Nineteen years ago—in February 2007, during the Bush administration’s Axis of Evil regime and calls for attacks on Iran from members of Congress, including “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” (to the tune of Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann”) recitation by Senator John McCain—I wrote an article entitled “An Appeal to Conscience to Those Who WOULD Bomb Iran.”
Now, almost two decades and four presidential administrations later (Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump), the article is virtually the same, except that U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy pilots have now actually dropped bunker-busting, “smart” bombs on Iran’s nuclear program facilities and, according to “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, the U.S. has successfully targeted with bombs and missiles more than 1,700 locations in Iran, including civilian infrastructure of roads, bridges and water treatment plants, as well as military targets.
Despite the 1976 executive order issued by President Gerald Ford banning the U.S. government from engaging in political assassinations, a few hours into the first day of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, on the orders of President Donald Trump, U.S. missiles assassinated Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, members of his family and other senior leaders of the government. In 1975, the U.S. Congress’s Church Committee report that examined U.S. involvement in plots to kill foreign leaders, stated that “assassination is incompatible with American principles, international order and morality” and that assassinations should be rejected as a tool of foreign policy.
Million-dollar Cruise and Tomahawk missiles have destroyed many structures including a school in Minab, Iran, where 168 persons, including more than 100 school children, were killed in an unlawful attack by the U.S. military on civilians. One U.S. Navy submarine, the Hawaii-based USS Charlotte, torpedoed and sank the Iranian naval frigate Dena killing 104 sailors, including 20 missing, 15 miles off Sri Lanka, 2,000 miles from Iran in the Indian Ocean, as it was returning from regional military maneuvers, which had been attended by the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.
Trump Becomes a “Neo-con” in His War for Regime Change, and His Political Base Is Questioning His Allegiance
President Trump initiated the long-planned out attacks in coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has become the “neo-con,” regime-change advocate in a turnabout from what he at times promised his MAGA base.
One former supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene, summarized the feelings of many in the MAGA base: “We said ‘No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!’ We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again. My generation has been let down, abused, and used by our government our entire adult lives and our children’s generation is literally being abandoned. Thousands and thousands of Americans from my generation have been killed and injured in never-ending pointless foreign wars and we said no more.”
Are U.S. Military Pilots Reminded That Iran Has the Legal Right to Defend Itself Against Attacks by Other Countries?
Did anyone tell Trump that, if he ordered the U.S. military to attack Iran that, by international law, Iran had the legal right to defend itself from aggressive action by another country, the U.S., Israel or any other country?
Are U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine pilots reminded that the Iranian attacks on the closest U.S. facilities to Iran—the many U.S. military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Jordan— are legitimate targets for the Iranians to attack in response to the U.S. attacks.
For the senior leaders of the Trump administration—Hegseth, Rubio, Caine and pilots of Air Force and Navy jets and the missile operators of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines—a reminder that, after World War II, the United States executed German and Japanese military officers who were convicted of crimes against peace (wars of aggression) and for violations of the Geneva Conventions.
International Law Is Clear: The Attack on Iran, or Another Country That Has Not Attacked the United States, Is a Crime Against Peace, a War Crime
The seven Nuremberg Principles, created in 1950, provide for accountability for war crimes committed by military and civilian officials.
Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. [Emphasis added]
Principle VI of the Nuremberg Principles states: The following crimes “are punishable as crimes under international law:
a. Crimes against peace: i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; ii. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
b. War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war include, but are not limited to murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, town, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
c. Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.”
Those who drop bombs and fire missiles and torpedoes in an illegal war—a war of choice, a war of aggression—are violating the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions and the “Laws” of Warfare.
Probably No Fear of Prosecution for War Crimes Under the Trump Administration, But Future Consequences on Personal Behavior May Be Worse Than Jail
While I doubt that you should fear prosecution for commission of war crimes from an administration that ordered you to commit these actions, there will be future consequences that may be worse than spending time in jail for your actions—just ask the veterans who suffer from the nightmares, erratic and dangerous behaviors and drug and alcohol abuse and who commit suicide from the wars that have endured. Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death among military personnel and, in recent years, more military personnel have died by suicide than died in combat. Just ask the spouses and children of war veterans.
I appeal to the consciences of U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine pilots who fly the bombers and attack aircraft and to Navy, Air Force and Army personnel who command land and sea-based missile units and those who plan these attacks, to stop these criminal actions.
Save Your Soul, Your Conscience, Your Sanity—STOP THE BOMBINGS!
I ask that you refuse unlawful orders that violate the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Principles.
I ask you to stop the attacks on Iran for your own soul, for your own conscience and for your own sanity. You have a “moral” choice.
Your conscience is ultimately the accountable part of your body and mind for your actions.
It is your conscience that will drive you into dangerous and, perhaps, lethal harm to yourself if you continue to bomb innocent civilians, destroy civilian infrastructure and commit actions that you have been warned against in your training in the laws of war.
While refusal to drop bombs or fire missiles or torpedoes may initially draw punishment and the loss of one’s military career, those who refuse will save their souls, their consciences and their sanity.
Six Members of the U.S. Congress Appeal to You to Refuse to Follow Illegal Orders
In a video in November 2025, Senator Mark Kelly (Navy) and Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (Air Force), Jason Crow (Army), Chris Deluzio (Navy), Senator Elissa Slotkin (former CIA), and Maggie Goodlander (Intelligence Officer in Navy Reserve), stated with conviction of the legality of their statement, the “threats to our Constitution” are coming “from right here at home.” They repeatedly urged military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders.”
Not surprisingly, but without legal basis, President Trump, who never served in the U.S. military and who apparently knows nothing about U.S. military law pertaining to the duty to disobey illegal orders, caused a firestorm of support for the six congresspersons, when Trump called them “traitors” who could face execution. He wrote in Truth Social posts: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT” and “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
Oath to “Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”…NOT to a Person or Political Party
A reminder: The oath for commissioned officers is to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”….and not to a particular person or political party.
Military personnel can get advice and assistance for their moral dilemmas on war and killing civilians at Center on Conscience and War, War Resisters League, Veterans For Peace, About Face: Veterans Against War, G.I. Rights Hotline, and the National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force. The VA Suicide and Crisis Lifeline website is available, as well as the 988 (telephone) Lifeline.
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About the Author
Ann Wright is a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official.
She was one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
Since that time Colonel Wright has been a dedicated peace activist.
Ann can be reached at annw1946@gmail.com.
