Veterans are infuriated by the White House turning the war with Iran into a meme.
President Donald Trump’s top social media channels have released several clips online, melding the horrors of war with well-known pop-culture references, trivialising video game clips, and using backing tracks to motivate.
Now those who have served in the U.S.’s wars of the past have said that the administration’s use of things like Wii Sports and Call of Duty to sell its war—which has already killed thousands—flies in the face of their own sacrifices and the generations who came after them.
“They’re completely diminishing what they’re asking the nation to do in Iran,” retired U.S. Army colonel Joe Buccino told The Washington Post. “It seems almost obscene relative to the actual violence and suffering that’s involved with this.”
At the time of writing, 13 U.S. service members have been killed in what is now more than three weeks of fighting in Iran, despite the administration struggling to find a clear, agreed-upon justification for launching what it calls Operation Epic Fury.
Meanwhile, the fight itself is spiralling, as more countries are affected and the global economy teeters on the brink amid Iranian strangulation of a key oil conduit, the Strait of Hormuz.
John Vick, the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, told the Post that “gamifying or making light of war also undermines the sacrifice of the Americans who have died, and obfuscates the cost of open-ended conflict.”
He added that “Most Americans, and especially American veterans, are ready to hear how and when we achieve victory and bring this war to a close.”
“That is what the Pentagon needs to communicate, and soon.”
It comes just days after John Kamin, who served in Iraq, told the Daily Beast of his dismay at seeing similar patterns emerging with Iran that he’d seen when he went to war.
“One of the daydreams I had in Iraq as a 21-year-old, and it was so grotesque I could only hold it for a brief moment, was imagining a future where the next generation would be fighting the same battles that we did,” he said. “As we aged out and got fat, our children would take our place. It was a thought I could not hold... just too hard to imagine that our blood and sacrifice would not make America wise enough to spare those that followed. This hurts us all.”
Iraq veteran and host of Barstool Sports’ military podcast Bold American, Connor Crehan told the Post, “Serving in Iraq, seeing my friends pay the ultimate sacrifice… knowing the toll it took on our country, I don’t love the idea we’re turning around and making hype videos.
“I can’t imagine how it feels like for those family members of people who signed up to serve the country and did so proudly… to then see the White House making videos like, ‘Look at all these cool explosions.’”
The war in Iraq claimed the lives of 4,492 American service members and hundreds more U.S. allies.
Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Naveed Shah, who is also political director for Common Defense, told the Beast on Saturday of his general frustration at the fighting.
“I deployed to Iraq 2009,″ he said. “I watched this country sell us a war on lies, and I watched my fellow soldiers pay the price for it.”
The clips have also received the ire of artists, such as singer Ke$ha and Halo voice actor Steve Downes, whose work has been commandeered by the administration to put them together.
The White House remains unfazed by the blowback, however. In a statement on X, White House Communication Director Steven Cheung said, “All these ‘singers’ keep falling for this. This just gives us more attention and more view counts to our videos because people want to see what they’re bitching about.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for further comment.
