Pointing fingers in conflicts, Israel/Gaza, and Iran raises political passions but miisses a bigger issue.

 Pointing fingers in conflicts raises passions, but misses a bigger issue. Immediately, I  predict that this post heading sounds like I am about to address the Gaza issue that the Democratic Socialists support: Hamas over Israel.  Wrong.  So am I a partisan of Netanyahu's reducing Gaza to rubble and the death of women and children by starvation or bombing? No. Do I think we can bomb Iran to force it to change direction? What we lose sight of is a bigger issue. commission of war crimes. The recent conflict's political and military leadership do not care a whit about the fate of those who are the victims, regardless of the regime or politics they support. They then use their suffering and death as propaganda tools to gain support for the actions of their leaders.   In recent times, we have seen this at play not only in Gaza/Israel but in Iran, as well.   The focus of our condemnation should be directed at the leadership if we profess to care about the innocents, the women and children. The evil forces at play in those related conflicts are the leadership of those on "either side" who care more about their power and military success than their concern about humanity and commit war crimes. It does not stop with Israel/GazaIran. We in the US have a political leadership who wants the freedom from accountability to commit war crimes, too.

The plight of women and children in Gaza in Israel's campaign and the raped and murdered victims of Oct. 7 of Hamas is the fault of their leaders who do not care or and later who see playing on the rest of the world's care for victims of such violence used as a propaganda tool. At the same time, the Trump administration has learned, or should have learned, that making the everyday people of Iran the victims of a bombing campaign has been ineffective because the  Iranian leadership, clerics, and IRG do not care about the suffering of non-combatants, women, children, and men, either.  Iran, it has appeared, had anticipated that the US would attack, but slaughtering as many demonstrators against the regime as they could. The death toll of those mowed down in Iran is at least in the thousands, though. 

  I have not forgotten Oct. 7 and Hamas beginning the conflict in that horrific rape and massacre of young Israelis attending, of all things, a concert in support of peace.  I have not forgotten that Hamas leadership in effect used their own women and children as human shields by refusing to give them access to their tunnels as refuge from Israel's attempt to bomb Gaza to rubble.  We do not have access to the total suffering of the Iranian civilians, but there is a stand-in icon for that: the horrible killing of over 150 school girls (whether it was a mistake or not) in Iran. 

The rest of us who are observers, if not partisans, of these conflicts still have the responsibility to raise our voices against such crimes against humanity, to try to bring those who commit them to justice in world court tribunals, and to provide aid and compassion for the victims.  We also should take the personal responsibility to realize and to condemn leaders who use the suffering of their own people, suffering their policies caused, as a propaganda weapon.   Instead of pointing fingers at who is the worst war criminal, we should not fall for such messages that abuse the reports of the suffering of their own people to convince others of their rectitude.  Instead,. we need to support institutions that enforce the law and hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, regardless of the "side" involved.  

The establishment of the UN (providing a forum for talking is better than military fighting) and the World Court of Justice were founded after World War II's air and bombing with modern weapons that wiped out millions of non-combatants. Rules were devised  inthe Geneva Convention for combatants to take care of civilians., War crimes were defined. And now we have our own president who no longer wants our armed forces to abide by the Geneva Conventions and wants to do away with the world court tribunals. We are not members but want it ended, anyway.  It sounds like Trump wants to commit war crimes without any accountability or shame.  Trump is constantly threatening to bomb Iranian infrastructure to bring more pain and suffering to non-combatant civilians, even though he should understand that would not change the behavior of the IRG and clerical leadership. (They have not suffered enough, he opines)  . That, for the sake of humanity, needs to be nipped in the bud, and that is what we at home can and should stop now. 

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/trump-advocating-war-crime-t-when-hague.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/31/donald-trump-geneva-conventions-the-problem-military-foreign-policy

Trump and Rubio proposing dismantling the world courts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGcWLFmTnk

see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGcWLFmTnk.  Why the world court tribunals?

No, DJT, Ukraine has not lost militarily. . You have outsmarted yourself..Update 56/8/2026

 I just heard Trump claim "Ukraine has been militarily defeated, " just as he claimed Iran has been defeated. https://www.bbc.com/news/war-in-ukraine . No,. Trump's lying. Note: Later,Trump said he mispoke; he was referring to Iran, not Ukraine. However, Trump has been saying that Ukraine is losing the war all along, from the Oval Office, that Ukraine did not have the cards to play as recently as December 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwL2ooeUsR8

Update: 6/8/2026 The House just passed a billion-dollar-plus aid package to Ukraine, but the Senate will probably not have enough votes to override a veto by Trump. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko went on TV with a direct appeal to Trump to call for a ceasefire.

Continuing with the original post:

The Ukraine war is a slog with the front going back and forth with victories and retreats measured in kilometers. Drones are not so secret Ukrainian weapons, and recently, Ukraine has used them to attack Russian military infrastructure, causing Putin to fear an attack enough to call off a parade to celebrate the Russian defeat of the Nazis.

DJT, both Ian and Ukraine have outsmarted you.

Iran has just demonstrated that strategy beats bombs, tanks, and missiles, and boots on the ground.. Trump failed to secure Hormuz first, and now Iran has the world by its control of a great percentage of its energy supply.

When it comes to Ukraine, superior technology and strategy overcome the superior manpower of the Russian effort, and now Russia is running out of recruits to feed their cannon fodder advantage.

This is in spite of Trump's constant sabotage of Ukraine's efforts, which is not very subtle:

.- his failure to even release aid to Ukraine, voted on by Congress, -his undermining of ATO,
-his miscalculating the extent to which Germany and Europe would up their military commitment to see Russia in Ukraine as a threat to them,
-his counting on the recently defeated Hungary's Orban, also a Putin ally, to keep European funding for Ukraine bottled up,
-his echo and wink to his buddy Putin in negotiations..all have failed to stop Ukraine from stopping Russia, and the war advantage now counts in numbers, one or two kilometers.

-Trump, above all also failed to anticipate the technological talent of Ukrainians themselves to manufacture drones, thus changing modern warfare, while defending against drones. made in Iran.

All of the above measures that Trump has tried have not been enough to influence Ukraine's resistance to Russian aggression. As AnneApplebaum of The Atlantic magazine has been noting since December 2025, because Europe has stepped up and because Ukraine no longer depends on US aid, America has lost the ability to influence the war's outcome and is therefore becoming irrelevant. If this is true, Trump outsmarted himself by challenging Europe to fund the Ukraine efforts, and when they did, he lost control of the situation.

-A recent column in the New York Times by David French must have rankled him. The French call Zelensky the leader of the free world as well as changing the battlefield with their new, innovative technology.

it

In the broader sense of what has happened, Trump has laid bare the weakness of his America First policy, of shedding alliances and going it alone. If successful. America is not first; it is irrelevant. That takes us back to the late 1930's when America Firsters became very powerful in keeping us from getting involved in Hitler's aggression in Europe. How did that turn out,

Hegseth and Trump threaten war crimes in Iran. See them in the Hague someday?

 Update: 4/4/2026 Recently, Pete Hegseth prayed for violence. He is the same one who called the rules of engagement, such as the Geneva Convention, "stupid" and would ignore them. Now there are reports per MSNOW that his threat to bomb Iran's civilian infrastructure has earned the DOD the nickname, by some Marines in the Pentagon as the Department of War Crimes. FYI, Trump echoing Hegseth and Hegseth, calling international law stupid, but thinking you can avoid repercussions for committing war crimes in the future, are two different things.:" Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine combat veteran.t Bombing civilian infrastructure like electrical generation and desalination plants, as Trump and Hegseth threaten, is intentionally committing war crimes because they target civilians. https://www.facebook.com/reallyamerican/posts/breaking-rep-seth-moulton-says-troops-are-calling-hegseths-pentagon-the-departme/1428246449343821/

This is why Trump tried to prosecute/persecute those 6 Congresspeople who dared to remind the rank and file that they do not have to follow illegal orders. So far, no troops have acted on their rights ..but so far, other than the school children bombing (intent may have been based on bad, non-updated intelligence)., we have only the threat to do so and public admission that the administration knows bombing civilian power generation and desalination plants is illegal. After all, they howled when Putin threatened the Ukrainian nuclear power generation facilities. However, acting lawlessly is part and parcel of the rogue, out-of-control Trump presidency, and Trump, thinking he is already a dictator, believes he can get away with any crimes. If the Trump cabinet members or general staff commit war crimes, they are not protected by the Supreme Court's granting Trump immunity. If Trump and his lieutenants somehow end up in the Hague, criminal intent would not be hard to prove... since their words are already a matter of public record.    

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rep-crow-signals-legal-action-after-administrations-effort-to-indict-6-democrats

https://www.military.com/feature/2026/03/05/hegseths-stupid-rules-of-engagement-line-and-what-roe-actually-do.html

Continuing with the original post:

The stupid rules of war came into being after World War II in response to the atrocities committed against civilians. Nuremberg and the Hague tribunals have hung or imprisoned many; most recently, the Hague was active, spurred by the ethnic cleansing of the Balkan wars of the 1990's. I have never heard of a public official with great power at the onset of any war anywhere advocating war crimes by prayer until Hegseth implied it. He is a religious fanatic and a throwback to the Middle Ages and the Crusades. Then Trump chimed in.

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/.../iran-hegseths....

He fancies himself as the Dark Ages crusader who wears the Crusader cross on his chest and sees himself in a holy war as a follower of a church that believes in violence to advance their religion. Hegseth is a member of the worst extreme sect of the Christian religion.

Prayed Hegseth:“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

See you at the Hague someday if you act this out in Iran.

Then, to compound this, Donald Trump echoed that he would knowingly commit war crimes by destroying Iran's power plants hat keep

civilians afloat and alive. He is still threatening to do it in 10 days. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/03/trump-warning-attack-iran-power-plants-is-threat-to-commit-war-crimes/

Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine combat veteran, told MSNBC that active-duty Marines have started calling Hegseth's Pentagon the "Department of War Crimes." The reason, according to Moulton, is simple: the administration's decision to target Iranian civilian energy infrastructure, which Moulton flatly called a war crime. "It's meant to hurt civilians," he said.

This is why Trump tried to prosecute/persecute those 6 Congresspeople who dared to remind the rank and file that they do not have to follow illegal orders. So far, no troops have acted on their rights ..but so far, other than the school children bombing (intent may have been based on bad, non-updated intelligence)., we have only the threat to do so and public admission that the administration knows bombing civilian power generation is illegal. After all, they howled when Putin threatened the Ukrainian nuclear power generation facilities. However, acting lawlessly is part and parcel of the rogue, out-of-control Trump presidency, and Trump, thinking he is already a dictator, believes he can get away with any crimes. If the Trump cabinet members or general staff commit war crimes, they are not protected by the Supreme Court's granting Trump immunity. If Trump and his lieutenants somehow end up in the Hague, criminal intent would not be hard to prove... since their words are already a matter of public record.

See you in the Hague, DJT, if you carry that one out..

Geneva Conventions per Google AIThe Geneva Conventions are a set of four international treaties (1949) and three additional protocols that form the cornerstone of international humanitarian law. They establish legal standards for humanitarian treatment during war, protecting people not taking part in fighting (civilians, medics) and those who can no longer fight (wounded, prisoners of war). 

The Four Geneva Conventions of 1949:

• First Convention: Protects wounded and sick soldiers on land during war.
• Second Convention: Protects wounded, sick, and shipwrecked military personnel at sea.
• Third Convention: Applies to prisoners of war (POWs), requiring humane treatment, adequate food, and medical care
  .
Fourth Convention: Protects civilians, including those in occupied territories. 

Key Principles and Scope:

• Universal Ratification: All 196 states have ratified the 1949 conventions, making them universally binding.
• Common Article 3: Applies to non-international armed conflicts (civil wars), ensuring minimum protections.
• Core Protections: Prohibits torture, murder, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity.
• Protection of Medical Facilities: Medical personnel, units, and transport must be respected and protected.
• Additional Protocols: 1977 and 2005 protocols added protections for victims of both international and non-international conflicts. 

The conventions are overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and aim to limit the barbarity of war. 

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