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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   25212 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Story I'm seeing now is that it was outdated intelligence; school was in same area as a naval base, so collateral damage oh dear how unfortunate:

The US used “outdated intelligence” to carry out a missile attack that struck an Iranian school, a report has found.

The Pentagon is investigating the strike, which killed about 170 children and 14 teachers, according to Iranian state media.

Evidence is mounting that the US was responsible for the attack on the school in Minab, southern Iran, on February 28, which has prompted international condemnation.

Fragments of an American Tomahawk missile were found at the site, which is next to an Iranian naval base.

The US Central Command created the target coordinates using old data from the Defence Intelligence Agency, sources briefed on the investigation told The New York Times.

They said questions remained over why the outdated information was not double-checked and stressed that the findings were preliminary.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has accused the US and Israel of acting “outside the scope of international law” with their attacks on Iran.

In her strongest criticism yet of the conflict, she also demanded that Washington find out who was responsible for the missile strike on the girls’ school as she labelled the attack a “massacre”.

Her comments may upset Donald Trump, who can be sensitive to criticism from world leaders he considers allies. He and Ms Meloni have long appeared to have a close friendship.

On Saturday, Mr Trump said he believed Iran was responsible for the attack “based on what I’ve seen”.

Two days later, he said it was “Iran or somebody else”, adding that the Tomahawk missile was “very generic” and “sold to other countries”.

He added: “I just don’t know enough about it.”

Iran is not thought to have any Tomahawks. Apart from the US, the weapon is used by Britain, Australia and the Netherlands.

John Kennedy, a Republican senator and close ally of Mr Trump, apologised on Monday for the strike, which he called a “terrible” mistake.

He said: “Other countries do that sort of thing intentionally, like Russia. We would never do that intentionally. I think the department is investigating it now, and I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry it happened.”

On Tuesday night, it emerged that US defence secretary Pete Hegseth had sacked staff responsible for preventing civilian war deaths before the strike.

Mr Hegseth had effectively gutt­ed the Civilian Protection Centre of Excellence, which was set up under his predecessor, Lloyd Austin, to prevent, mitigate and investigate harm to civilians.

He cannot abolish the agency because it has been approved by an act of Congress, but he has cut around 90pc of its workforce, according to Politico.

The team that handles civilian casualties at the US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has been cut from 10 to one.

Mr Hegseth has taken a sledgehammer to policies and rules inside the Pentagon that he sees as “woke” or working against his warrior ethos, including banning fat generals and facial hair.

In a speech in September, he said: “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.

“No more politically correct rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

How true that is, ye can argue over it in the comments.

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