Officials keep Donald Trump entertained by spoon-feeding him "war porn" that features "stuff blowing up," while president blames Pete Hegseth for Iran war

America's war-time "leadership," in the form of President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, are woefully unprepared for the conflict they started with Iran, according to a post at Facebook from longtime Alabama attorney and entrepreneur Donald V. Watkins. It is titled "Trump and Hegseth were unprepared for war." Trump is such a dazed warrior that he allows his staff to spoon-feed him daily videos of war highlights that apparently are designed to give our president the false impression that he is winning the war.

Watkins long has been known in legal circles as one of the nation's leading practitioners in a variety of areas, especially criminal defense and civil rights. He is retired from law and now lives in California, but he remains engaged with the public on a number of fronts. One is investigative journalism, where he has broken dozens of important stories on corruption in the American South, especially in regards to  Southern Company -- the second largest utility in the U.S., and its affiliates in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.  

The public especially should be aware of Watkins' in-depth reporting on cost overruns and shoddy workmanship at Southern Company facilities in Georgia and Mississippi. Watkins describes the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Waynesboro, GA, as a "nuclear radiation and contamination deathtrap." Construction of the Kemper coal gasification plant in Mississippi was so far over budget and behind schedule that Southern Company abandoned the project and demolished what had been built. 

Beyond journalism, Watkins remains active in business, especially in the energy sector, where he has far-flung interests in Africa, with experiences in the Middle East. Watkins cites these connections as the basis for his reporting on the U.S.-Israel joint attack on Iran, which includes multiple reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dead, killed by an Iranian missile strike on his home early in the war. 

Watkins recently reported on his introduction to intelligence gathering in the Middle East, which has helped inform his journalism on Netanyahu's death and related stories. We will have more on these subjects in upcoming posts. 

For now, let's report on the pitiful state of America's haphazard war effort in Iran. Watkins writes:

The New York Times reports that many of the 13 military bases in the Middle East that were used by American troops are all but uninhabitable. The ones in Kuwait, which is next door to Iran, suffering perhaps the most damage.

Iranian officials have even accused the U.S. military of using civilians as human shields by putting American troops in hotels.

President Donald Trump is not getting the full picture of how badly this war is going for him. Instead, Trump is getting a highlight reel of war porn, as he watches our tax dollars blow things up for two minutes every day.

After two decades of watching America uncontestedly bomb the poorest people in the world, Trump and Pete Hegseth couldn’t even conceive of an enemy with a sophisticated military and the ability to fight back, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Trump and Hegseth took no preparations and expected no reprisals. They didn't evacuate anyone from the Middle East until AFTER the war had started. They didn't bother to prepare current U.S. officials, and a former official told the news outlet that the president is being fed a daily video mash-up summarizing the most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours of the military operation in the Middle East, now in its fourth week. 

The footage depicts “stuff blowing up,” one official revealed, while others said Trump’s allies are concerned that the clips may not fully capture the overall situation on the ground.  

Trump and Hegseth attacked Iran because they are cowards and bullies. They thought that they could impose their will on Iran by simply killing one old man.

They were wrong, and now they’ve started a fire that they cannot put out with lies and bombs.

As for the war porn that apparently keeps Trump entertained and ill informed, The Daily Beast and Yahoo! News, in a jointly published report, provide more details under the headline "Childish Way Trump's Officials Brief Him on War is Leaked": 

Donald Trump’s top war goons are briefing the president with two-minute-long highlight reels showing front-line victories in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, U.S. officials told NBC News.

Three current U.S. officials and a former official told the news outlet that the president is being fed a daily video mash-up summarizing the most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours of the military operation in the Middle East, now in its fourth week.

The footage depicts “stuff blowing up”, one official revealed, while others said Trump’s allies are concerned that the clips may not fully capture the overall situation on the ground.

A current official said Trump is shown a condensed video montage because “we can’t tell him every single thing that happens.” The official added that the videos tended to emphasize U.S. successes, as those segments typically received a better response from the president’s aides.

The revelation comes at a time when the Trump administration faces backlash for sharing bizarre video-game mashups of the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on Iran. Trump’s team has dished out countless clips that verge on the gamification of real-life combat since launching coordinated strikes with Israel on Iran on February 28. 

The use of edited combat footage reflects a broader trend in modern warfare, where curated clips of battlefield victories are used to shape public perception. In the Ukraine-Russia war, both sides have circulated visually compelling videos of strikes and front-line operations to showcase battlefield success, generate clicks and social media buzz, support recruitment efforts, and project strength to adversaries.

According to Politico, one senior official bragged that the Trump administration’s videos racked up more than 3 billion impressions within four days. 

The U.S. war effort sounds like a combination of "Gamer" and "Weekend at Bernie's." At first thought, that hardly is comforting. But upon further review, Americans might be better off with Trump kept in the dark. After all, when is the last time he showed that he could run anything with some semblance of competence? I'm not sure that has ever happened.

(To be continued)