Petey Boy is doing him a weird again. He’s decided on a different way to handle war messaging. It’s bizarre. It makes me wonder if he was sober when he came up with these “updates”. What was he *thinking*? Real life is a lot different than something you see online. It seems Petey Boy disagrees. As if calling in all the military leaders in the military to Quantico for a lecture that could have been done over a secure video assembly wasn’t strange enough (and a waste of time and money, to boot). Now he’s doing strange things for updates on the war. With appreciation to Raw Story:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s approach to war messaging has devolved into pure spectacle — TikTok-style video montages splicing missile strikes into movie clips and video game footage — leaving military veterans and Congress members stunned by the brazenness of treating armed conflict like entertainment content. According to Politico, the White House communications team has churned out more than half a dozen of these viral videos, apparently plucked straight from staffers’ private group chats. But outside the administration bubble, the reaction has ranged from bewilderment to outright revulsion.
Holy cow, is that ever unprofessional! Movies and videos give a completely different view of what the world is like. It’s imaginary! War news should not be done in this bizarre messaging. Folks are going to think there are real people in there (which, of course, they are, thanks to the mighty splicing film and video industry) except it’s *dangerous* in multiple ways. It gives a distorted view of what actual war is about. It could encourage younger people to think they can do something they are in no way qualified for. Video games have some amazing stunts in them, but in a video game, if you die, you can start over and keep playing. Out here, death is permanent. No one can come back from that. That alone is a big concern, especially with people talking to AI, and we know how bad THAT is.
Former military brass are particularly appalled. “I don’t think the performance of our men and women in uniform requires embellishment from Hollywood or computer games,” said Joe Votel, a former Central Command chief under Trump’s first administration. “They represent the American people quite well on their own.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who commanded U.S. troops in Europe during Obama’s presidency, was even blunter. “It just seems detached from reality. Our allies look at this, and they wonder what the hell is going on? It doesn’t look like we’re serious.” The videos range from an NFL clip captioned “Touchdown” to baseball home runs, Grand Theft Auto footage, and scenes from “Iron Man,” “Top Gun,” and “Gladiator.”
By the way, does anyone know if they got permission to use all that material? Remember how different artists stomped on Dunce Donnie for using their music without permission and made them stop when he was doing all those gatherings when running for president? This is the same sort of thing. These are copyrighted. You can’t just use things without permission, and a lot of that is easily recognizable.
Hegseth has escalated beyond embarrassing aesthetics into genuinely alarming territory. He’s declared the U.S. will give “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” — language that signals troops should execute combatants rather than take prisoners, a potential war crime. He’s called rules of engagement “stupid” and branded Iranian leaders as “rats” who are “cowering” underground.
Military historian Tom Ricks slammed the entire approach. “The Trump administration’s approach to discussing the war against Iran is both unusual and unprecedented,” he said. “With Hegseth at the helm, they are mixing incompetence and hubris. They don’t seem to care what the American public thinks, which is a dangerous approach.” The messaging offensive isn’t working.
No, it isn’t. It’s highly likely that it’s turning people off (I keep thinking propaganda) and a big number of people are already angry about the war. This certainly isn’t going to help. It’s more likely to make us angrier. This war, that we didn’t need to be in, is draining our military equipment and our people faster than they can be replaced. That’s a problem, too. All of it is difficult on top of the way our country and our economy have gone straight to hell.
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“By the way, does anyone know if they got permission to use all that material? Remember how different artists stomped on Dunce Donnie for using their music without permission and made them stop when he was doing all those gatherings when running for president? This is the same sort of thing. These are copyrighted. You can’t just use things without permission, and a lot of that is easily recognizable.”
Well, unlike music which generally requires approval by the songwriter and/or the artist (even taking into account the music publishers who are usually the contact point for licensing music), most of these other things are largely the product of actual entertainment corporations, more than a few of which have already let Drumpf and his con men do whatever they want, copyright be damned.
For instance, the use of NFL material is controlled BY the NFL (as most folks get reminded at the end of every NFL broadcast–the disclaimer about “unauthorized rebroadcast, etc, etc”). Anyone think the NFL is going to complain about Kegsbreath’s “unauthorized” use? MLB, likewise, holds the rights to all their baseball material and it’s highly unlike that MLB will raise any more of a fuss about these despicable clips.
As for the movies, well, barring an actor’s contract, those too are owned by the studio that produced and/or financed the film. “Iron Man” is from Marvel Studios which is owned by Disney. “Gladiator” was originally released through DreamWorks which is now part of Amblin Entertainment though home video rights are currently through Paramount Skydance (and the latter conglomeration is looking to acquire Warner Bros Discovery so they’re not going to ruffle Drumpf’s feathers to put a stop to the acquisition). And, “Top Gun?” Well that film may as well be co-owned by the Navy since the producers wanted to be able to use REAL fighter jets for the film’s action sequences; of course, they didn’t get permission to let Cruise and Val Kilmer and the other actors fly the jets but every scene where one of the actors got into one of the jets, they were stepping into real American fighter jets (from what I recall, the Navy also got script approval to ensure the Navy didn’t look bad).
But, because of the way actors are usually shut out of the process (unless they’re actually involved in the production or they’ve opted for “points” rather than a salary–in the latter case, the actor typically gets final say on their image and how a film is licensed for other purposes), you won’t really see, Robert Downey for instance, being able to file a cease-and-desist order (especially if the footage shows Iron Man rather than Tony Stark–Downey can claim HIS image, even in the character of Tony Stark, is being or may be damaged from Kegsbreath’s film but he has NO claim on the image of the Iron Man suit, as that is wholly the property of Marvel/Disney).
By definition homicide is causing death. However causing death is not only the result of a crime, at least under law. Considering that, I agree with the philosophy that war is Homicide ‘Writ Large.’ And yes, sometimes in a war deaths are caused in a matter that’s considered criminal under both U.S. and International Law.
It’s not new. Unlawful killing, like torture (also a war crime) have been part of war since forever. Countries that at least try to act appropriately condemn such practices and officially at least don’t tolerate it. What many don’t know is that in the Pacific during WWII much of the combat/battles that took place was ‘without quarter.’ It was one of those unspoken things that since it was clear the Japanese would fight that way using Bushido concepts we had little choice but to follow suit. Our forces would meet theirs and the fighting would continue until most of the Japanese were killed. Yes, some were captured because it’s always useful to have people to interrogate. Some were also allowed to surrender although not many. The ugly truth is that having just enough survivors to tell the tale back home could be a good thing.
My point is that it happened. Our commanders didn’t talk about it and journalists who covered the battles either looked the other way or didn’t report on what they saw and knew.
When it comes to torture I’m of the view it’s not just immoral but worse than useless. While some useful information can be gained from it most of the time those on the receiving end will say ANYTHING they think their torturers want to hear to stop it. That often includes incorrect information and sometimes deliberately false and misleading information. Over time it’s been proven again and again you get better information by NOT using torture, but instead a skilled interrogator who can get inside someone’s head.
But there are still the phony tough who insist on torture being reliable, despite a fuckton of evidence to the contrary. Worse, they WANT to proclaim they/the U.S. are ‘badasses’ who will use torture, I guess using the reasoning that since others (countries they condemn) do it then so should we. Yes, there’s a differrence between this and WWII in the Pacific. We often skipped islands as we moved towards Japan because we didn’t need them. Why fight and have all that death when you can just bypass a bunch of soldiers who’s only goal is to kill as many Americans as they can before dying for their Emperor? My point is that we almost always used restraint when we could. Peleliu was a tragic example of when we didn’t but that’s a long, gruesome story.
The thing is, during Iraq Baby Bush and his people were SO eager to prove what tough guys they were. And that by god the U.S. wasn’t just willing but eager to show the world how inhumane (and stupid) we could be. I always liked to say (having briefly talked with a former P.O.W.) what John McCain likely tried to tell them was what got so many captives through was the rock solid knowledge that even if they wound up dead from the torture their captors couldn’t win. They could literally tell them “You can torture me and even kill me but you will never win because MY country doesn’t allow this.” Our troops taken captive don’t have that protection anymore.
People should really take a while to think about that. Like virginity, once lost it’s gone forever.
So while there’s no doubt torture has been done by the U.S. (I devised a psychological method at Camp Pendleton that had a couple of troop handlers/instructors both awed and rather frightened. It would be effective as hell and not do a bit of physical damage and the terror would for most go away. But it was still immoral and it wasn’t long before I was ashamed of myself for thinking along those lines.
My point is we are forever a country that has officially sanctioned torture and Americans, especially troops will forever be subject to paying the price. Now, if Hegseth has his way we will forever be known as a country that sanctions war crimes. And if it comes to that and other countries return ‘in-kind’ people like Petey Boy will be all horrified that it’s being done to US, and other countries publicly pointing out it’s U.S. policy to do it so they have a right to do it too and International Law be damned will have no answer for what they’ve unleashed.