The White House video begins with a scene from Call of Duty, the action-packed, first-person shooter game.
It then quickly cuts to images of fighter jets launching from an aircraft carrier, missiles streaking through the sky and targets exploding in slow motion – all set to the pounding beat of rapper Childish Gambino’s song Bonfire and a deep-voiced narrator declaring: “We’re winning this fight.”
A Call of Duty kill score, which shows the numerical value earned for eliminating enemies, appears after each explosion. Viewed over 58 million times, the video is part of a social media campaign the Trump administration has launched to sell its bombing campaign against Iran to the American public.
The sober charts and briefings that defined past conflicts have largely been replaced by a public-relations campaign designed with a video-game vibe showcasing the technological might and lethality of the US military, with stealth aircraft slicing through clouds and targets exploding in Hollywood-like fashion as fireballs fill
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