(Orig to FB)
This war is opaque to a degree I would never have thought possible. I’m amazed by that, but even more amazed by how few people seem to recognize that fact as such. The clearest expression of it I’ve seen is scattered people half-joking that Iran has become a more reliable source that the US government.
This opacity is understandable in Iran, a country run by religious fanatics. It’s harder to understand in Israel, which — even under attack — seems like it should be a more open society. It both is and isn’t surprising that various Gulf States have gone so quiet. But it’s much harder to understand in the US, because Trump & Co have only had a year to bludgeon our institutions into submission.
Basically, we have no idea what’s going on. Even very basic info about events, casualties, the scale and location of accumulating destruction, the conditions of our own and others’ armed forces, and the war’s impact on cities and peoples have all been relegated to the rumor mills of social media.
It’s as if “the media” we took for granted for most of the last century has ceased to exist. And if the nearly universal failure to note that disappearance is any indication, it has ceased to exist where it matters most — in the public’s mind.