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You can't have a serious discussion of this bombing without addressing the information warfare component. To this day we don't know what actually happened. Betw
by shykes 7mo ago
You can't have a serious discussion of this bombing without addressing the information warfare component. To this day we don't know what actually happened. Between the general public and the facts, there are many middlemen, all with their own distorting factor: the IRGC; the US government; western press outlets such as the Guardian; and the people quoted by the press.
IRGC is making claims that no other party can verify first-hand. Everything from the number of explosions, the extent of the physical damage, the number of wounded and dead, the number of civilians wounded and dead - these are all unverified claims and should be treated as such. Not only is the IRGC obviously biased and incentivized to maximize media pressure on the US and Israel: they are known for information warfare of exactly this nature. To take their statements at face value, and present them as established facts in the opening paragraph, as this article does, is journalistic malpractice.
Again, the basic facts on the ground are not known, yes all parties are projecting narratives with a certainty that we should all be suspicious of.
Without this stable foundation of knowing what actually happened, and why, the very premise of this article collapses on itself.
EDIT: the flurry of responses to this post illustrate the problem. It's difficult to even have a respectful, fact-driven discussion on this topic, because everyone is tempted (and encouraged) to rush to their political battle stations. Nobody wants to discuss information warfare, because they're too busy engaging in it. I think that's worrying and problematic. No matter which "side" you're on, it should be possible to distinguish what is known and what is not; and implementing basic information hygiene. Or do you think you are uniquely immune to disinformation?
- 20k 7mo agoEveryone acknowledges that the US killed a whole bunch of kids, including the US
- shykes 7mo agoThis is incorrect. The US government (via Secretary Hegseth) has only confirmed that they are investigating the incident. 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/4421037/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-dan/ https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4421... - https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4434484/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-air-force-gen-da/ https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4434...
- voganmother42 7mo agoConstant lies, incompetence and corruption. Why would anyone trust anything they have to say or any investigation they might conduct?
- TaupeRanger 7mo agoI'm not sure why the other reply here was flagged and killed. The US absolutely has NOT acknowledged that they killed school children. The DoW and other government officials have only publicly stated that an investigation is taking place.
- herbst 7mo agoI don't know about the US internal propaganda, but international media seems pretty certain on this war crime
- dede2026 7mo ago[flagged]
- ElevenLathe 7mo agoI think its fair to treat things that the Trump administration and the Iranian military agree on as facts. If they were distortions that favored one side, we would see pushback from the other. Maybe there are distortions that somehow benefit both of these parties, but it seems unlikely. At minimum, then, this was a school, the Americans bombed it, and children died as a result.
- shykes 7mo ago[flagged]
- Denzel 7mo agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-missile-strike.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-m... > 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.
- shykes 7mo agoThat article is based on anonymous sources ("according to [people] 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.
- Denzel 7mo agoYou’re acting like the U.S. government is a monolithic good faith actor right now. The current administration’s behavior is qualitatively different than past administrations. Do you also believe this administration will ever officially confirm Renee Good and Alex Pretti were not domestic terrorists? It’s hard to interpret your points charitably here.
- embedding-shape 7mo ago> To this day we don't know what actually happened. 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?
- shykes 7mo agoI think it's likely that the explosion was caused by a US strike. But we don't actually know for sure that that's what happened - the US government has not confirmed it. 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.
- YZF 7mo agoHow long does it take to look at the coordinates programmed into the cruise missiles? Or to review existing satellite imagery for the location and other intelligence sources? 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.
- basisword 7mo ago
- applfanboysbgon 7mo ago[flagged]
- shykes 7mo ago[flagged]
- WarmWash 7mo agoI feel like an intellectual god to have been gifted the brain power to recognize that 150 kids being killed is a awful tragedy, and that converting a building on a military base to a school is recklessly stupid and borderline purposely done as a trap. It's like letting your child play in the road at night, and then being upset when a drunk driver hits them. 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/1600x900+0+63/resize/1400/quality/85/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc6%2F45%2F6674da344d7e85243a94d6630f4e%2Fwide-after.jpg https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop...
- mlsu 7mo ago"I understand that the officer killed your unarmed teen son. But you have to understand, in the dark, he appeared to be reaching for a weapon, and the officer feared for his life." "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. https://maps.app.goo.gl/2TP32tYqRZxthSFF8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/2TP32tYqRZxthSFF8
- WarmWash 7mo agoAnd it's clearly labeled as such, right on google maps. 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 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?
- YZF 7mo agoYou're not wrong but what we can tell from open sources is: - 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.
- shykes 7mo agoI agree with all of that. My worry is that the Guardian article is not doing any of it, and in fact is damaging the framework for even having such a conversation.. Instead they are repeating IRGC statements without attribution, and establishing them as background truth in the first paragraph. Then building an entire article on that flawed premise. Essentially, their article exists in the narrative universe create by the IRGC. I find that incredibly worrying.
- YZF 7mo agoMy bar for present day journalists and the Guardian specifically is pretty low. The goal for the Guardian is apparently to get clicks and advance their agenda. Journalism and real news reporting is apparently dead. My commentary is more on the specifics of the incident. Agree the first paragraph is garbage journalism.
- basisword 7mo ago>> Again, the basic facts on the ground are not known 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'.
- shykes 7mo agoThat's your opinion and you're entitled to it. 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.
- basisword 7mo agoYes, I'm more concerned with the motives and actions of the aggressors.
- wiseowise 7mo ago> To this day we don't know what actually happened. US adopted Russian playbook in more than one way?