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Comment by hereme888 | Hacker News Reader

For the prospects of the freedom and subsequent prosperity of the oppressed Iranian people, peace in the Middle East, and safety of the commercial shipping routes, I fully approve my tax dollars to the matter.

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Do you really believe killing 175 children[0] will bring peace and prosperity to the Iranian people?

[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/world/middleeast/girls-sc...

That news piece was officially dismissed after investigation by the IDF and CENTCOM. I would bring to your awareness that you're using an emotional argument with no substance, and it discounts the decades of complex history in the region.

after investigation by the IDF and CENTCOM

Neither of those can be considered reliable sources. It's possible that it was an Iranian misfire, but it would be a big coincidence that that happened right as we launched an attack on them and an even bigger coincidence that someone just happened to take a picture of it and post it on the internet to immediately exonerate the IDG and Centcom.

The IDF has burned through all credibility during their assault on Gaza. I do not think the US and Israel waging a war on Iran will result in a positive outcome for the Iranian people or the region. The end result will be chaos, misery, and suffering. The latest news is the US attempting to foment some sort or civil war[0]. I sincerely do not understand how anyone could advocate for this.

[0] https://www.itv.com/news/2026-03-03/united-states-seeking-an...

A falsifiable prediction. Thank you.

175 dead children is already far too much suffering and if you're incapable of understanding that you are operating with a fully broken moral compass.

I think it is a hard problem to discuss clearly, but it not automatically a deal breaker. What about 175 children vs 30,000 protesters? What about 30,000 protesters a year in perpetuity?

Exactly, a real moral calculus needs to be made, not a hysterical "But the IRGC said 175 children died." And a real moral calculus involves weighing the value of the deaths caused by removing the IRGC against the deaths caused by the IRGC.

My antagonist said I have no moral compass. Of course I care about the death of children. But that doesn't mean I swallow IRGC propaganda wholesale, as they apparently do. The IRGC lies constantly, it has provided no evidence that so many children died, and hasn't brought forth any evidence to indicate the destruction of the school was caused by western munitions as opposed to a failed launch of their own (which we've seen happen.

US and Israel killed more civilians in war last year than Iran in decades. So by that logic, US and Israeli terrorists must be terminated?

Well, just in the past two months, iran is thought to have killed more than 30,000 of its own citizens, while the whole civilian death toll in gaza is about 40k or less over more than two years (out of roughly 70k killed), so i'd say you just made that up.

Demographics: Approximately 70% of the 70k verified fatalities are women and children. International observers, including the OHCHR, have noted that children alone account for roughly 33-44% of the death toll.

Your information is false and out of date.

You better take it up with Gemini then. This is just a straight fact check.

This is the latest information on Gaza casualties. As you can see, there's a disproportionate number of fighting age male casualties. https://x.com/GabrielEpsteinX/status/2024527393226936441/pho...

>investigation by the IDF and CENTCOM

this has to be bait, right?

Perhaps the original comment, putting forth debunked IRGC propaganda, and presenting it as definitely true, was bait.

What part is debunked? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_airstrike

The main source in that Wikipedia article is "According to the IRGC." Trusting any belligerent in a war is silly, but given its history, trusting the IRGC during wartime is even sillier. No independent body like the Red Crescent (which is counting casualties in Iran) verified this. It's all "trust me, bro."

USCENTCOM and the IAF both rejected these assertions.

You should demand some evidence for the IRGC's claim. If the claim is that the US or Israel did it, why doesn't the IRGC show the munition used? Or any OSINT data, like where the munition was fired from, its trajectory, etc. The IRGC has been firing from the IRGC base where this school was located. It could just as easily have been a failed IRGC munition.

Also, was this "school" by an IRGC base actually a school, or did it serve a military purpose? Surely you can't know the answer to this, so it's tough for you to judge the military necessity of the strike.

Finally, what's the claim, really? That western powers intentionally struck a school and killed these kids to advance their war aims? Or that it was an accident? If the former, an explanation for "how" is required; and if the latter (and if it did indeed happen) it's the kind of collateral damage that occurs in all wars.

>> what's the claim, really? That western powers intentionally struck a school and killed these kids

Israel or US or both struck a school and killed these kids. Nobody knows whether it was intentional or not. And this is not the first time Israel bombed schools or hospitals.

Mental gymnastics done to skew facts is amazing.

nzrf wrote: "Do you really believe killing 175 children[0] will bring peace and prosperity to the Iranian people?"

The implication is that someone thought that it would. I am saying nobody in the US or Israel thought bombing a children's school would bring peace to the iranian people. In fact, both the USAF and IAF deny they hit a school. There is no evidence the IRGC has put forward to support its claim. Without such evidence, it doesn't make sense to believe it.

Also, you talk about mental gymnastics while defending IRGC propaganda and spewing nonsense like "Israel bombed hospitals." If you're so confident that Israel has bombed hospital buildings, can you tell me which they bombed, when they did this, and any OSINT details like the munition used?

Always gaslighting.

Here is a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_health_facilities_d...

And here is a detailed report: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israeli-soldiers-tel-sultan-g...

You're just linking me to lists from highly unreliable sources. I'm a simpleton, make a claim like this: "I think Israel bombed this hospital building on this date using this ordinance. Here's the evidence."

I do not know what to say. Just look at the pictures in the Wikipedia page.

Israel left newborns to rot in hospital beds, shot many children in the head & chest. Everyone, including Israelis know this. Evil, evil people.

You are being bigoted (“evil, evil people”) and if you believe what you say you can just answer my question directly. You won’t because it hasn’t happened.

No amount of proof will change your position, unfortunately.

Actually a simple statement you can actually support would: Israel bombed this hospital building on this date using this munition. You can’t meet that simple standard because it never happened.

Evidence is clear: the people of Iran do the Trump dance, alongside the Jews, and lay flowers by Israelis with tears of thankfulness.

Iranian civilians love the US and Israel for setting them free.

Stop believing terrorist propaganda.

This "debunks" nothing, it's merely a demand for more evidence.

Step 1. OP makes a positive claim, repeating an IRGC narrative.

Step 2. I point out there’s no good evidence supporting it.

Step 3. You reframe that as "you’re just demanding more evidence."

That’s backwards. If someone claims something extraordinary happened, the burden is on them to provide evidence. Showing that the current evidence doesn’t support the claim is a perfectly valid rebuttal.

Otherwise we could do this with anything:

kid: "There’s a ghost in my room." dad: "I don't hear a ghost. I don't see one. There’s no heat, sound, footprints..." kid: "That doesn’t mean there's no ghost. You’re just demanding more evidence.”

This has strong vibes of "we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing".

IDF has constantly rejected their war crimes in Gaza, while independent reporting (from different sources) has found multiple evidence of them.

> CENTCOM

I haven't seen anything to that effect yet. They've just said they wouldn't deliberately target a school, which I believe, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an accident based on faulty, likely outdated intelligence.

Where did you get the 175 children number. Even the article does not say that.

Do you believe that those goals will be achieved? Given the historical track record of these kinds of interventions, I do not.

OK, I don't. I wonder if we could set up some sort of legislative system that could debate this on our behalf and make a reasonable plan that accounts for our differing viewpoints.

I've found that if two people sit together and are willing to talk long enough, they'll eventually be able to actually hear each other, and usually they are more in agreement than the media-installed reactions and assumptions we have. Only with a few would we vehemently disagree. I'm talking about reasonable people though, like your calm reply.

You completely missed the point: Trump unilaterally started this chaotic war without going to Congress. This isn't a matter of "if we just talk we can be friends" type of situation.

He stated a war on his own (after campaigning on the opposite no less) meaning our representatives had no say in this. It's completely unacceptable.

I did not miss any points. You are uninformed. Iran was less than a month away from having a viable nuke, and they've been swearing to use it against America and Israel for the past 47 years. In the last set of negotiations, Iran refused to rule out building the nuke. That's the official information, and if you think they're lying, you have no alternative sources of trustworthy information besides terrorist-aligned ideologies.

Presidents can take such defensive actions. It's legal.

> Iran was less than a month away from having a viable nuke

Oh, I see, you've bought the propaganda that Iran is close to a nuke. That's been the scare tactic for decades. Did you already forget the strike we did on their nuclear facilities months ago that supposedly set them back?

There was no justification for this war, the official US position is that we needed to get involved because Israel striked first and Iran was going to retaliate against us.

Israel is wagging the dog here since this is likely the last puppet they'll have in office and Iran threatens their power in the ME.

Here you go: they were 7-10 days from weapon's grade enrichment.

https://x.com/stinchfield1776/status/2029365225426649346

That's the guy who met to negotiate with the Iranians. They admitted it. You won't get clearer evidence than that.

Steve Witkoff is a real estate developer who, for some reason, got put into a special envoy for foreign affairs. The fact that you take his word (or really anyone in the executive) at face value says a lot. Many lawmakers were briefed recently and still have no clear motive for this war.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) on Monday said the Trump administration has not effectively explained the U.S. military objective in Iran, accusing the White House of giving “multiple definitions.”[0]

0: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5765223-warren-davidson-t...

So people should not believe the guy who was in the meeting because... he's a real estate developer... You will never believe facts as long as you hold to your agenda, and this translates to other areas of your personal life.

No, I'm saying he has no qualifications and this administration lies constantly. There's already reporting that he lied in this case about Iran saying they had nuclear material. You're making this out to be a clear cut case and it's not.

Your willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt is mind blowing.

Again, you are misinformed. The nuclear capabilities were real. They had secretly moved facilities and those struck by the US were a detriment but didn't hinder development. The attacks were unsuccessful at their primary objective, per all official information.

But there's no argument against someone who thinks everything is a conspiracy. You will always come up with a creative argument, however false it may be.

It's genuinely difficult to see this sort of claim as being an honest statement, given that everyone knows the outcome with Afghanistan and Iraq.

That is an unrealistic goal.

Likely the actual goal, as dictated by Israel and the Jewish Lobby in the US, is to destabilise Iran long term in a sort of Syria situation, so they cannot threaten Israeli hegemony in the region.

Remember even a non Islamic Iran is still a threat to Israeli power if it remains unified and intact.

I don't agree with your perspective, but I do support Iran no longer being a threat to anyone else in the region, no matter what.

Do you support Israel no longer being a threat to anyone else in the region, no matter what?

Would you still approve if the cost is 20x, the Iranian people are worse off, and the shipping routes and Middle East are dramatically less safe due to drones?

Because that is a realistic possibility.

No, I would not. But so far I don't see that outcome.

Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq, again. Syria. Libya. Iran. Iran, again. Yeah - this is totally gonna work this time.

In theory it could work. In practice you'd at most get a bloody civil war that would give rise to a new form of ISIS. But if you believe what Fox News tells you, it's probably too late to argue about it.

Let's re-evaluate in one month; the projected time-frame given by POTUS and Israel for Iranians to reclaim their country.

For Pakistanis as well ?

I'm honestly not informed about what's happening with Pakistan. I know there's a ton of tweets about this, but it's not in my scope at the moment.

Yeah that’s the likely outcome given our track record /s

Venezuela is undergoing tremendous freedom and hope. My fellow Venezuelans and I are super grateful for the well-planned, surgical mission of the US. They can have all the oil they want and help restore our industries in exchange for their financial benefit and partnership, which is the most recent track record.

I think that interventions in the region of interest, the middle east, are more relevant data points than Venezuela.

Every Iranian I know has the same sentiment right now. Feeling very conflicted in that 1) their country is being attacked, and 2) thankful that the oppressive regime is being destroyed. Cautiously optimistic about the future.

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