What is Pete Hegseth trying to hide? That is the question Americans should be asking as the Pentagon moves to punish journalists and crackdown on military whistleblowers. What, exactly, is the defense secretary so desperate to keep the public from seeing about the human cost, operational failures and fiscal wreckage of Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran?
On Aug. 21 the Pentagon fired the publisher, editor-in-chief and a reporter at Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has been reporting on American troops since the Civil War. The dismissals came after the paper published damning reports on the deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has just begun the long journey home to San Diego after a nine-month deployment to the Middle East. After spending more than 260 days at sea without a single liberty port, the crew of roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines had been subjected to degrading, inhumane conditions. Families of service members detailed severe shortages of fresh water and food, overflowing toilets, broken facilities and a complete breakdown in mental health support.
