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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   17829 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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A tiny note on the war

In the previous thread, I got some pushback for suggesting that not only did the US strike the Iranian school in Minab, killing 170 children or something like that, but perhaps it did so intentionally (or at least without remorse for the possible consequences of erroneous targeting). I admit that wasn't fully sincere. I realize that, even morals aside, there is no perceived military value in bombing children, at least not for the US (I do think Israelis may target children of IRGC officers out of their usual Bronze Age blood feud sentiment, Oct 7, Gaza and all, seen enough of their remarks to this effect; but then again they don't operate Tomahawks).

Well now the question on it having been an American strike appears settled. As for the intent – it's not so straightforward:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades.
The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of “lethality,” including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Around 200 employees who worked on the issue, including at that office, have been reduced by about 90 percent, according to two current and former officials and a person familiar with the effort. The team that handles civilian casualties at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has dropped from 10 to one.
Hegseth can’t close the offices because they are approved by Congress. But he has managed to make them nearly inoperable, according to the people, as the Pentagon investigates its responsibility in what could be the worst U.S.-led killing of civilians since 2003. Iranian state media said the strike killed about 170 children and 14 teachers.
“The fact that our secretary of Defense, that our Central Command commander, cannot actually tell us whether or not they dropped a bomb in this location, that is so unbelievably unacceptable,” said Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments until last year. “It just points even more to recklessness in this, in the entire planning and execution of this campaign, the fact that they don’t have any idea.”

Does it matter if there was no intent if the United States, as of now, also has a revealed preference to not bother with minimizing such risks, in favor of «lethality» and some zany Judeo-Christian nationalism courtesy the power-tripping macho TV host Pete Hegseth? I believe it does, but marginally; about as much as those girls matter to Lethal Pete. I rest my case.

More to the point. It's remarkable that there's so little discussion of contemporary historical events on here. I won't criticize anyone, be the change you want etc.; but what we are seeing is pretty astonishing from the culture war standpoint. Could someone like Pete be imaginable as the Secretary of War – no, Defense – in 2023? 2019, even? 2016? It looks as if the politically dominant culture of the United States changed overnight. Does everyone just like it too much to find the change worth commenting on?

Mistakes and civilian casualties will inevitably happen in war, but this case does still highlight some major issues going on right now.

  1. Tradeoffs in pursuit of a goal are more acceptable if there's an actual stated and agreeable goal. The Trump admin is consistently giving the American people the runaround as for why the war started, what they hope to achieve, and what the end conditions are. And they.keep hinting that the tradeoffs will be bigger than they're letting on like Lindsey Graham basically saying that South Carolina citizens can be sent to fight. Vague ever growing tradeoffs for vague goals. Especially when it's clear part of the reason for vagueness is so that they can declare victory and goal achievement whenever they want (regardless of the ground conditions) and to hide how Israel led us into this. After all if they actually gave a clear goal then there would be a metric to judge them by if they fail.

  2. That civilian casualties are going to happen doesn't mean that every case of civilians dying is acceptable. In the same way that just because people crash cars sometimes from basic mistakes doesn't make drunk driving ok. The problem is that there's no public trust that a real serious investigation will take place and accountability would be had under this admin if it was closer to the drunk driving equivalent of a callous and avoidable messup.

  3. The war is already extremely unpopular among citizens. The US military accidently killing a bunch of children for something Americans want is just manifestly different than doing it for something Israel wants. The US and our soldiers don't exist to serve the whims of a foreign country's people more than our own people.

  4. Accident or not, it doesn't excuse the bold faced lying that Trump constantly resorts to. No wonder he worried about if he's getting into heaven when he lies as naturally as he breathes. He'll simultaneously claim that Iran must have done it (including the implication that Iran has to tomohawk missiles but only use them for blowing up their own schools for some reason), and then when pushed back on it say that he, the commander in chief, apparently knows nothing about the war he started.

Edit: Forgot to even cover one of the bigger issues, the hypocrisy and twofacedness of the admin. They're essentially trying to pull a "we've always been at war with Eurasia" without even removing the "no to war in Eurasia" propaganda. One interesting effect of Charlie Kirk dying is that all the old stuff stays up, leaving us with stuff like this

Thanks to President Trump’s restraint during his first term, America has a golden opportunity to pull away from Middle East quagmires for good. We shouldn’t throw that opportunity away so that sone D.C. has-beens can feel tough by sending young Americans to die yet again.

This was the mainstream talking point, all the "no war in Eurasia" posters are still up on display for everyone to see. When everyone knows that it is just bold and unashamed lying to their face about the war now, they're gonna be a lot less willing to accept all the tradeoffs like hundreds of kids dying. It's not just me, here's Joe Rogan talking about the betrayal

"It just seems so insane based on what he ran on. This is why a lot of people feel betrayed. He ran on no more wars and these stupid, senseless wars. And then we have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did it."

The Trump admin is consistently giving the American people the runaround as for why the war started, what they hope to achieve, and what the end conditions are.

I see people making this argument everywhere and I’m baffled. The have made it very clear why the war started and what our war goals are. They’ve been holding press conferences every day where they explain it! Proper press conferences, where they actually take questions! It’s like seeing someone argue that we shouldn’t land on the moon because it’s too purple. It’s…it’s obviously not! The Trump admin has not been shy about this! I mean just two days ago Pete had this to say:

”On day ten of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury. They're straightforward and we are executing them with ruthless precision.

One: destroy their missile stockpiles, their missile launchers and their defense industrial base; missiles and their ability to make them. Two: destroy their Navy. And three: permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever. It's a laser focused, maximum authority mission delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision, no hesitation, no half measures.”

I feel like I’m going crazy. People really do love in different worlds.

It's a list written to sound specific but it's incredibly open ended. "Permanently denying Iran nuclear weapons" sounds like it must entail either regime change or a permabombing campaign that goes on forever. If they do a lot of damage to Iran's military structures but entrench its regime and cement its determination to get nuclear weapons, what's permanent about that?

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