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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   28245 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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What I mean to illustrate by pointing out the tens of thousands dead at the hand of the regime very recently is that accidentally hitting a school needs to be put into context with the status quo. "Shit happens in war" is a little easier to swallow when even worse shit is happening without the war. If we're trying to determine how the ledger balances out, I just can't see how some mild collateral damage could possibly factor into the calculus. Certainly it's worth considering if we actually can topple the regime and how that'd play out, but we really could be bombing a school for every ayatollah we take out and it really would change the balance much here.

we really could be bombing a school for every ayatollah we take out and it really would change the balance much here.

That makes no sense. It's not like Iran killed 30k people (nb estimates of the ongoing Gazan war are significantly higher) so we're The Good Guys as long as we keep casualties lower than that. Collateral damage happens in war, but it cannot be justified if the war cannot be justified. If you take out one ayatollah and a hundred civilians, you need to be able to justify why that is a morally acceptable tradeoff. "He was a really bad guy" isn't it. Not when there are numerous functionally identical really bad guys available to to take over because he's just a senior cog in a machine, not a load-bearing element.

And it really has to made clear: the US is not trying to democratize Iran, so these civilian casualties cannot be justified on that front.

That makes no sense. It's not like Iran killed 30k people

We don't know how many iran killed, from what I can gather one can be justified in believing anywhere between 7k(HRANA figure) and 36k(Iran International claim of leaked document) dead in just a few days.

And it really has to made clear: the US is not trying to democratize Iran, so these civilian casualties cannot be justified on that front.

We don't have a well articulated war aim, you won't hear me defending Trump on that front. But the US would obviously be thrilled if this could democratize Iran and at least from Trump telling the people if iran that this is their only opportunity to take back their country is a possibility he seems to desire.

But my origin point is that if you're squeamish about civilian deaths then accidentally hitting a school building is a rounding error in the ongoing tragedy that is Iran.

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