- The building does seem to have actually been a school and "detached" from the rest of the military complex.
- The school the Iranians claim it was does seem to exist even if it's not 100% clear that's the identical location.
- At the time of the attack school would have been in session.
- The signature of the attack seems similar between all the buildings attacked and we have footage showing a Tomahawk hitting the area.
Another thing we can tell is that the US has to know the truth here and isn't coming out with an official statement.
And I'm saying this as someone who thinks the Iranian regime is evil, needs to be struck down, was trying to acquire nuclear weapons etc.
As to the numbers I agree they are to be treated with suspicion. The Iranians are obviously motivated to lie, inflate them, and treat all casualties as civilians. But we can still try and estimate given the size of the building what would be the number of students. We can also estimate the outcome of the missile hitting the building and correlate with the photos and satellite imagery, and until we have better data use those estimates.
Agree the first paragraph is garbage journalism.
What the US has NOT confirmed:
- that they are responsible for the bombing
- who hit the school
- whether the school was an intended target of US strikes
- whether it was struck intentionally
- that it was mistaken for a military site
- any casualty count
- whether there were civilians or children in the casualty count
The US has explicitly DENIED:
- That they deliberately target civilian targets
These are the facts about what the US has actually confirmed. We are all entitled to our opinion of what happened. But we should be able to acknowledge that they are just that: opinions. We don't actually know what happened. And I find it scary and dangerous that so many people, on hacker news and elsewhere, are acting like they do.
Sources:
- https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4421...
- https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4434...
I feel like we know enough already. A school was bombed, the ones who did it sucks big time and should be held responsible. Currently, the US and Israel is waging a war against Iran, and one of them dropped the bomb(s), unless suddenly Iran got their hands on American weapons, then that needs to be investigated too, because someone surely dropped the ball at that point.
The basics remain the same, investigations have to be launched to figure out where exactly in the chain of command, someone made a mistake, and then hold that person(s) responsible for their fuck up.
Have those investigations been launched?
We also don't know anything about casualties - we only have the IRGC statements, and they are not reliable.
> Have those investigations been launched?
Yes, according to the US government, an investigation is underway. But its starting point is determining what caused the explosion.
If this was a school (which seems likely at this point) and if this was a US TLAM that hit it (which also seems likely at this point) then we should expect a lot of casualties when it's hit during school time (which also seems likely). And yes, we shouldn't trust what the IRGC is saying.
I think I'm on your side but in this case the correct course of action for the US would have been to quickly own up to the mistake. There is really not a lot of ambiguity here. This doesn't seem to be a case like "shots were fired from the school window" or some sort of dual use with IRGC having offices in the school. If there was a reason for the targeting then presumably we'd have a statement about it already.
Mistakes can be made and are always made in war. Leaving this open like this is damaging to the war effort.
What have they done to deserve your trust? They started a war that they deny is a war. They told us a year ago they set Iran back a decade. Then they tell us 9 months later they're weeks from a nuclear bomb. I wouldn't trust the warmongers to admit they're child killers.
It's one thing to say "I think the US did XYZ".
It's quite another to say "It is an objective truth that the US did XYZ, in fact they even admitted it".
Transposed to the Guardian, if they want to write "we think the US did XYZ", they should clearly frame it as an opinion piece. Instead they are writing "it is an objective truth that the US did XYZ" - which is false. That is journalistic malpractice.
Think for a second WHY that is! They can find and kill the Iranian leaders who will be doing the utmost to conceal their location and yet that can't tell us whose bomb blew up a specific building? Of course they can. They're waiting until people forget and they can final release the result of their 'investigation'.
But I'm noticing that you are only interested in guessing the motives and actions of the US.
Does the IRGC not have motives and agency of their own? Perhaps the explosion was caused by a malfunction of their own missile? Perhaps they lied about children being present? Perhaps they intentionally placed children in a location they knew would be struck? Based on their incentives, doctrine and past behavior, you could make a reasonable case for all of those scenarios.
It's fine to speculate on who did what, and why. But that methodology can be applied in both directions, not just the one that suites your political preference.
> An ongoing [United States] military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.
It doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's not an official confirmation by the US government, and it only speaks to the responsibility of the strike, not the various claims of "killed children".
Those sources don't say anything about casualties, or the presence of children. The NYT does its best to make it sound like they do ("responsible for a deadly strike"), but so far the only source for how deadly it is, remains the IRGC. And the NYT happily quotes their claim that the death toll was "at least 175 people".
For what it's worth, I personally believe the US is responsible for the strike. I also think the IRGC is lying about casualties, but there's no way to know for sure, and a US investigation probably won't tell us more on that point.
I wish there was the same level of rigour and energy applied to investigating the 40,000 deaths in early January. There are countless videos online.
I simply don’t understand why 150 people receive so much attention while 40,000 don’t.
This saddens me because it feels like the focus is on who was responsible rather than who lost their lives.
It's called motherfucking *accountability*
Anyone can look at the satellite images from the bombing and see how ridiculous whatever Iran was doing was.[1]
[1]https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop...
"It's a tragedy that she was raped. But you have to understand, the way she was dressed, she clearly wanted it, she was sending mixed signals, you see."
Anyway. Here's a preschool right next to a military base, it took me about 3 minutes of scrolling around on google maps to find this.
The Navy even provides a map for people potentially targeting to know what is and isn't on base.
https://www.nepa.navy.mil/portals/20/Figure%201%20Letter.png
I'm sure you'll link to where Iran publicly shares the information about the base that was struck, right?
Are the children in that school a legitimate military target? Is putting that school on Joint Base Andrews "recklessly stupid?"
Why is it perfectly fine for the United States to do this but "recklessly stupid" for Iran to do it?
If your force your enemy to decide what is and isn't a civilian target, you are the deranged one.
> Everything that the average family needs is there; a grocery store, shopping mall, bank, post office, theatre, religious centers, outdoor activities, community center, clubs, dining facilities, gas station, quick stop markets, and, if not a full size hospital, medical clinics. The majority of bases do not have schools physically located on the installation, but the children are educated in the neighboring school systems.
src: https://militarybases.com/military-housing/life-on-a-militar...
I just googled that so I don't have to write the text myself.
So while you might be technically correct about schools, do you think housing on a military base for personnel and their families is akin to playing on the road at night ?
> I feel like an intellectual god
HN rules prevent me from writing anything snarky here.
But do you know what else the US does?
The locations of military and non-military buildings is public information, and even intentionally made obvious to anyone. You can get maps of the bases from their websites. You can even go on google maps and see what most of the buildings are. To avoid exactly this situation. And even beyond all that, in the event of military escalation where their is real threat of the bases being hit, the civilians would be evacuated anyway.
(Legitimate) countries at war aren't trying to massacre civilians. They all agreed to that and all take agreed upon steps to stop it. Like at the most basic level issuing uniforms to soldiers so you can clearly see who is a civilian and who is a fighter.
I can assure you that in a war between the US and China, there would be dramatically fewer civilian deaths, because both countries don't fuck around with "military/civilian ambiguity" as a war tactic. Because you or your enemy end up killing a bunch of innocents.
This the the school's website https://web.archive.org/web/20250912011638/https://shajaresc...
Do you believe that these military buildings were a secret that the Iranians thought the US and Israel don't know about ?
> (Legitimate) countries at war aren't trying to massacre civilians.
You think Israel is not a legitimate country? Cause that just very openly happened and continues to happen.
And maybe you think that killing civilians is not the point, which I don't agree with but I can at least understand why one would come to that conclusion.
But you must at least remember that the US is kind of famous for Hiroshima and Nagasaki - an action based almost in it's entirety on killing civilians.
But even if you want to only defend that "legitimate" countries aren't trying to massacre civilians, you must be able to see that the threshold of killing them if they just happen to be in the way is very low.
The Secretary of Defense of the US recently called for removal of all these rules you alluded to
> We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement.
https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4318...
Look at what is happening even with this lose framework you are referring to in place. Do you think if China invaded the US, the US would not do everything it takes to defeat them, even if it means giving up conventional warfare. You think the US forces would give up a strategic advantage that could be gained by taking off their uniform and continue fighting without it ?
Also the Geneva conventions don't apply when fighting an enemy who doesn't abide by them. Its incredibly annoying to fight an enemy that has no problem using ambulances as troop and weapon transports. Or an enemy that refuses to issue uniforms to it's fighters. This isn't even necessarily referring to Israel and Hamas, it was rampant with al qaeda and ISIS.
As for China invading the US? Well Ukraine has managed to keep it above board. It's only these shit head theocratic lunatics that have no problem shoveling civilians into the fire to keep their ass in power. Maybe you aren't aware, but Hamas consoles it's civilians by telling them they are dying for God. Just like Japan trained it's civilians during WWII to die for God (who happened to be the emperor.)
You are bending over backwards to shift the blame away from an administration that was utterly negligent and reckless and caused an obvious and expected outcome of having "No rules of engagement"
You don't get to blow up a school and say "But a decade ago it was part of the military base!". That's Russia's SOP
It's stupid, lazy, unacceptable, and indefensible in a war of choice. This administration had years to vet targets, and instead eschewed all preparation and fired the people who had been working on preparation.
If only anyone in Washington was capable of feeling shame they'd be committing sepuku about now.
Although it does make sense that the land of school shootings would use the children of it's military as bait.