U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. DOJ Scrapped It | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. DOJ Scrapped It

propublica.org

104 pointsjohnbarron22 comments

They did a double tap strike on a girls school.

i.e. they blew up a school with kids in it, then when people went in to try and rescue the survivors they struck the school again to kill the rescuers.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/3/12/who-bombed-the-...

Our leadership obviously does not care at all about civilian lives.

The DoD has vocally stated their intent to maximize death. They have explicit stated their disgust for the rules of engagement.

>The DoD has vocally stated their intent to maximize death.

Source?

NY Times article on the rhetoric: https://archive.ph/In52a

Based on a quick skim it looks like he's talking about combatant deaths? I suppose it's technically supports the claim of "maximize death", but in the broader context of civilian casualties it's a bit misleading. Also, isnt the whole point of a military to kill enemy combatants? It might not be an explicit objective, and there are limits to what kinds of killings are allowed, but at the same time I don't think there's any military trying to minimize deaths either, eg. by using less lethal weapons.

The point of a military is to achieve political goals, not specifically to kill. Notice all the rules around PoWs and how the most common role militaries play is deterrence.

>The point of a military is to achieve political goals, not specifically to kill.

The point of a company is to deliver shareholder value, but if boeing says the purpose of the company to sell planes, nobody is going to object.

>Notice all the rules around PoWs

I specifically acknowledged this in my prior comment

>how the most common role militaries play is deterrence.

"deterrence" goes out the window when you start a hot war.

>Based on a quick skim it looks like he's talking about combatant deaths?

You should have read the article more closely.

    Hegseth describes the war in Iran very differently. At a news conference last week, he said it would have “no stupid rules of engagement.” In another, he said that the U.S. military would shower “death and destruction from the sky all day long.”

    Today’s campaign isn’t about enduring freedom. It’s called Operation Epic Fury. “Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” Hegseth said earlier this year. “Violent effect, not politically correct.”

What part of this language leads you to believe he's only talking about combatant deaths?

>They have explicit stated their disgust for the rules of engagement.

Which ones? The ones from the GWOT? Those rules of "engagement"?

Dunno. You'll have to ask him.

https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4418...

let us not forget they changed the name to the department of war.

Indeed. I'm curious how long before DHS becomes the Department of Surveillance?

About -2 years ago

Yeah, but I'm wondering when they'll officially change the name. lol

No they didn't. Stop perpetuating this lie. Is the XO stupid? Yes. That doesn't make it ok to lie about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-...

> President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War

What exactly is the lie then?

I recommend reading the title and subtitle first.

Or really the article itself which also reiterates why the OP is a lie

This sort of moral decline bites you in the back years later.

The same is going on in Israel - covering up of war crimes, covering of sexual and other abuse of prisoners

They don't even try to cover it anymore.

US at least took some level of accountability, however much watered down, for Abu Graib.

Maybe this is a different US now.

Nobody could’ve predicted that putting an abusive alcoholic in charge of the DoD would lead to this. Oh wait, plenty of people predicted this.

There are no leaders in the current administration, only self-absorbed sycophants.

> The death toll from the attack on an elementary school in Minab climbed past 165, most of them under age 12, with nearly 100 others wounded, according to Iranian health officials.

Aside from the obvious horrifyng aspect of this, that's also a lot of people who are going to remember this sorely. Pretty sure none of this is going to be beneficial to the future of anyone involved, on both sides.

C'mon, only 2 years and 9.5 months to go...

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