Thread

Pentagon says overreliance on AI contributed to missile strike on Iran school

974 points · 553 comments · devonnull

impossiblefork · 1790106526 · focus · HN ↗
Personally I'm more interested in the justification for the second and third strikes.
There needs to be some protection for first responders and others helping the injured.
1. FireBeyond · 1790106866 · focus · HN ↗
  Israel likes to argue that Hamas embeds fighters with first responders, which even if so, they're still responding to injured. But Israel considers this not even collateral damage but justified.
  Mind you Israel is currently funding a lobbyist organization in the UK to flag Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) as a terrorist group (because many years ago a couple of people who had affiliations with other anti-Israel groups were found to be also affiliated with MSF).
  1. FireBeyond · 1790115333 · focus · HN ↗
    Responding here to answer the dead comment which feels entirely disingenuous.
    No-one mentioned "using ambulances as cover". That is separate from "enemy combatants are acting in a first responder capacity, but are still enemy combatants, therefore the entire first response effort is a viable target". That is a war crime that Israel regularly likes to commit.
    > These are the same people who view women as property, homosexuality as a reason for execution, and 13 years olds as viable brides.
    Halacha? Acquiring your wife through kiddushin? Only a husband can issue a get (divorce document)? Women in agunahs (dead marriages)? Sounds like property to me.
    Rabbinic law makes capital punishment effectively impossible, but the Orthodox sects do everything possible to punish: disownment, both family and social and actual exile from physical communities.
    Don't girls reach halachic adulthood at 12?
    And lets not throw stones here. Even in the US, you can get married with parental consent or a judge's consent at any age in Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
    You can get married at 15 in Hawaii and Kansas.
    You are "grandfathered" into sexual consent (not as in "accepting of marital rape" but "it's no longer statutory rape if she's your wife") when you do so.
    So we may not want to be lording it too much on some guise of moral superiority, particularly given that most of the marriages that happen at those ages are not "young couple got pregnant, want to do the right thing" but "older man in conservative/religious community saw young vulnerable girl and decided he had to have her".
    hackernud3s · 1790122469 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    newspaper1 · 1790123850 · focus · HN ↗
    The US and Israel have murdered far, far more innocent people than Hamas. Hamas are resistance that killed < 2,000 Israelis (most of which were both in and killed by the IDF). The US has killed millions of innocent people in the last century alone, many for the benefit of Israel.
    What the US/Israel have done in Gaza is orders of magnitude worse than anything Hamas has done and that's not even touching Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan...
    hackernud3s · 1790128757 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    defrost · 1790129016 · focus · HN ↗
    > You can also easily park that full death toll on Hamas since they started it.
    Doubtful - they were only founded in 1987. If you check news reports there's been back and forth killing in that region going back decades prior to '87.
    hackernud3s · 1790129752 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm only going back to Oct 7 attacks. You can put the full death toll that followed on Hamas since that was their goal with the hostage-taking in the first place.
    chmod775 · 1790131725 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, but I'm only going back to Oct 8th! Gotcha!
    "Who started it" is a stupid and pointless question to begin with, but now we're reaching new heights.
    If both sides are comitting warcrimes, both sides must be condemned and sanctioned. It's not about who is committing warcrimes harder or who was first.
    hackernud3s · 1790142683 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm going back to Oct 7 for my argument. You can go back to Oct 8 for yours but you'd be arguing in bad faith.
    tancop · 1790153353 · focus · HN ↗
    How is it bad faith? This whole situation is a cycle of revenge going back at least to the 1920s with conflicts between Arabs and Jewish settlers in Mandatory Palestine. Israel is killing civilians, but Hamas attacked them, but the IDF was enforcing segregation, but they had to show force after the intifadas...
    And you can trace that back to the Balfour declaration being unclear, and rabbis who started religious Zionism feeling entitled to the land, and antisemitic massacres in Europe that inspired Theodor Herzl to campaign for a Jewish state. Or even further back until you end up in Biblical times.
    You can't just pick a start date and decide who is responsible for all this.
    newspaper1 · 1790178292 · focus · HN ↗
    I wouldn't call Palestinian resistance "revenge". If someone stole your land, trying to get it back isn't really revenge imho. I think going back to the creation of Zionism is the best starting point. Ashkenazis are mostly European, so it doesn't make sense to go back to biblical times (which were mostly fictional anyway). This is a pretty textbook case of European colonization.
    hackernud3s · 1790208226 · focus · HN ↗
    It's bad faith because no sane person would willfully ignore the cause of the current conflict when making an argument about who started it.
    kakacik · 1790147238 · focus · HN ↗
    This is correct approach, both sides are beyond abhorable in their own special ways and any decent human being with understanding of current situation and historical path leading to it has no reason to support either.
    One side shouting the other is worse because XYZ is childish, not factual.
    Abhorable, both, thats it.
    newspaper1 · 1790171711 · focus · HN ↗
    Anyone with a decent historical understanding would support Hamas, just like people who know history support the Haitian slave rebellion. People have a right to resist occupation and genocide.
    kakacik · 1790173617 · focus · HN ↗
    Looking at your comment history, oh boy you sure are one sided. No doubt version of history in your head conveniently justifies it, its just... not a complete history, is it.
    newspaper1 · 1790176586 · focus · HN ↗
    This is one of the most one sided issues in modern human history. Stealing land is wrong, murdering people who live on that land is wrong. The number of people who support Zionism is rapidly dwindling and won't exist outside of Israel once the baby boomers are gone. Israel will go the way of Rhodesia within the next decade.
    chmod775 · 1790204735 · focus · HN ↗
    What a strange world we live in. I never expected to see someone on HN openly supporting the murder of civilian men, women and children for the crime of living in a country that is at war with the perpetrators. That's a psychopaths twisted understanding of "eye for an eye" justice.
    newspaper1 · 1790204941 · focus · HN ↗
    This isn't taking my argument in good faith. Occupation resistance is none of the things you've stated and the reality of Zionism doesn't match your description, even remotely. If people break into your house, murder your family, then move in. You have every right to fight back. This is a historical standard well accepted by international groups. The Haitian Slave revolt, Pueblo revolt and Warsaw rebellion are all other analogous examples.
    chmod775 · 1790205038 · focus · HN ↗
    Fighting back is legitimate. Doing so by essentially any means is not. The murder of civilians is where any side loses my support.
    [deleted] · 1790205087 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    newspaper1 · 1790205117 · focus · HN ↗
    They're not "civilians" if they're living on stolen land. Again, this is a very well accepted standard.
    chmod775 · 1790205356 · focus · HN ↗
    We all live on land that at some point someone else considered their own.
    Also I can tell just and unjust apart on my own, and I do not need some "international group" or "historical standard" to stand in for my frontal lobe and morals. Thank you very much.
    newspaper1 · 1790205520 · focus · HN ↗
    We do live on stolen land, and when the indigenous fought back and killed people living on that land it was valid resistance:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Revolt" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Revolt
    > I do not need some "international group" or "historical standard" to replace my frontal lobe and cognitive empathy. Thank you very much.
    While understandable, this is a privileged take from someone who didn't have their family murdered by occupiers.
    chmod775 · 1790205633 · focus · HN ↗
    History was barbaric and abhorrent. I'd rather aim higher than use it justify modern-day cruelty.
    newspaper1 · 1790205719 · focus · HN ↗
    But this is the point! Israel and the Zionists are reenacting the worst crime in human history (the genocide and colonization of the Americas). They are, in 2026 doing what the Spanish did in the 1600s and getting the same resulting rebellion from the occupied people.
    chmod775 · 1790205782 · focus · HN ↗
    > But this is the point! Israel and the Zionists are reenacting the worst crime in human history (the genocide and colonization of the Americas). They are, in 2026 doing what the Spanish did in the 1600s and getting the same resulting rebellion from the occupied people.
    Yes, but I will still condemn both sides, even if one is merely responding in kind. If it was in my power, I'd lock them all up. Hamas' and Israel's leadership, as well as anyone who directly comitted those acts.
    Then I'd replace that two-state nonsense with something democratic similar to Lebanon's solution of accomodating multiple major religions.
    hackernud3s · 1790231251 · focus · HN ↗
    The problem with your occupation argument is how selective you are about who you apply it to. Israel has 15+ neighbors whose borders have changed since post WWII. Ukraine didn't even exist. You choose to apply your occupier label to Israel, who you know the current occupants can trace ancestral homeland to for thousands of years, while letting literally everyone in the world off the hook.
    I wonder where does that double standard come from? Oh if only we could identify some attribute that Israel has that the hundreds of other countries where your double standard does not apply do not.
    No! We know exactly where your double standard comes from. It comes from your hatred of Jews. You have decided that Jews are the only people in the world that do not deserve to exist.
    But they do exist. And they will continue to exist in spite of small-minded hateful people like you!
    newspaper1 · 1790261047 · focus · HN ↗
    People indigenous to the land shape the land. Colonizers invade. Ashkenazis ethnically cleansed almost all of Palestine and now they're trying to finish the job via genocide. This is very straight forward.
    hackernud3s · 1790208373 · focus · HN ↗
    There was no "genocide" until Hamas poked that bear.
    You could make the case for occupation, but then you would have to pack your bags and hand your house keys over to descendants of whoever lived there 80 years ago or risk being called a hypocrite.
    newspaper1 · 1790260978 · focus · HN ↗
    There was no genocide nor apartheid until Europeans invaded Palestine and started ethnically cleansing, killing and raping the indigenous Palestinians.
    hackernud3s · 1790287613 · focus · HN ↗
    There still isn't. Your characterization of Israelis as European is ridiculous.
    newspaper1 · 1790545425 · focus · HN ↗
    Not sure how you can deny that Israel is a European colonization project. It's all very well documented:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
    fabtreatv · 1790552897 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s like saying that UK support for a Palestinian state makes Palestine a European colonization project.
    newspaper1 · 1790601438 · focus · HN ↗
    No, it's absolutely nothing like that. This is textbook European colonization. Did you read the link? Here's another that fully justifies all armed resistance against Zionism:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
    philipwhiuk · 1790159275 · focus · HN ↗
    > You can also easily park that full death toll on Hamas since they started it.
    Really? Hamas started the handover of a chunk of the British Mandate of Palestine to a new state? I'm pretty sure the British started it and Israel used the fact that the country that controlled ~1/3rd of the planet ran the table.
    newspaper1 · 1790171629 · focus · HN ↗
    Hamas is no threat to America, and yeah the Israeli's murdered their families and stole their land, so that's a reasonable and fully human reaction we would all have.
    FireBeyond · 1790180438 · focus · HN ↗
    Much of the reason Hamas is full of fire and brimstone for the US is that the US continues to supply Israel with the bombs and weapons used on their people.
    newspaper1 · 1790183858 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, and political cover in the UN and beyond for Israel's aggression. I also don't think Hamas blames US citizens, they blame the government, and rightfully so.
    jackb4040 · 1790190214 · focus · HN ↗
    Every perpetrator of genocide throughout history has said exactly this. If we don't do it to them, they will do it to us! It is nonsense in every case, and only speaks to the genocidal worldview of those who believe it.
    breezybottom · 1790124360 · focus · HN ↗
    Clearly Americans are ok with it, because that's how they vote. West Virginia didn't raise the age of marriage to 16 until 2023, after years of staunch Republican opposition.
    hackernud3s · 1790128918 · focus · HN ↗
    Is your point that America was once okay with child brides and has since changed it's mind? If so I agree.
    breezybottom · 1790177940 · focus · HN ↗
    Who is "America"? California still has no minimum age. Most Republicans still oppose age limits.
    _heimdall · 1790151986 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not an accurate representation of West Virginia law.
    The age of consent for marriage is 18. A marriage license may be given to a person at least 16 years old given consent from their legal guardian and that the person they are marrying is no more than 4 years older than them. [1]
    But yes, until 2023 there was no age requirement as long as their legal guardian consented. [2]
    Your issue raised here really boils down to whether its okay for parents to determine what is best for their child or if the state needs to decide that.
    [1] <a href="https://code.wvlegislature.gov/48-2-301/" rel="nofollow">https://code.wvlegislature.gov/48-2-301/ [2] <a href="https://theamm.org/articles/1625-west-virginia-updates-age-requirements-to-marry-bans-marriage-for-children-under" rel="nofollow">https://theamm.org/articles/1625-west-virginia-updates-age-r...
    philipwhiuk · 1790159156 · focus · HN ↗
    > A marriage license may be given to a person at least 16 years old given consent from their legal guardian and that the person they are marrying is no more than 4 years older than them.
    Why?
    _heimdall · 1790167819 · focus · HN ↗
    Why not? The age of 18 is an arbitrary cultural norm, I'd ask why the state has to step in and enforce it as opposed to letting the parent or legal guardian decide.
    breezybottom · 1790177882 · focus · HN ↗
    Because society has an interest in preventing girls from being sex trafficked by their parents.
    _heimdall · 1790205548 · focus · HN ↗
    That doesn't track. Sex trafficking is already a crime, preventing the parties involved from getting a marriage license won't stop it.
    Also its interesting that you are only concerned when the under 18 individual is a girl.
    breezybottom · 1790250184 · focus · HN ↗
    I literally just said that it's not a crime in several states if the parents do it.
    _heimdall · 1790387978 · focus · HN ↗
    I must have misread your comment orisunderstood. Where did you say that in this chain of comments?
    tbugrara · 1790127866 · focus · HN ↗
    And how do you know these things aren't edge case exceptions in Palestine?
    Ozzie_osman · 1790136235 · focus · HN ↗
    > The US is morally superior in every way that counts.
    This in a thread about how the US bombed a school.
    kakacik · 1790146362 · focus · HN ↗
    You can't argue using facts with... non-smart patriots for example to be very, very polite. Samuel Johnson has a nice famous quote on that.
    US can be superior in many ways, ie military or economy but morality? Damn sorry this one is pure wishful fantasy when looking at historical facts and various, often failed invasions killing millions of civilians.
    The idea of US 'winning' with Iran is as plausible as US winning against Vietcong or Taliban. But not even knowing difference between typical arabs and persians and never even visiting those countries never stopped internet warriors from having very strong opinions, did it.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.