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A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations [U.S. and Russia] possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. 

Ronald Reagan

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

General Omar Bradley

I'll cut right to the chase: It is widely reported that President Trump is cajoling the Pentagon for a green light to use a tactical nuclear bomb against Iran.

Trump's malignant narcissism knows no limits. This is an unhinged madman who has absolutely zero regard for human life—or life of any kind, for that matter, including the lives of the beautiful cherry trees in Washington, D.C., that have decorated our nation's capital and mesmerized airline passengers that fly into D.C. since 1909. 

I totally agree with Tucker Carlson:

Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson said Friday that President Trump should be removed from office if he is considering using nuclear weapons first, saying even entertaining the possibility should disqualify a president from serving.

"The second any president actively considers the first use of nuclear weapons, that person should be removed from office immediately, because that's got to be the red line, destroying all of humanity with a nuclear strike," Carlson said.

Carlson made the comments during a conversation with Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned earlier this year in opposition to the war with Iran.

Carlson, who noted that he strongly opposed both efforts to impeach Trump during his first term, questioned why the same standard would not apply if a president were weighing a nuclear first strike.

"Why isn't there an attempt to remove him from office, like, immediately?" Carlson said. "Anyone who would even tolerate that kind of talk from any of his subordinates or employees is by definition unfit."

Carlson's comments come as he raised concerns about both the administration's approach to Iran and a nuclear strategy being developed at the Pentagon.

Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, earlier this month said at a conference that officials are looking to give the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "credible, rational nuclear options."

Kent said he was concerned about where the administration could turn if conventional military options fail to get the outcome Trump wants in Iran.

"I think we would be fools to think that this couldn't happen here in this current scenario, especially as the administration scrambles for a way out," he said.

Amen, Tucker!

The second any president actively considers the first use of nuclear weapons, that person should be removed from office immediately.

Yes! And that means right now!

Whatever happened to nuclear nonproliferation? By launching an illegal war of aggression against Iran and then discussing using nuclear weapons against Iran after Iran defeated us on the battlefield, Donald Trump will no doubt also launch the most intense proliferation of nuclear weapons in history. Since Trump attacked Iran, smaller countries globally now realize that the only way to guarantee that they will not be attacked by the U.S. or Israel is to have nuclear weapons. 

Can anyone say North Korea?

The world is a hundred times more dangerous today than it was on January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump was sworn into office.

The United States already holds the ignoble distinction of being the only government in human history to use an atomic bomb on human beings. But that was in 1945 when no other government possessed atomic weapons. Those days are long gone.

After the uber-Zionist Harry Truman authorized the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, instantly killing over 120,000 innocent civilians (and hundreds of thousands over the next several decades from the effects of radiation poisoning), Pandora's box was opened, and country after country began developing their own nuclear weapons, including Russia, China, France, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and, again, North Korea.

Americans are so detached from reality that it's pathetic. I hear evangelicals (including pastors) openly say things like, "We should just nuke Iran and all the Arab states and turn their countries into glass parking lots." I heard that very statement not 72 hours ago.

So much for showing the love of Christ to the world.

Does anyone really believe that Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea are going to just sit on their hands and do nothing while Donald Trump incinerates hundreds of thousands of people in Iran? Anyone who believes that is just as detached from reality as Donald Trump.

The first thing that would happen should Trump launch a nuclear missile would be that Israel is instantly wiped off the face of the earth with nuclear strikes from countries such as Pakistan, North Korea and China. Ditto for much of Western Europe. And what would be left of the United States would be virtually uninhabitable.

No one wins a nuclear war!

Of course, evangelicals have spent over 100 years completely detached from reality with their erroneous and fallacious doctrine of the Rapture, which they believe will whisk them all to Heaven before that first nuclear warhead hits U.S. soil.

They are living in la-la land.

When those nuclear weapons fall on America, they will rain on the just and unjust. (Matthew 5:45)

Noted international scholar Alastair Crooke adds his concerns over Trump's inclination to use nuclear weapons against Iran.

Talks are not happening. There are zero negotiations. The Strait of Hormuz remains – as at the outset – at the centre of the conflict, and effectively shut. Meanwhile the possibility of escalation has become much closer – one might say almost inevitable – as Iran has indicated its intent to pro-actively escalate against American and Gulf infrastructure targets unless Trump abides over the next 3 - 4 weeks by the well-known Iranian preconditions.

From Trump's perspective, his war on Iran, far from making the Middle East a sea of tranquillity and peace 'after a thousand years of conflict', as he claimed, his war on Iran has precisely ignited the regions' many underlying tensions, setting them on fire. The region today is a tinderbox, rather than an exemplar of peaceful co-existence. Even his erstwhile allies have turned against him.

An angry and frustrated Trump called a team meeting last Saturday at Camp David to consider next steps in the wake of the expiry of the 60-day MoU de-escalation period.

Credible reporting from Marjorie Taylor Greene states categorically that Trump again expressed great frustration that he had not achieved his objective in Iran – to force it to surrender, to capitulate.

Trump is bemused and angry that Iran is proving so difficult to bring to capitulation, and so is toying with other ways of achieving their surrender. And so, we read Marjorie Taylor Greene leaking that Trump again discussed the possibility of using tactical non-strategic nuclear weapons against Iran.

This is not the first occasion that Trump has raised such a possibility. Reportedly, he has raised the question on two earlier occasions, the first in April, during the conflict with Iran. Trump's preoccupation with this question however has older roots. Reportedly, it lay at the crux to his dispute with Rex Tillerson and James Mattis.

Tillerman, at the time, was Secretary of State, and Mattis was Defence Secretary. During the Trump 1.0 mandate, he kept contending that the U.S. should be able to use tactical nuclear weapons more freely. 'Why not?', he would ask. Why should we [the U.S.] be held back, or debarred from using them, Trump questioned. And the answer always came back from Tillerson and Mattis, too, that nuclear weapons were only for strategic deterrence. They were not to be deployed willy-nilly, as an alternative to other forms of munitions.

Trump was not happy with this answer, reportedly. Well, now we're back to the same argument, because not only did Trump raise it again at last week's meeting (this is probably the third time that he suggested it in the context of the Iranian conflict) – but the issue is returning in a new context.

Elbridge Colby, Under-Secretary at the Pentagon, responsible for defence policy, and who played a significant part in the drafting of the National Security Statement, apparently advocates for nuclear weapons to be re-categorised as 'tactical weapons', and not simply confined to their place as strategic deterrence. Colby argues that U.S. failure in the conventional military arena (i.e. in Iran), could justify the use of tactical nuclear weapons – to compensate for the loss of U.S. conventional deterrence.

This debate has not finally been settled.

And it is into this context that Netanyahu has been lying about the imminence of a nuclear threat from Iran for which there is no evidence; nor is there solid evidence that Iran is preparing a weapon, Israeli Military Intelligence avers. Netanyahu produced no evidence to support this case during discussions of the 28 February attack on Iran, Israeli journalist investigators collectively believe.

In short, there is no evidence that would support a preventive tactical nuclear attack by the U.S. 'to prevent Iran having a bomb'. It would be false to suggest otherwise – shades of the Iraq war.

This comprises the background to the talk about the possibility of the U.S. dropping a nuclear device on Iran. It remains a possibility, but there are several voices in the Trump circle that are adamantly opposed, believing its use would constitute a grave war crime.

As this column was being prepared, reports were released quoting Trump saying he would not use a nuclear weapon against Iran.

President Donald Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran as a way to deliver a decisive blow in a war that's dragged on for six months.

Trump dismissed nuclear action as an option and lashed out at a reporter from NewsNation who asked about it during an Oval Office event on Aug. 31.

Of course, we all know that Donald Trump never lies; he always keeps his word.

If Trump's statement has any merit (and his track record being what it is means nothing he says means anything at all), it means that U.S. military commanders unambiguously told Trump a resounding, "No!"

And there's another important element of this story that is getting far less attention than it deserves: Our U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines are flat-out against the war in Iran. Morale is at historic lows. They know it's an unlawful war; they know it's an unconstitutional war; and they know that it is a war being fought for Israel—not for the United States.

From MS Now:

BOMBSHELL Troops allege Hegseth and Trump pushing them to VIOLATE laws as discharge requests SURGE 

Jacob Soberoff: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can tout his leadership all he wants. But according to new reporting from MS Now, the sea change those actually inside the ranks of the military are experiencing is not a positive one. This is a quote.

Nearly six months into the United States' war with Iran — and a year into the Pentagon's decision to launch deadly strikes to kill alleged drug traffickers — the number of service members seeking a formal discharge from the military as conscientious objectors has skyrocketed according to two groups that helped them file their applications. 

MS Now spoke to five troops who want out of the military because what they saw in recent months challenged their moral beliefs... 

The reasons they cited included… being ordered to violate international law, seeing the civilian death toll as a result of American military interventions surge and their concerns over extended deployments with no clear mission or strategy.

Priya Sridhar: It looks like we're seeing a record number of service members trying to get out of the military as conscientious objectors. And as you mentioned, I spoke to five of them. One of the service members who was deployed to Operation Epic Fury, which, of course, is the war on Iran, told me that they believe that they were being ordered to target and bomb civilian infrastructure, which is, of course, a violation of international humanitarian law, according to the Geneva Accords.

I also spoke to two service members who were deployed in support of Operation Southern Spear, which, as you remember, were those 60 boat strikes that occurred over the last year that killed about 210 people. Those boats were allegedly carrying narcoterrorists and drugs into the United States. And those two service members told me that they also believe that there wasn't enough justification or intelligence that the people on those boats were, in fact, narcoterrorists. And they were very concerned that they were potentially killing innocent civilians and perhaps fishermen. So, the violation of international law, the surging of civilian death tolls, including that girls' school in Minab, Iran, where we know that 150 schoolgirls were killed.

Lieutenant General Mark Hertling: What I'll tell you is reading Priya's piece and also the piece in The New York Times, there is so much under the wavetops on both of those articles, those great reportings by both of the people that did them. 

I'll do an anecdotal piece of evidence during my 38 years serving in uniform, I had two individuals who submitted conscientious objector packets. They are very difficult to work through. These individuals have to talk to chaplains and lawyers and commanders and their chain of command. They have to provide proof in terms of letters. It is a difficult process to go through.

So, when you're talking about the uptick that Priya reported, from 50 a year to 140 just since the latest operation started, both in South America and also in Iran, it is gobsmacking to me. 

I have concerns. I've talked to a lot of young officers, some NCOs and a few senior officers, and they are all expressing the same things. And it goes back to one specific thing: a lack of communication between soldiers and their leaders, sailors and their leaders, the government and the citizens and the government, the military and the Congress. Those are the things that Clausewitz, an 18th century theoretician, said are required whenever you go to war. The support of the people, the leadership of the government, and the passion of the military. We're failing in all three of those areas right now in the conflicts we're executing. 

Soberoff: And it's no wonder that the reporting that Priya has done over the course of the last several weeks about the mental health crises of the sailors and the airmen aboard the Lincoln has become part of the conversation around this.

I want to read another interesting part of Priya's reporting about a person who runs a hotline help service to help members file as conscientious objectors. He said that: 

Unlike other times in American history when conscientious objectors were typically junior enlisted service members, many of his clients today have been in the military for more than a decade. They represent all enlisted and officer ranks up to major and many have even attended service academies prior to their commissions. 

They've cited Operation Epic Fury, the attacks against drug traffickers in the Southern Spear and the bombing of the Minab school in Iran in February as reasons for having a profound change in thought toward war.

Whether a deranged Donald Trump launches nuclear weapons against Iran or not, he has already violated the Constitution of the United States and committed international war crimes, mass murder and crimes against humanity; he has already launched an unjust, illegal war of aggression against a country that posed zero threat to the security of the United States; he has already sent U.S. service men and women to their deaths fighting an unconstitutional war—not for the defense of the United States, but for the genocidal ambitions of conquest of the Zionist State of Israel; he has already violated his own oath to peacefully resolve the Iran conflict by personally signing and then immediately breaking the Memorandum of Understanding; and he has already taken the global economy to the brink of collapse and the defensive capabilities of the U.S. military to critical deficiencies.

Donald Trump should be removed from office NOW before his deranged mind can inflict any more damage on the world than it already has.

© Chuck Baldwin

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