As someone born in 1944, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, who lived through 12 other presidencies before Donald Trump took -- and that word has a different meaning with him -- office in 2016, the truth is that I've simply never experienced anything quite like this (and I know that I'm in good company). Yes, I've certainly lived through other wars, from the Korean War of my childhood to the nightmarish war in Vietnam of my collegiate years (though it began well before and went on long after that) to the invasion of Afghanistan (that led me to launch TomDispatch) to George W. Bush's nightmarish war in Iraq that was a critical part of my reportorial (or at least TomDispatchian) life. And now, in my old age, yet another war! (Why is it that my country, with or without Donald Trump, just can't seem to stop going to war?)
Iran is, of course, being trumped (or rather Trumped!). The "president of peace" was only the president of peace until he wasn't. Ask Nicola's Maduro and his wife if you doubt that for a second. And give Donald Trump credit for his unpredictability. One moment he is indeed the president of peace and the next moment -- no question about it -- he's making war like a maniac or blowing staggering numbers of boats (almost 50 as I was writing this) out of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
You might wonder, under the circumstances, if it's even possible to cover his presidency as a reporter the way any journalist might once have covered a presidency. The very name for his latest assault (on Iran), Operation Epic Fury, is distinctly all Trump all the time. As he told a crowd at a rally in Kentucky recently, "They gave me a list of names to choose. 'Sir, you could pick the name you'd like, sir.' I said, 'The name of what?' 'The name of the attack on Iran, sir.' And they gave me, like, 20 names, and I'm, like, falling asleep. I didn't like any of them. Then I see 'Epic Fury.' I said, 'I like that name! I like that name!'"
In short, the president of peace has distinctly made peace with war and, when it comes to Latin America, his version of war may just be beginning. (Watch out, Cuba!) With all of that and, sadly, more in mind, let TomDispatch regular Nan Levinson take you into a world in which reporters do indeed have to cover (whatever that may mean these days) Donald Trump making war on this world of ours. Tom
Trump's Game for War
How the News Media Is Covering His War
By Nan Levinson
A couple of wars ago, when I gave readings from my book War Is Not a Game, I sometimes tried to liven things up by asking the audience to guess which of the names I mentioned were for video games and which were for actual U.S. military campaigns. It didn't work when there were veterans in the audience -- they were too familiar with both -- but it did vividly point up the kinship of war and entertainment in our world.
Now, welcome to Operation Epic Fury, the perfect name for an adolescent-id-on-steroids-style war. That name was, of course, chosen by Donald ("How do you like the performance?") Trump for his campaign against Iran, while his White House social-media team created actual mash-ups of games and reality to match. For example, on X.com, Undefeated alternates cartoon characters scoring points in an array of sports with images of bombs hitting their targets, and Instagram features a loop of baseball batters getting strikes interwoven with, yep, bomb strikes. So, I guess I was wrong. These days, war is a game, even if the only way to win it is to keep moving the goalposts.
The U.S. military has frequently promoted the game-like aspects of war. The title of my book, in fact, came from an action that a group of veterans affiliated with what was then Iraq Veterans Against the War (now About Face) staged in front of an Army recruiting booth at a jobs fair, where job-seekers were being enticed to play a war-simulation game. More recently, the Army's "What's Your Warrior?" recruitment campaign, while deemphasizing direct combat, includes videos that feature luminescent soldiers who resemble superheroes and characters in video games.
However, this does seem like the first time that a White House has joined quite so enthusiastically in the fun. Past presidents may have been cheerleaders for their wars, but they still retained a certain gravitas and respect for the grimness of combat. That was then -- like, the last 250 years -- while now, it's game time for Donald Trump and his administration, who take contemptuous pride in smashing political norms, the more crass, careless, and callous, the merrier.
But suppose war doesn't put you in a playful mood? Suppose your role in wartime is to inform the American public about what's going on? Suppose you're an American journalist? How the hell do you do your job?
Anointed by Jesus to Make War on Iran
You report the facts, of course: when the war began, how many countries are involved, how many people have been killed (especially American troops), how much oil is or isn't passing through the strategically essential Strait of Hormuz, and why the International Energy Agency deemed blocking it "the biggest crude supply disruption in oil market history." But you can check and recheck every fact and still get the story wrong, since this story -- thank you, Donald Trump and crew -- keeps lurching all over the place,
For starters, there have been the regularly shifting rationales for launching and continuing the war (which the president has deemed just "a little excursion") and the even more elusive goals that could signify when whatever it's called will end. In early March, The Atlantic did a running tally of the reasons Trump has offered for going to war. The primary ones were preventing "imminent threats" to the U.S. and its allies, denying Iran nuclear weapons, ending its support for terrorism in the region, liberating Iranians from a repressive government, giving up on failed negotiations, and (as he proclaimed in his usual CAPS on Truth Social), PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD! -- which, of course, is best achieved by bombing a country to smithereens and slaughtering the people you're liberating.
Secretary of War (forget about Defense!) Pete Hegseth, when he's not worrying about unflattering photos of himself, seems to go in more for vengeance and dominance, but echoed his boss with the Orwellian declaration, "[W]ar, in this context and in pursuit of peace, is necessary." I think, however, that my -- if I can even use the word -- favorite, reason for the war, seems to have come from a combat-unit commander who announced in a briefing that Donald Trump was "anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth." That exhortation is unverified, but as of early March, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation reported receiving more than 200 complaints from all branches of the military about similar comments, and a little while later, Hegseth, in his official capacity, told Americans to pray for victory over Iran "in the name of Jesus Christ."
As for when the hostilities would end, Trump has vacillated between asserting that the conflict will be brief and that it could go on for months, that Iran is about to surrender or negotiate and that he will accept nothing short of "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" In a phone call to the Brian Kilmeade Show, he insisted that he'll know it's over "[w]hen I feel it, OK, feel it in my bones."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
