I hate bombing as much as the next guy but areas close to military structures, especially to ones that have already been bombed during the last 24 hours, should have been evacuated.
> On 28 February 2026, between 10:23 and 10:45 a.m
That's the exact same time the other buildings were hit. It was all part of the same strike package. The school was hit directly, not accidentally, and The Guardian has previously reported on evidence that these targets were selected with AI assistance
This is Israel's "business as usual" stuff. Mowing the lawn, fake ceasefire, distraction, expansion and greater Israel project let's go! stuff. Stretch goal is to make Iran a failed state. Primary goal is distraction from the very real annexation of Palestinian and Lebanese territories, one war crime at a time.
I am not justifying them as inevitable. I am justifying them as beneficial for us, even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times (even if they happen to be that way for the lack of choices).
I support Israel because it is a no-brainer who to support between them and so-called "Palestine" (which in practice means Hamas), and there is no practical way to be neutral because Hamas will never accept existence of Israel and thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them.
> even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times
> [...]
> thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them
What a sickening double-standard. I hope you understand why the majority of Americans disagree with this perspective, and have no interest in dying for Israel's expansionist escalation policy. Hamas is not a threat to America, Israel is.
It's possible you haven't visited America recently and experienced this firsthand, so I'll excuse you for thinking you have a populist stance. Even the Christian Zionists are getting sick and tired of dealing with the Liability in the Levant right now, I think you'll be shocked how fast the GOP abandons Likud when the ceasefire inevitably snaps.
I'm not at all an American and have never been to the US, and don't give a flying fuck about it. "Beneficial for us" - for the whole white, Christian (i am an atheist), civilised world.
Big difference in Israeli and Palestinian stance is that Israel is fine with the existence of Palestine. They never had a policy goal to destroy Gaza/West Bank or exile entirety of their population. Hamas does have a goal of doing the same to Israeli.
If Israel is fine with the existence of Palestina, why is it occupying the West Bank with illegal settlements? There is no Hamas in the West Bank, not any threat whatsoever and the policy is ethnic cleansing, as in Gaza. Do you know the current stance of the far-right Israeli government?
"The white, civilized world". There is not such a thing outside the mind of a white-supremacist, which you seem to be by this comments.
If it is to recover what Israel occupied illegally, good. If Palestine did what Israel is doing, that would be bad. What happened in October the 7th was also horrible and condemned. We really need to deescalate the whole situation and stop the violence. Every one of these violent actions (in which Israel is the main perpetrator by far), not only create suffering and deaths in the short term, but makes a possible solution harder and harder.
This is so unhelpful. What has happened in the last 5 weeks has hugely escalated the violence in an already difficult situation. It's not wishful thinking or naive to think that deliberately inflaming a difficult situation is a bad idea.
But in land of Israel/Palestine itself, there's no significant violence going on right? Hamas is isolated, there is an ample security zone, it's cut off from border and unable to militarily recover - problem is solved. West Bank is split into many enclaves, surrounded by walls and buffer zones, incapable of doing much harm and seems to be unwilling to try it in any case - any such outbursts will be contained if they happen.
For now, problem looks like it's solved - Palestinians on either side are incapable of harming Israel much, and Israel doesn't need or want to harm them either simply because endgame is unclear - ideally they are pushed out but no country will accept them so it's futile.
What is the exact problem we are discussing here? Actions in Lebanon are simply about creating a buffer zone there to make remnants of Hezbolla to threaten Israeli northern towns. Once zone south Litani river is secured, things will calm down.
Problem is solved for Israel, right. Gaza is still in ruins, cut off from everything, there is a massive humanitarian crisis, the systematic dispossession campaign in the West Bank is accelerating, but I guess all of that just affects Palestinians, so it doesn't count...
Problem here is that first and foremost, Gaza needs two things to fix their housing stock: cement and pipes... And they aren't getting either because cement immediately goes into building tunnels, and pipes into producing rockets. No way Israel will be fooled that way again - and now they control what goes in or not because of buffer zone.
Yeah no. The current "debate" from what I understand is about mobile homes and any kind of temporary shelter that is more durable than a tent. The Israeli government straight up said "no, mobile homes count as 'reconstruction' for us and reconstruction in any form is forbidden until Hamas is disarmed. So tents is all they get".
This is Palestine, not Minnesota :) I live right next to it. It never gets below zero. No snow.
And yes that's what was the condition of ceasefire. Of course Israel knew Hamas won't yield power. They are made so that Hamas can be now blamed for the plight of Palestinians. Question is, who elected Hamas to power?
Things were calm until Israel attacked Lebanon. They did it, after Israel and America started an illegal war against Iran.
At this point, everyone knows Israel is the aggressor.
One of the first acts of Operation Epstein's Fury was to attack a girls school and murder over 170 kids with a Tomahawk. Why?
I have two girls myself. I’d want to know exactly what happened and why, and to hold whoever made this deplorable mistake accountable. So I’d want to know this. Wouldn’t you? I think the AI targeting aspect of this is very disturbing.
Sorry, I misread your comment as a justification the first time. The US and Iseael are involved in war crimes and I am so tired of people justifying it.
I think the alternative he was alluding to was that Iran is the project of ultra-religious hostile expansion. Which of course they would do if they could. Pick your poison - nationalist fanaticism or religious fanaticism.
Obviously neither would be best but that isn't a realistic possibility. I think I'd probably rather Israel conquered the Middle East than Iran.
Iran "would" expand (and citation needed) is very different than Israel "is in the process of" expanding, invading, suppressing peoples of different cultures within and without the borders of its state.
> I think I'd probably rather Israel conquered the Middle East than Iran.
I'd rather that whomever pursues a project of Lebensraum (that includes Russia) to be reminded of its place in the world, one way or another.
This is absurd. Iran hasn't done hostile expansion during its entire history as a modern state. Meanwhile the Greater Israel project is being aggressively pursued, with Israel currently (as in today, Wednesday April 8th) ethnically cleansing South Lebanon for indefinite occupation, as well as annexing the West Bank.
But Iran was involved in war abroad, trained militias and send weapons to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, .. and also had personal on the ground.
They even try to enforce a death sentence worldwide and allmost succeded against a author who never even has been in Iran for writing a fantasy book (Salmom Rushdi).
It is absurd claiming they are peaceful. None of this justifies what Israel religious and nationalists are doing, but this black and white painting is not what is solving the conflict.
Or else they'll eventually alienate a majority of their patron state's voting population, and finally get hemmed in / risk losing your military (and other) funding that their state is dependent on.
We can reverse the whole thing -- lift sancions on Iran, sell them weapons, let them have their bomb and impose embargo on Israel. That should cool tbe delusions of grandeur pretty quick.
It was upvoted by so many people actually because of reason and evidence.
Also, please stop using race card, no one is blaming a race, people are pointing out to the country who is carrying out these cruelties and majority of government supporting it and majority of army is executing the commands
You .
The links you said are very misleading when looking at reality and the whole picture.
So the fact you chose these hilariously misleading links means you are misled.
Where did that misleading come from? You have to be fueled with emotions to get to that incorrect conclusion of yours (again, only based on your links).
So I am assuming you hate the jews/zionism/israel/something related and that hate fueled your failed journey at reaching the truth.
"Israel should extend its border with Lebanon up to the Litani River deep inside the country's south, Israel's finance minister said on Monday as Israeli troops bombed bridges and destroyed homes in an escalating military assault.
The comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich were the most explicit yet by a senior Israeli official on seizing Lebanese territory in a fight Israel says targets Iran-backed Hezbollah militants."
Yes, a lot of context.
Otherwise your linked article would indeed favor your argument. But given without enough context this article is a pure backwards nonsense that can and does confuse uninformed people like yourself.
I see this claim repeated over and over. You should be aware that it is false. As far as I am aware, Israel never funded Hamas. Israel allowed Qatari money to the Gaza authority to pay for civil servants, humanitarian aid and basic services, while it was run by Hamas.
> Only a Zionist would call equal rights and the right to self-determination a "maximalist" position
They had equal rights and self-determination in Gaza. For decades. They never built a society from it, instead begging the international community for food, and then starting a war they knew they would lose, only for the PR points of losing badly.
Where's a blockaded tiny slice of coastal land no more than a few miles wide with no water and no arable land supposed to even get food? Nobody is convinced by the "they're just beggars" racist stuff, man. Those poor people were actively expelled from their homes and continuously oppressed and have had their new homes flattened countless times. The fact those poor people still survive and try to rebuild each and every time shows that those people work hard.
It's physically impossible for land that small to grow enough food to provide for their population. Those people were driven from their land and forced into an incredibly tiny and unsustainable space. And the whole "They never built a society from it" thing is what the most extreme racists and slave traffickers said about Africans so they could justify their treatment of them. It's dehumanizing and absolutely disgusting way to talk about a group of human beings and people should be shamed for saying such things.
I wasn't saying they had to be self sufficient. I don't think Israel is either. You do have to have something though.
You're trying to argue from rage instead of facts and I'm not buying it. You can be as angry and insulting as you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the reason is that you jump to insults is that you don't have a point.
We DO need to free palestine. But from Hamas. From jihadism. That's what's killing them. Blaming Israel guarantees the kind of dysfunction that allowed Hamas to fester and jihadist nazism to be taught in UN funded schools.
You might want to point out something specific. And why are people just blaming Israel when Gaza has a border with Egypt? The answer is obvious isn't it?
Israel are unwilling or unable to hold to agreements and that makes them an unreliable partner. The same has been true of America with Iran.
Both Iran and America also have a maximalist approach in terms of use of remote weapons and reluctance to accept casualties. That limits the effectiveness of "might makes right". Massively more so in the larger Iran.
And whilst Gaza might seem like a collosal defeat it could be seen in a more positive light in a culture that views sacrifice as noble. Again same could be true of Iran.
Not true. Hamas wanted to do hostage exchange for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons and truce within the first week. Israel refused.
Ridiculous take. Israel wants a secular Iran, not a failed state. Most Iranians don’t hate Israel. They hate the Islamic regime. But westerners just looove to support all Iranian proxies these days.
Israel does want a failed state - they want to balkanise Iran, letting their ISIS head-choppers, the Uigher terrorists etc at it. See Syria and how that's going.
Of course, Israel is a pure white dove. For instance, they have rallies for "the right to rape prisoners" (and recently to kill them) [0]. Or to willingly mutilate peaceful protesters presenting no risk[1].
The problem is that the total lack of moral limits in Israel only forces their opponents to escalate, or accept to be treated like animals (in the case of the West Bank Palestinians). It also affects the US, since that they have to follow along with Israel' way of doing the war (mainly, war crimes).
The problem is that once a party starts to commit atrocities, all others tend to do it. Atrocities by Israel are not new, and Israel has a long history about it, since its inception:
That is the consequence of a long-term policy. Israel made sure the Palestinian authority was sidelined and helped Hamas get full control of the Gaza Strip. History did not start in October 2023.
> was the Nova music festival massacre justified resistance
Intentionally killing civilians is never justified. But this still makes Palestine/Hamas the (much) smaller genocidal terrorist in this conflict. Free people don't need freedom fighters ;).
Now, I have no horse in this race, I am not related to any of the peoples involved, and live far away. I'm just the voice that finds genocide wrong. You on the other hand look like you're happily riding the terrorist, genocidal horse. I don't expect anything from you in terms of quality debate.
no massacre is justified, but can you remind us how and where did Hamas get helicopters and tanks and all of a sudden all cars were smashed? maybe Hannibal directive handed them over their tanks
As a first step they could give back some of their illegal settlements. Then over time give back more, until they are back in UN recognized borders. That would be a start. They could also start to persecute violent mobs that chased people out of their own homes and the people in the military covering them. They could also release unjustifiably imprisoned people.
You know, things that basic human decency would demand of them.
The war started by Israel, ostensibly as a retaliation for a dispute about a bit of water, which Israel used as a pretext to invade the West Bank? What about it?
The 'both sides' thing when one side is occupying the other is pathetic.
There's only one side that needs to stop the occupation immediately, the Israeli one.
We can go from there.
This is preposterous revisionism - Israel didn't just leave Gaza alone, they turned it into an open air concentration camp, controlling everything going in and out. And they were utter bastards about it too, literally counting calories going into Gaza, and classing just about anything as "dual use" so not allowed (e.g. tent poles could be used to hit someone).
Israel has never stopped being the aggressor. Maybe if they stopped occupying, stealing, raping, murdering and massacring, the entire region might be more peaceful. Not likely for a genocidal, apartheid state filled with religious supremacist fanatics though.
Translation: Israel is always the victim, even if the whole world outside it sees it as the aggressor.
I guess illegal settlement in the West Bank is the result of a Nintendo console not being launched the same day in Israel as in Japan? Or any other made up thing that shifts the blame from Israel to a 3rd party?
This comment is exactly why there is no hope out there. Literally zero understanding of middle-Eastern geopolitics other than trite slogans.
Come on. Do you think everyone is going to suddenly start holding hands and singing kumbaya? Or more realistically, like nearly every other surrounding state it'll be the elimination and exodus of Jews and Israelis?
Hamas didn't have prior knowledge of the festival, and partygoers were also murdered by the Israeli army. And in general flattening entire cities don't leave their habitants very keen toward Israel either. It just reinforces the cycle of aggression, which allows Israel to take more land.
No it's not ok, if the goal is peace and not the achievement of the "Greater Israel" that the current religious far-right in power is pursuing, with the support of the zionist christians in the US.
That's a crazy way to defend an ongoing genocide. The scale is so different that the only way to miss it is willful bad faith.
How long and how far do you go with that justification? Does it work the other way too? Are "their" actions justified forever because of something wrong that was done to them? Can anyone in the world do to you anything and everything forever if they were ever wronged by someone born in the same general geographic area as you?
Whenever you find yourself defending any genocide, under any excuse, defending the killing of innocent children because some other guys from the same general area also killed people, you are the bigger problem and no amount of fresh accounts justifying it makes you better.
I didn't defend. I just pointed out that the "freedom fighters" in everyone's minds are raping murdering bastards and I refuse to take a moral position and support or defend them for it.
That in itself is an abhorrent position and I am disgusted at anyone who takes it.
And further extrapolation as you edited it, if a child has a gun pointing at your head and has been trained to fire it at you, which is exactly what they have been doing, then they are legally combatants. But it makes a good statistical and PR job which is just as abhorrent. Legally and statistically speakingh, children... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD2FezhJgqA
That sure sounds like defending the killing of children because for sure they were all holding a gun and trying to kill you. Including the babies.
If you show all the YouTube videos in the world, the moment when you find a justification to kill any innocent children is when you become irreversibly the problem.
Your second point literally makes no sense and is based on the straw man that babies are holding guns where I made no point even related to that or collateral kills (which are unacceptable). Secondarily my point is based on internationally legal definitions of combatant and evidenced with a video of combatants being trained. Not like the UN and UNICEF haven't been all over this for decades.
Don't use child soldiers and you won't get statistically significant child casualties.
> I just pointed out that the "freedom fighters" in everyone's minds are raping murdering bastards
So, like Israeli soldiers?[0]
> if a child has a gun pointing at your head and has been trained to fire it at you, which is exactly what they have been doing
Israelis do exactly the same[1]
As long as Israelis rely on violence, war crimes and human rights violations, there can be no deescalation. We see it in the current ceasefire, where Israelis refused to stop their annexation war (and flattening) of Liban.
Genocide, apartheid, and 50 years of terrorism murder of children, destruction of hospitals, churches, schools, universities and imprisonment of a people’s in a Ghetto (yes, a fucking ghetto) is the moral bottom however. Israel is indefensible morally.
There is one other possibility: Finish the genocide. Finish ethnically cleansing the region and put the remaining Palestinians into reservations. After a while once the current threat is eliminated, Israel can become Greater Israel and the Israelis can do land acknowledgements while they enjoy their new Riviera and Gaza.
It's so sad to see this ridiculous argument every time. Israel is the aggressor, the murder and the main threat to the region's peace, not the victim. This, of course, does not mean that Iran is not another threat, but its actions seem like nothing compared to what Israel is doing.
The only endgame I see for the region is sadly the complete and utter annihilation of all civilizations there, possibly through nuclear means.
I do not say this lightly and I say it with a deep sadness in my heart for the people of the middle east, but also with the sober realization that this is the only end of the path that is currently walked.
There's a much less grim end, probably coming at short term:
If the US stop giving unconditional blank check support to Israel, then the nuisance power of the Jewish supremacists there disappears overnight. The US popular support for Israel is now at an all time low, and the recent war may be the straw that breaks the Camel's back.
All that's needed to stabilize the region is some amount of pushback to the destabilizing country here. Iran have been a destabilizing force for the past decade, but since 2023 Israel is by far the biggest threat to the region, and it's mostly due to Netanyahu's political survival relying on the state of perpetual war he's put the country in.
Should the US put even a modicum amount of pressure to Israel (or even just declare they wouldn't support them should the EU put economic sanctions on Israel), then the current cabinet collapse, Netanyahu ends up in prison for corruption and the middle east is stable for a decade.
All of this madness is happening because the US enables a madman to escape his own judicial system through foreign wars.
As an outsider here's the point of my fear . Looks at democratic countries and muslim unification during gaza issue, this is a threat but as far as Jews are concerned they don't have this type of threat to democracy
> Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally based self esteem, which Becker calls "heroism": a "defiant creation of meaning" expressing "the myth of the significance of human life" as compared to other animals. This counters the personal insignificance and finitude that death represents in the human mind.
> Such symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "causa sui project", (sometimes called an "immortality project", or a "heroism project"). A person's "causa sui project" acts as their immortality vessel, whereby they subscribe to a particular set of culturally-created meanings and through them gain personal significance beyond that afforded to other mortal animals. This enables the individual to imagine at least some vestige of those meanings continuing beyond their own life-span; thus avoiding the complete "self-negation" we perceive when other biological creatures die in nature.
You can find big similarities such as the promised land as the immortality vessel, heroism as a response to historical trauma and the ongoing attacks on their sovereignty, and the immortality project would be the nation-state. Becker goes on to categorize all of this similar to a mental illness. You can read the wikipedia page here, I find it very helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death
TL;DR: If you look through Becker's lens, you start to realize how stupid such wars and expansionist ideals seem. People should focus on what exists now and stop chasing projects that'd span beyond their lifetimes while making life today worse.
The book doesn't support anything in "their" favor. The idea boils down to nobody being "them".
Related part from Wikipedia:
> Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a major source of the violence and misery in the world such as wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one's core beliefs and sense of security
If Israel actually stops attacking Iran, that will be a win for the world. Will it happen? I doubt it. The last thing Netanyahu wants is a ceasefire or diplomacy. I think even if Trump tells him to stop he'll keep going.
The furniture salesman knows he's in trouble for the all the illegal gifts he has received and all the other horrific crimes he has committed. He'll hold on for as long as he can. The world be damned.
I used to attend elementary school on a military base. I didn't feel like a human shield at the time, then again I was more naive and had less life experience than I do now.
You weren’t a human shield. It would have been very easy for the US and Israel to not have blown up a school, the attack was intentional.
Notice they had 0 issues precisely striking the building housing Iranian leadership when this whole thing started. They didn’t “accidentally” hit the grocery store two blocks away.
So you think there was a conspiracy to target a school? Who do you think did it? Why? What was their goal?
I think either an intelligence failure, or a mistake or a miss is more likely. Maybe missiles don't always hit where they were meant to go. Especially if there is anti missile defences (which Iran is likely to have). Maybe Iran anti-air hit the school, or sent a US missile off course?
More than a conspiracy, they actually did attack the school - twice - about 30 minute apart (double tap).
They would have had live video feed from drones, and images sent from the first tomahawk missile for target confirmation. Yhey knew exactly what they were targeting and hitting.
> They would have had live video feed from drones, and images sent from the first tomahawk missile for target confirmation. Yhey knew exactly what they were targeting and hitting.
You sure? IIRC it was one of about 6000 strikes. Was it all a cover to bomb one school?
Forget "rules based order" or any sympathy from US Military/Pentagon/DoD.
When "arabs" bomb "the West" - it's "terrorism". When "the West" bomb "arabs" - it's a "mistake".
Same forces that did laser precision strikes against Maduro or countless military heads of Iran are attacking civilian infrastructure with double tap precision.
I am amazed how since WW2 there wasn't a military coup in USA as many wars from them were against any logic. I guess it just proves year after year, generation after generation that US military from top-to-bottom thinks that they are the only "good guys" and have been brainwashed just as their counterparts (be it Iraqis, Iranians, Chinese or anyone).
It is amazing how readily some people believe we target civilians, often based on the words of actual terrorists.
With this particular incident with apparent US strikes on a school adjacent to a military complex, and formerly part of that military complex, you would think it must be obvious to any reasonable person that we did not knowingly target a school.
And if it was an accident it only gives us more reason to oppose the whole operation. Why should we believe what they think they "know" about uranium stocks or anything else, if they couldn't figure out a building has been a school for 10+ years?
I also wonder if they really should have known by the second or third strike, but I can't readily find whether they had a live visual or anything, so probably did not. Arguably you can't in good conscience strike a target you can't see well, but I'm sure it happens all the time and doesn't usually go this bad.
When terrorists like the Trump administration openly admit to it in some cases and threaten to do it in others, and we see the evidence, it’s easy to believe our eyes and ears over your fantasies.
We are so far past there being any merit to “Israel would never knowingly target civilians/children/hospitals/etc” that you just shouldn’t even bother. Just own it, if your leadership thinks the only winning strategy is the annihilation of another people, or at least their complete displacement, own it. Stop trying to hide behind “it was a mistake” while simultaneously showing you have no issues putting a missile through a singular car window to assassinate people labeled an enemy. Nobody buys it anymore.
For planning Operation Epic Fury, the US military utilized the Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence software designed to streamline the targeting process and greatly reduce the amount of personnel involved in it. Capable of producing 1,000 target packages in one hour, with the use of the system the US military said it had struck 6,000 targets in Iran during the first two weeks of the war.
...it goes on to say...
The [NYT] inquiry suggested that the school was likely targeted due to outdated coordinates provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency
Advanced rockets bolted onto mainframes guided by data from Palantir.
> For what reason would they attack a single school?
Couldn't it be to terrorise the other side while still being able to claim that it was a mistake? Remember that the school was hit by three distinct strikes.
"The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in southern Minab was attended by both boys and girls, taught on separate floors.[9] According to locals, the school was previously a military facility.[10] Its location was near[c] the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex which included the headquarters of the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).[13] As of early 2026, the school had existed as a civilian institution more than 10 years, close to but separate from the IRGCN compound."The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in southern Minab was attended by both boys and girls, taught on separate floors.[9] According to locals, the school was previously a military facility.[10] Its location was near[c] the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex which included the headquarters of the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).[13] As of early 2026, the school had existed as a civilian institution more than 10 years, close to but separate from the IRGCN compound.
For more than ten years. That's Palantir caching for you.
military bases are targets. I don't know how you jump from that to victim blaming like little kids had a say in where to build a school or where to go to school or whether to shoot rockets. it's a tragedy.
Sure. But when they're next to schools, you try to avoid the school or school hours. Not doing that isn't just mean, it's strategically self defeating.
Today on several news media were a story that people of Iran were called by the government and formed human shields at the bridges and power plants that Trump threatened to bomb if no deal reached by the deadline.
No it's not. International law is generally exceptionally clear that one war crime doesn't justify another, and using civilians as human shields is about as core a war-crime as war-crimes get.
> The prohibition of using human shields in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court are couched in terms of using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.[18] Most examples given in military manuals, or which have been the object of condemnations, have been cases where persons were actually taken to military objectives in order to shield those objectives from attacks. The military manuals of New Zealand and the United Kingdom give as examples the placing of persons in or next to ammunition trains.
The situation in Iran is not this. The suggestion was that humans might volunteer to go to non-military sites.
As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge? Does it become different if someone threatens to blow up a bridge and people parade there in response?
Eh, the quoted text, and also the literal text of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 28 [1], doesn't qualify "certain points or areas" as only "military sites". While the other side should only be attacking military sites I don't see how that could possibly justify protecting non-military sites with human shields.
> As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge?
Generally speaking I read this as not, because they aren't being "used to" render those points immune from attack, they just happen to be doing so. Hypothetically if you were to rush civilians back to their homes in an evacuated town to protect it from an attack - or as you suggest organize parades on bridges that are threatened - that would seem to meet the "used to" requirement.
Article 54 gives some sites that may not be attacked. Maybe a protected person cannot render at least those sites “immune” since they are already immune.
When Lithuania was fighting for independence from USSR civilians gathered around key government buildings to protect them. in a sense they were human shields as none of them were armed. but they did it voluntarily. this happens when you threaten total annihilation of your homeland.
how do you know that iranians are forced to do this now by their government and not doing this in support of their country? do you think there are gunmen taking them to the bridges?
It was a government call. I grew up in USSR and know very well how those government "calls to volunteer" work in totalitarian regimes. Especially in a wartime country where even in peacetime they would kill people even just for being incorrectly dressed.
Anyway, as i said in the other comment, it is actually not that important how all those people got there. The key thing here is that it was a deliberate government act of human shield creation.
what a coincidence i too grew up in USSR and my parents and friends were part of above mentioned human shield. And i can tell first hand that there was no coercion. just call to action.
Threatening total annihilation was possibly the dumbest move Trump could have made.
“ Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in the heart of a hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard."
Look at recordings from other totalitarian regimes - enthusiastic people doing government bidding. The key is deliberate act of human shield creation, not the specific way to do it.
My wife is Iranian and I know many Iranian expats, and all my in-laws are in Iran.
This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime.
Yes. People die in war. It’s sad. But most Iranians will say “whether we go to war or not Iranians are being killed” and it’s better to fight for regime change than to just accept the status quo.
Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed? Yes, people die in war, but if there’s a chance for something better than it’s definitely worth it!
Every Iranian I know thinks it’s worth it and they danced in the street when Khamenei was killed.
"This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime."
The US government is not in any way responsible for the murder of protesters in Iran. That is done entirely by the government in Iran.
The USA and Israel ARE responsible for the murder of the kids (and adults) in that school. If you are American or Israeli you can care about the murdered protesters, but it it not really your responsibility. The murdered kids are however.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing the point of my comment.
People bring up the school as a way of discouraging American military bombing Iran. It’s a way of shaming Americans, as if we are bad, making us feel guilty for bombing. Right?
What I’m trying to say is that Iranians I’ve spoken to are happy that we are bombing the regime. From their perspective, they are already being killed. The regime is dangerous to them. Bombing the regime and possibly destroying the regime is worth the risk.
So don’t be so hard on yourself. Iranians want your help. People die in wars, there is always collateral damage, but sometimes war is just. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. That’s how the Iranians I’ve spoken to feel.
Trump and Hegseth have declared the regime has been changed, so hopefully either Iranians are already better off now, or the US military will... finish the job regardless of what their commanders say?
In a few weeks when Trump needs a new country to attack to keep "flooding the zone", he will leave Iran, maybe the same regime still there, with some extra hundreds or thousands of innocents killed. I truly hope it goes better than that, but why should I believe that anything good will accidentally be accomplished by the demonstrably selfish, dumb, lazy, lying people at the helm of the US? They barely pay lip service to helping Iranians, let alone appear competent enough to do it.
> Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed?
What was so great about the American revolution anyway? It's not like it gave any average people the right to vote, and it arguably preserved slavery for an extra 30 years.
Because it seems nigh impossible to actually get the 18-27 crowd to actually go and vote. Doesn’t matter if their life sucks, they just can’t be bothered to go do it. Of course you’ll get people that try and deflect blame and say that “my vote doesn’t really change anything” but these people know it does change things and they still just stay at home on voting day.
tbh I think that vote would succeed, if one happened right now. his approval poll results are abysmally bad.
what do you think the vote would be, though? "we don't like him"? last I checked, change.org-petition-style voting didn't have much of an effect on country laws.
Too many are either disinterested in politics because it's ugly, or mad that their assigned candidate betrayed one of their values (e.g., genocide in Gaza). I think a lot of younger people just don't want to be bothered.
Being against genocide isn't a "value". It's not idealistic, or naive either.
It's a duty. Moral, and legal; domestic and international.
Drawing a hard red line at genocide is damn near the very least any human must demand from their leader; perhaps only exceeded by "don't threaten entire civilizations with nuclear weapons".
Same with prosecuting rapist insurrectionists, and going after billionaire's child-trafficking/murdering blackmail rings. These are not "nice to haves" - ya simply gotta do it.
If you're not "mad" when people fail to do these things, then are you really "interested in politics", or are you simply caught in some kind of us-vs-them death spiral?
People don't seem really engaged in politics. They find it a frustrating waste of time because the news doesn't bother explaining anything to them, so they don't see the results of elections. They say both sides are the same. They don't take part in local elections. A mix of taught helplessness, learned helplessness, laziness, and the fact that if you're a white guy gas prices might affect you more than foreign wars and death squads
Both factions are filled with criminals that hate America (but LOVE Israel) and solely seek to exploit Americans as tax cows and organ donors. I take the third position: I'm a decline enjoyer and prepper.
Most people on Hacker News aren't ignorant, but they might be biased. You say both fractions are filled with criminals, and while parts of that might be true, it's far from the whole picture. Can you name anyone in the Democratic party who has caused as much damage as Trump? Missiles killing over 100 innocent children, inciting MAGA to storm Capitol Hill on January 6th, using presidential power to increase personal wealth by billions in one year, straining relationships with almost all democratic allies, massive layoffs in federal research institutions, and severe cuts to research funding that could damage the US research system for decades. His insane tariffs led to skyrocketing prices, economic disorder, and possibly a recession.
Yes, most Democrats support illegal or virtually unlimited immigration at a rapid rate which destroys the social fabric of society and leads to a rise in criminality. They are basically the West's version of the NKVD, but instead of the state ordering them to suppress the people directly, the state just selectively allows them to get away with any crimes that have the same effect as what they wished they could order a secret police force to do directly.
They learn which crimes are the approved crimes just how an AI machine learning model learns through stochastic gradient descent. They start out committing crimes basically at random, but over time they pick up on the patterns on what crimes are punished (those that are harmful to the system) and which crimes are NOT punished (beneficial to the system), and this causes them all to gravitate towards becoming system enforcers. They themselves aren't aware of their role in the system. They are just blindly following the path of least resistance the state sets up for them, but the state is aware and sets up this reward mechanism to create a system to suppress the citizens that doesn't rely on direct orders that could be traced back to them.
If they were using a secret police force they would slowly lose the trust of the people and begin losing their authority. By using this stochastic citizen suppression model they are able to keep their hands cleaner. People still know they are here and that they are letting them get away with crimes. This arrangement works as long as people think this is good and nobody can make the connection between selective enforcement and an effective police state where criminals are the police.
If the state was caught using secret police to, for example, suppress voters, perform blockbusting, or engage in generally demoralizing behavior they would need to explain themselves. If the state was caught using letting them in and enabling millions of them to suppress the citizenry then you need to explain yourself since you are now a racist bigot.
Nukes are not really for actual use but for deterrence so likely no lives would have been lost. Israel has nukes and they don't use them unless somebody attacks them with nukes. Same with other countries. Ideally both Israel and Iran as well as North Korea, maybe also Pakistan and India should not have nukes. And even more ideal it would be if nobody had them but the cat's out of the bag already.
They've also stated at various times that they believe first use or any use to be against Islamic law.
I don't find any of these statements to be particularly credible, but I also don't think they're going to strap the first bomb they make to the closest missile they find and immediately send it at Tel Aviv when it surely means the total destruction of the Iranian state.
No, I'm not saying that, how do you extrapolate my position from there. It would good if Iran continue not to have nukes but also it would be a great example for the region if Israel didn't have them either. If we allow Israel to have them we're applying a double standard. Any unhinged country should not have them.
There's not much precedent to get a powerful, vulnerable country to willingly disarm their nukes. It's fair to say Israel shouldn't have them but I'd be far more uncomfortable with Iran
All their leaders have repeatedly called for the elimination of Israel and t that must be "wiped off the map" or "erased from the page of time"
They have a much more abhorrent track record of domestic repression, state-sponsored terrorism, and explicit elimination-ist rhetoric toward Israel makes an Iranian nuclear capability far more destabilizing.
A nuclear Iran would likely embolden its proxies and heighten the risk of catastrophic escalation in a region where they have actively worked through proxies to encircle and attack Israel for decades
OP basically said every country is the same, has the same motive, so therefore it's ok for them to have nukes if others have them. That couldn't be more naive, and the Nazi regime is a prime example.
What part of this war has made Iran less likely to get a nuclear weapon?
There could have been a good war in Iran. A coalition of nations going in to secure the uranium. It would have been messy. But it would have had a clean objective.
As objective yes but whose lives would be spared for this objective? Messy is relative to policies. Aren't other ways to attain this objective other than through war? I really think there were attempts and progress in that direction.
Sure, in a purely physical sense, I suppose they could launch a nuke, triggering MAD and Israel's Samson Doctrine and ending human civilization for no reason. Currently I think Israel, the US, North Korea, and Russia have a higher (though still low) risk of doing that. In that order, by the way, though I could probably be convinced to bump Russia up higher.
I think that would be more believable, or at least the US/Israel would be more supportable in this, if they hadn't testily insisted on terms like "obliterated" and "set back by years" several months ago. You can only cry "nuke" so many times in a year. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa...
they have a religious law against making or using them, and theyve been sitting at "they could make a nuke within a week" for the past 20 years or more
it feels like people are falling for iran's bargaining chip - they want people to think they could make one, but not actually make one
There was zero evidence they were close to a nuke. In fact, they've been alleged to be weeks away from a nuke for over 20 years. And the accusations come from the ones with the illegal nukes themselves!
Iran shouldn't have nukes, but starting a war—burning billions of dollars a day, killing kids and innocent civilians, and leveling bridges and universities—is objectively the worst possible way to prevent it.
The JCPOA under Obama actually did a solid job of constraining their nuclear development. That was the pragmatic approach, but Trump just unilaterally scrapped the deal. He doesn't have an actual strategy, maybe just "concepts of a plan".
This regime has been around for half a century. We supposedly destroyed their nuclear program last summer. And somehow their nuclear potential just became a war-worthy threat in February? Come on. Don’t tell me you actually believe that shit.
Unless we actually invade, all this war will do is demonstrate to Iran that obtaining nuclear weapons is an existential necessity for them, and kick the program into high gear. Oh, and provide them with plenty of funding for it due to their newfound ability to collect tolls for a vital shipping chokepoint.
> We supposedly destroyed their nuclear program last summer. And somehow their nuclear potential just became a war-worthy threat in February?
What news are you even reading? You are terribly misinformed or out of touch. Not all of it was destroyed. A lot of enriched uranium was saved. The IAEA still could not verify the stockpile's location, size, or composition due to denied access. Iran refused full inspections post-strikes.
The rest of your post is pure conjecture and nonsense.
The guy who said their nuclear program was destroyed last summer is the same guy who says we have to go to war to stop them from developing nuclear weapons now.
Do I believe it was actually destroyed? No. Do I believe the guy who said it was? No. Do I start believing that guy now that he says there’s an imminent threat? Also no.
It's pure conjecture that they are now collecting tolls from ships that transit the Strait of Hormuz? You don't think they're going to sprint for nukes at any cost now?
"As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement," Gabard wrote in an opening statement ahead of the hearing.
Joe Kent, who made big news when he stepped down on Tuesday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that intelligence assessments did not show Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States or was close to developing a nuclear weapon, undercutting central justifications for the military action.
Trust me, I wish it weren't the case. Nobody likes being bombed and he's now a symbol of resistance. Most of the urban middle class has always hated the mullahs and various ethnic groups have conflict with the state as a whole, but Khamanei had and has support from basically every other element of society.
Replaced by an enraged son whose whole family had been killed in front of him. Basically Iran's Ayatolah is now younger and angrier. Thanks to Trump and Israel's Trump.
Iranian people were about to topple their own regime some months ago. Now the regime is cemented again since Iran was attacked indiscriminately. Again, thank the 2 Trumps.
How is this in any way a counter argument to the US bombing a school? That their own government would stoop to such lengths gives free reign to foreign governments?
The idea is that incurring a few hundred civilians deaths to liberate Iranians from a regime that slaughtered them by the thousands or tens of thousands is a net positive for human life. Of course this only works as a justification if the Iranians actually are liberated front their regime, which I don't think they will.
But the justification, if the liberation actually transpires, is sound. An order of magnitude more French and Dutch died at the hands of Allied bombing and shelling in 1944. I think most agree the the upside of being liberated from Germany makes the Allied landings a net positive, though.
But to reiterate, I really doubt the revolutionary guard is going to lose control of Iran.
The French and Dutch were members of the Allies, with Charles de Gaulle as leader of the Free-French forces and Queen Wilhelmina the head of the Dutch government-in-exile, both in London. Both wanted the allies to get the Germans out of their countries.
There is no government-in-exile calling for the bombing of Iran as a method for liberation.
Just as Laos did not call for the US to drop some 2 million tons on that country - more than were dropped on Japan, Germany and Britain during World War II - resulting in the deaths of over 200,000 people, as part of the US's ineffective attempt to "liberate" North Vietnam.
If killing those kids was instrumental in a greater good, only then is it worth being philosophical about. From what I've seen, they were too eager with the bang bang boom boom to actually double check that it was a valid target.
The ends do alter the acceptability of the means. E.g. if I offered you the means of “pay money to flip coin to make money as many times as possible” and the numbers involved were $50k if heads, lose $1k if tails and $50 buy in that’s way different if the numbers involved were $1k if heads, lose $50k if tails and $500k buy in.
If you can’t alter your reasoning to include outcomes then you will make poorer decisions.
No one wants to liberate Iran. Israel just wants to continue committing genocide and apartheid without any opposition. Iran arms Hezbollah and Hamas, the main forms of Palestinian resistance. The whole point of this operation is to decimate those groups so ethnic cleansing can continue without any resistance. Israel could care less about the Irani people.
You are very naive if you think the IRGC truly killed 10's of thousands of it's own people. Israel openly talks about Mossad organizing and supporting the coup, and good old Donny has admitted they have given weapons to organized resistance.
I estimate that many of the death numbers come from armed resistance being killed by the IRGC, not ordinary peaceful protestors. I also think armed resistance killed many Irani citizens. There is obviously fog of war here. The thousands of deaths were likely inflated and obfuscated.
Look at the coups we have backed in the middle east (including formerly in Iran which is what originally led to the Islamic revolution) -- and you will see a pattern. Both US and Israel provide material support to groups like ISIS or actors like Bin Laden. An Al-Qaeda fighter is literally the head of Syria now thanks to Israel.
I don't love Hamas, IRGC or Hezbollah, I don't like their ideology. But it is myopic to think they exist in a vaccum.
I wouldn't personally do so, but arguably those tens of thousands rest at our feet considering the current government was political blowback from the US and UK regime changing Iran back in the '50s.
It's even less likely to work because Trump has already claimed, publicly, to arming the protestors. That already makes any regime change illegitimate. They're all foreign backed agitators.
Saying "Accidents happen in war" is absolutely a way of saying "Accidents are acceptable in war".
That's what's being said here. Otherwise, it's a useless thing to say.
> What's your brilliant plan? Let Iran have nukes?
There was no evidence that Iran was pursuing nukes. Certainly no evidence that they were `n days` away from getting nukes.
My "brilliant" plan would have been the negotiations that were happening where Iran agreed to pretty strict monitoring and stipulations on nuclear fuel development.
The "Iran was getting nukes" rhetoric needs real evidence that was actually happening not "we think that might be happening because Trump said so."
> Saying "Accidents happen in war" is absolutely a way of saying "Accidents are acceptable in war".
Bridges fall down sometimes. I don't think it's acceptable. It's a statement of fact. There are always going to be mistakes, in every field and in pursuit of every goal. Your objection and implications aren't particularly charitable here.
> My "brilliant" plan would have been the negotiations that were happening where Iran agreed to pretty strict monitoring and stipulations on nuclear fuel development.
Iran was not complying with the monitoring requirements.
> The "Iran was getting nukes" rhetoric needs real evidence that was actually happening not "we think that might be happening because Trump said so."
Intelligence agencies under both Biden and Trump (and since at least the 90s) have repeatedly confirmed it.
This isn't really a question or doubt any reasonable person can have. There can be an argument about how close they are at any given moment, but they are actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
I disagree with your interpretation of these reports.
The ODNI report wasn't saying that Iran was perusing nuclear weapons, but rather that it was stockpiling weapons grade uranium. And, in particular, it calls out the reason they did this. Because the US withdrew from the JCPOA. It also called out the fact that Iran continued to say that they'd rejoin the JCPOA if the US was willing to.
Trump in the first term withdrew from our agreements, why should Iran have continued obeying the terms of an agreement that the US renegged on?
That's why I say they weren't pursuing nuclear weapons. They were stockpiling enriched uranium mostly because they were trying to use that as a negotiation tactic with the US.
But in negotiations with Trump both before the 12 day war and this time, they had agreed to re-enter the monitoring regime with the JCPOA and to completely destroy their stockpile, in return for lifted sanctions.
> Iran uses its nuclear program for negotiation leverage and to respond to perceived international pressure. During the past year, it has modulated its production and inventory of 60-percent uranium. Tehran has said it would restore JCPOA limits if the United States fulfilled its JCPOA commitments and the IAEA closed its outstanding safeguards investigations.
I see in your bio that you work on cars. Surely you've heard of car accidents? Clearly we find them acceptable enough to keep driving, wouldn't you agree?
Sure. The point is this was a particularly tragic accident. And it happened for, from the looks of the ceasefire conditions, jack shit.
More pointedly: if it was an accident, it should be investigated. Honestly. Openly. Not only is it horrible, bombing children is a strategic blunder in a war for hearts and minds.
The counter argument is missing some justification. Is it reasonable to go killing people on the hope that something good will come out of it? Is there no less violent way to achieve those objectives? Do we really think that people will organize a toppling while they're being bombed without Internet access? Do we think they'll topple the current regime for one that is less antagonistic to Israel and the US after the bombings?
Aside from the fact that the events you linked to have no connection whatsoever to why the US started attacking Iran, there is absolutely no reality or moral code in which "a government kills a couple hundred of its citizens" justifies another government on the other side of the world blowing up a hundred plus schoolchildren and other civilians.
> Here's hoping the regime is destabilised enough to topple by itself.
It's looking like this is the exact type of magical thinking of the most useless "president" ever. Meanwhile in the real world, such things take hard work.
When the French helped us during the Revolutionary War, they didn't shore bombard the colonists' kids because it would have been bad and counterproductive.
At most there were a couple thousand casualties from violent riots that involved armed gangs (or sleeper cells if you want to go that route).
There were not "60,000" peaceful protestors executed by the government, as Trump claimed yesterday without evidence. That is murderous propaganda, blood libel intended to deflect from the actual mass murder of civilians by American forces e.g. the Minab school.
It was a narrative specifically designed to induce comments like yours.
* The people responsible for murdering ten thousand protesters are now dead.
* The IRGC's military capability is significantly degraded.
* Their nuclear program is likely set back even further. It's hard to get real information here but we should assume that supporting facilities were high on the target list.
That's not nothing. From a strict utilitarian perspective, it's probably "worth it". Which sucks, but I haven't heard a better plan.
i dont think those are nearly as clearcut as suggested.
some of the iranian side for events that resulted in a bunch of death have been killed... while also killing a bunch mkre iranians, but have the americans/israelis that armed the protestors into terrorists and incided them to violence been killed?
i think theres enough police, mossad, and cia folks left to do that again and again until the protestors are all gone.
similarly, its blatantly obvious for everyone that the US destoryed the iranian capabilities that dont matter. iran is still capable enough to seter both putting american ships in the strait, and boots on the ground, so that degradation is not significant. optimization without profiling.
from a strict utilitarian perspective, definitely not worth it. the costs were extraordinarily expensive and havent been fully paid yet, and the profits for the US is a worse position than they started it
theres some light benefits to the gulf and ukraine in that the gulf realizes that they can spend much less on defense by buying from ukraine, but that pales in comparison to the costs paid in destroyed oil infrastructure and interceptors that could have gone to ukraine
Oh this is fun. I grew up in Bahrain and I went to the fifth fleet base as a teenager to buy CDs because I was young and stupid and one of my closest friend is the son of a former chief-of-staff of said fleet.
So now donations are needed and US citizens still can't have daycare [0] and free health insurance because of a made-up war against a threat which does not exist.
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