It's the Brian Laris Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. The two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is the headline. We'll talk about some of the details and what might come next. But for our lead

conversation today, we want to focus on what almost happened, which might still happen in around

two weeks from now, and which is still happening right now in Lebanon, the purposeful destruction

of civilian infrastructure and the killing of many civilians to achieve a military goal.

It's still happening in Lebanon because Israel did not fully sign on to the ceasefire with

respect to that front in the war, as I'm seeing it reported. Of course, Iran and its proxies have

not been shy about killing civilians either. We have two guests, including a former

chief legal advisor for international law at U.S. Central Command, but I want to start with some

clips from the 2004 movie, The Fog of War. It was a documentary built around an interview with former U.S. Defense Secretary

Robert McNamara. He was an architect of the Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson

in the 1960s. But arguably, the most striking part of that film was when McNamara spoke about

the role of the United States and ending World War II.

And spoiler alert, he says we committed war crimes.

I'm going to play a few clips in this first one, 45 seconds.

He references General Curtis LeMay, who ordered the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

but focuses here on what the

U.S. did before that in Japan. Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if Lame was

burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. Fifty-eight percent of

Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland.

58% of Cleveland destroyed.

Tokyo is roughly the size of New York.

51% of New York destroyed.

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