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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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HAPPENING NOW: ISRAEL LAUNCHES MASSIVE ATTACK AGAINST IRANESE NUCLEAR FACILITIES—AIR RAID SIRENS HEARD ALL ACROSS ISRAEL—MASSIVE AIR ACTIVITY OVER IRAQ-SYRIA BORDER—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS CONFIRMED IN TEHRAN INCLUDING COLLAPSED BUILDING—IRANIAN FIGHTER JETS SEEN TAKING OFF FROM AIRSTRIPS NEAR TEHRAN—BALLISTIC MISSILE LAUNCHES REPORTED IN IRAN—REPORTS OF EXPLOSIONS AT US BASES IN IRAQ—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS HEARD NEAR IRAN’S NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY—VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWING NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY BURNING—UNCONFIRMED REPORTS THAT THE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE IRANIAN MILITARY HAS BEEN KILLED IN A TARGETED STRIKE

—Inb4 source

—Inb4 “low effort post ban” Additional facts and my thoughts will be added as the situation develops

Given that Israel hides their military command center under the heart of Tel Aviv, their most densely-populated city, how many Israeli civilians is Iran justified to bomb in their attempt to destroy this sprawling system?

https://archive.ph/QqNHz

This room is the nerve center of a bunker dubbed the “Fortress of Zion,” a new Israeli Army command post deep underground beneath its headquarters in the heart of Tel Aviv. It is designed to command the kind of high-tech air wars that have supplanted ground invasions fought by tanks and infantry battalions.

When Israel decided to launch its air assault on Gaza, thousands from military headquarters above ground joined the bunker. Also present were members of intelligence agencies like the Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, and Foreign Ministry and police representatives.

Obviously, it is not Iran’s fault that Israel hides their command center among civilians; neither is it Iran’s fault that Israel does not publish the exact coordinates of each room of the base. It would appear that Iran is justified to inflict somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 civilian casualties in Israel in their pursuit to reach the Israeli leadership. At least, going by the normative Hamas:civilian casualty ratio which Israel has defended since the Gaza war began.

Israeli Army command post deep underground beneath its headquarters

Isn't that like saying "there's a US Army command post/bunker deep underground beneath the Pentagon"? And yes, launch as many bombs as you want at the Pentagon/bunkers beneath it during a war; it's certainly not a war crime to hit any nearby civilians with a miss.

I'm just waiting for random attacks on buildings to be justified as 'Theres a SCIF there!' and have a whole web of 3 letter national agencies try to figure out which dumbfuck might have put a SCIF in Office Tower 55.

Before I get accused of 'justifying attacks on civilians' (not that I particularly care about the moral valence of such a statement as much as I care about the trotting out of this thought-terminating cliche as some gotcha meant to end all subsequent conversation), the primary objection to mass ballistic strikes against theoretical civilian or decision making centers is that there often will be more immediate threats that actually further ones cause of shifting the balance of power. Hegseth can shitpost from the Pentagon Pizza Hut all he wants, but if the 5th Fleet is blocked off the Strait of Hormuz he's just being a little bitch. The Houthis arguably achieved more strategic impact by lobbing shitbottles at random vessels in the Red Sea than the Hamas rocket attacks ever did.