*Special Alert* Americans Must Not Tolerate War Crimes or Trump's Genocidal Threats
Trump’s insanity brings us to the brink of total war
These are the words of a madman: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Donald Trump’s Tuesday morning apocalyptic threat bore the whiff of both insanity and desperation. Over the course of several days, he has made repeated, unequivocal threats to commit war crimes — the deliberate obliteration of civilian infrastructure and power plants — escalating to civilizational destruction. In other words, genocide. (Indeed, strikes on impermissible civilian targets might already have gotten underway on Monday, with the bombing of universities and residential neighborhoods.) A country of more than 90 million people — with civilians defiantly gathering on bridges and surrounding power plants — is on the brink of annihilation.
However vulgar, unhinged, and divorced from reality Trump’s prior statements and social media posts have been, we have reached a new level of crisis.
Merely making the threats constitutes a grave violation of international law.
“No other recent American president has talked so openly about committing potential war crimes, legal experts, historians and former U.S. officials say,” the New York Times reported. “The U.S. is party to ‘a series of agreements, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter” that prohibit intentional attacks on civilians, so Trump’s explicit threats violate not only international law but, under the Supremacy Clause, U.S. law.
Margaret Donovan, a former captain in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, and Rachel VanLandingham, Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.), wrote for Just Security: “Iranian power plants and other critical civilian infrastructure are protected from attacks by the law of war the United States helped craft after World War II.” They note that a target “can lose its protection only if it is used for military purposes by the enemy and its destruction ‘offers a definite military advantage’” and only if careful analysis determines that the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm.
Plainly, indiscriminate destruction or threatened destruction of infrastructure (including civilian power plants) does not meet that criterion. But, as Donovan and VanLandingham pointed out, indiscriminate bombardment or threatened bombardment of civilians to obtain military advantage almost certainly meets the definition of terrorism under the Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I Art. 51(2), which reads: “Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited,” and the DOD Law of War Manual, § 5.2.2: “Measures of intimidation or terrorism against the civilian population are prohibited, including acts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.”
Trump’s threatened conduct is indistinguishable from the war crimes (e.g., obliterating a country, striking civilian power plants) for which we have robustly condemned Russia in its aggressive war against Ukraine. And in the case of Iran, there is little to be gained militarily by using these targets, as the Wall Street Journal reports: “Destroying large plants would require a substantial bombing campaign, and Iran’s energy grid would likely still be able to compensate by redistributing power around its network. Many military sites also have backup generators or alternative supply systems.” This not only underscores the lack of legal justification for Trump’s threatened civilian strikes, but it also removes any semblance of tactical or military rationale. From all appearances, Trump is threatening to commit war crimes because he is frustrated and has no clue what to do.
Practically, Trump’s apocalyptic language may well lead ordinary Iranians to dig in further, as they conclude their government and land are facing destruction by a madman. (Bombing civilians, we know from history, rarely produces military advantage — as the ultimately ineffective London Blitz demonstrated.) Trump’s own rhetoric makes it far easier for Iranian leadership to convince the populace that sacrifice is needed.
Ordering obvious war crimes also puts at risk everyone in the U.S. military chain of command who participates in such blatantly illegal orders. Trump might eventually pardon someone such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, but everyone involved in the operation may be held accountable for crimes for which there is no statute of limitations.
Every officer in the chain of command is now faced with a grave choice: Follow their oaths and reject patently illegal orders or plunge the United States, Iran, and the world into a war of cataclysmic proportions.
As Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said, “This is a really perilous moment. If he is prepared to give an order to strike thousands of bridges and power plants, which will result in thousands of innocent Iranians dying, everybody in that chain of command has to think hard about whether they want to be part of the execution of that order.” They may be the last trip-wire in a situation where the political guardrails are absent (congressional Republicans are mute and on recess; Secretary of State Marco Rubio evidently lacks the spine; and Vice President JD Vance is campaigning for Viktor Orbán in Hungary).
Globally, Trump’s threats accelerate the deterioration of the U.S.’s moral standing while heightening the revulsion of our allies. Conducting operations that go well beyond legitimate military targets, which could kill thousands, would dwarf any past international law violations from prior wars, such as Iraq or Vietnam. Long after Trump is gone, the stain on our reputation will remain, hobbling our ability to deter such conduct by other nations and giving our enemies a green light to commit their own war crimes.
Whether he carries out his threat or pulls back from the brink, this is a defining moment that will require a response commensurate with the danger Trump poses. The international community must condemn even the threat of genocide at the United Nations (while a U.N. Security Council resolution would be vetoed, the General Assembly could issue a condemnation). Other nations could announce boycotts of the World Cup and/or Olympics held in the United States and cancel high-profile events and visits that afford Trump positive PR. Trump’s enablers must understand that he is making the U.S. an international pariah.
Domestically, the legacy media must consistently and forcefully confront him, his Cabinet, and Republicans about the gravity of this action and his mental stability. They can no longer avoid addressing Trump’s grave mental defects.
Congress must begin to do its job. Options include aggressive oversight (e.g., putting Hegseth or top military brass under oath to explain this monstrous plan), censure, and yes, impeachment. (As many Democrats have suggested, we are well into 25th Amendment territory, but Vice President JD Vance hardly seems a candidate for such decency or heroics.) And, obviously, the Trump regime’s request for money to continue the war should be emphatically rejected.
Those with influence — from the military to members of Congress to the media to Trump Cabinet members — need to understand there will be a day of reckoning. When moral, if not legal, accountability is meted out, they will have to answer the questions so many enablers of fascist regimes have confronted:
How could you do nothing?
The stakes could not be higher.
Timothy Snyder has just called it genocide, too. Thank you Jen for the integrity of your truthful tireless efforts.
The civilization that he is destroying is the USA. All that made this nation great is being destroyed and the ideals left in the dust.