{"id":414,"date":"2026-07-22T10:41:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=414"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:41:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:41:52","slug":"why-trumps-reported-attempts-to-bury-iran-war-casualties-wont-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=414","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump\u2019s reported attempts to bury Iran war casualties won\u2019t work"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The resumption of hostilities between the United States and Iran has caused an uptick in U.S. casualties. Last week, CENTCOM confirmed the deaths of three more U.S. service members killed in action, and the total number of troops killed during the war currently stands at 18. Meanwhile nearly 100 troops have been injured over the past two weeks as Iran escalates attacks on U.S. bases across the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Read more Cost of no-bid contracts like Reflecting Pool renovation hit 10-year high<\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump continues to try to cast the war as an operation of total U.S. domination against a defanged regime, but Iran is striking back, with American lives at stake, making justifications for continuing the unpopular war even harder for Trump. And with the president signaling an openness to escalating the conflict even further in the coming weeks, the human toll is likely to increase. (Iranian casualties are far worse, with at least 1,700 Iranian civilians killed, according to estimates from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Already lacking in meaningful transparency, the Trump administration appears to be growing more cagey about releasing information about casualties. But efforts to delay or obscure the information are unlikely to prevent the inevitable \u2014 the war will become even more widely despised as more people die.<\/p>\n

CNN reported on Monday that the Pentagon has been \u201cslow to disclose injuries to U.S. troops during the ongoing war with Iran, avoiding publicly confirming the fallout from Iranian attacks and mostly reserving totals to a military website that lags events by several days or even weeks\u200b\u200b.\u201d And its mode of communication about casualties has shifted: \u201cWhile earlier in the war U.S. Central Command, the military headquarters overseeing the war effort, would provide periodic updates on injuries, it has not been regularly disclosing non-fatal attacks in recent months,\u201d CNN reported. (The Pentagon\u2019s top spokesman, Sean Parnell, told CNN that reporting delays are necessary, saying, \u201cProviding real-time information on non-fatal casualties to the media is the same as providing that information directly to our adversaries, which could put even more service members at risk with access to that quick information.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The New York Times pointed out that the Pentagon declined to divulge Iranian strikes on U.S. bases in Jordan last week, which in turn may have misled the public about why the U.S. was conducting airstrikes against Iranian military sites. And that happened amid a broader reticence to brief the public about the direction of the war: \u201cThe last major Pentagon briefing on the war was in early May.\u201d (Parnell responded to the Times article in a statement, saying that \u201cclaims of concealment are fabrications.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Given the Trump administration\u2019s dishonesty about the war, the president has long ago forfeited any right to be given the benefit of the doubt. But regardless of whether the Trump administration\u2019s changes in its communication style has been motivated by operational security or making it harder for the public to see how much blood has been shed on its orders, the news is trickling out: The troops are being killed and injured.<\/p>\n

Read more The U.S. military\u2019s escalating strikes in Iran may be legal. That doesn\u2019t make them justified.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, it will be nearly impossible for the Trump administration to ward off the reality that casualties make wars less popular. In the 1970s the political scientist John Mueller found that support for the Vietnam and Korean wars \u201cdeclined as a logarithmic function of American casualties.\u201d Various scholars have since pointed out that there are nuances to how the public is affected by casualties, such as a sensitivity to a notable increase in the rate of casualties rather than just the absolute number of casualties themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one particularly damning piece of scholarship out there for the Trump administration: a 2006 study by political scientists from Duke University and the Loyola University Chicago, which found that the public\u2019s tolerance for the human costs of war is heavily shaped by the public\u2019s \u201cbeliefs about the rightness or wrongness of the war\u201d as well as \u201cbeliefs about the war\u2019s likely success.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t bode well for Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 68% of Americans said the Iran war was not \u201cworth fighting,\u201d and just 28% said it was. (CNN pointed out that the \u201cnegative 40-point split is worse than for either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars in Washington Post-ABC News polling.\u201d) And in April, a Post-ABC poll found that 61% of Americans believed the Iran war was a \u201cmistake.\u201d As high oil prices pinch Americans\u2019 wallets and the Trump administration continually fails to bring Iran to heel, it\u2019s hard to imagine that those numbers will look better for Trump.<\/p>\n

The war with Iran has so far produced a fraction of the U.S. casualties of major U.S. wars of the past, and it is unlikely to reach comparable numbers unless Trump deploys ground troops. But widespread skepticism that this war is worthwhile or effective likely makes the administration more vulnerable to public anger over whatever casualties do emerge. It\u2019s one thing for troops to die for a just cause or even a controversial cause, it\u2019s another to die for no obvious reason at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more As Iran war threatens to spiral out of control, Trump appears utterly unbothered<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His war is going to get harder and harder to defend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Trump\u2019s reported attempts to bury Iran war casualties won\u2019t work - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=414\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Trump\u2019s reported attempts to bury Iran war casualties won\u2019t work - Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"His war is going to get harder and harder to defend.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=414\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-22T10:41:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0206dfa2bde56a4792f75b5b97027e43\"},\"headline\":\"Why Trump\u2019s reported attempts to bury Iran war casualties won\u2019t work\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-22T10:41:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414\"},\"wordCount\":911,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/c904c81a3ce421ff3377cce00835abc3.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"US\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=414\",\"name\":\"Why Trump\u2019s reported attempts to bury Iran war casualties won\u2019t work - 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