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Comment by TurdF3rguson | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what's stranger. That they think Trump will care about OpenAI's datacenter in Abu Dhabi, or that we're getting this news from tomshardware.com

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He may care in the end, because TACO. Looks like this is a pattern of modern war where both sides are testing the escalation levels by attacking the infrastructure. It‘s like MAD, but going up in smaller increments rather than hitting with everything after one or two limited strikes like nuclear. Basically, you hit my power plant, I‘ll hit yours. It‘s the same path Ukraine went on: they initially showed restraint in responses, but now they are matching Russian pressure by choosing the same civilian targets.

He won't care unless someone bribes him to care. This is all happening someplace not at one of his golf courses.

Well, there you have it - the principal investors in $30 billion dollar capital infrastructure projects have been known to bribe a POTUS or two.

At the very least dangle a shiny gold ball tickling trophy in his eyeline to briefly gain attention.

Indeed. Tit for tat is well known to be an effective strategy. It's almost guaranteed to create one side that feels weaker than the other, while giving that party a way out.

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

> by choosing the same civilian targets

not sure what the point of this propaganda is?

ukraine doesn't shoot rockets at appartments.

hitting (dual use) energy infrastructure is a completely different level then targeting civilian homes.

Nobody except Israel is setting civilian homes as targets for their rockets. Not all energy infrastructure is even remotely „dual use“ (and this label is itself propaganda used to justify strikes on non-military targets).

All Russian infrastructure of all types would be perfectly safe tomorrow if they just stopped brutally invading their neighbors. Let's be plain and clear here: the Russian moral position lies somewhere 10 miles below the floor of the deepest ocean trench. The moral high road is pretty easy to achieve.

I don‘t think „moral high roads“ have any relevance in context of this discussion. If such conversation triggers you, try to breathe and think why first.

Yes, I find that quite often morality becomes temporarily irrelevant when it's inconvenient for the party acting immorally.

Nevertheless, this is the one of the vanishingly few conflicts where there is a good guy and a bad guy. Sometimes the universe gives us a break from endless grey areas. This is one of those!

If you find the idea of an autonomous sovereign state defending it's borders 'triggering' I might suggest some soothing jazz and a warm milk.

All the best

US seems to have hit more than a few apartment blocks in Tehran. But you're mostly right

This has happened in all ongoing conflicts but in only a few cases it is known to be intentional (Israeli strikes). I don‘t think USA or Iran does target residential blocks, but just like everyone else they may act on bad intelligence or it may be accidental.

And the reason is not just rules of engagement - such targets simply have negative value for attacker.

Dual use is nonsense, all power plants and highways are "dual use", hell so are farms, water treatment, dams... It's a term used exclusively to justify war crimes.

It's not a terrible target. Long-term it puts stress on US/UAE cooperation, and short-term it mirrors the destabilization inside Iran with escalation outside it.

From the armchair perspective, these sorts of strikes are exactly what I'd imagine that China is advocating for behind closed doors. A few well-placed drone strikes can cause more economic damage than any SAM shootdown or embassy attack could, tactically accelerating the war and strategically entrenching Chinese technology.

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