R to @BallouxFrancois: The recent accidental bombing of the Minat school on the first day of the war by the US is illustrative of the 'firehose of falsehood' level of propaganda we're drowning under. It would make Russian propagandists proud.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: It remains that this constant firehose of falsehood is eroding our democratic institution. Without, a modicum of respect for objective facts and the truth, democracy eventually dies.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: Obviously, a major difference with totalitarian regimes, such as Iran or Russia is that we are free to call out and challenge any claim we believe to be false - I don't worry about getting a knock on the door by the police for this thread.
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Morality and legitimacy of the Iran war aside, I find it unsettling that our (i.e., the West's) propaganda is more deceitful, misleading, and full of blatant lies than that of the Iranian regime.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: The recent accidental bombing of the Minat school on the first day of the war by the US is illustrative of the 'firehose of falsehood' level of propaganda we're drowning under. It would make Russian propagandists proud.
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“Based on what Jared Kushner told me, I thought Iran would attack us.”
Not his intelligence agencies. His fucking son-in-law.
Video credit ~ @PamphletsY
Alright I'm going to go through why it was the Americans who bombed the girl's school talking point by talking point and with more important notes because when I made this post below I was not aware of all the narratives already going around. This is the last I will speak on this because I think people are too emotionally investigated to act in good faith.
First and most notably: The girl's school in Minab was bombed at 10:45am. This is an hour after attacks began in Iran. This would mean that the attack was part of the initial wave of strikes and came before the Iranian response could take place. This is because the guys who were meant to give orders to retaliate were dead.
Secondly: We know Minab was hit by the Americans at the outbreak of the war. It was displayed in their own graphic during General Dan Caine's press conference (see the NYT link at the bottom of the post)
Thirdly: The video that everyone is seeing is part of a 7 missile strike package. The reason someone is filming the area and smoke is already present is because the missile on screen is not the first missile. The missile on screen is also not the missile that hit the school, rather a building in the middle of the military compound that the school was right next to.
Fourthly: It is not a Kh-55. Iran does not operate Kh-55s. They operate copies of Kh-55s which are ground launched and are visually distinct from TLAMs due to them having a large turbojet mounted below the frame of the missile. In the first image, you can see a Russian Kh-55 on approach. Note the thick block of pixels in the aft of the missile. That's the turbojet. It is not visible in the shared video from Minab.
Fifthly: The Iranians have barely used cruise missiles during this war. The UAE, which is directly across the Strait of Hormuz from Minab, has only detected 8 cruise missile launches, all of which have been intercepted, as of 6 March. This is compared to 205 ballistic missiles and 1,184 drones. This is the weakest argument but we simply haven't seen cruise missiles deployed.
Talking point: The angle of attack is too steep! No it's not. Look at the angle on this video and refer to the second picture to compare. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/A9GZc-CjAME
Talking point: Why were they filming?? Because the attack was already underway as mentioned earlier.
Talking point: The explosion is too weak! This is correct. Though that doesn't mean that the missile was not a Tomahawk. Tomahawks have experienced multiple failures over the past 3 months. Mostly with dud warheads. See picture three for an example from Syria just yesterday. My initial incorrect thought was that we were seeing a bunker buster. No. It's likely just a failure to detonate.
Talking point: The Iranians have provided no debris to prove that it was a Tomahawk! This argument I find the most compelling. However, just as this post was being written the Iranians posted pictures of Tomahawk debris. See the next post for imagery. It is up to you to believe them.
Conclusion: This was a US strike.
This strike took place at the beginning of the war as part of the Tomahawk strike package to hit Iranian military targets in the first hour of the war. It took place before the Iranians could launch a military response and the hit on the girls' school was likely the result of an American intelligence failure, which labeled the school as a military target due to the close proximity to the military base.
I am a random person on the internet. You do not need to believe me. However, Western media have assessed that it was a US strike and drawn similar conclusions. See: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg548lyjnyo
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03/08/video-shows-us-tomahawk-missile-strike-next-to-girls-school-in-iran/
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/08/nx-s1-5739395/iran-school-airstrike-tomahawk-missile-trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/world/middleeast/iran-minab-school-strike.html
The denial of the U.S. Tomahawk strike on the girl’s school in Minab is really weak and frankly embarrassing.
Please give this literally any thought at all. The Iranians DO NOT OPERATE Kh-55s. They purchased them a quarter century ago so they could reverse engineer them!
The Kh-55 is AIR LAUNCHED from BOMBERS. Aircraft that the IRIAF DO NOT OPERATE.
The strike took place right next to an IRGC compound on the first day of the attack when U.S. forces launched dozens of TLAMs into Iran.
The claim that GPS jamming will redirect missiles to land perfectly on your own base is total garbage. That is not how GPS jamming works. The base was hit 7 times as satellite footage published by NPR shows.
Responsibility must be accepted.
R to @BallouxFrancois: I must admit I'm a bit confused. I consider double-taps to be incredibly evil, even more so actually than killing hundreds of schoolgirls out of sheer stupidity and incompetence. I just hope the US doesn't do double-taps.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: Oddly enough, some senior journalists seem to believe 'double taps' are part of standard US targeting doctrine.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: The Russians and the IDF are infamous for their double-tap strikes. The US has also been accused of doing double-taps in the past, but not systematically so.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: That's a bit sad but then within Hegseth's Department of War doctrine, it is probably OK to break a few kiddy eggs when making a 'bad dude omelette. Anyway, I have no doubt the US may eventually (in 20 or 30 years) come up with a nice apology, which sort it all out.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: Now, this is all wonderful, but the issue that perturbs me is that the strike was apparently a double-tap (i.e. including a secondary strike intended to take out first responders).
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yqqyly9n0o
R to @BallouxFrancois: Fair enough, shit happens, and with the wonderful latest 'maximum lethality non-politically' correct doctrine endorsed by the US, and some haphazard AI targeting, it doesn't come as a major surprise that a school got bombed.
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There is little doubt now that it was the US which was responsible for the strike on the Minab school that killed ~160 kids on the first day of the Iran 'special operation'.
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The world is grey, and it is often meaningful to engage with different viewpoints. Then, at other times, like here, facing propaganda so blunt, so unsophisticated and idiotic, it just feels insulting ...
A break from the horrors of the world.
We've got four kittens, Sniffy, Pookiedook (already reserved), Tiny and Werewolf. They are all different character-wise, but all are equally adorable, litter-trained, and socialised.
Israelis can be weird. They sent special forces into Lebanon to retrieve the remains of a dude who died 40 years ago, and this against the wishes of his widow. They randomly killed scores of civilians in the process and failed to find any bone, and yet they are bragging about it.
To me, this is possibly the most lazy, tired and tiring genre of tweets.
People are generally protesting actions enacted by their own, or closely allied, government. The hope is that by protesting they may influence their government's policies.
This is generally naive as it hardly ever has any impact but it is an expression of peoples' rights and belief in the democratic process, and as such it should be respected and protected.
If Brits believe they are trapped in an abusive relationship with the US, I would recommend they try to find better allies, e.g. France.
Disclaimer: I'm neither British nor French.
It increasingly looks like the envisioned future for Iran by the US/Israel might be a number of poor, weak, dysfunctional, balkanised statelets ...
Whether the UK/US 'special relation' is a real thing is debatable. It remains intriguing how dismissive Trump is of the UK - especially so, since The UK is one of the few governments in Western Europe vaguely supportive of his Iran 'special operation'.
Some hard-hitting journalism, much needed as the Middle East goes down in flames.
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The central question remains: what is the objective of this war?
Is the goal regime change in Iran — or the destruction of the Iranian state?
Because the scale of the current campaign increasingly raises the question of which of these two outcomes is actually being pursued.
How can the destruction of major infrastructure in Iran, or trying to encourage the Kurdish minority to revolt against Tehran be explained while simultaneously claiming that the campaign is “for the Iranian people”?
Is the objective the complete destruction of Iran? If so, the scale of the current strikes becomes easier to understand.
But can you simultaneously call on the Iranian people to take to the streets while the same campaign is destroying the country’s infrastructure?
Even if we assume such pressure eventually triggers internal unrest and the Iranian public manages to overthrow the exactly (it will probably do the opposite) - would the destruction of infrastructure help them rebuild their country, or make that task far more difficult?
At the same time, Iran’s likely retaliation for these strikes could significantly drive up global oil prices.
In other words — how much of what we are currently seeing is actually designed to serve a clear strategic objective?
#IranIsraelWar
Trump seems increasingly detached from reality, and it is unclear to me whether there is anyone in his administration with the brains and courage to reign in him.
A few days ago if was all about liberating and empowering Iranians. This turned dark fast ...
IRAN WAR WEEK ONE WINNERS AND LOSERS
🥲IRAN: Sustained a lot of damage including losing a bunch of their leadership early on. However, they appear to be prepared for that and the govt remain cohesive. The comically underpowered Air Force is somehow still flying and missile launchers far from completely destroyed. The strategy of escalating hard and early to gulf allies paid off.
😬USA: sustained major damage to regional bases. This is proving to an expensive war. What’s worse, the United States needs Iran to crack quickly for this to be a win and they’re proving resilient. The strike on the Girls school was a horrible PR black eye. The very fact that ground forces is even being considered points to desperation.
🤭Israel: Coming in strong. Most of the videos claiming to show Tel Aviv devastated etc seems to be fake. Unlike the US they don’t need Iran to completely capitulate for this to be a win for them. Weakened Iran, weakened gulf allies and even weakened America is all in line with their goal to be the only relevant power in the mid-east. Yet there’s the possibility that this war would turn out to be a bad call if they run out of interceptors and start taking damage or if this war triggers Iran to finally go nuclear for real.
😱: Gulf states are possibly the biggest losers so far. Unable to defend themselves effectively. Expensive infrastructure and reputation trashed. UAE sustained huge damage. Bahrain possibly destabilized. Qatar had to declare force majeur and not deliver contracted fuel cargoes.
🥳: Russia is probably the biggest winner so far. Oil price up up. Less pressure on Ukraine war.
😏: China scooping up the bonanza in how US weapons systems operate. Very well insulated from energy issues as already prepared huge strategic reserves and vessels ok to get through the straits of Hormuz.
😣: europe another big loser. Going to face huge energy issues as well as deteriorating condition in Ukraine war already going badly.
😨: rest of the world eg east Asia India etc sweating. A lot of oil and gas is getting taken out and if the war continues as it appears would happen they will fall into fuel insecurity one by one.
That reeks of desperation ...
Don't submarine carry inflatable life rafts?
Also, there was apparently a US destroyer nearby.
How can a random Polymarket account correctly predict:
- US striking Venezuela
- US kidnapping Maduro
- US forces in Venezuela
- US striking Iran
- Israel striking Iran
- US striking Iraq
- Israel striking Khamenei
- US anti cartel operations
And his next bet is public for everyone: US forces entering Iran in the near future.
Insane!
Apparently, the submarine left the survivors to drown after sinking the Iranian warship, despite being in no danger.
This is a war crime. Submarines are bound by the same duty to rescue people in distress at sea and provide initial care than surface vessels.
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R to @BallouxFrancois: What I find really weird is that the revelation doesn't seem to be a gaffe, and it is being reported by an "Official White House" account. Do this people not realise how damaging this revelation will be, or is this a strategy to shift the blame for the war on Israel ...
Of the many justifications offered by the Trump administration why they went to war against Iran, this is the most damaging. It makes the US look weak and will further inflame resentment against Israel in the American public.