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Comment by aogaili | Hacker News Reader

I keep getting downvoted and flagged, but there is noway anyone in good faith would support this war crime. A president who threaten to send a country to stone age, saying in front of everyones face that he wants to take the oil..

I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime, when we have on other hand, someone who is vocally saying that he is willing to destroy the country's infrastructure and steal their oil.

Well, sure I don't mind getting flagged or downvoted. But at least I speak my mind and what I believe is true.

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This isn’t a contest for most just or most evil. Iran has committed horrible atrocities. The US’s approach to this war has been completely wrong and they are threatening war crimes.

Everyone sucks here.

Keep in mind that we now know that US supplied the protestors weapons to wage violence during the crackdown that resulted in many police officers being killed. We also know that the US has run a campaign to turn protests into riots in past events. And we know that the US sponsors campaigns to create unrest in the country.

If Iran sucks, it is only because the US wants it to suck

That's exactly it. They admitted supplying anti-government rebels with weapons.

Imagine a country comes and arm a group in the US to rebel against the government..

Wait, cites on the "US supplied Iranian protestors with weapons" bit? Other than Trump? It sounds ridiculous to question whether he's telling the truth, but here we are...

Are you suggesting I provide a citation for the President's claims? Beyond his reputation as a loose cannon, it is difficult to fathom why he would boast about such a thing.

From the beginning, the primary objective of this conflict has been for Israel to eliminate regional resistance, leaving Iran as the final holdout. By arming internal rebels to oppose the administration, external forces are essentially inciting a civil war to topple the government.

While the nation and its current leadership require reform, it is important to remember that these radical regimes do not emerge in a vacuum. Their perceived need to resist stems from external efforts to dismantle them. Such radicalization is often the direct consequence of aggressive policies, including economic sanctions, historical support for Saddam Hussein, and the installation of corrupt monarchies.

Every radical movement triggers a counter-movement, making it difficult to distinguish cause from effect. Much like the chills and fever associated with the flu, these movements represent an extreme but instinctive immune response to an outside threat.

The USA didn’t turn Iran into a terrorist Jihadist state attempting to get nukes. Not everything is the USA’s doing, give extremely violent Islam its fault as well.

They certainly gave them a very hard push in that direction due to their coup in 1953. Do you also think 9/11 happened because of US freedom?

Iran is not a jihadist nor a nuke state. The US attempted to isolate Iran from the world, and tried to make everyone its enemy.

Iran has funded/stood up Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels whose flags and charters include maximalist jihadist rhetoric. Iran my entire life has pushed 'death to America'. When Iran's leadership was killed they talked about welcoming it and Islamic martyrdom. My entire life that is my exposure to what an Islamic state looks like. Sure seems jihadist to me.

The only thing those groups have in common is their hate for israel. And israel has intentionally made them the enemy. As it has done with Iran. And blackmailed trump to go after Iran.

At this point you simply just back away from all indications of “iran bad”

US armed rebels, that is their history, Israel wants to the current government down at all cost.

They did that with Iraq, ISIS, they trying with Kurdistan..

I'm not defending a theocracy, but this is not how countries are freed. And he is clearly claiming to take the oil, destroy their infrastructure and take the country to the dark ages. If Iranian government was saying that, hell would go lose.

Actually arming rebels is how countries are freed. Its not the only way but it is one of the most common. Also Iran arms rebels so whats your point in highlighting the US support for rebel groups?

Your perspective on who is being liberated and who is doing the liberating relies on a simplistic narrative. Ironically, the central figure of that narrative, Donald Trump, has openly stated that he does not mind seizing oil or returning the nation to the Dark Ages. Furthermore, they have backed armed protests and expressed a willingness to arm Kurdish factions.

I am uncertain about the logic or framework you are utilizing. If you believe such actions constitute "freeing" a country, then we clearly do not share the same moral and ethical standards.

I think you're assuming way to much from my comment. I was pushing back on the idea that arming rebel group isnt how countries are freed not supporting what Trump is doing.

A violent takeover may not immediately lead to a "free" country but it does open the doors to change and from that change can come freedom. Or in a different perspective its not freedom its just to be free from that certain regime.

We should punctuate the difference between self-actualization and liberal colonization.

I'm not Iranian, Iran has no effect on my life, and I'm a pacifist.

Why would I compel someone to liberate themselves with a mistaken paternalism? It's irresponsible.

because the person funding isnt doing it out of the good of their heart. They have interests in removing the current government. The rebels also have interests in removing the current government. That is all its just two people working together on a common goal its not that deep.

Since Iran is clearly seeking to remove the U.S. government, is arming democratic factions a morally justifiable response?

So, does that mean that Kremlin is freeing a country..?

The origin of the United States hinged on its rebellion being armed by the French monarchy.

which directly led in no small way to the overthrow of the French monarchy.

Perhaps US involvemet in arming rebels elsewhere might led to the downfall of the current US ruling class also?

Iran has been saying this about Israel and the USA since 1979 and has been arming/propping up Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, who have has similar language on their flags/in their charters.

Yeah but western powers have been threatening, bullying, murdering and undermining Iran and it's people since they nationalized their own damn oil three quarters of a century ago.

How do you expect an abused dog to turn out? It's probably not going to turn out very nice isn't it? The Iranian regime would chill out just fine on their own if only the west would stop being so cruel to them.

That's exactly it, and what's more they are kicking the abused dog even harder expecting submission. At this stage, it seems it would rather die or push the abuser away.

Iran has been "threatening, bullying, murdering and undermining" Israel since it was taken over by an irrational Shia theocracy. This war wouldn't be happening if Iran had behaved in a sane and rational manner over the last 35 years.

By rational you mean accept the British, US and Israeli rule and the "liberal" democracy of give up your military and give us your oil and market.

Are they committing war crimes?

So one side is evil while the other side is just wrong ?

Like after 300k deaths in Irak when the administration said "sorry we have been misled by wrong information about the WMD"? They made a mistake, yet Iraqis were evil.

> I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime

You seem to be trying to force reality into a “good vs evil” storyline. There does not have to be a good side.

> I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime,

Well mainly by having Iranian friends who tell us their government is an evil regime, and when we try to insist our government is evil too, lecture us about our privilege to show they really mean it.

youre only getting downvoted because they pay people good money to make sure their ridiculous narrative gets front page every single day. us murders a countries leader and a bunch of school kids and suddenly iran is accused of murdering 100k protesters and committing war crimes... like wtf lol

> I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime

Iran mass murdered tens of thousands of protesters in one day. I was outraged when Trump’s goons murdered two Minnesotan protesters—if we can agree this is evil, it should follow that a regime that murders tens of thousands of protesters is also evil. This isn’t complicated, which is why you’re being downvoted (I did not downvote you).

But as Trump has assured us, that’s the old regime which is completely different from the current regime, which as Trump again has assured us, is not anywhere near as crazy as the old regime.

The Iranian regime is incredibly evil. That makes the American actions even more evil given that they’re providing that evil regime so much cover and allowed it to transition from their 86 year old leader with almost no opportunity for opposition.

So the country waging wars from the sky, threatening to take their oil, annexing Greenland, suffocating Cuba, the only country who used nuclear bombs twice...is what?

I am vehemently opposed to Trump and this war as well. My position in this thread is that both sides are bad.

Those are not neutral protests, those are armed fraction to take down the government, any existing government would fight back.

He said it clearly:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-...

And anyone who knows a bit of history in the region they will understand that this is the case. They armed Saddam to fight Iran for 8 years. The main issue with Iran is that it is against Israel.

It feels like a lot of people on this thread believe that Iran can’t be bad because other countries have done bad things. This seems obviously absurd, but so many of the comments here take the form, “Iran isn’t bad, look at what the US has done”. Come on.

Gemini said The point isn't that one side is "good." The point is that your binary notion of bad and good is far too simplistic for this reality. We are talking about nuclear powers threatening to send a country of 90 million people to the dark ages just to seize their oil and resources. Radicalism is not born in a vacuum; it is an extreme yet necessary immune reaction to an invader. When you are facing a genocide level threat, the moral calculus is not actually that hard. If you can't see the difference between internal policy flaws and a superpower threatening total destruction, then you aren't being objective. You are just taking a side with the party holding the bigger hammer.

You're making an obvious straw man argument. Acknowledging that the Islamic Republic is evil does not imply a moral comparison between them and the United States or Israel. There's no contradiction between opposing the US and Israel for starting this war and acknowledging that the Islamic Republic is an evil regime. That's the point of this entire thread: more than one group can be evil, and the Islamic Republic does not cease to be evil regardless of one's opinion about the US and Israel. These are not dependent variables. You are endorsing an obviously false dichotomy.

if the number of tens of thousands dead is true (and i'm highly skeptical, but let's go with that) then it correlates with the number of starlink terminals smuggled into sanctioned iran way before the protests. both us and israeli officials publicly boasted of mossad agents being on the ground (presumably coordinating these people exerting brutal violence; incidentally, these terminals were the reason for shutting down internet) and even bessant boasted about manipulating the currency into collapse to spark the unrests in the first place. that's all quite evil.

now, i'm against death penalty, but if a government under siege by foreign powers faces such an existential threat then that's one outcome to be expected ... those agitators had it coming. many innocent people died that day, but surely the majority weren't that innocent.

one can disagree with or dislike the irg, but i don't think they're evil, and if they are by the same criteria the us and israel are fucking monsters.

I would be entirely unsurprised if the US and Israel didn’t play a role in agitating, but the Iranian people genuinely don’t like their government. You can talk to pretty much any Iranian expat in any country. The protests may have been coordinated by Israel, but the people who died were ordinary citizens who want to live in a free country. The protestors absolutely were innocent by any reasonable definition. Protesting an oppressive government isn’t a moral offense.

> one can disagree with or dislike the irg, but i don't think they're evil, and if they are by the same criteria the us and israel are fucking monsters.

Yes, multiple governments can be bad, which is what this thread has been debating. Israel coordinating protests does not absolve IRGC butchering unarmed protestors. Iran sponsoring Hamas terrorism does not absolve Israel’s brutality against civilians. This isn’t complicated.

Neither the precise scale of the killings or the degree of militancy of the protesters has been well documented. It's reported that a lot of policemen and revolutionary guard soldiers were killed too.

Remember, Mossad publicly boasted that they were on the ground with the protesters, which was a pretty insane thing to do and basically gave Iran carte blanche to say these aren't protests, it's a foreign sponsored coup attempt. There's very little we can say to that when Mossad basically publicly said it was.

Maybe they were so sure the protests would succeed they figured it would earn them/justify goodwill with the new government?

FWIW, my information comes from Iranians who speak regularly with their families who still live in the cities where these killings happened. They talk about protestors pushed into a market place by IRGC with just one exit—the market was set on fire and anyone who fled out the exit was shot by IRGC.

Also, if you know anything at all about the history of the Iranian regime, it’s entirely unsurprising that this happened. They respond murderously to every large scale protest, and have been mass murderers since they turned on the leftists and other allies who helped install them in ‘79.

> it's a foreign sponsored coup attempt

This is what the regime says every time large protests erupt internally. I’m not defending Israel, but these were innocent unarmed people protesting even if Israel played a role in organizing the protests. I detest the Israeli regime as well, but justifying either side’s mass murder is insane.

Man, if you've followed Iran, you'll know that some exile Iranians are a bit like exile Cubans. Like the latter, they have plenty of legitimate things to be angry about, but that doesn't mean they aren't, a good deal of them, batshit crazy. Lots of them support the son of the CIA-supported dictator who was so bad he landed Iran with their theocrats in the first place. Some of them are supporters of MEK, a goddamn case study in political cults.

> This is what the regime says every time large protests erupt internally

Yes, but that doesn't mean they're not right. US and particularly Israel outright took credit for it, to a degree you'd be hard pressed to find any time in history. It wasn't just a spontaneous uprising, it was also very openly a foreign sponsored regime change operation.

Which doesn't mean they're aren't a lot of innocent people who have wanted to get rid of the theocrats all along getting murdered. I'm sure there are.

There are just enough in the opposition who have decided to ally with Israel (which would rather see Iran a Somalia-style failed state before a free and democratic Iran) and the dictator's sonthat any kind of moral legitimacy the movement could have had is out the window.

There's a lot of incorrect information here, but I prefer not to veer farther from our core disagreement by litigating details that seem tertiary (though I'm happy to discuss them in another thread or after we've resolved our core disagreement--it's an interesting topic).

You were originally arguing that the Islamic Republic isn't evil because the protestors deserved to be killed because Israel and the US claimed to have coordinated the protests. I don't see how you're getting from "Israel and the US claimed to have coordinated the protests" to "therefore Iran's mass murder was legitimate". Even if the tens of thousands figure is exaggerated by an order of magnitude, it would still make the Islamic Republic an evil regime. Even if Iranians who criticize the regime are "batshit crazy", even if the US and Israel organized the protests, even if the Shah was really worse than the Islamic Republic, none of that justifies murdering unarmed protestors by the thousands. My position is that mass murder is wrong even if the protestors held opinions I disagreed with.

Hegseth saying no quarter is a war crime but no one seems to care. Why is that?

Saying things is not a war crime. So if Iranian soldiers surrendered to US soldiers and they were shot that would be a war crime. I don't think that happened? Hegseth statements could be used to support the claim of war crime under such circumstances if they were to arise. [EDIT: As a commenter suggests it is possible that simply saying this is a war crime, or at least there are some legal opinions suggesting it]

Attacking civilian targets with cluster bombs has happened and Iran is doing that as we speak. That is a war crime.

Attacking infrastructure is not a war crime if that infrastructure serves a military purpose. Attacking purely civilian use infrastructure is a war crime.

Threatening to attack civilian use infrastructure is not a war crime. Threatening to attack infrastructure used for military purposes is also not a war crime.

Mowing down protestors with machines guns is not a war crime but maybe we should consider it a crime against humanity.

EDIT: FWIW I do care about what Hegseth said. It's wrong and he shouldn't have said that. But people say stuff- what matters are the actions.

I think the US destroyed a strategically important elementary school on the first day of the war.

It's not confirmed but I agree it was very likely a US strike. An accidental one.

Assuming the US did not intend to kill school girls that is also not a war crime. You can certainly argue that this happened due to the US decision to go to war and claim the actions to not be moral (or illegal as some have stated). Others might argue that more harm would occur if no action was taken and that the action minimizes the overall harm (e.g. to the Iranian people or others).

You could also argue that attack was intentional. I don't think there's any evidence of that and I'm not sure what purpose it served if it was one.

It is difficult to extract the real purpose of most things about this war, if you're in the US, since almost every single part of it seems against the US' interests and public face.

You're probably technically correct and that the US didn't intentionally look in Google Maps for an elementary school and decided to destroy it. But did we really need to Double Tap it?

Timothy Snyder has an opinion about this: https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/2040883546093436941?s=20

I'm not quite there yet.

That tweet by Timothy Snyder is quite ridiculous. There's just no way that's the motivation behind all this.

Unfortunately it's also the only motivation anyone has presented that there is any real hope of actually achieving. And it's the kind of excuse trump could use to become glorious dictator. Or at least I wouldn't be surprised to learn he thinks it is.

No, I really don't think that's why this war was started. I don't think trump actually wants terrorist attacks in America. But it just might be what he will get, whether he likes it or not.

> I don't think trump actually wants terrorist attacks in America.

He might not but he's surrounded by christian evangelist lunatics who think bringing about the end times is their moral responsibility and, more importantly, they are in charge because Trump is an addled idiot who has fewer thoughts in his head than an orange cat.

Religion ought to be forbidden

Possibly wouldn't go that far but the US could definitely do with understanding that whole "separation of church and state" edict they were given.

> Saying things is not a war crime.

On the contrary, there appear to be good legal arguments that Hegseth merely saying "no quarter" is, on its own, a war crime:

https://www.justsecurity.org/133970/legal-advice-hegseth-no-...

You might be right. You're definitely right there are legal arguments to support that.

There are some actual acts that count as war crimes as well, that Hegsdeth has overseen - killing civilians off the coast of venesuela by attacking and sinking fishing boats, but also then killing the civilians after theyve jumped ship.

then in the iran conflict, leaving the sailors to drown after sinking iran's show boat with a sub

The US should do better. But we got here when the parent said: > I don't understand how any human in good faith could look at Iran's government and say they are the evil regime,

Iran's government mows down protestors by the 10's of thousands. They beat woman to death for violating the dress code. They conduct public hangings in stadiums. They routinely use torture and arbitrary arrests. They and their proxies bombard civilians routinely. They recruit child soldiers. The list is just endless. How is that even comparable to the US government?

https://iranhumanrights.org/2024/03/crimes-against-humanity-...

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

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134782

I read this as "talk about Iran!" All you're willing to say about the US seems to be that they "should do better".

How about the double tap strikes? Targeting first responders is a war crime, remember. And US use of double tap strikes is well documented.

If you just want to talk about how bad the victim of war crimes is, that sounds like making excuses for war crimes to me.

I know this double tap terminology is frequently used in social media these days (IMO it's propaganda). I don't know there is solid evidence of targeting first responders intentionally. I haven't seen it.

I did see some mention that the school was hit twice but I don't think that's supported by the satellite imagery or videos we've seen. In theory US service personnel can and should refuse to execute an order that is targeting first responders and my base assumption would be that the US does not practice this. There are huge number of people involved in planning strikes and executing them so you'd think some of those people would refuse such an order and/or speak about it publicly. I.e. I don't believe the US initial salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles and bombings were designed to intentionally hit first responders. Beyond it being a war crime it also makes no sense to "waste" bombs and cruise missiles on first responders when presumably there are a lot of other more valuable targets; beyond it being morally wrong and a war crime it's also stupid. The only time I've seen this sort of strategy being executed intentionally is during the suicide bombing campaign in Israel. e.g.:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Yehuda_Street_bombings#200...

In the context of terrorizing a population it makes perfect sense. In the context of the US attack on Iran it makes zero sense since it doesn't serve the US interest to terrorize the population of Iran and the regime couldn't care less.

What do you want me to say about the US? I would like to see zero war crimes from the US. I would like to see a US president that doesn't sound like a mad person on social media and a SecDef that isn't a religious zealot. I still think that big picture there is no comparing the US to Iran in terms of the actions each is taking and has taken. Iran fundamentally wants to make the world a worse place and the US wants to make it a better place (and sure, make a lot of money while doing that...). Would a solution that doesn't involve dropping bombs be better? Sure. Find me one.

The confusion comes from the fact that the regime which is very clearly better for its own people is also the one which actions are clearly awful for the rest of the world (if only because it has vastly larger means).

0 evidence of the "mowing down protestors with machine guns" claim. Plz don't spread rumors.

US president, holding nukes and saying things like "whole civilization will die tonight" is just state terrorism of the worst kind, ... so far, yes. It may become a war crime of genocide. Not sure why should I or anyone wait and see, before issuing sweeping comments about all of america, which made this possible, by working hard to building up the military capable of doing it and giving power to nutjob issuing the threats.

Be sure that this US threat is not just against Iran, it's a US threat aginst the entire world, and it will be taken as such by many, you war crime justifying tool.

Also pretty telling, that you're using intl. law to justify US attacks, instead of using it for what their purpose was,... which is to limit the ways in which states execute war. The same thing Israel was doing to justify murdering 20 000 children in Gaza, just constantly finding "loopholes" and using it retroactively to justify every single thing they did that someone contensted.

Why do you think no one cares? My feeds are outraged. Maybe some normies can’t keep up with all the specific heinous stuff coming out of this administration, but I don’t think they’re happy about it.

people care, theyre just being censored and overwritten with rubbish.

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