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plaidfuji
mempko
You forget the UI killed a million Iraqis and also had a torture prison. I don't think the US has every had the high ground.
tchalla
> The US will have ceded much of the moral high ground they claimed in avenging the slaughter of innocent protesters.
It will be forgotten soon.
andriy_koval
> It will be forgotten soon.
it won't. Opposing US political side will weaponize this incident in their interests.
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mothballed
I hope you're right, and one day we don't read 20 or 30 years from now the biography of a terrorist, and it starts out with their experience being the sibling of a child injured at one of these schools.
AlecSchueler
In the US, but not in Iran and elsewhere.
matusp
Yeah, but that does not influence US politics.
thomassmith65
The IRGC's strategy in this conflict has been to blow up civilian targets in nearly all nations surrounding it.
It appears the IRGC has chosen civilian targets (eg: high rise apartments, airports, oil fields) on purpose, but if not, then they have such poor technology that their strikes are random.
Killing people in 11 nations to put pressure on the two nations that actually attacked you is a good demonstration of the Iranian regime's morals.
If the USA or Israel bombed this school, it clearly was an accident, since the only party it benefits is the Iranian regime.
Gud
Although the UAE and everyone else Iran has attacked may not have directly attacked Iran, they are hosting the American infrastructure making the attacks possible.
I can understand why Iran considers most gulf states complicit.
thomassmith65
Here's a map of the 'complicit' nations the IRGC has been bombing:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/b7ef/live/f6673...
That's: Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Oman.
There is no point for the IRGC to do this other than to create such chaos and fear that the world pressures America to relent.
plaidfuji
I agree, but it is still very unfortunate. It’s a lot less compelling to argue “but we killed fewer civilians, and it was only on accident”
mullingitover
I get the feeling AI will be blamed for this, but I would not rule out the hypothesis that this was done intentionally in order to incite Iran to do something that bolsters support for the US regime’s actions. They desperately need domestic political support for this war and right now even the hardcore MAGA people are against it.
fbelzile
Reporting from the CBC mentioned that the school was located within an area surrounded by other military buildings. The building housing the school was used for military purposes in the past.
I think it's more likely that the US was going off of outdated intelligence.
jihadjihad
Yeah, Occam's Razor and all that. The current admin has proven itself to be poor players of games like checkers, let alone 5D chess.
mylifeandtimes
Sounds more like Bloody Stupid Jonssons Razor than Occams razor. The dumbest possible explanation is probably right.
lukan
Here is a bit more info:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/questions-over-minab...
"It can be said with a degree of confidence that, in 2013, the site was used exclusively as a military barracks with a strict security character, as there was no indication of an independent civilian use of any part of the complex.
But this changed radically in 2016. Satellite images dated September 6, 2016 capture the main turning point, when new internal walls were created and built, fully and tightly separating the school building area from the rest of the military block."
If they work with intelligence data older than 10 years, then this would still account to gross negligence, possibly counting as a war crime. But misstakes happen and they did used AI for target tracking.
But the other interpretation is more dark. Because it was not just some school, but a school where the children of the IRGC go, the elite of the system. And Trump said he does not want a regime change, but rather someone from the current system who just bows to US demands. So the threat of killing all the leadership, anyone could be next - but also the threat to kill also their children and familiy until they surrender.
To quote Hegseth:
"no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars,” and “no nation-building quagmire.”
Threatening to kill also their families makes sense with this kind of language and logic. At some point you will find someone who values the life of his family higher than that of the nation and religion.
But I do hope my theory is wrong.
vunderba
When I saw that interview I immediately thought, people like Hegseth are why treaties like the Geneva Convention were created in the first place.
ZeroGravitas
Trump has repeatedly, on record, enthusiastically endorsed killing the wives and children of enemies.
ynac
Agreed with others here...and updating intel for primary targets is customary. Which obviously didn't happen here. The targeting cycle and the F2T2 cycle, dynamic targeting loops (probably) should have brought the latest intel about the school to light.
As for whether it was AI - the US DOD Ethic's first tenent is Responsible - personnel remain responsible...
jiggawatts
Many similar incidents occurred in Ukraine, where Russia targeted apartment blocks that were built on the former site of some sort of military building that was demolished decades ago.
The ultimate hubris is launching a multi million dollar missile to kill civilians because you couldn’t be bothered to check Google street view (or whatever).
lawn
Russia actively targets hospitals, fire departments and schools for years and you attribute it to "outdated info".
Shame on you.
fakedang
> I think it's more likely that the US was going off of outdated intelligence.
While Israel has enough intelligence to track where the Ayatollah is hidden away after the initial strikes on Iran. Does that sound believable to you? Either Israel and USA are pisspoor at coordinating intelligence, or Israel wilfully let the US attack the place and take the flak for it.
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dzdt
I do think there is a strong possibility the people in charge in the US government believe an Iran state sponsored terrorism attack would be a political benefit to them. Such things boost support for the sitting President, and could also give political cover for additional authoritarian acts to help them retain power. Would they do the school attack on purpose? Maybe? But for sure they keep the war going until they generate the response they are looking for...
rustyhancock
I can't say I'm as conspiratorial as you.
I don't really know how these systems work, perhaps I shouldn't speak without research.
But it seems like a pretty basic error.
The base has looks like 5 buildings in an L shape. 4 buildings where hit in an L shape.
I can imagine the sites were picked from a satellite image and the wrong building was marked.
Or in flight from the camera the wrong buildings were marked.
It is our arrogance that we can blow up hundreds of buildings that makes us try and see meaning behind these mistakes.
Instead we should just be far more cautious about blowing buildings up because these mistakes are inevitable.
The perfect just war simply does not exist.
JKCalhoun
> The perfect just war simply does not exist.
Agree.
In the moment before war is initiated, before a strike is launched against a country, the leaders considering war must immediately assume they are likely to destroy a school full of children some point.
Kapura
It's a really warped mind that could think the best way to build domestic war support would be to blow up a girls' school, but frankly i haven't seen anything from the u.s. government that makes it sound implausible.
urikaduri
You really think the IRGC cared about schoolchildren? Give me a break, they used to have child soldiers.
surgical_fire
Sounds too convoluted, and implies that those in power in the countries attacking Iran have a grand plan that goes beyond killing people in Iran.
The explanation is simpler. They want death, so they are bombing shit indiscriminately
Hitting a school was not a mistake, it was the point.
_alternator_
I think a tragic mistake like this was foreseeable (in a vague sense), but I highly doubt that anyone intentionally bombed an elementary school full of children.
The NYT had some good reporting on this, and you can see how the mistake was made. The elementary school used to be part of the IRGC base until 2016. Then it was fenced off and made an elementary school. The “shooter” (in this case, the USA) had a duty to check that the target was currently a valid military target. This verification, if it was done at all, was clearly the problem.
I’m sure you have someone directly responsible for this mistake who is going to have a hard time living with themselves. But like I said, starting a war leads to inevitable tragedy, and I doubt the people who are indirectly responsible will ever recognize their culpability in this.
ryandrake
It really doesn't matter whether it was a mistake or how the mistake was made. If it were your kid's elementary school that got blown up, would you say "Oh, well, it wasn't intentional. The bad guys just had outdated intelligence. These things happen."
surgical_fire
No, I firmly believe that decades of dehumanization of Iranians in particular and Muslims in general makes this sort of "tragic mistake" desirable.
I don't think whoever was responsible for this gives many fucks about the lives of Iranians.
If a foreign power bombed anything in the US and children died people would just consider them monsters, without further considerations. No one would be pondering about faulty intel.
I refuse to launder the vileness of the aggressors here.
mrguyorama
>but I highly doubt that anyone intentionally bombed an elementary school full of children
Hegseth said to your face "No stupid rules of engagement", "This is not a politically correct war"
These are the people who have been purposely and loudly defending Israel bombing innocent people. They genuinely believe, as they say to your face, that it is important and necessary to be brutal and extreme to win war.
Intentionally disregarding rules of engagement and protecting innocent life IS intentionally bombing that school. Civilian casualties are a reality of war and the best you can do is work your ass off to reduce them, so openly advocating for NOT doing that is intentionally killing people.
Sabinus
This is real life not cartoon villany. The US administration is not a kind one, but their goals are not just 'death for people in Iran'.
donkeybeer
Why else would they start an unprovoked war while pretending to negotiate peace with Iran? They want death of Iranians.
killjoywashere
Yeah, Hanlon's Razor applies.
OutOfHere
What is not clear is how the US received such faulty intelligence. It is also strange how such a blunder happened on day 1. Did some followed Iranian targets go hide in the school? If so, did Iran have a hand in engineering misleading intel for the US, or was it solely the US' doing?
Today a boy's school in Iran was affected by an explosion. The intelligence received by the US chronically seems troubled.
mandeepj
I’m afraid Israel will not hesitate from turning Iran into rubble just like what they did in Palestine.
Israel definitely has a lot of moles in Iran. They weren’t bothered to confirm whether the target is a school. US earlier tried to turn it on Iran’s failed defense launch.
azinman2
Israel doesn't want/need Iran's land. It wants the regime toppled, and the country split apart 10 ways so the next regime is smaller and more checked.
xyzelement
CNN: "suggests that the United States military was responsible"
US Military: investigating whether it's responsible.
"Mandeep": rants about Israel.
flyinglizard
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mothballed
I read secondhand that it was used for military purposes during the Obama years and it appears no one tagged it as now being used as a school for the past 10 years. No idea if it's correct, but it's plausible they were operating off of extremely stale intelligence.
killjoywashere
that sounds plausible. For people not tracking, the concept of intelligence at play is "object based development". One analyst drops a label, brief synopsis, whatever, and it just sits there for the next person who comes along. The world view gets more accurate over time, but there's a recency error that's hard to measure until the probability function collapses with a measurement.
mmooss
> The world view gets more accurate over time
Is that true? I can imagine it's true at first, going from zero bits of information to 1, etc. But information rots over time, and eventually a collection of old information may rot faster than new information improves the world view.
Also, the overall world view isn't especially important, at least not in this case. Each element's accuracy is what's important.
Hopefully each tag is accompanied by a date, at least.
meheleventyone
The collapse in this case being the murder of children at school.
BigTTYGothGF
Sounds like (war) criminal negligence.
zardo
Yeah, it being an honest mistake moves this down from a crime you should hang for to, also still a crime you should hang for.
ant6n
Gemini lost context and hallucinated some tanks.
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mdni007
The US government has now been taken over by religious extremists. The irony...
ryandrake
I remember being worried about James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell back in the 90s and how they were influencing politics from a distance. Thinking that was the worst it could be. Now we have [1].
arvid-lind
they're only pretending to be religious extremists so they will get those votes, though. just like they pretend to be everything else. when the mask comes off and they call the shots, this is who Republicans are. Guardians of Pedophiles.
mandeepj
> this is who Republicans are. Guardians of Pedophiles.
They are the worst of the worst! Always projecting!!
Republicans spread hatred about trans people during the day, but at night, they thirst for them and get caught fucking them.
Their voters are just next level dilusionals!!
Frost1x
I think it’s taken by greed focused extremists, they’re just trying to bide favor with some other extremist groups as their flail to maintain their power and attempt to expand it.
zocoi
Is it the lack of intensive AI analysis? AI can review satellite images over time and suggest if the building is civilian or not. School activities are very obvious
crazygringo
That is actually a point that rarely gets brought up -- we're so concerned about the dangers of AI in warfare, we don't necessarily stop to think of where they may be able to do a better job at avoiding lethal errors.
skeledrew
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m_ke
No these fascists will celebrate this as not being woke, this is just them defending "the west" from muslims...
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mattray0295
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aaron695
[dead]
mechanicalpulse
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plaidfuji
This story is now being carried by WSJ.. the likelihood that it’s real only seems to grow each day. If true, this will be the humanitarian price the war is measured against, assuming the casualties don’t grow further.
mechanicalpulse
I can’t argue with you there. The Pentagon’s silence is deafening; I only want to caution myself as much as anyone against jumping to conclusions. It may be AI, it may be bad intelligence, it may be Russian counterintelligence, it may be an IRGC false flag, it may be a little bit of all of the above.
BigTTYGothGF
> On top of that, the IRGC isn’t big on educating women
They're pretty lousy at the collegiate level (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_education_in_Iran) but: oh, come on.
myko
> CNN skews heavily to the left.
Not for at least a decade, CNN is run by extremely hard right folks today
nkurz
The AllSides evaluation for CNN is interesting: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/cnn-media-bias.
They have CNN currently rated as "Lean Left", changed from "Left" a few years ago due to the changes you point out. You'll need to read the fine text to see their reasoning. While there were some votes that they are now biased to Right, this was a minority position.
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If this turns out to be true, which seems increasingly likely day by day, this will be the humanitarian price against which the rest of the campaign will be measured. The US will have ceded much of the moral high ground they claimed in avenging the slaughter of innocent protesters.