#1,042: Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus
The “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”
The Latin expression falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is a vintage legal principle found mostly in English common law. Literally translated as “false in one thing, false in everything,” it was long the basis for a trial strategy which held that if a witness or defendant was found to have been untruthful about one part of their testimony, the reliability of their entire testimony could then be called into question. In a sense, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus sums up in just 6 words what Aesop’s fable “The Boy (or Shepherd) Who Cried Wolf” was getting at. (n.b. Many contemporary jurisdictions have abandoned the principle as a formal rule of evidence, applying instead the rule as “permissible inference that the jury may or may not draw.” So far as I know, the last time falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus was applied in a major case was back in 1995 in The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James [O.J.] Simpson, where Judge Lance Ito instructed the jury that a “witness who is willfully false in one material part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others.”)
Despite the paragraph above, this post is not about the history of common law, Latin phraseology, or the O.J. Simpson case. Rather, it seeks to explore the world’s leading epitomization of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus: the 47th POTUS. While a heck of lot of the American public is effusively praising him for Saturday night’s pinpoint Operation Midnight Hammer bombing raid on Iran’s 3 major nuclear facilities (Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo), there are just as many Americans (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who are asking Why now?, What’s next?, Is there an exit strategy? and What role did/does political optics play in the attack?
The main target of the bombing operation was the Fordo nuclear site, which is located roughly 300 feet under a mountain about 100 miles south of Tehran. It's a move that Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to carry out for quite some time, given that only the U.S. has the kind of powerful "bunker buster" bombs capable of reaching the site. Known as the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the bomb can only be transported by one specific U.S. warplane, the B-2 stealth bomber, due to its (i.e. the MOP’s) immense 30,000 pound weight. In his address to the nation announcing the operation, It was accompanied by the V.P, the Sec. of State and the Sec. of Defense. Chillingly, not a single member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were present . . . a clear indication that political optics were more important than strategic concerns. He also called the operation a "spectacular military success” and claimed that Iran’s nuclear capability “has been obliterated.” I may not know sprat about military tactics or weaponry; what I do know is that it is virtually impossible to make such a robust judgment within a matter of hours. We have every right to be dubious. Remember, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
Not only did POTUS give his patented “thumbs up” to the mission; he did so without consulting Congress. I guess he isn’t aware (or even worse, care) that there’s been a War Powers Act on the books for the past half century. This resolution, passed by congress in 1973, limits POTUS’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad. As part of our system of governmental “checks and balances,” the law aims to check the executive branch’s power when committing U.S. military forces to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. Already, some lawmakers in both parties are questioning the legality of the mission. Remember back in late 2024 when IT repeatedly claimed that if Kamala Harris to win the election, that she’s get the U.S. embroiled in a war within a year? Well, he managed to do it within 6 months. One Republican House member, Kentuckian Thomas Massie, responded to POTUS’s announcement of the strikes in 4 words: “This is not Constitutional.” Massie also introduced a bipartisan resolution seeking to block U.S. military action against Iran “unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran” passed by Congress. ITs response? “[Rep. Massie is] a lazy, grandstanding nonproductive” politician.
In a penetrating response to the president’s action, Atlantic columnist (and former Bush 43 speechwriter) David Frum noted: Trump did the right thing, but he did that right thing in the wrongest [sic] possible way: without Congress, without competent leadership in place to defend the United States against terrorism, and while waging a culture war at home against half the nation. Trump has not put U.S. boots on the ground to fight Iran, but he has put U.S. troops on the ground for an uninvited military occupation of California.
While ITs air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may have been, from a strategic point of view, both flawless and precise, it leaves one feeling “we’ve all seen this before.” As political influencer Glee Violette noted in a recent online post: “When Kamala Harris roared on the scene, and Trump's campaign flagged, he had a ‘miraculous‘ incident, thanks to God himself. But it was only miraculous for HIM. A fan of his died. A family was destroyed. . . Still, later in the campaign there was a second such incident. Inside his own golf course. The only real result of this was that the head of Trump's Secret Service detail, who had total control of BOTH venues, and who should have been fired for gross incompetence, was instead promoted to head the entire Secret Service for Trump after his inauguration.”
In other words, when things start swirling around Felon47’s toilet bowl, he and his puppet masters do everything in their power to turn public attention away from reality. Think about it: in the week just prior to Operation Midnight Hammer, ITs reputation and polling numbers started swirling and spiraling downward. His birthday parade was shunned and shamed and he ended up looking ridiculous. Meanwhile millions upon millions of Americans gathered in places both metropolitan and rural for peaceful “NO KINGS DAY” protests. If that wasn't bad enough, two days later he got shut down at the G7, and his exit, rather than looking like a show of strength, looked like a childish tantrum.
He immediately went on the defensive, huffing that he had left the G7 because he was NEEDED back in Washington. He had something even BIGGER than the Mideast crisis to deal with. “This is not about IRAN”, he said. “Much much BIGGER. Wait until you hear about it!” And so, the next day he had contractors erect two HUGE flagpoles on the South White House lawn, thereby making helicopter take-offs and landings next to impossible. When he was reminded that by law, no American flag can be flown after dark unless it has a source of electric light, it made him even more of a laughingstock. Then he - who had run in 2024 pledging to never get America in to a war - announced that he would make a decision as to what our response would be to Israel’s air attack on Iran within 2 weeks. instead, it took him all of 2 days. I guess this means that he’s as bad at math as he is at telling the truth. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
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it is now more than 2 1/2 hours since I wrote the words falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. During that time I took my daily walk where I attempt to take no less than 10,000 steps. Mission accomplished. Upon returning, toweling down and chugging a bottle of Gator-Aid (grape is my favorite) I, like you, learned that POTUS had gone on TV to announce a “complete and total” ceasefire between Israel and Iran. I myself am fascinated - though not overly surprised - that POTUS’s announcement caught his own top officials off guard. He really wants to have the world see him as the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906, for having negotiated peace in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-5. Sir, there’s a big difference: Theodore Rex worked hand-in-glove with his State Department; he wasn’t a one-man show. The only thing you have in common is that both of you were born in New York State.
As good and hopeful as this truce sounds - and I for one pray that IT is telling something resembling the truth - I am adopting a "wait and see” attitude. Middle East politics, especially when it involves such powerhouses as Israel and Iran, isn’t a feel-good movie with a requisite happy ending. It isn’t some treacly comedy plotted by the likes of a Neil Simon or Mel Brooks; rather it is more akin to the convoluted, absolute absurdism of a Luigi Pirandello, Samuel Beckett or Eugène Ionesco. While we can - and likely should - applaud the possibility of this ceasefire, we should, at the same time, be painfully aware of what diplomacy is: the process and practice of communication and negotiation between actors in the international system with the aim of achieving their goals and resolving their historic conflicts, disputes and utter lack of mutual trust. Let’s face it: DJT ain’t no T.R.; Bibi Netanyahu ain’t no Itzhak Rabin.
The U.S. will not - and likely cannot - be totally honest and impartial brokers in the diplomatic process between Israel and Iran. Remember: IT, in one of his first acts during his first term, formally (and loudly) withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal (a.k.a. the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”) in May, 2018. In announcing his decision to end U.S. participation in the deal, the White House Press Office quoted him as saying “The Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” How’s that for a hyperbolic statement?
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It is now Tuesday morning, June 24. I decided to wait another several hours until continuing this essay, so I could be as up-to-the-minute as possible. Right now I feel like a sportswriter attempting to write about a tennis match that’s in progress; the height of futility. Overnight the “truce” between Israel and Iran proved to be extremely fragile. In the hours before the cease fire was to go into effect, Tehran was pounded by the most intense and sustained airstrikes since the war began 11 days ago. Close to sunrise, the attacks came to an end, according to four residents in different parts of the city. POTUS responded by lashing out sharply, criticizing Israel for firing on Iran “right after we made the deal” and said that the two adversaries didn’t know what they were doing. In his late-night communication with the White House, Israeli PM Netanyahu’s office said that Iran had fired missiles after the cease-fire took effect. In a Truth Social post, IT said that Israel “is not going to attack Iran” and that “all planes will turn around and head home.”
And so it goes.
The world waits, watches and prays. If the cease fire holds, I will be happy to give Pumpkin Punim his props. But . . . and it’s a big but . . . the proof of its efficacy won’t be known for decades . . . or until the I.A.E.A. can send in a team of inspectors to do a comprehensive assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and determine what it has done with all its fissionable material.
I just hope we will be alive to sing Oseh Shalom bimromav with conviction and glee . . .
Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone