6 ms·

How many American schoolchildren have Iran killed in the last 25 years? How many Iranian schoolchildren have America killed? Where's your moral justification f

by dbt00 6mo ago

How many American schoolchildren have Iran killed in the last 25 years? How many Iranian schoolchildren have America killed? Where's your moral justification for this war of choice if "oops, 137 dead kids is a normal expected outcome"?

jazz9k 6mo ago
[flagged]
- vkou 6mo ago
  There are plenty of military bases next to elementary schools in the US. Where do you think the kids of soldiers go to school?
- sophacles 6mo ago
  The us has over 150 elementary schools on military bases. If you use a more colloquial definition of military base, many many national guard armories are on the same block as elementary schools or even right next to them. Can you cite anything that says all iranian military bases are next to elementary schools? If they are on ALL bases, that makes hitting an elementary school on base less forgivable, not more, because if its a fact of every iranian military base, it's a lot harder to claim good intelligence and also that they didn't check that the part of base being bombed was the school. Also, how is that relevant?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- pphysch 6mo ago
  We do. Grocery stores (commissaries) and residential units as well.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
HDThoreaun 6mo ago
[flagged]
- Forgeties79 6mo ago
  > Accidentally killing a bunch of kids would likely be worth it, morally speaking, if it led to the destruction of the Iranian regime. It most absolutely is not and I struggle to believe you can build a valid argument that links bombing school children as necessary for the fall of Iran’s government. How you win a war, especially one as lopsided as this invasion is, is as important as winning. I cannot so easily sleep at night knowing we are committing horrific atrocities during an invasion we chose to launch against a country thousands of miles away with zero military capacity to harm us here at home.
  - HDThoreaun 6mo ago
    1. This isnt an invasion, just a bombing campaign. 2. Of course it would be better to not kill any kids, but thats just not how war works. Mistakes will be made, that doesnt mean eliminating the number one funder of terror in the world isnt worth it. Even if the next regime hates the US/israel just as much they will likely spend much less supporting terror groups because they know theyll just get bombed again. 3. Of course this is all if the bombing campaign actually worked. It didnt, and thats no surprise, which is why the whole thing is pretty clearly immoral imo. > zero military capacity to harm us here at home. The houthis harmed the US quite a bit by destroying American ships and harming global trade. In fact their actions were arguably far more harmful to the average american than any domestic terrorist attack could possibly be because of the economic impact that effected every single american.
    - cramsession 6mo ago
      The US/Israel are far and away the number one terrorist organization in the world, and it's not even close.
      - HDThoreaun 6mo ago
gruez 6mo ago
This feels like moving the goalposts. The OP and the preceding comments are pretty clearly talking about the targeting mistake aspect of this incident, not the war itself. You're moving the discussion from the former to the latter to it easier to argue that US is in the wrong, but if the argument is that the war was unjust to begin with, then do you really need a school getting bombed to push you over the edge? After all, even if they bombed an IRGC compound and only killed soldiers, those soldiers are still people's sons, fathers, husbands. Even if there's no deaths, you could still make the macroeconomic argument that any economic losses are impoverishing the Iranian people.
- kakacik 6mo ago
  No, I am fine with parent's take. We treat children as absolutely innocent (which they are, regardless of the way anybody tries to spin this or ie Gaza), and killing children is extra heinous crime compared to killing adult, same with rape etc. Children rapist get extra special treatment in jails, often from other murderers and society is largely fine with that. As a parent, even when cutting off most of the emotions related to this horrible war crime, I am unfazed and unconvinced by such, even if well meaning whataboutism.
  - gruez 6mo ago
    >I am unfazed and unconvinced by such, even if well meaning whataboutism. No, it's not whataboutism, it's moving the goalposts. Consider the following exchange: Alice: "McDonalds mistreats its workers by paying them below the minimum wage" Bob: "No they don't. They all get paid at or above the local minimum wage" Charlie: "Well that doesn't matter, because McDonald's still mistreats its workers because it's a capitalist institution, which by definition means they're siphoning the fruits of the worker's labor" Even if you agree with Charlie's point, at the very least it's in poor taste to bring it up in a conversation specifically talking about the minimum wage. Otherwise every discussion about some aspect of [thing] just turns into a plebiscite about [thing].
jvanderbot 6mo ago
Please ask yourself if there is true evil in the world. People who are willing to kill children on purpose, or maim them, or burn them with acid, or commit other bad things I wont get into. Then ask yourself if bad things can happen despite good intents. Truly horrible things, in fact, despite effort to prevent them. Then, ask if this bombing was part of group A or group B. And ask if we were trying to target people from group A or group B. This is not an "ends justify the means" argument, I hope. But if you want to count bodies as some kind of justification for or against war because apparently morals can be reduced to addition and subtraction, you might as well at least classify the dead and causes correctly.
- bdangubic 6mo ago
  We (US) are definitely in Group A. We killed and are continuing to kill more innocent people (including children) than everyone else combined but are always hiding under “oh, we really good guys here, just shit happens while we are bombing around the world for decades for no particular reason until we eventually lose and leave”)
- zmmmmm 6mo ago
  > Then, ask if this bombing was part of group A or group B. false dichotomies are a common rhetorical method (and sometimes useful) to argue your way to a moral justification, but that doesn't make them reflect reality There is no A and B. You want to force a situation where B is pure good intent and we either have to choose that or choose A where there is only bad intent. The reality is, this war is about ego, power and money as much as it is about any "good intent". The decisions to start the war were made with a full knowledge of the risks and costs it would entail, with almost all of those being externalised to other people than those taking the choices. Nobody taking those choices should get to just opt out of moral responsibility with some easy "A / B" logic.
- yibg 6mo ago
  Group A also include starting a war for bad reasons and then "accidentally" killing school children as a result.
- andrepd 6mo ago
stickfigure 6mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 6mo ago
  I don't think they did, and anyway you're just trying to redirect to a different question.
  - stickfigure 6mo ago
    No, it's core to the question of whether or not you should feel morally outraged by the targeting mistake. Which is better, leave the regime alone to continue murdering its own citizens, or run the risk of accidentally bombing a hundred schoolchildren? It's a pretty classic trolley problem.
    - anigbrowl 6mo ago
      No it isn't. You're assuming perfect information, when the reality is nowhere near as clear. I certainly believe that Iran killed a lot of protesters recently. Undoubtedly some of them were innocent. Some others were collaborators; Israel is well known to be engaged in a shadow war with Iran and to have infiltrated a large number of people within the Iranian security apparatus. I'm thus extremely skeptical of any specific claims around numbers for the foreseeable future. The problem with this simplistic utilitarianism is that assumes a degree of omniscience that doesn't exist. You can excuse any atrocity by claiming it's an unavoidable by product of a high-minded end. Life rarely presents neat classic trolley problems, and even if it did there are many unknowns; for example, are you sacrificing the life of one saint to save five serial killers? Absent this information I'd opt to save one person, but would be doing so with the awareness that I might be making a very bad decision for which I'll have to take responsibility. In this case, the trolley is in a whole other country. Unilaterally attacking it (while negotiations were ongoing) is regarded by most experts as a blatant violation of international law and that's the primary reason nominally allied countries are refusing to assist.
ashdksnndck 6mo ago
The only reason Iranian bombs aren’t hitting America is because their range isn’t long enough. Iran-commanded forces (located in Iran, Lebanon, Yemen) have been targeting civilians for many years.
- lejalv 6mo ago
  This is just your opinion. The tragedy here is that there are people with similar opinion and bombs at their disposal that feel complete impunity and go around murdering in the world Also, remembe the CIA co-staged a coup in Iran in 1953. That's one fact, nor just opinion.
  - baublet 6mo ago
    I suspect if the IRGC accidentally blew up a school next to a military base in Oklahoma, they would find it in them to condemn those who made such an innocent mistake.
    - lejalv 6mo ago
      That's all speculation. What we know is that the US agressed Iran without provocation and in the midst of negotiations and started by blowing up a school and not owning up to it. And now they have threatened multiple times with destroying the civilian energy infrastructure, which is a war crime.
- cramsession 6mo ago
  The only reason Iran would attack the US is because we back the terror colony of Israel. No Israel, no war.
  - ashdksnndck 6mo ago
    So to clarify, your argument is it’s ok to target civilians with bombs as long as they are located in a nation that practices terror?

by dbt00 6mo ago

jazz9k 6mo ago

[flagged]

vkou 6mo ago
There are plenty of military bases next to elementary schools in the US. Where do you think the kids of soldiers go to school?
sophacles 6mo ago
The us has over 150 elementary schools on military bases. If you use a more colloquial definition of military base, many many national guard armories are on the same block as elementary schools or even right next to them. Can you cite anything that says all iranian military bases are next to elementary schools? If they are on ALL bases, that makes hitting an elementary school on base less forgivable, not more, because if its a fact of every iranian military base, it's a lot harder to claim good intelligence and also that they didn't check that the part of base being bombed was the school. Also, how is that relevant?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
pphysch 6mo ago
We do. Grocery stores (commissaries) and residential units as well.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

HDThoreaun 6mo ago

[flagged]

Forgeties79 6mo ago
> Accidentally killing a bunch of kids would likely be worth it, morally speaking, if it led to the destruction of the Iranian regime. It most absolutely is not and I struggle to believe you can build a valid argument that links bombing school children as necessary for the fall of Iran’s government. How you win a war, especially one as lopsided as this invasion is, is as important as winning. I cannot so easily sleep at night knowing we are committing horrific atrocities during an invasion we chose to launch against a country thousands of miles away with zero military capacity to harm us here at home.
- HDThoreaun 6mo ago
  1. This isnt an invasion, just a bombing campaign. 2. Of course it would be better to not kill any kids, but thats just not how war works. Mistakes will be made, that doesnt mean eliminating the number one funder of terror in the world isnt worth it. Even if the next regime hates the US/israel just as much they will likely spend much less supporting terror groups because they know theyll just get bombed again. 3. Of course this is all if the bombing campaign actually worked. It didnt, and thats no surprise, which is why the whole thing is pretty clearly immoral imo. > zero military capacity to harm us here at home. The houthis harmed the US quite a bit by destroying American ships and harming global trade. In fact their actions were arguably far more harmful to the average american than any domestic terrorist attack could possibly be because of the economic impact that effected every single american.
  - cramsession 6mo ago
    The US/Israel are far and away the number one terrorist organization in the world, and it's not even close.
    - HDThoreaun 6mo ago

gruez 6mo ago

This feels like moving the goalposts. The OP and the preceding comments are pretty clearly talking about the targeting mistake aspect of this incident, not the war itself. You're moving the discussion from the former to the latter to it easier to argue that US is in the wrong, but if the argument is that the war was unjust to begin with, then do you really need a school getting bombed to push you over the edge? After all, even if they bombed an IRGC compound and only killed soldiers, those soldiers are still people's sons, fathers, husbands. Even if there's no deaths, you could still make the macroeconomic argument that any economic losses are impoverishing the Iranian people.

kakacik 6mo ago
No, I am fine with parent's take. We treat children as absolutely innocent (which they are, regardless of the way anybody tries to spin this or ie Gaza), and killing children is extra heinous crime compared to killing adult, same with rape etc. Children rapist get extra special treatment in jails, often from other murderers and society is largely fine with that. As a parent, even when cutting off most of the emotions related to this horrible war crime, I am unfazed and unconvinced by such, even if well meaning whataboutism.
- gruez 6mo ago
  >I am unfazed and unconvinced by such, even if well meaning whataboutism. No, it's not whataboutism, it's moving the goalposts. Consider the following exchange: Alice: "McDonalds mistreats its workers by paying them below the minimum wage" Bob: "No they don't. They all get paid at or above the local minimum wage" Charlie: "Well that doesn't matter, because McDonald's still mistreats its workers because it's a capitalist institution, which by definition means they're siphoning the fruits of the worker's labor" Even if you agree with Charlie's point, at the very least it's in poor taste to bring it up in a conversation specifically talking about the minimum wage. Otherwise every discussion about some aspect of [thing] just turns into a plebiscite about [thing].

jvanderbot 6mo ago

Please ask yourself if there is true evil in the world. People who are willing to kill children on purpose, or maim them, or burn them with acid, or commit other bad things I wont get into. Then ask yourself if bad things can happen despite good intents. Truly horrible things, in fact, despite effort to prevent them. Then, ask if this bombing was part of group A or group B. And ask if we were trying to target people from group A or group B. This is not an "ends justify the means" argument, I hope. But if you want to count bodies as some kind of justification for or against war because apparently morals can be reduced to addition and subtraction, you might as well at least classify the dead and causes correctly.

bdangubic 6mo ago
We (US) are definitely in Group A. We killed and are continuing to kill more innocent people (including children) than everyone else combined but are always hiding under “oh, we really good guys here, just shit happens while we are bombing around the world for decades for no particular reason until we eventually lose and leave”)
zmmmmm 6mo ago
> Then, ask if this bombing was part of group A or group B. false dichotomies are a common rhetorical method (and sometimes useful) to argue your way to a moral justification, but that doesn't make them reflect reality There is no A and B. You want to force a situation where B is pure good intent and we either have to choose that or choose A where there is only bad intent. The reality is, this war is about ego, power and money as much as it is about any "good intent". The decisions to start the war were made with a full knowledge of the risks and costs it would entail, with almost all of those being externalised to other people than those taking the choices. Nobody taking those choices should get to just opt out of moral responsibility with some easy "A / B" logic.
yibg 6mo ago
Group A also include starting a war for bad reasons and then "accidentally" killing school children as a result.
andrepd 6mo ago

stickfigure 6mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 6mo ago
I don't think they did, and anyway you're just trying to redirect to a different question.
- stickfigure 6mo ago
  No, it's core to the question of whether or not you should feel morally outraged by the targeting mistake. Which is better, leave the regime alone to continue murdering its own citizens, or run the risk of accidentally bombing a hundred schoolchildren? It's a pretty classic trolley problem.
  - anigbrowl 6mo ago
    No it isn't. You're assuming perfect information, when the reality is nowhere near as clear. I certainly believe that Iran killed a lot of protesters recently. Undoubtedly some of them were innocent. Some others were collaborators; Israel is well known to be engaged in a shadow war with Iran and to have infiltrated a large number of people within the Iranian security apparatus. I'm thus extremely skeptical of any specific claims around numbers for the foreseeable future. The problem with this simplistic utilitarianism is that assumes a degree of omniscience that doesn't exist. You can excuse any atrocity by claiming it's an unavoidable by product of a high-minded end. Life rarely presents neat classic trolley problems, and even if it did there are many unknowns; for example, are you sacrificing the life of one saint to save five serial killers? Absent this information I'd opt to save one person, but would be doing so with the awareness that I might be making a very bad decision for which I'll have to take responsibility. In this case, the trolley is in a whole other country. Unilaterally attacking it (while negotiations were ongoing) is regarded by most experts as a blatant violation of international law and that's the primary reason nominally allied countries are refusing to assist.

ashdksnndck 6mo ago

The only reason Iranian bombs aren’t hitting America is because their range isn’t long enough. Iran-commanded forces (located in Iran, Lebanon, Yemen) have been targeting civilians for many years.

lejalv 6mo ago
This is just your opinion. The tragedy here is that there are people with similar opinion and bombs at their disposal that feel complete impunity and go around murdering in the world Also, remembe the CIA co-staged a coup in Iran in 1953. That's one fact, nor just opinion.
- baublet 6mo ago
  I suspect if the IRGC accidentally blew up a school next to a military base in Oklahoma, they would find it in them to condemn those who made such an innocent mistake.
  - lejalv 6mo ago
    That's all speculation. What we know is that the US agressed Iran without provocation and in the midst of negotiations and started by blowing up a school and not owning up to it. And now they have threatened multiple times with destroying the civilian energy infrastructure, which is a war crime.
cramsession 6mo ago
The only reason Iran would attack the US is because we back the terror colony of Israel. No Israel, no war.
- ashdksnndck 6mo ago
  So to clarify, your argument is it’s ok to target civilians with bombs as long as they are located in a nation that practices terror?