The propagandists of the American press have been uncritically describing recent U.S. airstrikes on Iran as “defensive” despite the U.S. being the clear aggressor in this ongoing conflict, and despite the United States existing on the other side of the planet from Iran.

CBS News was the most egregious offender with its headline, “U.S. launches defensive strikes at Iranian targets near Strait of Hormuz.”

The title frames it as an objective fact that the attack was defensive in nature, without quotation marks around the word “defensive” and without even bothering to uncritically cite U.S. officials as the source of this claim.

As a reminder, CBS News was recently acquired by David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison, who is one of the wealthiest people on the planet with a net worth of some $160 billion and who is also the largest single donor to the Israeli military. The Ellisons have responded to Israel’s genocide-induced PR crisis by frenetically buying up control over major platforms like CBS, CNN, HBO Max, Warner Bros and TikTok in order to drum up support for U.S.-Israeli military agendas.