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AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

theguardian.com

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Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#391

Post by Jensson »

orwin wrote: post #380
parineum wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it used to be that the US was respected enough that public saber rattling and behind the scenes diplomatic efforts would avoid conflict. This is isn't true in practice, even if you want to argue it's technically true. Iran has been participating in conflict through proxies continually for decades. US sabre rattling has done nothing to quell that violence.

Houthis open adversaries, Saudi, are aware that they are not really Iranian proxies [0]. Sunnis in Lebanon are Persian Shi'a 'proxy' only since their leadership was assassinated during negotiations in 2024 (also by this very liberal definition of 'proxy', eastern Iranian clans are US/Israel proxies, and killed more Iranians than Hamas killed Israelis, so I'm not sure we really want to get into it). The only proxy Ira…

Iran gives missiles to the houtis, houtis then use those to fire at American ships. Its the same kind of proxy war as Ukrain, and people call that a proxy.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#392

Post by sheikhnbake »

sheikhnbake wrote: post #383
pasquinelli wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether it was overconfidence in their tools or a complete disregard for the lives of civilians that caused this lapse snip it could be both, but we know no. 2, the complete disregard for the lives of civilians, is in play because, whatever else was going on, america was initiating war for the purpose of destabilizing a country, afaict at least, the reasoning has been unclear. destablize means to try to make things…

A quick explanation of how an 'accident' like that can happen (not a justification and not comprehensive of all scenarios, just from my perspective): Strikes on civilian gatherings are more likely when the only intelligence used to make the decision are IMINT and SIGINT. SIGINT would typically be radio activity of interest. This could be: - Known hostile entity using the radio (example: Taliban member known to US int…

It's also worth mentioning that in many of the countries where these kinds of 'accidents' happen, firearms can be culturally significant as a rites of passage for males in a community. So a wedding/funeral may also appear as being partially composed of military aged armed males.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#393

Post by dlubarov »

epolanski wrote: post #377
shykes wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list. > Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar. Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal. Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wild…

> Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1]. It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this. > "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…" Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes. Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority vari…

> Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes.

If there are "plenty" of quotes like this, can you identify just one that we know he actually said? (Not the "thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state" quote, which is unverified and denied by him [1].)

In any case, actions speak louder than words. If we look past Wikipedians' spin and look the substance of what Israel actually did, they once facilitated Qatari aid to fund some basic civil services, to prevent societal collapse in Gaza. That's it, that's essentially the sole basis for all the misleading claims about Israel "supporting Hamas".

[1] https://time.com/7008852/benjamin-netanyahu-interview-transc...

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#394

Post by epolanski »

dlubarov wrote: post #393
epolanski wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1]. It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this. > "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…" Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes. Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority vari…

> Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes. If there are "plenty" of quotes like this, can you identify just one that we know he actually said? (Not the "thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state" quote, which is unverified and denied by him [1].) In any case, actions speak louder than words. If we look past Wikipedians' spin and look the substance of what Israel actually did, they once f…

[flagged]

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#395

Post by tovej »

leereeves wrote: post #389
tovej wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qatar has never been allied with Iran. It has had economic partnerships, especially around the oil fields that Israel blew up, but that is not an alliance. Iran does not have military bases in Qatar.

Why would Iran need a base in Qatar? It's right next door. Iran and Qatar do (did?) have military cooperation agreements, not only economic. [1] That's not a NATO style treaty but Qatar doesn't have a NATO style treaty with the US either. 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20251205012956/https://www.tehra...

That is still not an alliance. The US and Qatar have an alliance, which is why the US has bases in Qatar.

If the bases of a belligerent nation is in a neighboring nation, participating in operations, then the neighboring nation is not a neutral party.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#396

Post by shykes »

tovej wrote: post #373
shykes wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, you found the one fringe publication that contradicts the overwhelming consensus from OSINT and official investigations alike. You wanted so badly Israel to be responsible, that you decided to trust the least credible source possible.

Least credible? Fringe? Forensic Architecture is a very respected source that has done in-depth technical analysis of many, many accidents and incidents, e.g. the Beirut port explosion. Articles from Forensic Architecture are often featured on HN. It received the Peabody award in 2021. It received the Right Livelihood award in 2024. It is a research unit under the university of London. Its reports have been used as e…

You haven't addressed the fact that the overwhelming OSINT consensus contradicts their claim, making it fringe by definition.

I am very familiar with FA, and with that particular paper. That's the thing with echo chambers: the people inside of it are all repeating the same exact talking points, drawing from the same narrow set of "approved" sources. And in the case of Al-ahli, the set is very, very narrow, so it gets repeated a lot.

Al-ahli is the ultimate test, because the evidence is so one-sided. If you can convince yourself, against overwhelming evidence, that Israel is still responsible - then you can convince yourself of anything.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#397

Post by shykes »

epolanski wrote: post #377
shykes wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list. > Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar. Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal. Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wild…

> Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1]. It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this. > "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…" Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes. Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority vari…

[dead]

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#398

Post by shykes »

Denzel wrote: post #339
shykes wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is based on anonymous sources ("according to [people] familiar with the preliminary findings"). It doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's not an official confirmation by the US government, and it only speaks to the responsibility of the strike, not the various claims of "killed children". Those sources don't say anything about casualties, or the presence of children. The NYT does its best to make it sound lik…

You’re acting like the U.S. government is a monolithic good faith actor right now. The current administration’s behavior is qualitatively different than past administrations. Do you also believe this administration will ever officially confirm Renee Good and Alex Pretti were not domestic terrorists? It’s hard to interpret your points charitably here.

Is there anything I said that you believe is incorrect?

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#399

Post by stickfigure »

anigbrowl wrote: post #296
stickfigure wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's core to the question of whether or not you should feel morally outraged by the targeting mistake. Which is better, leave the regime alone to continue murdering its own citizens, or run the risk of accidentally bombing a hundred schoolchildren? It's a pretty classic trolley problem.

No it isn't. You're assuming perfect information, when the reality is nowhere near as clear. I certainly believe that Iran killed a lot of protesters recently. Undoubtedly some of them were innocent. Some others were collaborators; Israel is well known to be engaged in a shadow war with Iran and to have infiltrated a large number of people within the Iranian security apparatus. I'm thus extremely skeptical of any spe…

You're giving the regime far more of the benefit of the doubt than they deserve. Their crimes are well documented.

Aside from that, the risk of accidentally bombing a school is also an unknown quantity. So we're looking at "risk of leaving the regime in place" vs "risk of accidentally bombing kids". Feels plenty trolly-ish to me.

No matter how inept or corrupt the process, the fact is some bombs fell out of the sky and killed a bunch of unelected dictators who just weeks ago murdered thousands of their own countrymen. In my eye, this is an excellent precedent. If it means paying a few more dollars for gas, so be it.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#400

Post by stickfigure »

orochimaaru wrote: post #310
stickfigure wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the lives of the next 10 thousand protesters the regime will kill worth?

Still not worth the lives of children

What about 100 thousand dead protesters? A million?

I'm curious to know what you consider a reasonable exchange rate.

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