THE DEPUTY SPORTS MINISTER….THATS WHO !!

JEFF CHILDERS

The New York Times escalated its Iran support yesterday, in a treasonous story headlined, “Trump Revels in Threats to Commit War Crimes in Iran.” Exactly what the mullahs have been saying! But … what war crimes? Or are they saying he’s just threatening to? And does the Times even know what “revels” means? One thing is true; it was all pretty surreal.

The Times was definitely not reveling after reading a short but provocative Easter post from Trump directed at the Iranians. In three sentences, he dropped an F-bomb, called the mullahs “crazy bastards,” and most controversially, mockingly ended with “Praise be to Allah!”— on Easter. It was shocking, blasphemous in two religions, and painful to read, which is exactly what was intended.

But, rather than whine about presidential decorum, social media age restrictions, or worst of all, delve into why it might offend anyone, the Times complained about Trump’s threatened targets: power plants and bridges. “Their destruction by American and Israeli forces would in most cases be considered a war crime under international law,” the Times sagely opined.

In most cases! Not always, I guess. But as we’ll see, the words “in most cases” were doing a lot of work.

In 2015, Obama’s Pentagon updated the Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual. Revised Section 5.6.8.5 said:

Electric power stations are generally recognized to be of sufficient importance to a State’s capacity to meet its wartime needs of communication, transport, and industry so as usually to qualify as military objectives during armed conflicts.

The section was revised three more times: in 2016 (Obama), and in 2023 and 2024 (Biden). Trump’s DoD hasn’t touched it. It says the exact opposite of the Times’s loopy pronouncement.

How quickly the Times forgets. In 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, George Bush’s military coalition bombed Iraq’s entire electrical grid on Night One. Power plants were designated as priority targets. But there were zero war crimes charges against Bush or any coalition partner nation. There weren’t even any “revels in war crimes” headlines in the New York Times.

In Kosovo in 1999, under Clinton, NATO systematically bombed Serbia’s power grid. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia investigated and declined to prosecute: No war crimes! Clinton got a nice library. In Libya in 2011, Obama and NATO bombed tons of infrastructure. Obama never got Congressional authorization for that one. And that time, the NYT editorial board wildly applauded, like a ward full of drooling mental patients at snack time.

Even though under Obama’s rules of war, power stations and infrastructure “usually qualify” as valid military objectives, the Times nevertheless quoted outraged Yale law professor Oona “Loompa” Hathaway (if that is their real name), who is a notorious Trump Derangement evangelist. Professor Oona Hathaway said, “It’s so clearly unlawful and deeply misguided.” Hathaway was baffled by all the war-criming going on: “It’s hard to fathom how much the rules have been completely thrown out,” they said.

Later, the story paraphrased Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and now full-time Trump critic, who unhelpfully said: “civilian sites can be considered legal targets if they are used by a military.” (The story didn’t use quote marks, which means Finucane’s actual quote was even less helpful.) That one sentence from a critical source seemed to undermine the entire story. So the Times immediately pivoted to Pete Hegseth.

“Mr. Hegseth, however, has fired and reassigned military lawyers,” the story said, and “has talked endlessly about increasing ‘lethality.’” Endlessly? Whatever. In other words, the story tried to suggest in a cowardly way that there’s some BlueAnon conspiracy to hide all the war crimes. But then the Times found its quote marks. Mr. Finucane added, “It is very disturbing because we don’t know to what degree this rhetoric will translate to illegality.”

There it was. Finally, late in the story, the Times revealed its whole vile premise: progressives are “worried” President Trump’s rhetoric might “translate” into war crimes. In the future. Even that premise was a lie. If you believe leftists ‘worry’ about war crimes, I’d like to sell you an Everglades wildlife retreat. The truth is, they are praying for a war crimes miracle.

Here’s your media reading lesson: Every ‘expert’ the Times picked to judge Trump’s Iran policy was already on record as branding him lawless. That’s who the paper presented as the voices of ‘neutral’ legal authority. The story erased the experts from Trump’s side. It didn’t even admit they exist. The Times used to be able to get away with it, because it was too hard to track down who all these crazy people are.

But now, we have AI. So they won’t get away with it for much longer.

The Times invested a whole article predicting Trump’s future war crimes, which is an implied admission he hasn’t done any war crimes yet. But how about Iran? Does the Times ever turn its gimlet war-lawyer’s eye toward the terrorist regime? Even a little?

? Apparently not. The Times was completely mute about Iran’s plan to defend its bridges. Yesterday, Reuters reported, “Iran’s deputy sports minister, Alireza Rahimi, has called on artists and athletes to form human chains at power plants across the country on Tuesday.” The deputy sports minister —that’s how far down the chain of command they are now— explained, “We will stand hand in hand to say: Attacking public infrastructure is a war crime.”

Um. You know what definitely is a war crime? Using human shields. Human shields are a war crime under the Geneva Convention, the Additional Protocols, and the Rome Statute. So.

The good news is nobody has reported any Iranian volleyball or soccer players lining up on bridges. And if the deputy sports minister —not the regular sports minister, but his assistant— is now calling the shots … well, Iran is running out of options. You serious, Clark? That should have been the story.