Aeschylus wrote tragedies in Greece around 500 BCE, and fought as a soldier against the Persians in the famous battle at Marathon. As a participant in a battle in which 6,400 Persians and 192 Greeks were killed, we can give him some credence for wisdom related to war. One quotation attributed to him has recently become popular: “In war, the first casualty is truth.”

Coincidentally, 4,000 miles away at about the same time, Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of War,” a book that has inspired many military leaders (along with Patriots coach Bill Belichick). One of its many principles states, “All warfare is based on deception.” Although he was speaking of battlefield maneuvers rather than the politics and propaganda surrounding war, Americans have repeatedly observed and fought in wars based on or fully supported by deception.

In 1946, Hermann Goering, founder of the Nazi Gestapo and a proud architect of the Final Solution to “the Jewish question,” was surprisingly truthful in a conversation during the Nuremberg Trials that ended with his death sentence: “Naturally, the common people don’t want war. . . [but] it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

A brave warrior for peace, Daniel Ellsberg, died in June. As a former Marine, top-level planner for the Pentagon beginning in 1959, and adviser in Vietnam in the 1960s to a general known for covert operations, he knew the full background of the Vietnam War. He witnessed the military’s conscious decisions to lie about the war, from enemy deaths to the strength of their leadership to the imaginary “light at the end of the tunnel” seen by Gen. William Westmoreland in 1967.

The power and importance of these lies prompted Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to call Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America” in 1971 after he leaked 7,000 pages of classified documents to newspapers that showed that the military’s lies about Vietnam extended all the way back to the Truman administration after World War II.

Wars are founded on lies and beget more as surely as the sun rises. The Nazis used Goering’s approach to launch attacks on military targets, along with 6 million civilian Jews and others. In 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell may have been fooled by a small group of bureaucrats (hoping to avenge Iraqi threats against the first President Bush) by false “proof” that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Just recently, the Washington Post found that the American military lied about its failures in Afghanistan for 18 years, right up until 2019, while spending almost $1 trillion ($1,000 billion) of taxpayers’ money.

Today, the rabid dogs of war have been released again, and the lies and misrepresentations justifying atrocities and political contortions have followed like jackals feasting on carrion. From Ukraine and Russia, Gaza and Israel come reports of war crimes too numerous to count, and with the power of newly improved artificial intelligence and our constant bombardment by unchecked facts, many stories will be beyond our ability to determine responsibility without forensic technology. (Was it just a happy coincidence for Vladimir Putin that his rebellious mercenary leader died in an unexplained plane crash?)

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In the Middle East, at least a two sensational news stories have already been debunked. The White House admitted that President Joe Biden did not see Israeli photos of babies with throats cut by Hamas attackers, although he initially said he did. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, or that similar crimes were not committed, but he reacted to a gruesome report that has yet to be documented.

And funds for the attack by Hamas did not come from money recently released to Iran, since those funds are again frozen, and the Hamas attack was planned well before anyone in Iran or Hamas could have predicted their availability.

Now there is a hospital explosion with Israel and Hamas pointing fingers at each other. In the most basic sense, both are right, since both are guilty. War creates a continuing tale of anguish and misery, especially for civilians. Neither side can escape culpability for their role in the carnage, but if Goering’s “common people” can somehow influence their leaders, those leaders could join together in stopping it.

Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on Saturdays. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.