Open letter to Pete Hegseth on targeting civilians
Dear Secretary Hegseth:
At Wednesday’s press conference, you answered a question about a reported strike on a girls’ school in Iran, “We’re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets.” I am glad you are investigating but hasten to add why “of course” is so troubling.
Do you know any of our country’s long and ugly history of targeting civilians?
Are you aware the Senate has not ratified the 1977 protocols of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit attacks on civilians?
Do you hope your performance of bravado will be mistaken for truth?
With celebration of the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary near, I also hope you endorse Santayana’s familiar wisdom, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Hoping none of us is so condemned, permit me to share a few examples of our country targeting civilians. Your Princeton education, focused on politics, may have overlooked these. Still, I would have hoped that in the decades since, let alone after being selected for such a weighty position, you might have learned some of the discomfiting history that undermines comforting myths of American exceptionalism and perfection in all things, always.
--According to Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, following 9/11, direct violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan killed over 400,000 civilians;
--That’s such a large number, Vietnam’s My Lai Massacre is easier to fathom. In 1968, American soldiers murdered 109 “Oriental human beings,” according to the court-martial of Lt. Calley. He was found guilty, sentenced to 20 years, then 10, then released after 42 months of house arrest. Note: while some soldiers joined in the murder of unarmed civilians (the My Lai memorial lists 504 men, women, and children) others, like helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, rescued children while still others helped bring the massacre to the public’s attention.
--Perhaps a single targeted civilian is easier to comprehend. Phan Thi Kim Phúc is the child you’ve seen in pictures, running down a road moments after our pilots bombed her village in South Vietnam, our ally. The skin peeling from her naked body was caused by napalm, secretly invented at Harvard, and first used to firebomb Japan. Surely you realize that indiscriminate burning of entire cities cannot distinguish civilians from combatants. An estimated 100,000 civilians died in Tokyo March 9-10, 1945.
--Finally, I hope you recognize the cosmic irony of the purported rationale for attacking Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Ours is the only country to have used them, twice, against civilians, and we have partnered with Israel, the only nation in that region to possess them.
I do not think our country’s record of targeting civilians is unique.
Nor are we unusual among nations in betraying annunciated ideals or ethical behavior to seek short-term, self-serving goals.
Nor are we alone in behaving like bullies ever certain that might makes right.
All nations display themselves the best way possible.
All prefer to blame others than admit their faults.
Your “of course” is only two syllables, but when I hear the national anthem’s “bombs bursting in air,” I think of civilians and the bombardiers targeting them
And when I hear “liberty and justice for all,” I assume that a single syllable—“all”—includes everyone not just my compatriots.
Sincerely,
~~~~~~~~
Russell Vandenbroucke, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is professor emeritus of theatre at the University of Louisville, where he was Founding Director of its Peace, Justice & Conflict Transformation Program.
Article above is the author's opinion. This is a news article about war powers.
US Senate rejects limits on Trump war powers, as Hegseth vows ‘day and night’ strikes on Iran
Sen. Lindsey Graham continued to praise Trump’s decisions on Iran
BY: ASHLEY MURRAY - MARCH 4, 2026 7:00 PM
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans and a single Democrat blocked a War Powers Resolution Wednesday aimed at limiting President Donald Trump’s joint war with Israel in Iran that has taken the lives of six American troops and killed top Iranian leaders.
The resolution failed 47-52, with Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., the only Republican to cosponsor the measure, joining Democrats in challenging Trump’s war in Iran.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., was the lone Democrat to break with his party and vote against moving ahead with the measure.
The vote came five days after Trump ordered the military to join Israel in surprise strikes on Iran that killed its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pentagon officials say the administration does not plan to let up on the continuing offensive.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier Wednesday that U.S. B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft, as well as Predator drones, will fly with Israeli airpower “day and night” to deploy “death and destruction from the sky all day long.”
Republicans have largely fallen in line to support Trump’s actions and have panned the War Powers Resolution that would compel the president to answer to Capitol Hill on moving forward in Iran.
Democrats assert Trump’s war in Iran is illegal, violating the Constitution’s Article I power given to Congress to declare war. Republicans maintain Trump acted well within war powers granted to the president in Article II of the Constitution.
‘Members of the Senate, this is war’
The 1973 War Powers Resolution mandates the president report to Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops. If after 60 days from first notice Congress has not authorized a war or passed legislation related to the military action, the president’s use of armed forces is automatically terminated.
Congress passed the act to rein in presidential war powers, despite a veto from President Richard Nixon amid the ongoing Vietnam War. Congress overrode the veto.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on the floor ahead of the vote that Republicans want “to give the president an easy pass around the Constitution.”
“You can’t stand up and say, this is one and done, and no troops are engaged in hostilities against Iran. Members of the Senate, this is war. The president of the United States has called it a war against Iran,” said Kaine, who sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
Kaine sponsored the War Powers Resolution alongside Paul.
Kaine said on the floor that during a classified briefing from the administration Tuesday, he asked officials if the recent pattern of military interventions in Venezuela and now Iran meant “that you believe you never need to come to Congress to wage war against anyone, anywhere.”
“No one” refuted his point, he said.
Briefings for Congress
Administration officials briefed all members of Congress Tuesday, for the first time since the war began. Officials had briefed congressional leaders and intelligence committee heads.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who also sits on the Armed Services Committee, said ahead of the vote the Constitution “leaves no room for doubt that Congress, not the president, has the sole power to declare war.”
“And that check is in place for a very important reason. Our founders did not want to place the immense power over whether or not to go to war in the hands of just one individual,” Peters said.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said on the floor ahead of the vote the vast majority of presidents in American history “have ordered kinetic acts, just like President Trump has done, without going to Congress.”
“This isn’t new,” said Risch, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Lindsey Graham again lauds Trump
In lengthy comments on the Senate floor prior to the vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., praised Trump’s decisions on Iran and argued the War Powers Resolution violates the Constitution.
“To my Democratic colleagues, what you’re proposing will cause chaos for every commander-in-chief that follows,” said Graham, a Trump ally who has been outspoken in support of the war all week.
Graham said if Congress wants to stop Trump’s war in Iran, it can do so by cutting funding during the annual appropriations process.
“The president, as commander-in-chief, has the ability to use our armed forces to protect our nation. And Congress, if we disagree with that choice, has the ability to terminate the action, taking the money away, and that’s the check and balance that was created a long time ago,” Graham said.
Speaker Johnson says US not at war
The U.S. House is expected to take up the War Powers Resolution Thursday. Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters multiple times this week he expects it to fail.
During a morning press conference, Johnson said he doesn’t believe the military is “at war right now” and argued that Congress limiting the president’s ability to continue attacking Iran “would put the country in serious harm.”
Johnson brushed aside the possibility that Americans may vote Republicans out of power during November’s midterm elections if the war drags on, especially without a formal authorization from Congress.
“I think they’ll reward it politically, but if people get a bad taste in their mouth for what happened back here in the first part of the year in Iran, they just do,” he said. “But we know, and history will record that we did the right thing.”
Johnson added that he believes lawmakers voting against continued military action in Iran “would be a terrible, dangerous idea.”
A War Powers Resolution to halt Trump’s military actions in Venezuela narrowly failed in January in both the House and Senate.
Ground troops?
The White House maintains Iran rejected any negotiations with the U.S. on reining in its nuclear program, and that the objective of the war launched over the weekend is to destroy Iran’s current weapons capacity and missile production, and “end their pathway to nuclear weapons,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday.
The press secretary said American ground troops are “not part of the current plan” but did not rule out that it’s an option “on the table.”
Leavitt denied any claims that the goal of the offensive is regime change, despite the killing of some of Iran’s leaders.
Leavitt said during the press briefing that the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, “obliterated Iran’s three major nuclear sites.”
“Yet the terrorist Iranian regime has remained fully committed to rebuilding its nuclear program,” she said.
Iranian authorities said in November the nation was no longer enriching uranium, according to The Associated Press. The AP further reported the reclusive government has blocked international inspectors from assessing its four nuclear enrichment facilities, citing a confidential report journalists viewed from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Control of the skies, sinking a ship
Hegseth underlined Wednesday morning the U.S. will not slow down its offensive in Iran, already having struck 2,000 targets, and that more troops and airpower will arrive Wednesday.
The secretary said the U.S. and Israel will have “complete control of the Iranian skies” within a few days.
Hegseth also showed a video of an apparent U.S. submarine strike in the Indian Ocean on Iran’s “prize ship,” sinking it.
General Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the submarine used a single torpedo to sink the ship — the first time a U.S. submarine has done so since World War II, he said.
U.S. Central Command wrote on social media that it had “struck or sunk to the bottom of the ocean” more than 20 Iranian regime ships.
The Pentagon cited a significant decrease in Iran’s retaliatory strikes. The regime launched rockets and drones on civilian sites throughout the Persian Gulf states beginning Sunday, and on regional U.S. military bases.
Caine said to date, Iran’s missile and drone strikes respectively dropped 86% and 73% from the first day of fighting.
A drone attack killed six U.S. troops Sunday at a commercial port in Kuwait, a U.S. ally.
Caine said the remains of the six U.S. soldiers will return to the U.S. “as soon as possible.” The Pentagon publicly identified four late Wednesday, and Caine said the military will release the names of the other two troops killed “as soon as we can ensure that all of those families have been properly notified.”
Leavitt said Trump will attend the transfer of the troops’ remains upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Hegseth bashes media
Hegseth said the Pentagon moved 90% of U.S. troops out of the range of Iran’s missile reach prior to the war.
“We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate, but when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad,” he said.
Both Hegseth and Leavitt declined to provide details about a strike Saturday on an elementary school in southern Iran that local authorities said killed 168 people, many of them children.
“All I can say is that we’re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets,” Hegseth said.
When pressed on whether it was a U.S. or Israeli munition that struck the school, Hegseth replied: “We’re investigating it.”
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
Ashley Murray covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include domestic policy and appropriations.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
