Comment by Wildgoose
5 days ago
Seeing as it was a "double tap" it was clearly a deliberate target. Bomb the school, wait until officers from the nearby base with kids at the school arrive to try and rescue their daughters and hit it again. Clearly a war crime, possibly using Israeli targeting information, which clouds which State is ultimately responsible.
Yes, the definition of war crime is not "intentionally targeted building" it is "intentionally targeted building that it knew was non-military and full of civilians". If you plausibly believed it to be a military target, then it's plausibly not a war crime.
The question about whether US launched the missiles is not really in dispute, the intent and knowledge is in dispute. NYT did a great analysis essentially concluding it was plausibly a mistake, not an intentional or indiscriminate civilian attack.
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49739018#49741081
The double tap to me is really what is cruel. I understand americans don't want to hear it, because they need to believe their military is moral, but a double tap to me show cruelty and willingness to target doctor, nurses, firemen and any person courageous enough to help.
The US military and its sailors already showed me everything i wont to know about them when i saw the report on them shooting torpedoes at capsized boats.
Well the current leaders of the US Government have demonstrated that they believe that people of certain races, sexual orientations, and genders are less than human - and enthusiastically engage with other leaders who have similar beliefs. It’s because of this, along with their arrogance and incompetence, that I am personally not the least bit surprised that they have committed and will continue to commit war crimes.
I guess the trick for me is (1) convincing others and (2) convincing others to give a shit.
Not torpedoes, but as a former enlisted member of the US Navy, most everything else here I agree with. Shameful.
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TFA addresses this. It doesn't matter if it was a "mistake": the US acted recklessly "[amounting] to more than mere negligence," even when warned by their own commanders. Ignorance doesn't excuse crimes.
> The UN mission concluded that the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school constituted an indiscriminate attack causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure, amounting to a war crime under international law.
> According to the report, the US relied on intelligence suggesting a senior Iranian military commander was present at the site but failed to adequately verify the information before launching the strike.
> Investigators said the failure to update targeting intelligence and confirm the building was a military objective amounted to more than mere negligence.
> “Rather, the US directed the strikes at the building of the school while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object and acting recklessly as regards the possibility that this would happen.”
The NYT - never a fan of trump - did an excellent analysis on this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-m...
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>NYT did a great analysis essentially concluding it was plausibly a mistake, not an intentional or indiscriminate civilian attack.
See also somewhat overlooked Bloomberg story from June:
>An Analyst’s Missed Remark Surfaced in Deadly Iran School Strike Probe
>An analyst's missed remarks and US intelligence systems that weren’t connected to one another are among the missteps that investigators have surfaced while probing the cause of a missile strike on an Iranian school that killed an estimated 120 children, people familiar with the matter said.
>Years before the US attacked Iran at the end of February, an intelligence analyst examining information about potential future strike targets in Iran noticed changes at a site the US had previously characterized as a naval facility belonging to the elite wing of the Iranian military in Minab city in the southeast of the country. It was, in fact, now an elementary school.
>The analyst remarked on changes at the site in a digital intelligence tool, but that tool wasn’t linked up to the official intelligence database that the US uses to develop strike targets and the information was never conveyed to military commanders, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be named discussing sensitive matters.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-06-26/an-analys...
https://archive.is/LNMMf
> "intentionally targeted building that it knew was non-military and full of civilians"
That formulation guarantees that most war crimes won't be revealed as such. The militaries of the world are operating under top secrecy about what they know, knew or plan on knowing, ditto for their intent. They can claim whatever they please without regard to actual reality, proof is impossible to obtain.
Thus, under this formulation, war crimes are doubly guarded by the secrecy of two kinds of information available only to the perpetrators and protected by harsh laws again any leaks.
Assange knows, he dealt with it but I doubt he or anyone else will try to break the secrecy again given the zeal of his prosecution. To think that what he revealed was an isolated case is laughable.
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How can anyone take this argument seriously when the DoW was simultaneously committing dozens of extrajudicial executions of small boat users in the Gulf?
Every military strike is extrajudicial, question is if they hit a legitimate target.
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In all sincerity, people take it seriously because it helps them sleep at night.
What is there to take seriously regarding this strike other than the facts as presented?
There were 900 strikes in 12h, and only one target involved a strike on a school, and huge coincidence that target was a dozen meters from a military compound and was in fact part of that military compound not long ago.
It's quite easy to accept that this was a horrific mistake. Whether you agree with the idea of striking Iran at all is up to you, but once they "went hot", precision strikes on military targets were successful in 900 cases, and it's plausible that one precision strike was issued incorrectly.
It doesn't bring back the kiddos. It also doesn't mean it's a war crime. It's right to be angry about that strike or even the larger war if you oppose it, but spurious legal justifications for outrage aren't required - it can be wrong even when legally justified or plausibly just a mistake.
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I am not defending this morally, but these are clearly a group of the least competent stewards of the military in a long while. They were "completely clear on OPSEC", with a left-leaning Atlantic reporter in the signal group chat. This bombing also coalesced support in Iran and had a big rally around the flag effect. Data in Iran is hard and the timetable was extremely fast, again, due to incompetence and the inability to constrain a vassal. So its appalling to say, but a bunch of morons with LLMS and outdated targeting, pushed to meet the objectives of corrupt idiots is almost certainly the cause. I personally consider it a war crime, but I am not sure if it meets the legal definition.
The NYT is not credible here. Remember how they lied to manufacture consent to invade Iraq? This bombing was clearly intentional, just like the previous 3 years worth of war crimes committed by Israel/US.
The NYT seems pretty credible, considering how much its critics rely on 23 years old WMD coverage to criticise it.
It was not a double, triple or whatever number "tap". That's literal IRGC propaganda commonly parroted by all of their proxies in the region, irrespective of what actually happened. By now, nobody believes this narrative because of how over-used a lie it has become. (It's their equivalent of the westerners calling every freedom fighter a "terrorist".)
There are two scenarios, one of which is a "double tap" and one which is not:
1) There are 'n' targets. The targets get hit in rapid succession, one bomb each. <- normal bombing
2) There is 1 target. It is hit once. There is a long delay, long enough for first responders to show up. The same 1 target is hit again. <- THIS is a double tap.
The IRGC base had multiple buildings. Each building was hit once. That's not what most people would call a double-tap.
Some people ran from one building to another and were hit twice. That's just... bad luck.
The real crime committed by US forces is that they didn't care to update and review their targeting information, resulting in totally unnecessary civilian deaths. Their hubris, their pride, their unfounded confidence in their own superiority resulted in a shameful atrocity.
That's bad enough.
Double tap? It was a triple tap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
The page you linked says "Attack type: Double tap missile strike"
Edit: it also explicitly says "double tap" under "Events" and links to the article for "Double-tap strike"
I don't think a third strike is confirmed, but I also think "double-tap" is more of a category meaning "followup strikes to hit responders" so I wouldn't be surprised if 2 followup strikes instead of 1 are still categorized as a "double-tap strike". It seems like splitting hairs either way. We know that the strike caused surviving teachers/students to congregate in a prayer hall. 40 minutes later that was hit as well killing almost everyone
Page has been edited after my comment and changed from triple to double tap, and now they had to protect the page from vandalism.
The third missile didn't hit I guess
Where do you see that they waited for parents and first responders to arrive? I'm seeing that the attacks were minutes apart and before anyone could arrive.
40 minutes almost exactly. The teachers and surviving students rushed to a prayer hall for protection and then US aircraft (not surface to surface missiles) hit the building a second time killing almost every student and teacher as well as first responders
These are all detailed in both the UN fact finding mission and the US' own investigation.
UN fact-finding mission https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies... says,
"Families and survivors interviewed by Iranian media reported that the school was struck twice, with a brief interval between strikes. Several sources reported that the first munition struck the lower floor of the school, leading the principal and teachers to move the children to a prayer room on the upper floor. A second munition then struck the upper floor, killing many of the children."
Is there another doc that contradicts the timing or mentions first responders? I'm kinda pissed that The Guardian doesn't link anything.
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Who will investigate war crimes these days against the US?
Either the American people do, fast, or they become parties to the crime, fast.
Sorry, we and our elected representatives too busy debating who the real victims of bestiality are.
Highly unlikely an entire chain of military personnel knew it was a school and was like, "yeah get em good, and lets see when they come scrambling in for their kids corpses".
Do you hear yourself? Have you ever in your life met someone this sadistic? It was definitely a mistake. One might argue criminal negligence, but there is no way everyone in the loop here is just pure evil. That just isn't how people think in North America. It is unfathomable that a team of US military (people with families of their own no doubt), would all nod along and agree with your contention.
> Do you hear yourself? Have you ever in your life met someone this sadistic? It was definitely a mistake.
Unfortunately there's a very large, compelling body of evidence of the US military routinely killing civilians with double tap.
Intentionally.
This is not a negligence, this is a strategy because they get off scot free.
- https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
- https://www.culawreview.org/journal/double-standards-in-inte...
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/23/substantial-evidenc...
- https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2013-08-01/bur...
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/2/trumps-boat-bombing...
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-24557333
- https://lab.imedd.org/en/double-tap-the-tactic-that-is-consi...
Routine. They routinely exterminate civilians with this kind of attacks.
Where have you lived for the last 10 years?
> It is unfathomable that a team of US military (people with families of their own no doubt), would all nod along and agree with your contention.
The Vietnam and Korean wars would like to have a word.
Your belief that the US military is guided by any kind of moral or ethical line is naïve at best.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23427726
If the US military was unethical, it wouldn't have lost in Afghanistan.
The problem is fighting unethical enemies, because they do shit like use ambulances as troop transport, have soldiers dress the same as civilians, and given any kid old enough to shoot a rifle.
To your post more specifically, is there is no one holding these unethical enemies responsible. There are no history books, or journalists, or wikipedia articles about the insane shit they do.
The Taliban has a base where they truck in young boys to "service" the officers and it's lost to time. The US has a single ethics catastrophe, and they are held up for it for decades...
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I wouldn’t say sadistic, but the military command is very desensitized to death. When all you do is basically kill people, then killing more is like pouring a cup of coffee. It’s just part of your day.
Remember that, prior to this, the US military had been conducting many suspicious strikes on boats in the gulf. It’s not like this came out of nowhere. The culture of negligence and lack of care was well-established.
The accusation is not "let's kill some kids", the accusation was "the target is in a school, bomb it anyway to get the target". Much of these targeted assassinations in the early stage of this campaign consisted of blowing up entire city blocks where a target was believed to be. They actually believed they would get pro-Israel people in the government if they killed the current crop.
pattern is there: first hit a public place (market, ...), then when people are scrambling to help, hit them again. "double-tap". Seen in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, ... It's quite cynical, the topic has its own Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-tap_strike
Where does the article you linked say "Public Place"?
You just linked to a standard military tactic
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> Have you ever in your life met someone this sadistic?
Yes, I have. In the US. Some were active military personnel at the time.
Some folks are just warped, but some folks change a lot after they have experienced war.
> Have you ever in your life met someone this sadistic?
All the time, on the internet. People will reveal the most deranged opinions when they feel immune from consequences for them.
The current president of the USA said he would end the entire Iranian civilization. What do you think that entails?
Lying and bravado, as always.
The US military has been murdering fishermen off the coast of South America this year, after firing on the boats, disabling them they were shown no quarter and kill shot orders were given AND EXECUTED. Those are WAR CRIMES. The US military has done war crimes alongside the IDF over during this current year in Iran. Furthermore, the President of The United States has publicly stated he will destroy the Iranian civilization. He has ordered new very large bombs be built to Drop on Iran. Do you care to acknowledge these facts?
> Highly unlikely an entire chain of military personnel knew it was a school and was like, "yeah get em good, and lets see when they come scrambling in for their kids corpses".
When you phrase it like that, I firmly believe that's exactly what happened.
The way such things can actually happen is, when the executing side is of the opinion, that the targeted side are lesser beings.
I'd love to live in your fantasy world.
Which america you're talking about? It's pretty normal and expected behaviour from USA.
It's hard to tell here between naivety or deliberate thickness.
Most likely trolling. No one is that naive.
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> Have you ever in your life met someone this sadistic?
Not met anyone personally like that. But I have made sure that I kept good company.
However, there was precedence in the form of Nazi Germany.
Can we be sure without evidence that this administration did not do it knowingly, given how they have been behaving thus far?
Did you not see what the same country is supporting in Gaza? The created the largest contingent of child amputees in history, while withholding pain medication to use during the required surgeries. Forcing children to undergo surgery without anesthesia is as evil as it gets
> Do you hear yourself? Have you ever in your life met someone this sadistic?
This isn't necessarily driven by sadism. A sociopath following an amoral (immoral) decision process where they draft a plan to decapitate military leadership by trying to attract them to a place to then kill them would fit the description.
And from a moral point of view, is it justifiable to kill military personnel in a military engagement that's not even framed as a war?
Nothing in the UN report claims that this was an intentional strike on civilians. They make NO claim to that effect.
The claim is that "the U.S. failed in its obligation to do everything feasible to verify that it was a military objective. Updating targeting information and acting upon such information falls within the category of feasible precautions an attacking party is required to take under IHL . . . the strikes are a violation of the obligation to distinguish between civilian objects.
And:
" the Mission concluded that when targeting the school building, the U.S acted wilfully, that is with the requisite mental element of recklessness ( dolus eventualis)."
And (finally):
". . . the Mission found that these strikes constituted an indiscriminate attack in violation of the principle of distinction."
The UN report's claim is that the US negligently used outdated information which led them to think this compound hit was still a military target.
It's evident you didn't read the report and submitted a shitpost.
The comment you're replying to doesn't say anything about the UN report, it's just about the double-tap strike.
> It's evident you didn't read the report and submitted a shitpost.
Chill.