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.
Unless you’re willing to state that the “preliminary reports from Department of *Defense* officials indicate that the Tomahawk missile that struck the school was fired by the U.S.” is a lie, then you’ve got some highfaluting chutzpah making this post. You and Lindsay Graham should go on a road show together beating the drum for a full scale military invasion, and telling the country how they’re so very wrong in not wanting extensive military involvement in the Mideast. https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/images-taken-iranian-school-hit-deadly-strikes-show-fragments-us-made-rcna262685
The press and that Iranian school that was reported to have been hit
I am reminded that during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Iran used children to clear mine fields. Better a child die than an adult soldier, the Mullahs reasoned.
Nick tells us that in war, weapons kill innocent civilians.
Astounding.
We didn’t know that after WW2, Korea, Viet Nam, the Iraq wars, the Afghan war?
No, we do know that.
And that is just the USA. Tens of thousands of French civilians were killed by Allied ordnance in the liberation fighting of 1944.
Tiresome, Nick.
War is always hell.
One of the good things about the new “smart” munitions is that fewer civilians are killed, but of course it’s impossible to avoid killing some non-combatants. What’s wrong here is the claim that the U.S. targeted this school.
Whatever happened we know that the U.S. is not going to intentionally target a girl’s school with a smart bomb. Thinking otherwise is stupid.
NBC news but not CNN news …. ?
poor poor JackpineSavage. Too lazy, only gave us one serving of propaganda.
Bless his heart.
Not so fast, JackpineSavage. From the article you linked to:
I wouldn’t take Iran media’s word on anything– and neither should you.
The school sat right next to an IRGC naval base compound (essentially sharing a boundary wall in places), with the strike targeting buildings inside the IRGC naval base compound. Multiple investigations (including video analysis showing a US Tomahawk missile hitting the base and satellite imagery) conclude the school was hit by collateral damage or as part of a precision strike on the adjacent military target.
I would put the blame on Iran for locating a school next to a naval base– or putting a naval base next to a school. That is consistent with Iranian strategy of locating military targets next to civilian areas to maximize collateral damage.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=Minab+school+strike+Planet+Labs+satellite+March+2026&fr=mcafee&type=E211US885G0&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fuu%2Fapi%2Fres%2F1.2%2FEnvYooh23tFb9i4aOa39gw–%7EB%2FZmk9c3RyaW07aD0zNjA7dz02NDA7c209MTthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg–%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Fstoryful_videos_344%2F4e3238a0c750265de571b25f96017f11#id=11&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcms.sofrep.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F03%2FIRCG-compound.jpg&action=click
JackpineSavage:
You seem to have trouble with reading comprehension. What part of “it probably was a mistaken US strike on the incorrect target, and that schoolgirls did die” do you not understand? That’s what I wrote in the post.
As for that “preliminary assessment” you mention, see this:
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So, it’s a preliminary report that says the US may be responsible. That’s exactly what I said. Plus, the reporters didn’t see the report. The information was leaked to them by some unnamed person who was briefed on the report and didn’t read it, either. I would guess we’re talking about a Democrat member of Congress. Meaningless at this point.
@Brian E:I would put the blame on Iran for locating a school next to a naval base– or putting a naval base next to a school.
You’re aware, of course, that US military bases both at home and abroad sometimes have K-12 schools on them. Perhaps we shouldn’t stake out principles that may bite us later. The nearest naval station to me has no K-12 school on the grounds but does have a Child Development Center for children up through five, and children live on the base.
If the munition is ours, the blame is ours; it wasn’t our intention, but the girls are still dead. I agree with you that what NBC News shared is not conclusive, but to my mind it looks like there’s not much chance it wasn’t ours. And we need to brace up for the next one and the one after that, if it’s going to bother us unduly.
There is some pretty thorough work from some reputable OSINT reserachers (like Bellingcat) who use satellite images and other publicly available information but do not base their conclusion on any claims by any of the involved sides, the Iranian the least.
The consensus is, it was a hit, whether an American or Israeli, on the known IRGC base and many buildings were damaged in the same way. Including the one that, as we know now, had been converted to a school some years ago.
Which is a reason for the US or Israel to express regret but not to apologize. And there is certainly no way to support the Iranian claims about the number of the dead and no reason to believe that number.
Oh, and there are tons of pictures claiming to show that attack and its purported consequences – none seem to be other than BS. The satellite images on the other hand, are easily verifyable.
@LL:or Israeli
Considerably less likely as they were not targeting this area, from what I understand. Somewhat academic as certainly they either will be unintentionally killing or already have unintentionally killed civilians, if not THESE civilians, and that’s just how it is.
The nearest naval station to me has no K-12 school on the grounds but does have a Child Development Center for children up through five, and children live on the base.— Niketas C.
Is the Child Development Center less than 100 yards from military hardware?
I read two things that remain unresolved:
1. The building housing the school had been formerly owned by the IRGC and only recently converted into a school.
2. US cruise missiles provide a video feed of their mission, relayed in real time.
Are either of these confirmed facts? The second one would clear the issue up almost immediately.
Nick plays his Captain Obvious Card and apportions blame.
US military bases do have schools and housing for children and spouses of military personnel. In my experience as one of those, said schools and housing aren’t colocated with ordnance and such. But if your adversary has you targeted with a nuke, as was probably the case where I was during the Cold War as a child, it probably didn’t matter much.
War is hell, Nick. Don’t be so sure of your judgement from your lofty throne when doling out who is to blame.
I give our fake news the same credence as ANY information from Iranian Officials, zero.
The entire Russian Collusion story was still pushed, by Abby Phillips types, long after it was debunked. I believe absolutely nothing of what I am told by the MSM, nothing.
I am 100% certain that attacking Iran was the right move. Long overdue actually. I know innocent people will die as a result. I pray for their families and loved ones. I also know evil, sadistic people are dead and more will die. I hope the people of Iran can take this opportunity to make a fresh start.
Nick
This sounds foolish in the extreme. What is your point? That innocent people die in war? Yep. That it could be used against us? Always is. Americans are about the most naive of people when it comes to warfare in the Middle East. It’s always banked on that when war reaches a certain level of cruelty the Americans will pull back. Or stop. Or waver.
This is always used against us. Got anything new? Or just the same recycled BS?
Fort Lewis /McCord AFB now called a joint base of some sort undoubtedly still has schools and housing on base for children and spouses of military personnel. My sister was born there in 1958.
In fact all of my siblings (5) were born in on-base military hospitals.
@Richard Cook:What is your point?
Made it in the beginning of the first comment I posted:
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 couldn’t tell you were.
Nicketas C., as a theoretical principal, you may have a point. But folks like Jackpine will use every errant projectile as a narrative to drive a spike through a military action that was overdue.
Even in the short period since Israel’s “Twelve Day War” it appears Iran succeeded in continuing to produce missiles and drones. If the military action were delayed a year or three, at what point would Iran have the conventional firepower that would make it impossible to neuter. And they will use that firepower to blackmail the region and the world with even a small nuclear arsenal.
The story he linked to was as about as speculative as it gets, yet too many accept it without evidence.
The point I made that Iran as a strategy comingles civilian and military targets. They want every strike to be painful. Are you suggesting that isn’t a tool of the Iranians and their proxies?
I grew up next to a SAC base. It was designed just like every other military base in the country, with a buffer between civilian areas and potential target areas by .5 miles or more. If you looked at the satellite picture I linked, you get the idea of how close the school was to other targets in the compound.
It’s possible National Guard armories might be located in densely populated areas, but wouldn’t be subject to first strike targets.
This is not a case of we do it to– putting civilians in close proximity to potential military targets by an enemy. We don’t.
So the bodyguard in the vehicle carrying a big October 7 muckey muck was actually innocent when the Ginzu Hellfire shredded both of them.
That’s the problem with always, and preening.
Weapons can be and have been used that are very precise in who and how they kill. Even things as simple as concrete-filled smart bombs ( no HE).
What idiot would send their kids to school during a blitz? I lived in base housing at Schilling (Salina), Forbes (Topeka) and Minot. All SAC bases. The school at Minot is about 1.5 miles from the nearest target.
Chases Eagles, this was one of the first salvo’s on the opening day of missile strikes on Iran. The Minab naval compound was hit within an hour or two of the strikes on the Iranian leadership.
Nik is correct that innocent civilians are bound to die in a war. But it is also true that our mortal enemies – namely Iran and much of the US media – go out of their way to pin blame on US and Israel regardless of whether it is deserved or not. So it is very worthwhile to point out how slanted and misleading their propaganda is.
I don’t know if the “research collective” called Bellingcat‘s reporting is correct. I do believe they are a left-wing organization.
https://www.bellingcat.com/
= = = = = = = =
If Abby Phillip and Anna Navarro have been lying about the IED bombing in NYC, I would support them being put in the stocks, or dunked!
The Muslim terrorist regimes–nations or poxies–have, as their most effective munition, dead innocent civilians. They have a Moral Authority Account whose currency is the number of dead Innocents times the moral worth ascribed to a dead Innocent.
The latter varies according to circumstances.
If the moral worth ascribed to a dead Palestinian were the same as that ascribed to dead Israeli civilians, Hamas would be flat broke.
The process is applied in many cases outside of the WOT. See Jesse Dirkhising (aka “Who?”) vs. Matthew Shepard
Nick
Your point is no point at all. It is a weapon against us. Western militaries try to avoid civilian casualties. That is not the standard in the middle east. They have been colocating military facilities with civil facilities since forever. As I previously posted it is well known why they do this. Your point is no point at all and seems useless since this ground is so well trodden it turns to mud.
The Dead Baby defense, oldie but goodie!
The Left will find nothing works anymore.
The dead baby certainly got around quite a bit in Pallywood productions.
But why does the left care about dead Muslim babies in the middle east when they celebrate the murder of Israeli babies, and care not all about killing the unborn or full term babies in America.
I suspect it is a evil thing.