The moderators need to take a more active stance on getting these hot button political topic wars off HN. We're seeing some sort of brigading and/or manipulation going on here with behaviors (like flagging) that are not consistent with what I think we want to have on the platform. Certainly no following of the guidelines. Just look at the top comment here.
"Normal" people are stuck in two modes, either they ignore it or they need to descend to the same level. I put normal in double quotes since I honestly don't know what's normal any more. I would like to believe the majority of the kind of community we used to have here on HN does not operate at this level of discussion.
To some extent this is a reflection of broader polarization, tribal behavior, and social media manipulation. Even Reuters IMO have chosen a sensationalist headline and seem to have an agenda here. There's an easy tell - can you tell the political orientation of the author by reading the article/comments etc.
This topic could be an interesting one and we could actually have some good discussions about security. Instead it degenerates into what's essentially a political bashing flame war.
How 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.
You'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.
I 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.
My 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.
"As we pass through Khan Shaykhun, we come across a street painted in the colours of the Iranian flag. It leads to a school building that was being used as an Iranian headquarters." "On the wall at the entrance of the toilets, slogans read: "Down with Israel" and "Down with the USA".
It was evident that these headquarters were also evacuated at short notice. We found documents classified as "highly sensitive"."
This is a BBC reporter reporting from Syria after the fall of Assad.
It is strategy for the IRGC and Hamas to operate from civilian infrastructure like schools to gain immunity. That's what's "not a human error".
The Israeli state leaders is proudly declaring superiority of their people, the need for vital space (Lebensraum, the great Israel), segregating their own citizens, conducting pogroms, you have all the doctrine there. Go find out where this book played before and how it all ended up.
I am countering the parent's statement that seems to indicate the US and Israel are intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure systematically for no reason. A lot of this infrastructure is targeted for good reason because it is used for military purposes.
This is totally unrelated to the topic where it seems the one school in question was incorrectly targeted based on what we know today (though not intentionally).
The general framework for justifying collateral damage is that enough care has to be taken to minimize it vs. the value of the military objective being achieved. Attacking an IRGC headquarters intentionally based in a school (e.g. if the example in Syria was to be attacked by Israel for example) still needs to pass this test. I.e. Israel would have to take measures to minimize collateral damage which would be proportional to the military value it gains by hitting the IRGC. But the (Syrian) school would have been considered a legitimate military target and the outrage should be towards the IRGC setting up camp there.
Personal attacks are ofcourse now normal on HN in this new world you like to live in. I'll wear this as a badge of honor from you. Maybe I'll have a T-shirt printed with "One of the worst Zionists we have on this website - Hikkomori".
Just letting people know so they don't have to go through your usual hasbara spiel.
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
I couldn't find a web site for the school when I searched for one and I also noticed that while schools are generally marked on Google Maps in Iran this school was not. Both are IMO not really relevant or reliable sources of targeting data anyways. I found very little evidence searching online for the school but I did find something that looked like a blog about a school trip. Again though the Internet is not a reliable source of data for targeting - should be obvious.
The main way targets should/would be selected is by direct intelligence. E.g. the targets should be identified through satellite or other observations. It's hard to imagine that a building that has operated for some length of time as a school would not have patterns that are visible from satellite vs. military facilities with different patterns. You also don't just randomly attack structures in this sort of surprise attack, you're presumably aiming for some specific people or equipment with some priority/military goal in mind, so you really want to have observed the targets and patterns and have up to date information on their usage.
I think what likely happened here is that the entire base was the "unit" of targeting and the mistake was in identifying which buildings were part of the base. In the satellite view the military buildings and the school look very similar (since the building as I understand it used to be part of the base but was repurposed as a school).
It's not true that whoever made the error had all the time in the world. Presumably once the order was given there was time pressure given that the strike was to be timed with the other intelligence.
In theory the US military should/is supposed to have good processes around this stuff. So we are told. Obviously failed in this case. It is a tragedy.
>It's hard to imagine that a building that has operated for some length of time as a school would not have patterns that are visible from satellite vs. military facilities with different patterns.
You might be overestimating how much satellite capacity there is to do this level of analysis for every target.
How many American lives would you sacrifice for that? The people who made the decision to fire a missile at this place didn't decide to start the war, once you have started the war you have to make ugly tradeoffs like being too liberal or too conservative with targeting decisions.
> How many American lives would you sacrifice for that?
For what? Removing a suspected mine or missile stash that had it existed would be used to target ships in the Strait? For that you're in favour of killing 170+ schoolchildren?
> The people who made the decision to fire a missile at this place didn't decide to start the war,
The people that decided to fire missiles are the people that decided to start a war by firing missiles .. during negotiations no less.
The people that drew up a potential target list did so years before .. the people that chose to start a war have had a full 12 months to re vet the target list a remove sites that are now schools ... but they failed to do so.
> The people that drew up a potential target list did so years before
And the building was a military installation years ago. Then Iran made it into a school, nobody is omniscient here, collateral damage will always happen in war.
If things stayed static and simple as you think they are, if Iran let US military spies freely go around and note targets, or if Iran updated USA when they move their military ops around, sure collateral damage would easily get avoided, but the situation isn't like that.
> The people that decided to fire missiles are the people that decided to start a war by firing missiles .. during negotiations no less.
No, the people who made the target list are not the same people who started the war. Trump isn't there picking which building to fire it if you thought that, its guys much further down. Nobody said "we want to kill a bunch of schoolchildren first day!", they tried hard to avoid such events or many more would have died, but you can always do more and its a tragedy that it happened once.
Missing the forest for the trees, are you? Wars of aggression are against UN rules, and US is in the wrong regardless of what it hit.
Feels like we're talking here about whether rapist should have known that the rapee was a child or an adult, and they had a good reason to believe it was an adult person (there was mother of the girl standing next to it, so, hard to distinguish...), so yeah, obviously a tragedy they raped a child instead, but it happens sometimes when you rape a lot of people at once. A tragedy, but let's get on with raping more...
Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution and the US claims that there was a threat of attack on US bases and US interests and therefore the attack was in self defense. The body that decides is the UNSC and given the US has veto powers it's not going to obviously declare the US attack illegal.
From Israel's perspective there's an even stronger self defense argument given the amount of missiles aimed at Israel from Iran and the enrichment of nuclear material to military grades while constantly threatening the elimination of Israel. So the US argument that they knew Israel was planning the attack and they knew Iran would retaliate against US interests seems at least on the surface to bad valid.
What the US claims is really not a strong source of anything, and I'm saying that as an American. The most compelling reasoning is that Israel was going to do something so US decision makers decided joining was the best worst decision, and I'm being very bend over backwards generous with that. Anything else is just excuses trying to cover it up. It seems obvious now that there was no stopping Israel from their strike on Iranian leadership. It was too ripe of a target, they have been emboldened by current US admin, so at that point it was in for a penny, in for a pound mentality.
If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets, then the world would possibly have some sympathy. No rational person could condone an outright first strike just because we thought something was going to happen. Yet the fact that in the "we think they will do something" spit balling never suggested shutting the down the strait seems very suspect as well.
> If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets
A reasonable belief, because Iran in fact responded to the US+Israeli strikes by attacking US allies and even neutral nations like Qatar.
And why should we doubt that Iran would have closed the Strait of Hormuz even if the US had not attacked, leaving Israel to attack alone? The strategic calculation (threaten the world economy so other nations oppose the war) would have been the same.
But had the US not been part of the first strike, they could have applied much more diplomatic pressure to open the strait. As an active aggressor, they have no wiggle room. It might seem like semantics to you, but there's a huge difference diplomatically.
Pressure from most of the world isn't enough, why would additional pressure from the US (who Iran already regarded as an enemy) have made the difference?
Iran didn't really do anything last year after supposedly having their facilities "totally annihilated". But it used to be that the US was respected enough that public saber rattling and behind the scenes diplomatic efforts would avoid conflict. Sadly, we've done our damnedest to turn that respect into a joke. We used to make deals with people, but the greatest deal maker ripped up all of them and replaced them with nothing on the word better deals were for the taking.
> But it used to be that the US was respected enough that public saber rattling and behind the scenes diplomatic efforts would avoid conflict.
This is isn't true in practice, even if you want to argue it's technically true. Iran has been participating in conflict through proxies continually for decades. US sabre rattling has done nothing to quell that violence.
Houthis open adversaries, Saudi, are aware that they are not really Iranian proxies [0]. Sunnis in Lebanon are Persian Shi'a 'proxy' only since their leadership was assassinated during negotiations in 2024 (also by this very liberal definition of 'proxy', eastern Iranian clans are US/Israel proxies, and killed more Iranians than Hamas killed Israelis, so I'm not sure we really want to get into it). The only proxy Iran had were Iraki Shi'a paramilitary forces, who agreed for a ceasefire to let US troops and diplomats get out of Iraq, and once the evacuation was done, got their leaders bombed. Never trust the US.
Iran gives missiles to the houtis, houtis then use those to fire at American ships. Its the same kind of proxy war as Ukrain, and people call that a proxy.
Thank you, that's my point. If you think Houtis are a proxy, then you think Ukraine is a proxy for the US, as Houtis have to promise concessions to Iran in exchange for armaments. Better yet, they choose their target without iranian input, so they are even less of a proxy than Ukraine who has been forbidden by the US to use the weapons they were given outside of their borders.
If you think Hezbollah are an Iranian proxy, then Israel is an US proxy, and Hamas is a Qatar/Likud proxy (won't be the first time the far right pay agitators to kill their own citizen to stay/be in power, just look at Italy).
It's also been an ally of Iran. Qatar is not neutral in that it stays distant from both sides, it is neutral in that it attempts to maintain good relations with both sides.
Iran has attacked the US base in Qatar before. When they did so in 2025, Iran's Supreme National Security Council issued a statement: "this action does not pose any threat to the friendly and brotherly country, Qatar, and its noble people, and the Islamic Republic of Iran remains committed to maintaining and continuing warm and historic relations with Qatar".
This time Iran attacked Qatar itself, including the Ras Laffan gas facility and Hamad International Airport.
Qatar has never been allied with Iran. It has had economic partnerships, especially around the oil fields that Israel blew up, but that is not an alliance. Iran does not have military bases in Qatar.
Why would Iran need a base in Qatar? It's right next door.
Iran and Qatar do (did?) have military cooperation agreements, not only economic. [1] That's not a NATO style treaty but Qatar doesn't have a NATO style treaty with the US either.
> the enrichment of nuclear material to military grades while constantly threatening the elimination of Israel.
Iran has supported a treaty on elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the middle east, Israel has been the blocker of it, only actor in the region that has nukes, and isn't in the NPT.
As a non-signer of the NPT, military aid to Israel is also illegal under US law, so we play along with strategic ambiguity and pretend they don't have them.
At various times, and potentially via proxies:
Iraq
Saudi Arabia
Israel
Kurdish Rebels
The US
“All countries” via actions against shipping in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz
Iran proxies were extremely active in Syria, as they were close allies of the Assad regime. They are responsible for countless exactions.
In 1992 there was a deadly car bomb attack in Argentina, killing 29 people and injuring 250 more. Then again in 1994 a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 87 people. Eventually the investigation demonstrated conclusively that Iran was responsible.
> You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list.
> Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar.
Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal.
Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wildly inflated nonsense. Israel and Hamas have been enemies to the death for decades.
Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1].
It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this.
> "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…"
Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes.
Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority various Israeli governments have legitimized and propped Hamas in order to have a scapegoat to not have to sit around the negotiating table.
Israeli actively armed and helped financing of Hamas while helping them suppress moderate Palestinian factions.
And that's only what we know. I wouldn't be surprised if one day we'll also get proof that Israeli intelligence knew about October 7th and still allowed it to happen to go on such an extensive military campaign and crush forever any hope for a Palestinian state at the same time.
> Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes.
If there are "plenty" of quotes like this, can you identify just one that we know he actually said? (Not the "thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state" quote, which is unverified and denied by him [1].)
In any case, actions speak louder than words. If we look past Wikipedians' spin and look the substance of what Israel actually did, they once facilitated Qatari aid to fund some basic civil services, to prevent societal collapse in Gaza. That's it, that's essentially the sole basis for all the misleading claims about Israel "supporting Hamas".
Correcting misinformation is “shilling”? What does my work have to do with anything?
Your claim was that Netanyahu was "on record" with "plenty" of quotes. If that's true, surely it must be very easy to identify two or three specific quotes that he definitely said? Your link doesn't do that. The first answer doesn't quote Netanyahu. The second says "well he didn't deny the unverified quote", which is obviously false/outdated per my link above.
In any case, is there some particular action Netanyahu took to "support Hamas" that you disagree with? Do you think Israel should have blocked the Qatari aid funds, which were ostensibly necessary to keep basic civil services running and prevent societal collapse?
The problem is that the language you're using—"propped up Hamas"—obscures the fact that for the bulk of the time when Israel was directly supporting Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's efforts, "Hamas" technically didn't exist.
Yes, those early contributions obviously facilitated its emergence, but this is probably why people are disagreeing with you.
On the other hand, that doesn't belie the argument that Israel/Netanyahu's tactics since 1989 (e.g. leveraging Qatari aid) have ulterior motives assigned.
Your original point about Hamas being used as a proxy for Iran was solid. It's a pity that it's since descended into an argument about a secondary remark. But the support that Hamas gets from Iran versus the support than Hamas gets from Qatar (with Israeli/American approval) shouldn't be conflated.
They've colonized the whole region with their proxies, from Lebanon to Yemen to Iraq, previously Syria which they attacked with Hezbollah to support the Russia-backed Assad. About 1 million dead people from all this proxy warfare. Lebanon in particular wants to be a normal liberal democracy but their proxy militia assassinates any politician who stands in their way.
This is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Not dismissing your point, but it's really not a useful follow up. The two things can be bad at the same time.
The fact is that the US routinely commits acts of perfidy. This was the second time they attacked Iran during negotiations.
I've said before that I'm no fan of the Iranian mullah regime, but the US is basically run by war criminals.
And they're proud of it. Albright and her "murdering 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it," Hillary and her "we came we saw he died," and
Nobel Peace Prize Barack Hussein Obama with his targeting US citizens via drone + 28000 bombing attacks, to this orange monster demolishing the White House (literally and figuratively) and any pretence at being trustworthy or civilised.
You're trying to convince a flat-earther with logic or physics. Western democracies are evil. Worse than China and worse than North Korea. The answer is Marxism.
EDIT: This reminds me of a Russian person I used to work with. He truly believed that elections in all western democracies were fake and rigged. That is you go and vote but the vote is predetermined. This was a long time ago but I think it was some story told in Russia about the west (basically how the west is not really free) that stuck as an unshakeable belief when he left Russia and moved to the west. This was about 40 years ago give or take. People can hold weird beliefs and conspiracy theories (like people that believe the earth is flat) and those beliefs can not be assailed with logic or facts.
The reality is(?) that western democracies with all their flaws are better than authoritarian regimes but a person can not grasp the entirety of reality. One can always find examples where people are treated unjustly or unfairly in western democracies and ofcourse one can find examples of people being "ok" in authoritarian regimes. The key is to apply the scientific method to the question vs. relying on anecdotes but the human mind is not really wired for that.
Increasingly, people in the US get convinced that Europe is pretty much like China (they usually focus on the policing of online spaces in the UK as proof of that).
There was apparently a recent push in their media to introduce and reinforce this narrative. Can’t see what good would that do, except the current leadership wanting to worsen relations with everyone.
"A reservist suspected of using classified information to place bets on the Polymarket prediction site served as a major in the Israeli Air Force, a Tel Aviv Court reveals.
The defendant was indicted alongside his alleged accomplice last month on severe security offenses, as well as bribery and obstruction of justice, after they allegedly bet on the timing of Israel’s opening strikes that kicked off the 12-day war with Iran last June.
The case was subject to a court-issued gag order, which was partially lifted this evening following a petition from several Hebrew-language outlets. The details of the case were cleared for publication, but the defendants’ names are still under wraps.
According to the indictment, the soldier was briefed on the June operation in a confidential meeting a day before it was carried out, then notified his civilian accomplice about the offensive. When Israeli warplanes were on their way to attack Iran, the reservist let the civilian know, and the latter placed a bet on the war’s timing.
The pair allegedly made $162,663 after winning the bet, which they agreed to split evenly between themselves."
In addition to this article, I've recently read this one [1], where the reported received numerous violence and death threats from people who wanted him to change the a story he published to match what they bet on Polymarket.
Yeah this is a much more likely outcome of unregulated gambling... I expect to hear a LOT more of this. Also plan for a swift, complete erosion of trust in sports officiating.
I’d love to read about their Opsec failures. It seems like an offline conversation or Signal chat with disappearing messages could’ve saved these two. Any links to details on the case?
The actual quote from 1884 seems to have been:
"The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity, and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." - Henry L. Ellsworth
Either way we have a lot of things but it's not quite STTNG yet. There's no limit to how much more we can do.
I don't think Iran can take a sustained air campaign for that long. They talk like they can but they can't. The only thing they have right now is their remaining ballistic missile (and to some extent) drone launch capabilities but that is going to keep getting degraded.
The US being a net exporter of oil should benefit from higher oil prices. Defense contractors will also benefit.
The 1970's were probably better than these days. ;)
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