“A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription,” wrote Federal District Judge Paul L. Friedman.
Judge Friedman was explaining his decision to overturn an egregious administration policy that effectively barred independent reporters from working inside the Pentagon. But his words have a far larger meaning when America is engaged in a highly unpopular war that has already killed 13 U.S. soldiers, wounded 200 more and blasted the budgets of working families through skyrocketing fuel prices.
In the latest Reuters poll, only 37% approve of the war and 59% disapprove, including 1 in 5 Republicans. Disillusioned defectors from MAGA Nation accuse Trump of breaking his campaign promise to avoid new conflicts. A senior intelligence official, Joe Kent, resigned in protest, saying “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
The administration has reacted furiously by intensifying attacks on its critics. The restrictive Pentagon rules are part of a wide-ranging effort by Trump and his staff to undermine press scrutiny in the name of national security.
President Trump has denounced news organizations as “Highly Unpatriotic” for questioning his conduct of the war, and even suggested that they “should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!”
Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has warned broadcast TV networks that “hoaxes and news distortions” could lead to the revocation of licenses for local stations – an empty threat, but one that Trump said he was “so thrilled to see.”
They have it exactly wrong. In times of war, national security requires more scrutiny of official actions, not less. Demanding accountability is an act of profound patriotism, an affirmation of the nation’s highest values.
“Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech,” wrote Friedman. “That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”
The press’ role in examining the administration’s war effort is even more vital because Trump has such a tenuous connection to reality. Under the headline, “Trump is hiding the truth about the war in Iran,” The New York Times editorial board writes: “From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war.”
Those falsehoods started last summer, when Trump boasted that American attacks had “obliterated” Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons. That was clearly untrue – a fact Trump tacitly admits now, since he’s ordered new raids against Iran’s bomb-making operations.
Trump lied again 12 days into the war when he proclaimed, “We’ve won. Let me tell you, we’ve won.”
He has falsely accused the U.S. media of advancing fake videos that depict American defeats when, in fact, the media has actively debunked many of those fakes. And he blamed Iran for a missile strike that killed more than 100 schoolchildren in the city of Minab when his own intelligence team now admits that Americans were at fault.
Another way the White House is “hiding the realities of conflict” is through a blizzard of memes on social media that use cultural figures like SpongeBob SquarePants and video games like “Call of Duty” to glorify the destruction caused by American munitions.
There is no mention of cost – in bodies exploding on the ground or gas prices exploding at the pump. Just a mindless magnification of carnage and calamity, amplified by ear-pounding soundtracks.
It takes truth-tellers like Judge Friedman to insist that our national ideals are far more potent than our missiles, and always have been.
• Steven V. Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be reached at stevecokie@gmail.com.