{"id":58448,"date":"2026-03-30T12:21:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=58448"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:33:35","slug":"the-worst-the-war-the-more-the-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/30\/the-worst-the-war-the-more-the-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worse the War, the More the Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The worse a war goes, the more those who wage it feel compelled to lie about it.<\/p>\n

That pattern is visible today in America\u2019s escalating conflict with Iran. This isn\u2019t a war formally declared, clearly explained, or honestly debated. It\u2019s a murky, shifting confrontation \u2013 unnecessary, immoral, and strategically incoherent. And as its logic weakens, the rhetoric surrounding it grows louder, simpler, and less tethered to reality.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump once described himself as \u201ca very stable genius.\u201d He doth promote too much. Trump\u2019s defining qualities are by now well established: he\u2019s a narcissist, a bully, an empty vessel that makes plenty of noise, and a habitual liar. To borrow an expression from baseball Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, Trump lies just to stay in shape. Walter Kirn nailed it when he wrote, \u201cLiars are exhausting people<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is an exhausting person. I take no pleasure in writing about him\u2014few subjects have been more overexposed, and attention only feeds his narcissism. Yet he remains president and commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, which makes ignoring him impossible, especially in matters of war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When wars go badly, truth is the first casualty. We\u2019re given partial accounts, shifting rationales, and curated narratives. Information about attacks on U.S. positions, the full extent of casualties, even the strategic objectives of the conflict is fragmentary at best. What emerges isn\u2019t clarity but confusion \u2013 a deliberate informational fog that obscures more than it reveals.<\/p>\n

Out of that informational fog machine step Trump and his allies, who function less as truth-tellers than as amplifiers of noise and nonsense. An old Air Force saying comes to mind: they\u2019re all Mach and no compass heading. They project speed, force, and confidence, but with no sense of direction or consistency. They\u2019re wildly off-course, but hitting the afterburners regardless.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s relationship to truth has always been tenuous, but in wartime it becomes downright dangerous. His record of false or misleading claims makes his pronouncements on this conflict deeply unreliable. Even his own self-description is suspect: there\u2019s little evidence of stability, and less of genius. What Trump does well is sell \u2013 whether branded steaks, vodka, sneakers, Bibles, or, currently, war with Iran. He doesn\u2019t let facts interfere with the pitch, particularly when profit and ego are at stake.<\/p>\n

Rather than a formula for military success, it\u2019s one for disaster, both on the battlefield and at home. Wars justified by dishonest claims and sustained by misleading narratives neither end quickly nor well. They drift, expand, and corrode the institutions that wage them, including the democratic principles they\u2019re often said to defend.<\/p>\n

Trump and his allies present themselves as strongmen, but they\u2019re better understood as would-be warlords lacking an allegiance to truth. Wars built on deception are dangerous enough. Wars waged by leaders who appear to believe their own distortions are more dangerous still. Such conflicts aren\u2019t consistent with clarity, coherence, or honor \u2013 only with deeper confusion and mounting cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. The worse a war goes, the more those who wage it feel compelled to lie about it. That pattern is visible today in America\u2019s escalating conflict with Iran. This isn\u2019t a war formally declared, clearly explained, or honestly debated. It\u2019s a murky, shifting confrontation \u2013 unnecessary, immoral, […]<\/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-58448","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":"The Danger of Dishonest Wannabe Warlords"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58448","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=58448"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58472,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58448\/revisions\/58472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58448"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}