Alleged F-35 Shot Down.

In war, all sides put out propaganda to big up their own side and belittle their enemy. From the beginning of time right up until this Iran war, this has been the way of things. It shows something animalistic in humans, something primordial that connects deep to our primate core. Like gorillas beating their chests, making themselves look bigger and mightier than their rivals. We humans still do this, but with propaganda. Some propaganda is truthful, some propaganda is a mixture of truth and lies, and other propaganda is downright deception. All to make it look like we are winning and our enemies are losing. It's simple, primitive, but effective.

This Iran War is no different; all sides are putting out propaganda. The most effective way of doing this is now via social media. Lately, Iran has claimed to have shot down two US F-35s. One was apparently taken out of the sky on 23 March. The other was allegedly blasted out of the sky on 2 April.

Tasnim News Agency said the latest plane was shot down by the IRGC or Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranian news platform put a pic out of an alleged downed F-35. The plane was shown broken up, scattered over a wide area. Iran has made unsubstantiated claims to have shot down both Israeli and US drones. Israel, for its part, said one of its F-35s shot down a Yak-130 trainer/fighter aircraft again, which could be just Israeli propaganda or a reality.

The latest alleged downing of an American F-35 claimed by Iran was said to have broken up when it was hit, and so the pilot, according to the Tasnim News platform, his/her fate is unknown. If an Israeli or American pilot or pilots did end up being captured, I pity them. I remember when British pilots were captured by the Iraqis during the 90-91 war. They were paraded on television, and one of the pilots had a black eye. The black eye could have been as a result of the pilot bailing out. However, some thought it could be ill treatment at the hands of the pilot's Iraqi interrogators. When Western pilots and other military personnel were released at the end of the war, it turned out Allied prisoners had been tortured by the Iraqis. So, in this conflict, where Iran has suffered much destruction from the air by Israel and the US, why wouldn't the Iranians do the same to Israeli or American POWs as the Iraqis did?

Grok, the AI tool on Elon Musk's X platform, was asked to analyse the picture of the alleged downed American F-35 jet. Grok said the picture is questionable and likely fabricated. Grok said the scattered remains of the aircraft didn't match F-35 features. How accurate Grok or other AI models are is open to question. I would imagine that AI is 99.9 % accurate. By that measurement, the pic is a fake. With CGI and AI, you can make something look real. And while I am holding Iran's feet to the fire over this, the US and Israel should not be let off the hook either. The US and Israel have released footage of alleged hits on military targets, and the videos do come with a caveat. The caption at the top of these videos is "unclassified". Who put those captions in these videos? If unclassified means unsubstantiated, I doubt the Israelis or the US would put that in because it makes these US or Israeli videos look like fakes. So obviously, it must be the news platforms that show these videos and rightly so.

Meanwhile, the war drags on with no end in sight. With lies, half-truths and the truth being put out by both sides.