{"id":55210,"date":"2025-09-23T04:45:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T12:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=55210"},"modified":"2025-09-23T04:45:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T12:45:37","slug":"if-the-pentagons-done-nothing-wrong-it-has-nothing-to-hide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/23\/if-the-pentagons-done-nothing-wrong-it-has-nothing-to-hide\/","title":{"rendered":"If the Pentagon’s Done Nothing Wrong, It Has Nothing To Hide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing we\u2019ve learned (or re-learned, again and again) from the Pentagon it\u2019s that all governments lie and that the first casualty of war is truth. From the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War to the Afghan War Papers and the lies about WMD in Iraq, the American people have been deliberately and maliciously lied to about America\u2019s wars and their true causes and purposes. And you can go back further to the infamous \u201cRemember the Maine!\u201d cry that touched off the Spanish-American War of 1898. When it comes to war, America\u2019s leaders have always been economical with the truth.<\/p>\n

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At the Pentagon, Pomade Pete Strikes Again!<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But wait, today\u2019s Pentagon is about to outdo that! As usual with nefarious government decisions, it was announced on Friday <\/a>when people are most distracted. A short summary from NBC News:<\/p>\n

Journalists who cover the Defense Department at the Pentagon can no longer gather or report information, even if it is unclassified, unless it\u2019s been authorized for release by the government, defense officials announced Friday. Reporters who don\u2019t sign a statement agreeing to the new rules will have their press credentials revoked, officials said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Multiple press associations quickly condemned the new rules and said they will fundamentally change journalists’ ability to cover the Pentagon and the U.S. military. They called for the Trump administration to rescind the new requirements, arguing they inhibit transparency to the American people.<\/em><\/p>\n

The National Press Club denounced the requirement as \u201ca direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Remember that old saw that, \u201cIf you\u2019ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide\u201d from your friendly government surveillance program? Looks like the Pentagon has decided it\u2019s got plenty to hide, meaning it\u2019s done and is planning to do a lot of wrong, and thus only government-approved information will be allowed to be released.<\/p>\n

Any journalist worth her or his salt will never agree to this. Journalists who do agree, who sign the Pentagon statement, should just become paid spokespeople for the U.S. military (as indeed many of them already essentially are).<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve created a monstrous military, America, one that believes it should be completely unaccountable to us even as we feed it over a trillion dollars a year.<\/p>\n

America, there\u2019s only one way to rein in the military: cut the Pentagon budget in half. Show them who\u2019s boss. Of course, Congress controls the purse strings, and Congress, as Ike noted, is intimately intertwined with the military-industrial complex, so it\u2019s not going to be easy to do it.<\/p>\n

But no one ever said it\u2019ll be easy: it\u2019s just necessary for the survival of our country as a quasi-democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. If there\u2019s one thing we\u2019ve learned (or re-learned, again and again) from the Pentagon it\u2019s that all governments lie and that the first casualty of war is truth. From the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War to the Afghan War Papers and the lies about WMD in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-55210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"0","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Reining In a Monstrous Military"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55210"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55214,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55210\/revisions\/55214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55210"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=55210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}