Do you think some evil military planners sat in the Pentagon, saw that school, said "let's shoot at it for shits and giggles" and pressed the button? Or are you trying to pollute a grown up conversation with sensationalism and punchy hooks?<p>In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.
I think that if you start an unjustified war of agression against a country and you kill 150 children, you should be held responsible
How would you like a country to respond to getting bombed?
>I think that if you start an unjustified war of agression against a country [...]<p>That's just moving the goalposts because the original comment said<p>>What part of "doing the right thing" is bombing an all girls school?<p>which is calling out that particular event specifically, other than the war itself. Otherwise you can just head over to the wikipedia page and point out the casualty figures.
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What if it happens as a result of trying to hold someone worse responsible?
> someone worse<p>You do not get to decide that. If we allow everyone to invade other countries and murder leaders because they deem those people worse than themselves, the world will be engaged in endless war. Or do you think perhaps deciding who to invade and kill is a special privilege reserved only for your country, which should be emperor of the world?
> do you think perhaps deciding who to invade and kill is a special privilege reserved only for your country, which should be emperor of the world?<p>yes. we got the bomb before they did, because our policies are better than theirs.
If a guy pays soldiers to sneak into another country, kidnap rape and murder children, and continues similar behavior for 4 decades I can decide he's worse than Trump. I do get to decide that. Some things are worse than others.<p>The preceding comment was about holding someone responsible. It appears you might have misunderstood that mine points out that this is exactly how the school was hit.
With this reasoning, how do you make any decisions in your everyday life? Does everything look like a morally relativistic gray to you?
??? Do most of your everyday life decisions involve starting wars or killing people? That's concerning. Are you a high-ranking officer in the US military? As it happens, I'm not, and my decisions do not typically have life-or-death consequences.<p>I also don't even know what you're getting at. There was nothing "relativistic" or "morally grey" about my argument. My point is that in order for any kind of peace to exist, each country must be able to accept that there will be other people in the world who are morally repugnant to them. Because there will <i>always</i> be leaders who consider each other repugnant, so if you endorse starting wars over that, you're committing to a world where everyone is starting wars all the time as the international norm.
I didn't think the point was that subtle. There is good and evil, right and wrong, survival and destruction. You seem to think that drawing a line around some land and calling yourself a country immunizes you from the moral scrutiny of your neighbors.<p>While this certainly accords with the promulgations of the morally bankrupt UN, it is not a recipe for existing in our world. This is why it is important to have a powerful military.
It is a matter of pragmatism. Even if I myself consider my perspective on good and evil to be objective, it is a given that each of my neighbors will have their own seemingly-objective sense of good and bad that differs from my own. We are then at an impasse. Do I attempt to kill all of my neighbors in order to rid the world of what I perceive to be evil? Or do I perhaps make peace with an imperfect world in which bad things happen in other countries that are not my jurisdiction to worry about? Apparently you subscribe to the "kill all your neighbors" camp, that your objective brand of morality must be enforced on the entire world by means of military might. World conquest, however, is an utterly irrational thing to attempt, and will only lead to death and destruction, not an idealistic world that conforms to your sense of morality.
But if you're getting attacked for 4 decades by another country, do you do something about it or are you saying that's also wrong?<p>My understanding is that the regime in Iran has been terrorizing around the world for decades. It's not just disagreeable. People are seeking justice.<p>It's one thing to dislike another politician. No one needs justice for repugnancy. But if they are committing acts of terror, that's a totally different thing.
The regime in the US has been terrorizing around the world for decades. Among many other things, it overthrew the democratic Iranian government to establish a puppet autocracy in Iran, leading directly to the current one after a revolution. The entire reason Iran funds terrorists that target the US is because the US is an existential threat to it. So your argument basically boils down to "if I shoot someone, and they shoot me back, am I not entitled to self-defense?". The actual answer is to stop shooting them. Stop fucking up the entire Middle East and the people from there won't hate a country across the world so much that they feel a worthwhile use of their life is to strap a bomb to themselves in order to kill people from there.
><i>The regime in the US has been terrorizing around the world</i><p>Yeah, that already happened. Now what? How do we stop more kids from getting kidnapped, raped, murdered, or bombed?<p>Your proposed solution is essentially a leader in every country that has suffered from Iran's terror who can convince his/her people that their kidnapped children are worth it.<p>Obviously that isn't feasible. But worse, how is that different than saying it's okay for Iran to kidnap children?
False dichotomy. There are other ways to deal with Iran that don't involve starting an ill conceived (and illegal) war that kills school children and possibly (probably?) plunges the world economy into recession. It is highly unlikely that the current military action will result in a pacified Iran.<p>Why do people think that since Iran is evil all actions against Iran are justified?
They're not old enough to remember the start of the war in Iraq, I imagine. For those who aren't: it was a barrage of justifications which were found to be untrue, especially the 45 minute claim which said Iraq could strike European targets within 45 minutes with chemical or biological weapons. The UN weapons inspector said this was nonsense, and so it proved to be - after the invasion.<p>Iran will go the same way, one way or another.
We can quantify "Who has killed the most children in the middle east recently" and Iran is in a distant third place.
Sovereignty. You only get to hold responsibility of your own citizens, like Jeffery Epstein AND his supporters. You do that right, and then maybe then people will like you as the world police.
Held responsible by whom? Certainly not you.
Well, a couple of days ago Iran fired 2 missiles at a US base in the Indian Ocean with twice the range of anything they were supposed to be allowed to have.<p>That was pretty validating for the war effort.
Iran shooting back after being attacked validates the decision to attack them in the first place?<p><i>"supposed to be allowed to have."</i><p>Ridiculous premise. They armed themselves thusly because American politicians have been singing <i>"Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran!"</i> for generations.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_Iran" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_Iran</a>
Right. Under sanctions to prevent them from being a danger to everyone around them while they sponsor terror globally and go on TV talking about getting nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.<p>Most of Europe is within striking distance of their current capabilities that they were not supposed to have.<p>Treaties gave terms to limit the range of their missiles. Treaties were agreed to to prevent them from enriching uranium.<p>They violated both. Had they been allowed to continue on their path, we can all expect that we would be looking at a nuclear terror attack in the near future.<p>People are going to react for their left/right politics but the Iranian regime is a danger to the entire planet. There’s a reason that Iranian expats world wide have been celebrating in the streets.<p>Their biggest fear is that we are going to leave before the regime is fully removed.
The real dangers to peace in the Middle East are America, Israel and historically the British, because these three are the bastards that toppled Iran's democracy and lead them to such a defensive posture in the first place. With the utmost respect, kindly blow your judeo-american sanctions out your ass. America should have NOTHING to do with Iran whatsoever, we don't have any moral right to intervention here.
That is not a validation of anything and it is not a US base.
> Do you think some evil military planners sat in the Pentagon, saw that school, said "let's shoot at it for shits and giggles" and pressed the button?<p>Absolutely. Russia does it all the time, IDF does it all the time, why would the Pentagon be any different?
Grow up conversations aren’t possible when the clowns are running the circus.
Seems in Libanon the IDF is currently targeting hospitals and first responders [0]. Sometimes people are just evil.<p>Regarding the USA-Iran war, the president of the USA has threatened to destroy essential infrastructure (e.g. electricity) if Iran doesn't surrender in 48 hours. Which, from my understanding, is a war crime. I think Trump is perfectly ok with bombing schools and hospitals.<p>---<p>[0]: <a href="https://x.com/haaretzcom/status/2035545687006298392?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/haaretzcom/status/2035545687006298392?s=20</a>
Destroying a school is not an "oopsie". It should literally not be possible for it to happen in any organization that values human life at all. This was a precision strike with three missiles hitting the same target, they should have been goddamn sure they knew where the millions of dollars in ordnance they were launching for the purpose of ending human life were headed. Of course, the US military places zero value on not murdering civilians, which it has shown time and time again throughout its history, so this is the obvious result: massacre by intentional negligence.<p>It's absolutely fucking insane to downplay it like these things just happen and are unavoidable. What is wrong with you? Maybe you don't understand these are not just numbers on a screen? How many children do you know in your life? Is it even close to 150? Can you imagine every single child you know being killed and shrugging that off, insulting people who bring it up as being "sensationalist" and "polluting the conversation"?
Let’s have a serious conversation about downplaying things because this is where all of these conversations go sideways.<p>Many people, myself included, watch very loud righteous indignation about this awful event…while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…<p>- The Iranian women’s soccer team who are returning home from asylum to likely torture and execution due to regime threats against their families.<p>- The thousands of Iranian protesters who were shot by the regime.<p>- The 19 year old wrestling champion who was executed for participating in a protest.<p>Nobody is saying the school wasn’t terrible, but it’s not some situation where if we just leave the regime in power it’s going to be all sunshine and roses over there.<p>Show equal parts outrage and people will take you more seriously. Show equal parts outrage and you will find far more outrage from leaving the regime in power.
The entire reason the current Iranian regime exists is because the US overthrew their democracy to replace it with a monarchy that was friendly to their oil interests, which was then overthrown by a popular revolution. Maybe the US should stay the fuck out of Iran because it's not the US's fucking business, and it is most certainly not acting benevolently out of desire to help the people of Iran.<p>> while hearing absolutely nothing from the same people about…<p>Also, really? You think anybody who opposes the US bombing a school is cheering on protestors being shot and all other crimes of the Iranian regime? Well, I guess I'll be the first: Iranian regime bad. Killing protestors bad. Executing dissenters bad. There you go. Your argument is defeated. You can no longer make that claim. But I reckon most people aren't couching their statements by bringing up the whudabbouts because first it's not the direct topic of the conversation, and second it's a fucking given. But it being a given that X is bad does not justify doing more bad things.
Totally agree with you. The US also created the Bin Laden problem.<p>That genie isn’t going back in the bottle though so now we have to deal with the very real threat to the world that we certainly had a hand in creating.<p>Glad to hear your opposition to all of the evil as well. The desire for vocal, social righteous indignation with most of this dialog does not follow your fervor though. People remain silent until it supports their local politics, for the most part.
i think the poster you're replying to does not regard iranians as capable of independent decisions. thus, the school deaths are a crime, but the dead protesters are more like a weather event: a tragedy.
Okay. We can consider this war to be about regime change when Israel and the US give up strategic planning to revolutionaries in Iran.
<i>>Destroying a school is not an "oopsie". </i><p>You should see how many innocent people US's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq killed. And that's only the ones we know of before the era of smartphones and social media where people could more easily document war crimes. Did anyone go to jail for it? No. Will anyone go to jail for killing innocent people in Iran? Also no.<p>Trump is gonna fuck some more shit up in the area, declare "victory" when he's bored or the political pressure gets too high while leaving the middle east in a bigger mess than it was before.
Miraculously by US standards, a couple of soldiers (though only a couple, by no means all who committed them) actually did face prison time for war crimes in Iraq, and were then pardoned by Trump because he can't settle for not being the most evil man on the planet: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallagher-trump-navy-seal-iraq" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallag...</a>
I notice you're not critical of Iran's military intentionally firing on civilians. Why?
What are the military objectives?
Yes, mistakes can happen.<p>But when you use autonomous targeting systems (with "human oversight" in theory) and tell your soldiers:<p>"no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars,” and “no nation-building quagmire.” (Hegseth)<p>And the top commander says that he would intentionally kill the families of terrorists if voted into power:<p><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-terrorists-families" rel="nofollow">https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-ter...</a><p>Then at some point I do not believe the term "mistake" is appropriate here.
> In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.<p>There has been little planning and there are no sane military objectives beyond blow stuff up. How can there be when the objectives of the overall war change depend on what side of the bed Bone Spurs got out.
I simply had a few beers before getting behind the wheel. Honestly, judge, can we admit: nobody wants to run over anyone with their car. Cmon, do you really think I was twirling my moustache, thinking about how I would love to run those people? Of course not! No, I am a benevolent fun loving guy. And I was simply having a few beers! How else is a good guy like me supposed to get home?
Possibly so, yes, that may have happened. The strike may have been calculated to inflame the Iranian public and lock them into a prolonged conflict, great for military contractors and their shareholders.
Yes. Evil military planners used AI to generate a list of thousands of kill sites and then engaged them without verification. They attacked a public park by accident because it has the name “police” in it. Recklessly slaughtering children is “grown up” now?
Another school was attacked[1] because it had "Shahed" in the name, like the drones. This is the First Slop War: <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in-tehran-hit-irans-foreign-ministry-says" rel="nofollow">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in...</a>
Is the fact that is a mistake a comfort to the kids' parents, siblings, or friends? Are they somehow less dead?
>> In reality someone made a mistake. It can happen. It should be investigated. It should not deter from achieving the military objectives.<p>You should really unpack these statements, especially if you're trying to have a "grown up conversation". You're saying that no price is too high for achieving military objectives, even those that are very unclear and unilaterally defined without justification by a easily distracted narcissist with obvious goals of distracting from his domestic problems.
He isn't saying that at all, though. He is saying that by the nature of war, innocent people will die. Everyone knows this, which is why international law is based on proportionality, not on whether or not a single civilian was harmed.
> In reality someone made a mistake.<p>It's never just one mistake. It's usually a chain of mistakes and bad decisions that make the final mistake possible.<p>I'd estimate that there were likely 77,168,458 mistakes/bad decisions made by individuals before <i>this</i> mistake could happen.
Then somebody should be punished <i>so</i> severely that incidence would go down dramatically. I dont mean 2 weeks administrative leave (or medal and promotion), I mean lives ruined, names tarnished, and/or people executed/jailed for 20 lives for mass (in)voluntary manslaughter.<p>In reality, in same vein quite a few US laws are set. If you are not US passport holder you are subhuman. Less rights, less care, more disposable, just a garbage to step on. We saw it enough in past 80 years to see a clear pattern everywhere US went and (mostly) failed.<p>For those slow in back rows - this is how you get almost endless stream of new fanatical recruits to merry groups like isis or al-queda. Dumb, supremely dumb. Yeah, 'a mistake, it can happen'. Fuck that american self-entitled rotten racist mentality. Then you wonder why whole world hates you now and what you stand for and represent. What a success story for america in past year.
Sometimes a mistake is negligence. If you're going to use lethal force it's a good idea to check your facts first. It's been a school for years, how was that missed?<p>None of that happened because the US was unprepared for this war. It was Bibi's idea and Trump is weak and incompetent so he just went along with it, ironically because he thought it would avoid making him look weak and incompetent.
> <i>ironically because he thought it would avoid making him look weak and incompetent</i><p>Trump is what a weak man imagines a strong man to be like. Just look at his official portrait [1], trying to look tough and dangerous. Compare that to Dwight D. Eisenhower's portrait [2], a man who commanded entire armies in the largest war in human history.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#/media/File:Official_Presidential_Portrait_of_President_Donald_J._Trump_(2025).jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#/media/File:Offic...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#/media/File:Dwight_D._Eisenhower,_official_photo_portrait,_May_29,_1959_(cropped)(3).jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#/media/Fi...</a>
I think the military planners sat in the Pentagon and thought "Hey if we hit this school and kill all these children, that will achieve us X. Shall we do it?" And then they decided to do it. Yes, that's what I think.
Have you heard Hegseth speeches lately? Or Trumps?<p>Like, yes, evil military planners did sat down and said "rules of engagement are woke, the working groups handling civilian safety are waste of money, be maximum lethal".<p>Also, they had no stable military objectives except "make my insecure masculinity feel manly".
Good try. When you are complicit in genocide in Gaza, destroy multiple countries on pretext of democracy and human rights, start wars with blatant lies, the "let's shoot at it for shits and giggles" is actually being kind.
Would you be so calm if someone made a mistake with your kid’s school?<p>I have heard more than one Trump-defender say “well they would have grown up to attack us.”
> Do you think some evil military planners sat in the Pentagon...<p>Why shouldn’t he believe it?<p>You people believe the same kind of crap when you're told that X (insert the current boogeyman de jour) hates Murica and wants to kill you all.