That news piece was officially dismissed after investigation by the IDF and CENTCOM. I would bring to your awareness that you're using an emotional argument with no substance, and it discounts the decades of complex history in the region.
Neither of those can be considered reliable sources. It's possible that it was an Iranian misfire, but it would be a big coincidence that that happened right as we launched an attack on them and an even bigger coincidence that someone just happened to take a picture of it and post it on the internet to immediately exonerate the IDG and Centcom.
The IDF has burned through all credibility during their assault on Gaza.
I do not think the US and Israel waging a war on Iran will result in a positive outcome for the Iranian people or the region. The end result will be chaos, misery, and suffering. The latest news is the US attempting to foment some sort or civil war[0]. I sincerely do not understand how anyone could advocate for this.
I think it is a hard problem to discuss clearly, but it not automatically a deal breaker. What about 175 children vs 30,000 protesters? What about 30,000 protesters a year in perpetuity?
Exactly, a real moral calculus needs to be made, not a hysterical "But the IRGC said 175 children died." And a real moral calculus involves weighing the value of the deaths caused by removing the IRGC against the deaths caused by the IRGC.
My antagonist said I have no moral compass. Of course I care about the death of children. But that doesn't mean I swallow IRGC propaganda wholesale, as they apparently do. The IRGC lies constantly, it has provided no evidence that so many children died, and hasn't brought forth any evidence to indicate the destruction of the school was caused by western munitions as opposed to a failed launch of their own (which we've seen happen.
Well, just in the past two months, iran is thought to have killed more than 30,000 of its own citizens, while the whole civilian death toll in gaza is about 40k or less over more than two years (out of roughly 70k killed), so i'd say you just made that up.
Demographics: Approximately 70% of the 70k verified fatalities are women and children. International observers, including the OHCHR, have noted that children alone account for roughly 33-44% of the death toll.
The main source in that Wikipedia article is "According to the IRGC." Trusting any belligerent in a war is silly, but given its history, trusting the IRGC during wartime is even sillier. No independent body like the Red Crescent (which is counting casualties in Iran) verified this. It's all "trust me, bro."
USCENTCOM and the IAF both rejected these assertions.
You should demand some evidence for the IRGC's claim. If the claim is that the US or Israel did it, why doesn't the IRGC show the munition used? Or any OSINT data, like where the munition was fired from, its trajectory, etc. The IRGC has been firing from the IRGC base where this school was located. It could just as easily have been a failed IRGC munition.
Also, was this "school" by an IRGC base actually a school, or did it serve a military purpose? Surely you can't know the answer to this, so it's tough for you to judge the military necessity of the strike.
Finally, what's the claim, really? That western powers intentionally struck a school and killed these kids to advance their war aims? Or that it was an accident? If the former, an explanation for "how" is required; and if the latter (and if it did indeed happen) it's the kind of collateral damage that occurs in all wars.
>> what's the claim, really? That western powers intentionally struck a school and killed these kids
Israel or US or both struck a school and killed these kids. Nobody knows whether it was intentional or not. And this is not the first time Israel bombed schools or hospitals.
nzrf wrote: "Do you really believe killing 175 children[0] will bring peace and prosperity to the Iranian people?"
The implication is that someone thought that it would. I am saying nobody in the US or Israel thought bombing a children's school would bring peace to the iranian people. In fact, both the USAF and IAF deny they hit a school. There is no evidence the IRGC has put forward to support its claim. Without such evidence, it doesn't make sense to believe it.
Also, you talk about mental gymnastics while defending IRGC propaganda and spewing nonsense like "Israel bombed hospitals." If you're so confident that Israel has bombed hospital buildings, can you tell me which they bombed, when they did this, and any OSINT details like the munition used?
You're just linking me to lists from highly unreliable sources. I'm a simpleton, make a claim like this: "I think Israel bombed this hospital building on this date using this ordinance. Here's the evidence."
You are being bigoted (“evil, evil people”) and if you believe what you say you can just answer my question directly. You won’t because it hasn’t happened.
Actually a simple statement you can actually support would: Israel bombed this hospital building on this date using this munition. You can’t meet that simple standard because it never happened.
Step 1. OP makes a positive claim, repeating an IRGC narrative.
Step 2. I point out there’s no good evidence supporting it.
Step 3. You reframe that as "you’re just demanding more evidence."
That’s backwards. If someone claims something extraordinary happened, the burden is on them to provide evidence. Showing that the current evidence doesn’t support the claim is a perfectly valid rebuttal.
Otherwise we could do this with anything:
kid: "There’s a ghost in my room."
dad: "I don't hear a ghost. I don't see one. There’s no heat, sound, footprints..."
kid: "That doesn’t mean there's no ghost. You’re just demanding more evidence.”
I haven't seen anything to that effect yet. They've just said they wouldn't deliberately target a school, which I believe, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an accident based on faulty, likely outdated intelligence.
