War on Credibility –– an ‘Orwellian’ 2026

by Bill Doughty––

Are we being bombarded with mis- or disinformation: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength”?

As examples: Is the administration tearing down the Department of Education in order to keep citizens strong or ignorant? Was war with Iran really necessary during peaceful negotiations? Will freedom from information about actual slavery enslave us toward further ignorance and endless war? 

Speaking of slavery … 

After the Trump administration tore down factual information at the Philadelphia President’s House about America’s history of slavery, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe used an Orwell reference from “1984” in her order this month to reinstate the information:

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts," Rufe ruled. "It does not.”

Later in her ruling, Judge Rufe writes, “And yet, in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984…”

Her 40-page ruling begins with an Orwell quote about rewriting history and also contains a 1984 excerpt about book banning:

“The largest section of the [government’s] Records Department . . . consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times [a newspaper] which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophesies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions [for workers in the Records Department] ... never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed; always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.”

In the midst of current heavy-handed totalitarian tendencies Orwell’s ghost hovers over other aspects of the Trump administration and its war on truth, a war that further erodes the stature and credibility of the United States.

Moments after President Trump removed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security, Noem spoke at a conference and misquoted Orwell.

"It reminded me of the quote that is often attribute to George Orwell that states, 'People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf,’” Noem said. Orwell did not say or write that phrase.

While Orwell would certainly have agreed with the sentiment, he would have been appalled at the attack on a girls elementary school in Iran (that killed scores of children and more than a dozen teachers).

Trump and “Secretary of War” Hegseth dragged their heels and obfuscated information about the bombing of the Shajarah Tayyebeh girls school in Minab, Iran. Now a Pentagon investigation into the Feb. 28 strike concluded that the United States military was responsible for the attack due to faulty intelligence.

Further investigations should look into the connection between the bombing of the school and Hegseth’s earlier gutting of the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence by approximately 90 percent. The office, also known as the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) initiative, was established to limit risks to civilians during military operations by providing "no-strike" lists and verifying target coordinates.

Hegseth told senior military leaders several months ago he wanted “Maximum Lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.” Before his recent banning of press photographers who took unflattering photos of him, he restructured the Pentagon press pool to only include pro-Trump and pro-republican reporters willing to promote propaganda.

After the first U.S. casualties were announced and the media focused on honoring the service members killed, Hegseth chastised reporters: “I get it; the press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality.”

At a later press conference White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “It’s the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across the country should accurately report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime.”

Orwellian Hypocrisy

Orwell would be sickened by the propaganda, warmongering, hubris, and hypocrisy of Trump and his appointed followers.

When Vice President J.D. Vance first endorsed Trump, he wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars.” Vance said, “He has my support in 2024 because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.”

Trump himself promised he would not start wars. As part of his vow of "America First" he said he would prioritize rebuilding the U.S. at home instead of spending resources on nation-building in foreign nations. And he argued that U.S. interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere had failed, creating instability and leaving behind chaos.

But after threatening Canada and Greenland, Trump attacked Venezuela, then started a war with Iran, and now promises Cuba will be next on the hit list. All without congressional approval or making a clear case to the American public.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who frequently criticized America’s "military-industrial complex,” once warned that policies under Trump (such as those regarding Iran) were costly, dangerous, and risked starting new wars. At one time she reportedly sold T-shirts emblazoned with “No War with Iran.”

As of now, Gabbard is still supporting Trump’s policies. In fact, she is also knee-deep in “big-lie” election conspiracy theories and wading into voting interference. 

Over the years, Gabbard has defended Russian interests by blaming the U.S. and NATO for provoking the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, arguing the West ignored Russia's "legitimate security concerns.” She, along with other members of Trump’s administration, has echoed Kremlin talking points and propaganda.

Until Trump’s war on Iran, the world has witnessed the biggest war since Orwell’s time. For the past four years Putin’s totalitarian regime has continued to attack the democratic republic of Ukraine, targeting Ukrainian civilians and the nation’s energy infrastructure in its aggression.

Putin offered “unwavering support” to Iran’s new Ayatollah and said, “I am confident that you will continue your father's work with honour and consolidate the Iranian people in the face of harsh ordeals.”

Shockingly, Russia has reportedly assisted Iran in targeting U.S. Navy facilities and personnel along with other American military and intelligence assets.

President Zelensky, on the other hand, is offering the United States assistance in defending against Iranian drones –– the same type of drones Iran provides to Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Instead of punishing Russia for assisting Iran in targeting Americans, Trump is waiving sanctions against Russia to allow them to profit from oil sales.

Orwellian ‘Excursion’

President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and other administration officials have given nearly a dozen conflicting reasons for starting the conflict with Iran even though the United States was in the middle of peaceful negotiations and no evidence of an imminent threat.

White House officials also contradict themselves on what to call the “Operation Epic Fury” war. After a 7th U.S. service member died, Trump proclaimed during a House Republican retreat at his golf resort in Doral, Florida on March 9 that the war was “a little excursion.”

“We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil...,” Trump said. “And I think you’ll see it’s [going to] be a short-term excursion.” (We are reminded of Trump’s efforts to downplay threats and severity in the beginning weeks of the Covid pandemic.)

Calling the war “a little excursion” brings to mind a similar gaffe by former President Joe Biden on the eve of Russia’s war with Ukraine, on Jan. 19, 2022, warning of a possible “minor incursion.”

Orwell, who preached accuracy and clarity of language, would remind us that “incursion” means a hostile invasion or attack, while “excursion” is defined as a brief trip or outing taken for pleasure.

Is it propaganda when Trump claims of conducting an “excursion” (while causing massive destruction); ending wars (while starting one); curbing high prices (while causing prices to rise); or promising voting security (while creating instability and curbing voting rights)?

Like Biden before him, Trump proclaims the economy is great even as inflation increases and working class families pay the costs. At his March 11 rally in Kentucky Trump said “Prices are coming down very substantially” as prices rise.

During WWII, Orwell wrote about propaganda in his essay “Propaganda and Demotic Speech” published in Persuasion Summer Quarter 1944:

“At present propaganda only seems to succeed when it coincides with what people are inclined to do in any case. During the present war, for instance, the Government has done extraordinarily little to preserve morale: it has merely drawn on the existing reserves of good-will. And all political parties alike have failed to interest the public in vitally important questions … But some day we may have a genuinely democratic government, a government which will want to tell people what is happening, and what must be done next, and what sacrifices are necessary, and why.”

Yesterday, Trump again called the war an “excursion” and proclaimed the operation was “over.” During his rally in Kentucky on March 11, Trump told supporters, "We won.” He asserted that the war was "over in the first hour.” But at the same rally that the U.S. is "not finished yet” and must "finish the job.”

Orwell would recognize the doublethink and doublespeak –– what we now call gaslighting.

Orwellian Memes/Videos

Orwell’s ghost seems to whisper that in a true democracy the people must be kept informed with facts and truth.

But instead of clear and thoughtful communication about the reasons, ramifications, and duration of the war with Iran (and plans for other “incursions” or “excursions”) Trump and Hegseth are putting out boastful memes and videos of war and destruction using images from movies, games, and cartoons such as SpongeBob Squarepants. [Sadly they use ACDC’s “Thunderstruck” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and other unlicensed music and images.]

The videos are not endorsed by original content creators. In fact, actor and director Ben Stiller demanded the White House stop using images from his movie “Tropic Thunder” to promote Epic Fury.

Steve Downes, the actor who voices Master Chief in the game Halo, spoke out about using his work. “I demand that the producers of this disgusting and juvenile war porn remove my voice immediately,” Downes posted on social media.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company rebuked the White House for using imagery from a "Pokémon" game in a video montage.

After seeing his image in one of the propaganda war videos NFL Hall of Fame legend Ed Reed, one of football’s greatest safeties, said “I do not approve this message.”

The Catholic Church and other religious and nonreligious leaders and critics condemn the mixing of real combat deaths with entertainment media, which trivializes war and turns it into a "digital spectacle."

One of the White House’s videos is titled “Justice the American Way.”

In 2026 is this now the American way: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength”?

Rather than present information for frontal cortex critical thinking to promote trust, Trump and Hegseth instead spew images for the amygdala and id that reinforce ignorance and erase credibility. “Ignorance is Strength.”

I hear Orwell’s voice channeled today in the words and deeds of Daryl Davis. Davis is an American blues and R&B singer and activist who succeeds in promoting unity and healing divisions. He writes: “The cure for ignorance is education. You fix the ignorance, there’s nothing to fear. If there’s nothing to hate. If there’s nothing or no one to hate, there’s nothing to destroy.” As for ignorance, it starts with not ignoring –– but finding –– truth.”

On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast of Jan. 30, 2020, Davis told Rogan, “The most important thing that you have in any endeavor is your credibility.”

Orwell on ICE III: War, Truth, Iran

Review by Bill Doughty––

Sons from poor families go to war; sons from rich families go to the bank. Some working class kids lie about their age to enlist, while some wealthy kids lie about their health to get out of military service.

Although George Orwell writes passionately about the horrors of war, he does not shrink from its necessity at times, despite society’s inequities, especially in the face of direct threats and tyranny. So, when does an undeclared war need to be declared? What constitutes a direct imminent threat?

In his essay “My Country Right or Left” Orwell shows both clear thinking and true patriotism in confronting reality when war becomes a necessity.

“I grew up in an atmosphere tinged with militarism, and afterwards I spent five boring years within the sound of bugles. To this day it gives me a faint feeling of sacrilege not to stand to attention during ‘God save the King.’ That is childish, of course, but I would sooner have had that kind of upbringing than be like the left-wing intellectuals who are so ‘enlightened’ that they cannot understand the most ordinary emotions. It is exactly the people whose hearts have never leapt at the sight of a Union Jack who will finch from revolution when the moment comes.”

He wrote “My Country Right or Left” in the autumn of 1940, near the end of the Battle of Britain, an early victory against Hitler’s Nazis. The Royal Navy fiercely defended the English Channel. While the navy protected coastal shipping the Royal Air Force successfully repelled air attacks against Germany’s failed Operation Sea Lion invasion of the British Isles.

At that time there was a clear imminent need to wage war in order to defend against an attacking force.

Two years later, still in the midst of the Second World War, Orwell wrote a devastating account of war in “Looking Back on the Spanish War.” It begins with this fragment sentence, “First of all the physical memories, the sounds, the smells and the surfaces of things.”

Truth on War

Orwell's memories leave little to the imagination. “One of the essential experiences of war is never to be able to escape from disgusting smells of human origin.”

“The essential horror of army life (whoever has been a soldier will know what I mean by the essential horror of army life) is barely affected by the nature of the war you happen to be fighting in. Discipline, for instance, is ultimately the same in all armies. Orders have to be obeyed and enforced by punishment if necessary, the relationship of officer and man has to be the relationship of superior and inferior. The picture of war set forth in books like All Quiet on the Western Front is substantially true. Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers. It is true that the social background from which an army springs will colour its training, tactics and general efficiency, and also that the consciousness of being in the right can bolster up morale, though this affects the civilian population more than the troops. (People forget that a soldier anywhere near the front line is usually too hungry, or frightened, or cold, or, above all, too tired to bother about the political origins of the war.) But the laws of nature are not suspended for a ‘red' army any more than for a ‘white’ one. A louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, even though the cause you are fighting for happens to be just.”

Orwell concludes, “We have become too civilised to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases.”

“One has to remember this to see the Spanish War in its true perspective. When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of war — and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings — there is always the temptation to say: ‘One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral.’ In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins.

Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction. The hatred which the Spanish Republic excited in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, playboys, Blimps and what not would in itself be enough to show one how the land lay. In essence it was a class war. If it had been won, the cause of the common people everywhere would have been strengthened. It was lost, and the dividend-drawers all over the world rubbed their hands. That was the real issue; all else was froth on its surface.”

[“Blimps,” by the way, is a term Orwell employs to describe stereotyped puffed-up, overfed, self-important bureaucrats, and slick-haired military leaders who often profit from war and ignored war crimes.]

An F/A-18F Super Hornet launches from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in support of Operation Epic Fury, March 1, 2026. (U.S. Navy)

War on Truth

Orwell writes this about atrocities in war when rules of law, international treaties, or the laws of war are ignored:

“I have little direct evidence about the atrocities in the Spanish Civil War. I know that some were committed by the Republicans, and far more (they are still continuing) by the Fascists. But what impressed me then, and has impressed me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.”

In war, each side justifies its own miscalculations, civilian deaths, and outright war crimes. 

In Orwell’s “War-time Diary,” written from the end of May through the end of December of 1940, we see clearly the cliché, “the first casualty in war is the truth.” Reports of enemy casualties are inflated while Allies’ setbacks and mistakes are covered over.

On July 3, 1940 Orwell writes: “Everywhere a feeling of something near despair among thinking people because of the failure of the government to act and the continuance of dead minds and pro-Fascists in positions of command.”

Fast forward 86 years…

U.S. Sailors load an F/A-18E Super Hornet with ammunition aboard USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), for Operation Epic Fury, Feb. 28. (U.S. Navy)

War on Iran

On Feb. 28, 2026 the United States military, under orders from Commander in Chief Donald Trump, chose to start a war –– together with Netanyahu’s Israel –– against the Islamic Republic of Iran, assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei and other leaders.

People can celebrate the removal of an undemocratic theocracy while simultaneously be alarmed at the potential for escalating into another “forever war.” Americans can be exceptionally proud of the power and tactical skill of its military while also feel concern about a possible ill-conceived strategy of going to war without authorization or justification.

Unfortunately there have already been a number of U.S. service members killed or seriously wounded, and many Americans throughout the world have now become even bigger targets of Iran and its surrogates.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Iranians have been killed or wounded in the first few days of bombings. News outlets report the deaths of more than 150 Iranians, including children, after the destruction of Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school. In response, Iran is firing missiles at gulf states and Israel, hitting a synagogue and bomb shelter in Beit Shemesh, killing nine people.

Was this undeclared war of choice constitutional? Did Iran pose an imminent threat to the United States? Why did we start a war during peace negotiations shepherded by Oman?

According to Trump, he launched Operation Epic Fury to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, destroy its missile arsenal, and neutralize proxy terrorist forces. In a taped message from his resort at Mar-a-Lago, while wearing a white "USA" baseball cap, he also called for regime change.

Trump barely spoke about Iran in his recent State of the Union speech. In other words, prior to launching he war, he did not make his case to the American People, to Congress, or to the United Nations. 

In his State of the Union address filled with heart-wrenching stories of violent crimes and killings, Trump did not mention the violence by Department of Homeland Security agents, including the shooting deaths of Silverio Villegas González in Chicago or Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Nor did he speak of the women who as girls were victims of the nation’s scandal that has become bigger than Watergate: the Epstein pedophile debacle, which is in effect an ongoing war on the truth, transparency, and tragic victims of child-rape.

Most of Jeffrey Epstein's and Ghislaine Maxwell's victims reportedly came from poor and/or troubled families or from the working class.

Is war with Iran an attempt to distract from news coverage of Epstein/Maxwell or domestic failures and scandals (for both Trump and Netanyahu)? Is Operation Epic Fury a means to foment jingoism and influence mid-term voting in order to support the ruling class?

In 1984, Orwell wrote: “The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.”

Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in 1984 proclaimed “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.”

As we wage war in Iran, is it being presented as a way toward peace?