The press and that Iranian school that was reported to have been hit
The press is still reporting creatively about the story, trying to pin it on the US. But the truth is that no one knows who fired the explosive that hit the school, although satellite imagery does seem to show that it was hit. The US and Israel have said there’s no evidence it was them; the US is still investigating. Iran says it was the US – of course.
But the lack of knowledge hasn’t stopped the press; as soon as the hit was first announced, they immediately printed the Iranian claims as though they were true. Now we have this:
The [NY] Times goes to great lengths to try to blame the school bombing on the U.S. military. Headline: “U.S. Tomahawk Hit Naval Base Beside Iranian School, Video Shows.” That’s odd: not that the Tomahawk hit the school, but rather that it hit a nearby military target. So what? The subhed is an outright lie by the Times: “The evidence contradicts President Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for a strike at the school that killed 175 people, most of them children.”
The Times story is based on two sources, Iranian state media and a “research collective” called Bellingcat. It involves painstaking reconstruction of a video that shows a Tomahawk missile hitting its target. The emphasis is on evidence that the missile was indeed a Tomahawk, which is unique to the U.S. military. But so what? This is the key information, which a casual reader of headlines will not catch:
“A Times analysis of the video shows the missile striking a building described as a medical clinic in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. Plumes of smoke and debris shoot out of the building after it is hit as the distant screams of onlookers are heard.
“As the camera pans to the right, large plumes of dust and smoke are already billowing from the area around the elementary school, suggesting that it had been struck shortly before the strike on the naval base.”
So the Tomahawk didn’t hit the school, it hit the naval base. And the video indicates that at that point, the school had already been struck. By what? We don’t know, but the one thing we know for sure is that it wasn’t the Tomahawk. My guess is that the military investigation will conclude that the school was struck by an errant Iranian missile, but by that time the left-wing press will have firmly implanted the assumption that it was ours.
It’s already been very firmly planted indeed. That’s the goal.
This phenomenon isn’t really new, however. As evidence, we have this quote from General Sherman – the General Sherman of the Civil War:
The American press is a shame and a reproach to a civilized people. When a man is too lazy to work and too cowardly to steal, he becomes an editor and manufactures public opinion.
I don’t think our current press is merely lazy, though. After all, it takes work to write the propaganda they produce, and they perform that task quite well. Their laziness doesn’t go in both directions. They are “lazy” about seeking the truth, but only if it contradicts the political message they want to transmit. Much of the truth does go against their belief system, of course.
In the case of the school bombing, I’m not sure we’ll ever learn the truth. As far as I can tell at this point, having read a great deal of information about it, this is what we know:
The school does seem to have sustained a serious hit, and was certainly in a geographic area where the US was striking. But there is no definitive evidence concerning what hit it or where the ordinance originated. It could have been a US strike or it could have been Iranian strikes gone astray.
All the reports of casualties originate in Iran. Are they correct? We have no way to independently corroborate them. It’s certainly possible they are correct – although, as is so often the case, the number of reported deaths vary. The Iranian authorities might be lying and staging the deaths as the Palestinians so often do, or it might all be true. If the girls really were killed, it is tragic, whoever is responsible.
If I had to guess at this point, I’d say it probably was a mistaken US strike on the incorrect target, and that schoolgirls did die. How sure am I of this? Not at all sure. But one thing of which I am very sure is that the US had no intention of killing schoolgirls. And another thing of which I am extremely sure is that Iran has killed many thousands of innocent people in its own country, and has no hesitation to do so.
NOTE: The MSM continues to outright lie about the recent IED attack by two Muslim ISIS sympathizers on people protesting the “Islamification” of New York. The attack was absolutely NOT targeting Mayor Mamdani or Muslims at all; au contraire. And yet Abby Phillip of CNN characterized it as an attack on Mamdani, as did CNN’s Anna Navarro. Abysmally ignorant, or lying propagandists? I say “both.” Plus, when called out, Phillip “apologized” by saying the mayor wasn’t “specifically” targeted, when in fact he wasn’t targeted at all.
Whether these specific deaths turn out to be caused by US munitions or not, it is 100% certain that US munitions are going to or have already killed other innocent people and this is something that needs be accepted by everyone who wanted this war, because it is inherent in the nature of war that innocents die.
I’m not sure there’s much to be gained by hotly denying that this one could possibly have had anything to do with us, when we acknowledge we were definitely targeting the area and did strike things in the immediate vicinity right at the same time. Perhaps the Iranians did manage to sneak in one of their own weapons into the midst of our attacks, perhaps fired from a grassy knoll in the area.
But considering the high probability of another such incident, or several, or many more, the longer the war goes on, perhaps we should figure out how to emotionally adjust to more deaths of innocent civilians in a war we said we wanted, rather than work so hard on explaining away this particular one. Quite aside from it a looking a little silly to have to say later that while we’re positive we didn’t do the 150 schoolgirls but we did do the wedding party and the candlelight vigil and whatever other ones there are going to be in the future.
There are no weapons that kill only bad people and we’re all adults here. I don’t think there’s very many here who want to see civilian casualties, or who aren’t hoping that Iranians have an opportunity to shake off the tyrants who have ruled them so long, but there is going to a price paid in innocent lives–primarily by Iranians–and if we didn’t kill these particular schoolgirls, it is certain we will kill others, even though we try really hard not to.
One would assume that the folks at the NYT, CNN and the like, would be thankful, and express that in a prayer, mantra or whatever to any entity in which they believe, if any, that they live in a country in which their privilege to bleat lies is protected by law.
Just kidding.
Nicholas is certainly right that there are no weapons that only kill bad people; and the people of Israel and Ukraine have overwhelming proof of that. Two questions arise. One is whether there was an acceptable alternative to war. The other is the matter of intent, and the level of safeguards, as to how weapons of war are employed. Finally, there is no reason to let false claims go unanswered.
“The Iranian authorities might be lying and staging the deaths as the Palestinians so often do, or it might all be true.”
Might… be lying? Taqiyya demands that we first assume that to be the case. Only when incontrovertible proof in support of the Iranian ‘authorities’ assertion is provided can the assumption of lying be discarded.
@Oldflyer:Finally, there is no reason to let false claims go unanswered.
Correct, but we are far from knowing at this time that this particular claim is false. Even if this one turns out to be false, it is guaranteed that other ones will be true.
Niketas Choniates Is right. This is all part of the decision to go to war or not. There will be horrible tragedies and the deaths of innocents. There has never been a war fought where this was not so. No matter who is responsible for this particular tragedy many will die that should not have.