Comment by yosamino | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yosamino | Hacker News Reader

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I'm just gonna assume you are an American, just because this is a website who's audience is in large part American. But I might be wrong. Anyway, as such you must at least in passing be familiar with the concept of a "military base" as it is practiced by American society.

> Everything that the average family needs is there; a grocery store, shopping mall, bank, post office, theatre, religious centers, outdoor activities, community center, clubs, dining facilities, gas station, quick stop markets, and, if not a full size hospital, medical clinics. The majority of bases do not have schools physically located on the installation, but the children are educated in the neighboring school systems.

src: https://militarybases.com/military-housing/life-on-a-militar...

I just googled that so I don't have to write the text myself.

So while you might be technically correct about schools, do you think housing on a military base for personnel and their families is akin to playing on the road at night ?

> I feel like an intellectual god

HN rules prevent me from writing anything snarky here.

Yes, you are correct. Military bases even have schools and kids!

But do you know what else the US does?

The locations of military and non-military buildings is public information, and even intentionally made obvious to anyone. You can get maps of the bases from their websites. You can even go on google maps and see what most of the buildings are. To avoid exactly this situation. And even beyond all that, in the event of military escalation where their is real threat of the bases being hit, the civilians would be evacuated anyway.

(Legitimate) countries at war aren't trying to massacre civilians. They all agreed to that and all take agreed upon steps to stop it. Like at the most basic level issuing uniforms to soldiers so you can clearly see who is a civilian and who is a fighter.

I can assure you that in a war between the US and China, there would be dramatically fewer civilian deaths, because both countries don't fuck around with "military/civilian ambiguity" as a war tactic. Because you or your enemy end up killing a bunch of innocents.

Are you trying to tell me that you believe that the Iranians were under the impression that this school was a secret that the United States did not know about ?

This the the school's website https://web.archive.org/web/20250912011638/https://shajaresc...

Do you believe that these military buildings were a secret that the Iranians thought the US and Israel don't know about ?

> (Legitimate) countries at war aren't trying to massacre civilians.

You think Israel is not a legitimate country? Cause that just very openly happened and continues to happen.

And maybe you think that killing civilians is not the point, which I don't agree with but I can at least understand why one would come to that conclusion.

But you must at least remember that the US is kind of famous for Hiroshima and Nagasaki - an action based almost in it's entirety on killing civilians.

But even if you want to only defend that "legitimate" countries aren't trying to massacre civilians, you must be able to see that the threshold of killing them if they just happen to be in the way is very low.

The Secretary of Defense of the US recently called for removal of all these rules you alluded to

> We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement.

https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4318...

Look at what is happening even with this lose framework you are referring to in place. Do you think if China invaded the US, the US would not do everything it takes to defeat them, even if it means giving up conventional warfare. You think the US forces would give up a strategic advantage that could be gained by taking off their uniform and continue fighting without it ?

You don't seem aware that Japan armed and trained it's population (Kokumin Giyū Sentōtai), men and women including kids, and mandated them to attack invaders. Another example of deranged theocratic dictatorship. The US doing a land invasion would have almost certainly resulted in far more "civilian" deaths.

Also the Geneva conventions don't apply when fighting an enemy who doesn't abide by them. Its incredibly annoying to fight an enemy that has no problem using ambulances as troop and weapon transports. Or an enemy that refuses to issue uniforms to it's fighters. This isn't even necessarily referring to Israel and Hamas, it was rampant with al qaeda and ISIS.

As for China invading the US? Well Ukraine has managed to keep it above board. It's only these shit head theocratic lunatics that have no problem shoveling civilians into the fire to keep their ass in power. Maybe you aren't aware, but Hamas consoles it's civilians by telling them they are dying for God. Just like Japan trained it's civilians during WWII to die for God (who happened to be the emperor.)

Sure, the easiest way out of your dilemma is to just declare everyone killed to not be a civilian, and define every enemy to be out of scope of any restraint.

By that metric there are never any dead civilians and no rules apply.

Kinda sounds as if you are looking for excuses to make these rules you yourself brought up not apply to any real situation.

I really, really wanted to avoid making fun of of your "gifted brain power".

Your argument is so lazy, I am starting to doubt your godlike intellect.

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