny that an American Tomahawk missile struck a girls’ school, as a CNN analysis suggests. The US military says an investigation into that strike continues, but CNN reported Wednesday the strike may have been ordered based on outdated intelligence about a nearby Naval base.
Verifying which videos are accurate is increasingly difficult at a time when social media is also being clogged by fake, AI-generated content. In fact, Iran has been promoting some obviously fake videos purporting to show captured American soldiers and bombs hitting Tel Aviv, neither of which is true.
What the Trump administration wants you to see
In the White House version of the war on Iran, the weapons systems — B2 bombers, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), F-18 fighters and all manner of things that go boom — are given starring roles alongside members of the Trump administration.
One video featuring audio from President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the feel of a movie trailer and is set to an updated version of the John Lee Hooker song “Boom Boom.”
In these videos, all missiles hit their marks, and there are no images of casualties, either American or Iranian. Trump suggests in the video that Iranian dissidents should seize this opportunity for a new revolution. In public, he has said it does not matter to him if democracy takes hold in the country.
The war will end, Hegseth has repeated, when the US decides to end it. That idea is at odds with the fact that Iran has selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to succeed his father as supreme leader. Trump has said the elevation of the younger Khamenei is not acceptable but declined to say whether Iran’s new leader now has a target on his back.
Speaking to House Republicans in Miami on Monday, Trump seemed to be joking when he said the military has more “fun” sinking Iranian ships than capturing them. “They like sinking them better. They say it’s safer to sink them. I guess it’s probably true,” Trump said. This conflict has seen the first torpedo sinking of a ship by the US Navy since World War II. The military released a video.
A war with a logo and no mercy
In another video posted by US Central Command, explosions are slowed down in a stylized way and the post ends with an “Operation Epic Fury” logo. Yes, this war appears to have a logo.
Add that one to the long list of Iran war-focused videos that have already been scrutinized for glorifying the conflict by interspersing video of missile strikes with video games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft auto, where, unlike in the real world, lives are unlimited.
In response to a segment CNN’s Jake Tapper aired about the Grand Theft Auto video, White House communications director Steven Cheung thanked the network “for covering all of our banger videos.”
“L1, R1, SQUARE, R1, LEFT, R2, R1, LEFT, SQUARE, DOWN, L1, L1” Cheung said in another post.
Not meant to be a fair fight
“We are punching them while they’re down,” says Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth as video shows an explosion in some kind of hangar. “Which is exactly how it should be.”
“This is NOT a fair fight,” read the caption in another post on the “deptofwar” Instagram account. “Our capabilities are overwhelming—and we will not stop until Iran surrenders unconditionally.”
That does not mean the US doesn’t want to view the war in terms of games with rules. There is also a mashup of military hits, some of which presumably killed people, with images of hard tackles in the game of football.
The cracks of Major League Baseball bats are timed to explosions.
Interspersed with videos that get the blood pumping are those that tear at the heart strings. Trump didn’t just attend the dignified transfer of the remains of six American servicemembers killed in the early days of the war, he took along a camera crew. Video from the service, along with a version of “Amazing Grace,” was posted by the White House with the tagline “Freedom is never free.”
Video that won’t appear on the White House feed
If the Trump administration wants to showcase American military might, the president does not want to acknowledge the possible US role in Iranian casualties. The death toll from the school bombing is at 168 children and 14 teachers, according to Iranian state media.
Analysis by CNN and other news organizations suggests the school, which is near a military base, was struck by a Tomahawk missile. While other countries do have Tomahawk missiles, those countries are not currently involved in this conflict.
Trump tried to deflect during a press conference Monday when he said the missile might have originated from Iran.
“The fact that it’s Tomahawk — a Tomahawk is very generic. It’s sold to other countries,” Trump said, deflecting blame for now. He said he would ultimately “live with” the outcome of the ongoing military investigation. Earlier, he had said he thought the strike was “done by Iran.”
For what it’s like on the ground in Iran, CNN is the rare organization reporting from inside the country. Reporter Fred Pleitgen is there with photojournalist Claudia Otto. CNN operates in Iran with the permission of the Iranian government, as required under local regulations, but maintains full editorial control over what it reports. On Tuesday, they witnessed waves of heavy airstrikes.
Americans are skeptical of this war
Propaganda is nothing new in war, as anyone familiar with Rosie the Riveter or Ronald Reagan’s World War II movies with the US military will know.
And whatever the Trump administration is doing to sell the war, there’s evidence it so far is not working with the US public. Polls suggest most of the country disapproves of the war, although there is support among a majority of Republicans.
There is also some evidence Trump doesn’t always know about the propaganda undertaken on his behalf. His outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said under oath on Capitol Hill that Trump had approved a controversial $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured Noem. The campaign also resulted in a lucrative subcontract for the husband of a now-former DHS spokesperson, according to a report by ProPublica.
But Trump said he has no memory of what the Noem-focused ad campaign.
“I never knew anything about it,” he told Reuters on Thursday, not long before Noem’s ouster was announced.
There has been some indication Trump is nervous about the Iran war’s effect on gas prices, and he has said the war will be over soon — before contradicting himself and saying the US had more to do.…Read more by Zachary B. Wolf