'BradCast' 4/16/2026 (US Middle East 'War Crimes' Then and Now, with attorney Keith Barber)

We will not rest until we get the answers we seek, and accountability is delivered wherever appropriate. I feel you. Kind of been county Minnesota attorney Mary Moriarty. I'm with you. I don't know why I came here tonight. That's why I came. I got the feeling there's something right. But I could do some rest. I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair. Clearly. And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the Bradcast, as heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA, and on dozens of other fine affiliate stations on both the public airwaves and the internets around the country and the world, blanketing planet Earth. I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker. And all around swell fellow, says me from bradblog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Momentarily, we will be joined by our old friend Keith Barber, who wrote a fascinating article recently comparing a law review article that he wrote 30 years ago in response to war crimes accusations at the time against the U.S. during the first... Gulf War. And in case you've lost track at home by now. Easy to do. Yeah, there's been so many of them at this point. We're talking about the one that was when Iraq then headed up by Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait during the George Bush senior administration when, whether you liked the reason or not, there was actually a clear reason. For why the U.S. went into that war. It was to push Saddam and Iraq. out of Kuwait. At the time, we worked with allies and the UN on it before launching the war. And since there was a clear purpose for getting in, there was also a clear way to get out of that war, essentially once Saddam was pushed out of Kuwait and it was freed. Huh, what a concept, working with allies and having an exit strategy? Not just an exit, an entrance strategy. Anyway, we can contract. all of that with what Donald Trump has now done in Iran and we will when Keith joins us here momentarily but really what's most fascinating is that Keith 32 years ago wrote a military law review article responding to the war crimes charges at the time made against the U.S. by Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Now, back then, Keith was a Republican.

and a military man and did not at the time find validity in Clark's charges that the U.S. had carried out war crimes. Well, he now, Keith does, now measures the same standards of international law against allegations of war crimes in Donald Trump's Iran war. And, well, we will discuss his findings. But I'm also curious if his own politics. At the time, 30 years ago, and by the way, who he was writing this article for, the military law review, if any of that may have colored his analysis at the time of those war crime charges. So lots to talk about with Keith. War crimes and always a fun discussion. Yes, indeed. And Desi Doyen will also have our latest Green News report this hour as well. Yes. Which, I should say, like conversations about war crimes, is also always nothing but juckles. So we'll look forward to that. But before we get to Keith momentarily some quick accountability news or at least the outlines, the shadows. of accountability coming into view here. It takes far too long, but some accountability now for Donald Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election, the 2020 election, six years ago. But this is in a way that he cannot pardon his way out of, I think. The California Supreme Court on Wednesday stripped Donald Trump's attorney, John Eastman, of his law license. over his efforts to, as Reuters describes it, overturn Trump's 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Eastman was one of the architects, as you recall, of Trump's 2020 fake electors scheme, making this quasi-legal case for then Vice President Mike Pence to overthrow the 2020 election on January 6th during the joint session of Congress. to certify Biden's electoral college win that year. Eastman was also one of the speakers at the ellipse on that day on January 6th before Trump's attempted insurrection. Eastman was finally disbarred out here in California. After the state Supreme Court refused to review the state bar association's determination to take Eastman's law license from him, the court, as Reuters reports, did not immediately release an opinion explaining its decision, which followed a state bar court's determination that Eastman violated attorney ethics rules. According to George Cardona, The state bar of California's chief trial counsel in a statement, Eastman's disbarment, quote, affirms the fundamental principle that attorneys must act with honesty and uphold the rule of law regardless of the client that they represent or the context in which that representation occurs. In turn, Eastman's lawyer said in a statement that he plans to file an appeal.

with the U.S. Supreme Court. So that should be interesting. We, of course, wish Mr. Eastman the best of luck. Eastman also drafted legal memos weeks after the election, suggesting that then Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to accept electoral votes from several swing states when Congress convened to certify the vote count. He was a former law professor at Chapman University out here in California representing Trump during that Hail Mary lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court attempting to invalidate all the votes in four different states where Trump had falsely claimed evidence of widespread 2020 voter fraud. The state bar court's appellate division last year found that Eastman had, in fact, violated California attorney ethics rules against misleading courts and making false public statements. And this week, the California Supreme's declined to hear his further appeal after the lower California state bar court had recommended his disbarment. determining that his efforts to derail Biden's victory were, quote, unlawful and lacked any factual or legal support. So Eastman's law license has been suspended. It is now stripped entirely. Eastman has also pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia. for his efforts to overturn Biden's election victory in both of those states. But on this matter of his law license in California, Eastman no longer has one. And there is nothing that Donald Trump can do about it since presidential pardons do not apply in any way to state bar association rulings, at least until... We hear from the Supreme Court about all of this. So there is that. And more glimmers of accountability today, this time in Minnesota. And this could get really interesting on several levels. An ICE agent who was part of the federal immigration surge in Minnesota earlier this year. was charged with felony, second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. According to a Minnesota prosecutor on Thursday, the agent Gregory Donald Morgan Jr. is accused of pointing a gun at the heads of two civilians in a vehicle, as Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explained on Thursday. This is the first case of an ICE agent facing charges. related to the Trump administration's so-called Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, which drew outrage after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Prettie, by federal immigration authorities. The first case of a federal agent in this matter facing state charges. Again, charges that, in theory, as long as they remain in state court, cannot be pardoned away.

By Donald Trump. Morgan was charged with two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, one count for each victim, and there is a warrant now out for his arrest. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the charges. But on February 5, Morgan was allegedly driving an SUV with no markings when he pulled up next to another vehicle and, quote, pointed his duty weapon directly at both victims while continuing to drive illegally on the shoulder of the highway. According to Moriarty, the driver then called 911. Quote, for a federal agent, our opinion is that illegally driving on a shoulder, pulling up to a car and pointing a gun at the heads of two community members who are not doing anything at the time is well beyond the scope of their authorities. After calling 911, The Morgan in this case was interviewed days later. And so there were interviews with both Morgan and the victims here who said they had not understood that Morgan was an agent of ice. Instead, the driver of the car said he had understood that there was, quote, a crazy person driving down the road aiming guns at people. Wow. Morgan, for his part, told state investigators that he, quote, feared for his safety and the safety of others after a vehicle swerved in front of him. He said and cut him off. We'll see if any of that holds up. There is a video of the incident from both the people in the car and others, apparently. It is a rare instance of state prosecutors charging a federal agent for on-duty actions, as the New York Times reports. And the first such case officials said connected to the federal government's 10-week operation in Minnesota. Moriarty described the assault case as one of 18 incidents involving federal agents that are now under investigation by her office, and she indicated that charges against other agents were possible. State prosecutors face formidable practical and legal obstacles, however, in pursuing criminal charges against federal agents. They have broad immunity from prosecution in state court for on-duty conduct.

Whether pointing a gun at people just driving down the street from an unmarked car can be considered on-duty conduct, while that remains to be seen. State officials also say that the federal government has refused to provide local investigators with basic information, including the names of agents in many of the cases they are still looking at. Still, Minnesota prosecutors have spent weeks investigating the actions of these federal agents. Moriarty said that the case announced on Thursday had, quote, virtually none of the obstacles that have made prosecuting other cases difficult. For example, here they have interviews with both the ICE agent and the motorist. A supervisor for ICE told investigators that neither Mr. Morgan nor his partner. reported the incident after they returned to their base. So, as noted, a glimmer of accountability there. We'll be keeping our eyes on that case as it unfolds and any that may follow. And speaking of accountability for the Trump administration and all of their far too many crimes to count at this point, how about accountability for war crimes? In this yes, still ongoing war of choice by Donald Trump in Iran. We will discuss that and more with Keith Barber next. Plus Green News report all ahead on today's busy broadcast. I'm Brad Friedman.

The Bradcast and the Green News Report are 100% independent, 100% listener supported. But we can't do it alone. We need you. Please help us bring real facts to listeners at independent stations around the nation. Please drop by bradblog.com slash donate. That's bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Welcome back. It's the Bradcast. Brad Friedman from brandblog.com. On Thursday morning, as we near the end of the somewhat shaky two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, Donald Trump claimed that a 10-day ceasefire was to be declared between Israel and Lebanon, where Israel has been brutally attacking Hezbollah forces in and around Beirut since pretty much the time that Israel and U.S. jointly attacked Iran, beginning about six weeks ago. As we go to air today, I don't know if that ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has yet been confirmed by either of those two countries. So take Donald Trump's announcement for the moment with the huge grain of salt that anything that ever comes out of his mouth. now warrants, but I should note that the attack on Lebanon by Israel has reportedly been so brutal and has killed and displaced so many people. Upwards of a million civilians are said to now have been displaced that frankly international criminal courts need to add still new war crime charges against Benjamin Netanyahu on top of a mountain. of such charges that he needs to face for his atrocities in Gaza. But that is for another day for now. Here at home, our own president needs to face his own mountain of accountability, now including war crimes for what he has done in Iran, in my opinion. which in my non-lawyer layman's understanding of international law includes his mere threat against Iran as one of his ultimately tacoed deadlines for them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz approached when he declared, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Of course, destroying an entire civilization would be among the most horrific war crimes in the history of humanity, if not the most horrific, but merely threatening as much is a war crime in and of itself as I understand international law. Again, as a layman and non-lawyer. So with that...

including my own limitations on this in mind. Let's turn to someone who is not a layman and a non-lawyer, but an actual attorney who has actually studied some of this, including some 30 years ago during another U.S. conflict in the Persian Gulf since they never seem to end, after all. Back when the U.S. had attacked Iraq in defense of U.S. ally Kuwait, following then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's invasion of his neighboring sovereign nation during the presidency of George H.W. Bush at the time. At the time, as our friend Keith Barber wrote last week at Daily Kos, he was the author, Keith was, of an article published in Volume 146. In the fall 1994 military law review, the article was entitled, quote, no fire this time, false accusations of America war crimes in the Persian Gulf. The 39-page legal article, he explains, systematically rebutted allegations made by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark at the time, alleging widespread war crimes by the U.S. in the Persian Gulf. Keith's article, he explained, cited the relevant law of warfare and applied the facts to the law that had often been misstated by Ramsey Clark. With Keith concluding, quote, the United States fought the Persian Gulf War with a concern for the laws of warfare. That is unprecedented. Lawyers assisted tactical commanders in every phase of the operation and their advice altered methods and tactics. The issue of whether the United States committed war crimes in the Persian Gulf involves specific questions of law and fact that are generally ascertainable. Finding, it seems, that widespread war crimes were not carried out by the U.S. during that conflict in contradiction to the claims of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Looking at those same laws, however, which have not much changed since Keith Barber wrote that Law Review article 32 years ago and applying them to our current conflict in the Persian Gulf against Iran. Keith says the conclusions that he makes today are not the same that he was able to make back in 1994. Joining us now is our old friend Keith Barber, a former U.S. Army captain, a former lifelong Republican and attorney. And now a frequent contributor to the progressive Daily Coast website on legal and constitutional matters, where he is known there mostly as Keith D.B. Oh, welcome back to the broadcast, sir. Thank you, Brad. Good to be back. Always great to have you here. So.

Very interesting study, very interesting contrast comparison between how the facts from two different U.S. Middle East conflicts match up against largely the same body of international law coming to two very different conclusions 30 years apart, Keith. I want to step through some of the laws regarding war crimes and why things look very different to you in this particular conflict. But I must ask, as we always point out, you were. Until essentially the Trump era, essentially, as I understand it, a lifelong Republican. And presumably you were still in military service at the time that you wrote that legal article for the military law review. Is that correct? No, I had just gotten out of the Army and gone to law school. I was in law school. So why were you tapped to write that piece at the time for the military law review? I was not tapped by the military to do so. Because I had good grades, I was invited to be an editor on the Houston Journal of International Law, a journal that the law school put out. And one of the requirements of being on that journal was that you were required to write an article of publishable quality. And so everybody had to do that. And this was the article I wrote. And most people didn't get theirs published, but I submitted mine to the military law review. was moderately surprised that they accepted it. Now, did your disposition at the time as both a Republican and a, well, former member of the armed forces at the time, did that color your assessment you think of that particular conflict in ultimately defending against the allegations of war crimes that were made by the former Attorney General Ramsey Clark at the time? He served as a Democrat. He served to both the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Johnson administration. Did you go back to review that article now in that particular light since you have sort of changed your party allegiances since then? You know, I did. I've got a copy of it on my shelf up here and I looked at it periodically. I don't think I did. Certainly, you know, the inspiration for it was. You know, frankly, and Desi and I were talking about the old AOL boards, and I was on one of those. And somebody cited Ramsey Clark's allegations. And I responded, you know, look, I was an Army officer for 11 years. And that's not what the rules of warfare say. And this person, you know, responded rather snottily, well, I'm going to believe a former United States Attorney General before I'm going to believe some just got out of the Army captain. Right. And I was like, well, then I'll prove it. I'll look up the law and prove it. And that's what I did. If you read that article from 1994, it's a...

you know, fairly straightforward approach of this is what happened, and this is what the law actually says, and it results in that conclusion. It's legal analysis. It's what judges do all the time. And I think that I was fair-minded when I wrote that back in 1994, and I think I was fair-minded when I wrote the article that you talked about in the Daily Coast. you know, a week or so ago. No, by the way, and I know this is probably an unanswerable question, but would your 1994 article have been published, selected for publication in the military law review if you actually had found that Ramsey Clark was right about war crimes by the U.S. in that conference? Yeah, I guess we'll never know. Right. But I doubt it. Okay. I very much doubt it. In fact, I considered, I actually emailed a link to my article to the military law review, the article I just wrote. I found the email for the military law review and said, hey, I did this article 30 years ago, and now I've applied the same standards that I did then to this article or to our conduct. in the current war with Iran and I reach a different conclusion and I invite you to read it and I gave them a link. Have you heard back from them yet? I have not. Interesting. Well, because it would be interesting if you heard back, do let us know. And better still, if they decide to publish it, let us know. Let's jump into it. As noted, I, Keith, am not an attorney like yourself, much less an international war crime law expert. So I'm going to need your help to sort of step us through some of the... Potential crimes in question, both in the, well, in the first Iraq conflict defending Kuwait under George H.W. Bush and now Donald Trump's war in Iran, you begin in this latest piece at Delhi Coast by asking, was attacking Iran legal the initial attack itself? And we'll drill down into some of the questionable tactics in a moment. But what does the law tell us about? that, whether it was a lawful attack on Iran, and how is this attack on Iran itself different from what happened when the U.S. attacked Iraq back in the 90s? Well, the basic law on that is the United Nations Charter, and it states that all members shall refrain in their international relations for the threat or use of force against other countries. Yeah, you know, pretty simple. But the UN Charter does spell out two specific circumstances when the use of force is considered to be authorized under international law. And one of those kind of interestingly is when the United Nations Security Council authorizes it.

And the other one is self-defense, that a nation may respond in both individual and collective self. defense to an attack by another country. It says if an attack occurs, by the way, by the other country. So, you know, the UN Charter kind of doesn't allow for this notion of, well, we think they might be about to attack someday. And so we're going to attack them first. The UN Charter doesn't envision that sort of excuse, which is what we offer. you know, offered this time. Obviously, 30 years ago, when I wrote that article in 1994, you know, Iraq had attacked Kuwait. And Article 51 of the United Nations Charter justified a collective response by Kuwait and any allies in response to that attack on it. And so that was one. And then there was also your United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized force. So we actually had both of those bases covered in the original war against Iraq. And we saw, so there's a series of steps essentially that you could take, you can go through the United Nations and so forth that are supposed to be carried out before an armed conflict unless additional lands we saw in Kuwait where they were themselves attacked and they were defending themselves. We saw similar steps carried out in the long run up to the second. war in Iraq that was carried up by Bush Jr. And by the way, none of this is to say that, you know, I or Keith, who I certainly don't speak for, but that we support any of these wars. This is just sort of a look at the so-called legal steps that are taken or supposed to be taken in advance of these types of conflicts. That's right. I wasn't answering the question. in that article 30 years ago or the one I wrote a couple of weeks ago, whether or not the war was a smart idea or good policy. I was answering the question then and... a couple of weeks ago on was the war legal? And the answer is, you know, different. Yeah, because they did take those steps back in 1994 for good or ill. We haven't seen any of those steps. As a matter of fact, in this particular war, as a matter of fact, you write, quote, an argument can be made that the United States used... perfidy to gain tactical advantage to assassinate the Iranian leadership at the beginning of this particular conflict and that such perfidy is itself, a violation of Article 37, of the Geneva Conventions from 1977. What does perfidy mean in this particular context? Why is it a violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1977? And how did we violate that?

Well, Perfety is defined by that provision as acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he's entitled to, you know, a protective status under international law. And so what occurred in the initial hours of this war was that we were in the midst of negotiations with Iran. And the Iranian leadership was receiving... offers and diplomatic, you know, overtures from the United States and Israel. And the Iranian leadership said, we need to get together and consider what the United States has said to us in their offer of diplomacy. And so all their leaders got together. American and Israeli intelligence found out about that meeting and bombed it. And that's how most of Iran's highest level leaders were killed. Unbelievable. And, yeah. I mean, that just seems like a strict violation of Iran accused us to bombing the negotiating tape. And it's, you know, the whole justification for war thing, one of the things, if you look at those United Nations charters that I was just quoting a moment ago, is they certainly don't envision sneak attacks by any part. as how a war would be initiated. A war would be initiated only when negotiations fail and all the efforts of diplomacy exhaust. This was a sneak attack. This is what the Japanese did to us. Yeah. You know, on December 7th, 1941, and when they did it to us, we understood that as much of the reason as to why there were the bad guys and we were the good guys because we would not stoop to such a thing. Well, we just did. So, yeah, I mean, there are laws that, international laws, say, you can't basically say, hey, let's have a peace conference. Let's get together and then kill the people when they come to meet you for this for this peace conference. Well, they didn't come to meet us, but they were meeting with each other to consider our offer. And that's when we hit them. Right. Just the general principle I'm trying to underscore that you can't pretend that we are doing this thing to work towards peace and you take part in that process and then we end up using that somehow against you. That seems to be exactly what happened here. Was there anything akin to that? Again, comparing this back to the 1994 war, was there anything akin to any of that in the run up to that war? the beginning of that war. Well, yeah, as I suggested in my article, that it was more, what we did was more akin to what Iraq did to Kuwait. In the midst of negotiations, Iraq suddenly invaded Kuwait and overran the country. So, yeah, I, you know, with a surprise sneak attack that Iraq did. And once again, when Iraq did it to one of our allies, such sneak attacks. were understood to be the kind of things that, you know, bad and evil nations do. Certainly not the kind of thing we would do.

Tell me about the principle of discrimination. This is a principle regarding the conduct of war, dating back apparently all the way to the Hague conventions of 1907. So predating even the First World War, what is the principle of discrimination as it applies here? Yeah. It's a fairly simple statement that civilians and their institutions shall not be made the target of attack. You know, one sentence you can say it. As I discuss in my article, there's all sorts of nuances there that make it a little bit tricky in application or maybe even a lot tricky in application. But the bottom line is if you target civilians intentionally, you are in violation of that. Now, there's institutions and targets that are dual use, you know, that the power structure and stuff like that, that get into... you know, more gray areas, but... You know. Because the power structure may be used by civilians, but it can also be used for military purposes, which one could argue, whether they win the argument or not is another question, but one could argue, oh, that was, that power structure was used for this military base. So we're allowed to bomb that. That's right. The power, the grid can be used by the military as well as by civilians and therefore it's legit to a target. to target it. Now, the thing about that is, is even that is supposed to be limited by the second principle I discussed proportionality, which basically says that the incidental damage to civilians or civilian institutions cannot be disproportionate to the military advantage achieved by the attack. So you can't wipe out an entire village to kill a single enemy sniper, for example. So when we look at the attack then on the girls' school in Iran in the early days of this particular war, for instance, reportedly killed more than 150 people, many of them said to be elementary grade school children. Would that be a violation of the principle of discrimination because we bombed a school rather than a military base? If we knowingly bombed the school. Yes, that's a clear violation of the discrimination. And I've researched that and I've attempted to determine what occurred there. And as near as I can tell, they used old maps when that building, what is now or was the girl's school, some 15 years ago was part of an adjacent Iranian naval base. And then about... A little bit over 10 years ago, they broke it off from the naval base and they turned it into a girl's school. And we didn't catch up with that on our targeting maps and deliberately hit the, I mean, the Tomahawks hit what they were, where they were aimed. So the argument here is being that we should have known that we have a responsibility to upgrade our maps from 15 years ago before carrying out an attack like that? Yeah, we should have.

And if it was a mistake, you know, the rules of warfare accept that that there is, you know, the fog of war, that there's confusion in war and the mistakes will happen. But it was a bad mistake. And I guess what bothered me most about that incident was that we lied about. After it occurred, you know, Trump. came up with all sorts of ridiculous lies about it. You know, he first said that the Iranians did it. Yeah. And then, you know, and the reporters said, well, no, there's pictures of the Tomahawk missiles striking it. Yeah. And Trump said, well, lots of people have Tomahawks. Well, no, they don't. Really, the only ones potentially involved are the United States and the United Kingdom. And UK wasn't involved in this. So not even the Israelis have Tomahawk. So is lying about a crime like that? Is that a crime itself? No, no, it really isn't. But, you know, when you're trying to evaluate the malice and intent involved, the dishonesty of the reaction, you know, becomes part of the context of how you should view. view it in totality. So I guess that's what bothered me most about that incident was. Who in an incident like that, Keith Barber, who, you know, if they determine that it was either purposely or accidentally targeted, but that, you know, someone didn't do their job in upgrading the maps and so forth, either way. Who is accountable in an attack like that? Is it the soldier who carried out the attack? Is it the general who gave the order? Is it the civilian leaders of the Department of the Defense or the commander-in-chief himself? Can any of those people be held accountable? You go back to the rule and, you know, it's an intent-based rule. It's wrong to intentionally target. you know, civilians or their institutions. And so, you know, if you make a mistake like that, then the defense to it is for everybody within the chain there that it wasn't intentional. And, you know, I suppose there can be something to that. But, and one of the problems that popped up with the principle of discrimination is that there is some disagreement in international law. as to who is responsible, the attacker versus the defender, for kind of drawing those lines. The older law from the Hague conventions and so forth kind of said that it's up to the defender to clearly mark that which is not a target, okay, you know, where civilians are and so forth. And as the rules evolved and to include through the Geneva Conventions, there was some eroding of that notion to shift more responsibility to the attacker because it's just not possible for the defender to say everywhere, you know, that every, to designate every building that's a civilian building. Please don't attack this one. We'll put a sticker on it. Yeah. Were there no such attacks in Kuwait then during the First Gulf War as you...

seemed to conclude in your 1994 article that there were no such attacks of discrimination or proportionality when it came to the Kuwait War? I used Ramsey Clark's allegations as my guideline. I see. You know, and as he made allegations and said, we violated this or we violated that, I looked at each incident. and said, no, that wasn't the violation of the rules of warfare. So, you know, there were alleged violations by Iranians. are the Iraqis back then, that, you know, the targeting of the infants, you know, with the treatment, you know, with the, uh, treatment, you know, facilities for infants and stuff like that. Right. The Iraqis were pulled off of incubators, which later was proven to be, uh, questionable at best. Yeah. But the blowing up of oil wells and stuff like that that the Iraqis did and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, and I didn't evaluate whether Iraq in that article violated the rules of warfare. The point of the article was to address. Nancy Clark's allegations against the United States. And he didn't make any, he didn't even make any allegations against the Iraqis. So I'm running short on time here, Keith. Let me hit a couple of quick points. Trump, I mentioned this at the top, these Trump's threats to end the entire Iranian civilization. Now, my understanding of war crimes and international law is that it is a violation of international law merely to threaten. war crimes, whether they're carried out or not. But you suggest that the threat itself may not violate international law. You know, I can't find a specific law that his merely saying that violates unless you go back to the United Nations charter again, which says that, you know, you're just not supposed to attack other countries and so forth. Now, if we actually attempted to do what Trump did, that would be. as clear a violation of international law as you could have. I mean, there are 93 million people who live in Iran. And, you know, that's the kind of mass genocide that you would be talking about, something on the order of 15 times greater than the Holocaust. So, you know. But. And then, you know, on the other clear violation I point out was, and this is a clear violation because of the phrasing of the rule. Is this heck sense? Yeah. Let me play this just so people to refresh folks members. This is from March 13. So again, pretty early, first week or two, I guess, in the war. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this. Our response, we will keep pressing. We will keep pushing. Keep advancing. No quarter. No mercy for our enemies.

You argue that that is the violation of international law. Here's the rule. It's simple. You take the rule, quote, it is especially forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given Hague Convention Article 23D. The declaration in itself is illegal. To declare it, and he just did it. He just did it. There is no wiggle room on that. So, you know, I should note there are several international bodies who investigate and bring such charges, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, I think, neither of which I believe that the U.S. is a party to. So what body, if any, could actually bring such charges? Were they determined to be warranted against, you know, U.S. officials, whether it's Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth or the... grunts on the ground executing these unlawful orders to, you know, give no quarter, for example. Yeah, yeah. The only real precedent that we have on this is following World War II, where the Nureberg conventions and trials occurred, you know, and that was kind of specially created by the prevailing parties. So, you know, frankly, if Germany had won, obviously none of that would have occurred. Right. And that's the problem we're going to have here is that we're certainly not going to lose this. We're not going to lose this war in a sense of being conquered. And I can't see any practical international accountability. Perhaps a different administration that comes in might allow Pete Hegseth and others to be subject to. you know, international discipline in this regards, but, you know, certainly this regime would not do so. Can we, can the U.S. itself bring charges against, you know, for war crimes against itself in a future administration? Yes. Yes, they could. I, in the United States, could prosecute HECS for that one as clearly as, as much as any international organization. Once again, I kind of doubt we will actually do that, but we'll see. Hey, don't be such a negative Nelly. You never know. Keith Barber, let me, you conclude by noting 32 years ago, I defended the United States against false allegations of war crimes. I wish I could do so today. Sadly, you write, I cannot. I. presume that, you know, international law and the laws of war have not, you know, changed themselves over those 32 years to any extent. Not really, no. But it's the U.S. Is it the U.S., which has changed as you see it, as you conclude, looking at these two cases? And it's some of it's symbolic, but, you know, we changed the name from the Department of Defense to the Department of War. We have used military force in the drug war, and we've done that illegally too, even if you accepted that bombing those boats was permitted under the rules of international law, which it really isn't. Right. But the double-tap strike on the boat that was torn apart and floating in the water upside down to kill two more guys that were...

Helpless at sea was a clear violation of and clear war crime, even if you wanted to extend the benefits of the rules of war to, you know, bombing supposed drug boats in the water. That would be a clear violation. And I... I'm appalled that we did it. And at the time, I was screaming anywhere I could that it was a violation. And it remained so. Yeah. We haven't done it again. That's about the only good thing I can say. I'm not so sure about that, Keith. Apparently we just bombed our 54th boat out of the water in the Pacific. On Thursday, I think we are up to nearly 200 people. Well, no, we've bombed both. To the best of my knowledge, we haven't done a double-tap strike like that. You know, there... Where we hit the survivors. Right. Well, it's the fact that we're even talking about this, the fact that I think we, you know, we are both of us ashamed in the sense of our own country for what... is being done in our name. It's upsetting. It's disturbing. But it's, you know, I think it's necessary. I don't know, as we've discussed, you know, whether what the accountability will be, if there will be anywhere it will come from. But I think it's important that we look at these things sort of straight in the eye and and. understand what is going on, what has happened in our name. And I'm mighty grateful to you, Keith, for your piece on this. The real fire this time, American war crimes in the Iran war, beginning to identify exactly what has been done in our name. And then we'll get to the question of... you know, what can ultimately be done about it. I will, of course, link folks to your article at Daily Coast on this. Keith Barber is a former U.S. Army captain, a former lifelong Republican attorney, and frequent writer now at the Progressive Daily Coast. Keith, always a delight speaking with you, sir. I look forward to the next time. Thank you, Brad. Been fun. Thank you, my friend. All right, I don't know if I'd call it fun. True. But, you know, it is, I think you're absolutely right. We have to be discussing these items of accountability. And hopefully we will get the opportunity to find out what accountability looks like. We've got a long way to go, obviously. But, you know, I do think we will find our way towards that accountability, towards some sort of, I don't know if it's reconciliation, but a rebuilding from what we have done from the damage that we are doing right now. Hope so. That continues to get worse and worse by the day. But we need to call it out now. We need to identify it now so we can hopefully make sense of it in the not too distant future.

to do things like also make laws to prevent these nightmares from happening again in this country in our name. All right, let's take a quick break. Speaking of nightmares, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News report. That is right after a short break. I'm Brad Friedman. You're listening to The Bradcast. Hey, this is Brad. Please consider supporting whichever progressive media outlet is serving you. Most, just like us, do not receive corporate or political support. We all need your support to counter the powerful corporate media echo chamber. From Desi Doyen and myself, thank you. You know, there's been so much going on today. I can't remember here. But if I recall, I think we actually end today's Green News Report with some ironically good news. Am I right about that? Yes, you are. So you can look forward to that in our latest Green News Report. $30 million an hour. Yeah, $30 million an hour. Imagine what you could do with that. Big oil is reaping $30 million an hour from consumers thanks only to the Iran War. Hawaii grapples with more storms and floods as super typhoon slams into U.S. Pacific Island territories. Plus, I think Turning Point helped to turn the tide and actually help the clean energy candidates to victory. Arizona voters oust pro-fossil fuel candidates from state utility board. With the help of Turning Point? Yes. That turning point? Yes. All of those stories and more explained straight ahead from bradblog.com. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. Stand by for six minutes of independent green news, politics, analysis, and snarky comment. What do you say, people to Steve? Americans who, you know, are struggling, they're worried about higher gas prices, about why this is so critical for the U.S. to be doing what it is doing in Iran right now. I say to them, Sarah, that if they have children, think about what this world would look like if you didn't have Donald Trump as the president. Oh, my God. I think about it every day. This is your Green News Report.

Okay, Jesse Doyen, we talked a little bit about this, I think, on our previous green news report, but now we are getting more data on just how rich big oil is getting. Thanks to Donald Trump's war. Yes, as the fossil fuel supply shock deepens around the world, triggered by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, we now have even more data on just how much the oil and gas industry is profiting from it all. We had previously reported on big oil CEOs profiting from stock sales personally. Now a new analysis from The Guardian calculates that the world's top 100 oil and gas companies have banked $30 million every hour in unearned profits over the last month due to the Iran War. Emphasis on unearned. In total, that's an estimated $23 billion in windfall war profits. Biggest profiteers are Saudi Arabia's Aramco, Russia's Gazprom and ExxonMobil. Guardian Environment editor Damien Carrington notes the billions in excess profits come out of the pockets of ordinary people. If the only price stays about $100 a barrel, which it has done since the start of the war through to the end of the year, then these hundred companies. and he's set to make $234 billion in total in the year, which is actually about the entire GDP of Portugal. Well, Donald Trump did promise big oil CEOs during the 2024 campaign that if they gave him a billion dollars, they would make back many times that much. In other news, out in the Pacific Ocean, super typhoon Sinlaku rapidly intensified before slamming into the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands overnight on Tuesday as a powerful Category 4 storm, fueled by near record warm ocean waters. Sinlaku is the 10th category 4 or 5 tropical cyclone to hit the U.S. in the past 10 years. That is a record. Forecasters say it is really weird to have a super typhoon form. this early in the year. And again, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, which is also affected, are U.S. territories with U.S. citizens. Yep. Hawaii is grappling with the aftermath of yet another atmospheric river that has triggered new extreme flooding just a few weeks after record rainfall inundated the islands. I understand Hawaii is now citizens as well. Yes. Severe storms battered to Central U.S. this week. a triple threat of tornadoes, hail, and high winds. But NPR reports that promised FEMA funding has slowed to a trickle for both post-disaster repairs and projects to retrofit infrastructure against future storms, floods, and wildfires. I wonder why. Internal documents show FEMA owes communities at least $10 billion, most of it earmarked for reimbursing cash-strapped local governments for what they've already spent.

infrastructure repairs. Finally, a bit of good news in Arizona's election last week for the board of the nation's largest public power utility, the Salt River Project. Voters angry over rising electricity prices amid a surge of energy-hungry data centers rejected pro-fossil fuel candidates backed by data center developers and turning point action, the political arm of right-wing turning point USA. Voters elected renewable energy advocates. to a majority on the board. It's a big deal because the state has 31 additional new data centers in the pipeline. The previous board had focused only on approving costly new natural gas plants, but Democratic State Senator Lauren Kubi on local news explained that homegrown solar energy is the way to go. Gas is not really the answer for our future and solar plus battery storage always comes in cheaper. So voters looked. at who the right-wing Turning Point was supporting and voted against them. Yes, they did. Thank you, Turning Point. For much more on all of these stories and the ones we couldn't get to today, check out our website at greennews.bradblog.com. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. And this has been your Green News Report.

I like that idea. We just look for whoever it is. The turning point is supporting and then vote for whoever they're running against. It's a sound plan. They spend a lot of money, so they'll really help get the word out about who to vote against. Yeah, you could look at it that way. I will. Once again, I think we have said this before, maybe that elections matter. We'll see. We'll see. All right, we got to get out. Oh, we had one other point you wanted to get to. There's one more thing. We didn't want to mention. We didn't have time for this, but Michigan and Wisconsin are in the middle of a flooding crisis with the entire state of Michigan under a flood watch to incredibly heavy rains and storms, a really unusual weather pattern that has actually caused a couple of small private dams to fail and has caused evacuation. Shout out to Michigan and Wisconsin. You guys, we're thinking about you too. Be careful up there. All right, got to get out. Thanks to once again our guest today, Keith Barber, of Daily Coast, to our producer Desi Doyan and to all of you for spending a portion of your day. or night with us. It's always appreciated. It's always an honor. Thank you. If you missed any portion of today's show or you want to share it with someone you know, love or hate, you can do so via bradblog.com. That is free, though only thanks to those very few of you who hit one of those donate buttons when you stop by. I'm mighty grateful to those of you who do. You can go to bradblog.com slash donate if you have not done so before or lately. That's bradblog.com slash donate. Drop me email. I'm Bradcast at Bradblog.com. Love to hear from you. You can also find me on the social media, especially Blue Sky. If they fix it, I am the Brad Blog. And Des Doines there, too. She is Green News Report. We'll see you there at all of the above. Until we see you here next time, I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck world. To everything. Turn, turn, turn. Season 10. Turned.