Truth is the first casualty of war.

This old maxim still packs a punch. Governments at war, including the government of the United States, routinely deceive their citizens. They cover up harsh or embarrassing truths, fearful that full disclosure of certain events may weaken our will to slaughter our enemies. Many of us even accept as necessary a certain level of political prevarication, persuading ourselves that the government must lie or conceal the facts for security reasons.

Of course, our news reporters are immune to such mendacity. They would never allow themselves to buy into the lie or to be easily misled. Members of a free press are the guys in the white hats, warriors ready to mount up and ride to the sound of the guns in the battle for truth.

Or are they?

Remember the Gulf War? Remember the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when the press told us that crazed Iraqi troops were yanking Kuwaiti newborns with health problems from their hospital respirators? Later our news media reversed itself, usually on page six of the newspaper, and told us that the report of Iraqi brutality was a lie. A handful of people had invented this lie to increase the American desire to invade Kuwait. After all, we can’t have American boys dying for oil fields.

Remember Somalia? In case you’ve forgotten the consequences, go see the movie “Black Hawk Down.” George Bush I and Bill Clinton supposedly stationed troops to Somalia to aid in the distribution of food. After becoming enmeshed in local politics, our troops attempted to kidnap some Somalian warlords. We lost 18 dead, and our troops killed — murdered, in many cases — between 300 and 1,000 Somalians, depending on what statistic you believe. The movie celebrates the heroism of the soldiers who fought, but ignores why they were fighting, why they were in Somalia in the first place, or why they were withdrawn. Why were there not more questions from the reporters? Why did the media let the president and his advisors get away with such a mismanagement of policy?

Remember Kosovo? For months our guardians of the truth beat the drums of war, treated us to tales of Serb butchery, of tens of thousands of Muslim Kosovars murdered and left in unmarked graves. Finally our military forces bombed the hell out of the Christian Serbs, forcing many of them to flee their own country, and replaced these butchers with Muslim Kosovars. Only then, our free press claimed, did we discover that our new allies were butchers themselves. Some of them were international drug lords. Some belonged to the Taliban. But where were the mass murders, the victims of Serb genocide? Where were the tens of thousands of graves? Did the press tell you that no one ever found ten thousand graves, that the graves did not exist?

Now we have bombed the hell out of Afghanistan. We have killed more than 3,000 civilians, created 2 million refugees, and helped bring starvation to a land that was already facing famine.

Have our news watchdogs told you about the antics of our latest allies, the Northern Alliance and others who have claimed power? Judges in Kabul recently announced that public executions and amputations would continue to take place according to Islamic law, although not in the sports arena since that was created for sport. These same judges have also stated that criminals who are publicly hanged will be left dangling for only a few minutes rather than for the four days that the Taliban left them swaying in the Afghan breezes. In another humanitarian move, these judges have announced that the crowds who stone adulterers will use smaller stones (I’m not making this up), thereby allowing some transgressors a possible escape. Our new allies have also announced an end to the Taliban prohibitions on poppy production. “Everyone is planting,” says Ashoqullah, a local landowner. “In a few months, these fields will be covered in a blanket of red and white flowers.” The drug dealers are happy, but why aren’t our reporters dancing all over this story?

Other puzzling details from the early months of our war on terrorism remain unsolved or uninvestigated by the fourth estate.

Remember Flight 587, the Nov. 12 airliner crash in Queens, N.Y.? The federal government contends that the tail of the aircraft dropped off from the backwash of the preceding jet, or that pilot error caused the crash. Nearly 50 eyewitnesses on the ground say otherwise, stating that they saw an explosion burst from the side of the jetliner before it began to fall apart. Six of these eyewitnesses, including a retired firefighter, a retired NYPD cop, and an FDNY Deputy Chief, have petitioned the government for the right to testify that they saw this explosion. Where is the press in this controversy? Why has our watchdog press so readily accepted the government’s story? Is it covering up the story to quash public panic in regard to airline travel?

What about those anthrax letters? For weeks our media sensationalized this heinous attack, claiming that everyone from Muslim extremists to anti-abortion groups were sending this poison through the mail. When it was reported that the anthrax probably came from a government stockpile in Maryland, the story disappeared from the airwaves. Doesn’t this make the attack even worse? Where are the reporters digging into this story?

And what about John Walker Lindh, the American traitor? Dozens of reporters have analyzed his reasons for joining the Taliban. Many covered his teenage years with a fine-toothed comb, looking for reasons as to why he had become first a Muslim and then a member of an extremist group. Yet only a couple of news outlets have told the public that when Lindh was 16 his father left home to live with a gay lover. To many of us, such an event helps explain why Lindh may have sought out a strict moral code to live by. Lots of kids are going to look for moral stability when they feel betrayed by a parent, and that fact makes Walker much more sympathetic. Why, then, doesn’t the media mention it? Suppose Lindh’s father had moved in with a woman? Would that have been mentioned more prominently as a reason for Lindh’s eventual enlistment in the Taliban?

And what of the reported Israeli spy network in the U.S.? In December 2001, Fox News reporter Brit Hume ran a four-part series reporting on 60 Israelis detained in this country for spying. Fox reported that some of these Israelis may have known in advance about the WTC bombings. No other member of the media has brought up this explosive story since Fox News reported it. How do we explain this silence? Is the press afraid of the Zionist lobby? Does it fear offending the Israelis?

A war against terrorism is not wrong. It may be unwinnable, it may be unwise, but it is not wrong. It may even be noble. What is wrong, what is ignoble, is to keep telling us that we’re all in this together when many of us are being deliberately misinformed or misled. Incidentally, the conservatives are as misleading and incompetent as their liberal colleagues in this campaign of misinformation; since Sept. 11, for example, National Review has called for war with half the Arab world.

What can we do? We can pray that both our government and our press recover their trust of the people. We can write letters demanding that the truth be told. And in the meantime, we can read our papers and watch our televisions as the Russians once read Pravda.

Read between the lines, comrades. And even then, believe little of what you read.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)