Why the Hell Is the Trump Administration Trying to Change the Official Number of Iran War Casualties?

2 min readThe callous disregard for human life—particularly human life in uniform—that runs throughout this administration never ceases to find new ways to express itself and disgust the rest of us. From The New York Times:On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran. By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war. Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list—three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq—because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.Who are the bloodless bureaucrats who think up this kind of strategy? Who calculates the degree of spin necessary to eliminate four dead soldiers from the body count because they died during one of the president’s PR ceasefires in his bizarre war of choice? Are they happy in their work? Do their colleagues think them clever? Do they advance their careers? Get promotions? Increase their government salaries? Is this a “job well done”?A strange new world, which has such paper pushers in it.The Pentagon withheld information about three Iranian strikes last week in Jordan that injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. After an Iranian strike in Jordan on Friday killed three soldiers, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, acknowledged that the number of U.S. military casualties since July 7 had risen to nearly 100. Defense Department officials say they are bound by law to report troop deaths, but not injuries. All wars are monstrous. Wars started by monsters are unspeakably so.