11 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

On the issue of the tragic strike that killed 160 girls at the school in Iran, I initially found myself questioning the location - suspecting an 'ulterior' motive. The fact that the school was situated close to a military facility naturally raises concerns - placing a school near a military installation inevitably exposes children to risk during periods of conflict.

Thus: My first thought was whether this might have been a kind of “human shield” scenario, where civilian infrastructure is positioned near military assets to complicate targeting decisions.

However, looking into it more carefully, that explanation begins to look far less convincing. It turns out it is not unusual at all for schools to be located very close to military bases, particularly in urban areas where space is limited and communities grow around long-established installations.

A good of this is in Bahrain itself, there are three schools located within very close proximity to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Juffair. Their presence there has never been interpreted as some form of deliberate shielding tactic - they simply exist because communities live nearby and children need schools.

So on reflection, the idea of an “ulterior motive” behind the Iranian school’s location begins to look more like a reaction driven by bias than evidence. The far simpler explanation is probably the correct one: the school was there because a school was needed there, just as schools exist near military facilities in many parts of the world.

In other words, proximity alone does not imply intent. Sometimes it simply reflects the ordinary realities of how cities and communities develop around existing infrastructure - even when that infrastructure happens to be military.

All of that I agree with, but hasn't stopped some here suggesting a primary school for girls was set up to churn out suicide bombers. My assumption is the IRGC members also have families.

The schools you refer to in Juffair predate the Americans. I went to one of them, at a time when the old Royal Navy Nissen hut classrooms were still standing. Yes, the American school in Bahrain used to be a British Forces school. I think one of the others is for Indian kids. And maybe the other you refer to is St Christophers, a fee paying school for British expats. I was at the American school, and one of my classmates is now the Bahraini Prime Minister.

Bellingcat has pretty damming evidence it was a Tomahawk missile. Why would the Americans target a school and a clinic? Who has people on the ground to identify targets in urban area. Not the Americans. If you were after the family of a named individual maybe you would target a classroom, or a clinic. That's a policy of assassination, or someone being manipulated into assassination.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03/08/video-shows-us-tomahawk-missile-strike-next-to-girls-school-in-iran/

Bellingcat also did a lot of work tracking down the Salisbury assassin team and well as the MH17 murderers. At the time, many thought that Bellingcat was a front for the UK government.

7 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

And yet the USA has prospered, Fancy that.

Cute revisionist history intended to create a causative link when there was none. The USA was the last country to have moved away from the gold standard. Most of the world had dropped the Gold standard after the Great Depression. It's return after WWII was only intended to be temporary.

The action against Iran has been planned for 20 years+. Efforts had been made to avoid a conflict, but Iran was intent on continuing its evil ways.

IIRC US politicians exported American jobs. The country has a $38 trillion debt. Debt to GDP ratio is 124%. 4 or 5 individuals control more wealth than about 170 million US citizens. Student debt and house mortgage repayment is a lifetime vocation.

If you call that prospering, can I have some of what you are smoking?

2 hours ago, Roadsternut said:

All of that I agree with, but hasn't stopped some here suggesting a primary school for girls was set up to churn out suicide bombers. My assumption is the IRGC members also have families.

The schools you refer to in Juffair predate the Americans. I went to one of them, at a time when the old Royal Navy Nissen hut classrooms were still standing. Yes, the American school in Bahrain used to be a British Forces school. I think one of the others is for Indian kids. And maybe the other you refer to is St Christophers, a fee paying school for British expats. I was at the American school, and one of my classmates is now the Bahraini Prime Minister.

Bellingcat has pretty damming evidence it was a Tomahawk missile. Why would the Americans target a school and a clinic? Who has people on the ground to identify targets in urban area. Not the Americans. If you were after the family of a named individual maybe you would target a classroom, or a clinic. That's a policy of assassination, or someone being manipulated into assassination.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03/08/video-shows-us-tomahawk-missile-strike-next-to-girls-school-in-iran/

Bellingcat also did a lot of work tracking down the Salisbury assassin team and well as the MH17 murderers. At the time, many thought that Bellingcat was a front for the UK government.

That Bellingcat analysis is excellent, but I’m not convinced the missile type can be determined from the imagery alone. The Tomahawk and the Iranian Soumar are visually very similar - both are turbofan-powered cruise missiles with comparable airframes derived from related design lineages. From four frames of a grainy video, there simply isn’t enough detail to confidently distinguish between them.

Where the argument becomes more persuasive is through contextual evidence rather than the video itself. Launch windows, approximate flight times, and the broader timing of strikes in the area start to provide a more coherent picture.

It’s also plausible that a missile could have impacted off-target. Cruise missiles rely on a mix of GPS, inertial navigation, and terrain-matching systems, all of which can be degraded in an environment with electronic warfare or GPS interference. That possibility becomes more relevant alongside of reports of strikes on nearby buildings.

As far as attacking a clinic - as you questioned, there may have been ground intelligence identifying a specific target in the vicinity.

As for the school building itself, there appears to be several independent verification methods supporting the conclusion that it was a school - including geolocation of the site, pre-strike satellite imagery showing an educational facility, and post-strike footage with classrooms, desks, and school materials in the debris.

What remains unclear, however, is intent. At present, there is no convincing evidence that a school would be deliberately selected as a target. In the absence of such evidence, the more plausible explanations remain targeting error, guidance disruption and the presence of a nearby objective believed to be of military significance.

18 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Regarding WMD in Iraq - my view has always been that Western leaders acted on intelligence they believed to be credible at the time, which ultimately turned out to be wrong. The failure was in the intelligence itself, whether through flawed analysis, bad sources, or information that was pushed or “polished” to support a particular narrative.

Following House investigations in the US and the UK have clearly shown that intelligence services had been pressured to provide the right outcome, that information had been knowingly overstated by governments, and even that known fake information had been presented (i.e. Powell at the UN).

18 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

I'm amazed that nobody in this thread didn't mention that other Middle Eastern country that depends on desalination for 70-80% of its water: Israel.

And nobody has mentioned that much of the West Bank stuff is about water, not Palestine or Arab farmers.

7 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

That Bellingcat analysis is excellent, but I’m not convinced the missile type can be determined from the imagery alone. The Tomahawk and the Iranian Soumar are visually very similar - both are turbofan-powered cruise missiles with comparable airframes derived from related design lineages. From four frames of a grainy video, there simply isn’t enough detail to confidently distinguish between them.

Where the argument becomes more persuasive is through contextual evidence rather than the video itself. Launch windows, approximate flight times, and the broader timing of strikes in the area start to provide a more coherent picture.

It’s also plausible that a missile could have impacted off-target. Cruise missiles rely on a mix of GPS, inertial navigation, and terrain-matching systems, all of which can be degraded in an environment with electronic warfare or GPS interference. That possibility becomes more relevant alongside of reports of strikes on nearby buildings.

As far as attacking a clinic - as you questioned, there may have been ground intelligence identifying a specific target in the vicinity.

As for the school building itself, there appears to be several independent verification methods supporting the conclusion that it was a school - including geolocation of the site, pre-strike satellite imagery showing an educational facility, and post-strike footage with classrooms, desks, and school materials in the debris.

What remains unclear, however, is intent. At present, there is no convincing evidence that a school would be deliberately selected as a target. In the absence of such evidence, the more plausible explanations remain targeting error, guidance disruption and the presence of a nearby objective believed to be of military significance.

So what convinced you the Hijackers were aiming at the WTCs, rather than hitting them accidently?

You waited a couple of years before official reports were issued, giving the attackers the benefit of the doubt?

I have no doubt that the school and clinic were targeted, based on inputs from ground assets. The only country to have ground assets wandering around a city is Israel. Secretary of War Hegseth condemned himself when he announced that US forces would not be constrained by "stupid rules of engagement" on the 26th February. RoEs are not stupid. Prior to the war, he deliberately reduced the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, a Pentagon office which provides advice on limiting casualties in combat and investigates the toll of military operations for 40 to 7, after he was prevented by Congress from closing it entirely. The miliary assets responsible for analyzing war zone civilian environments and red teaming targets have all been fired or reassigned. Centcom has apparently managed to preserve some such capability.

https://civiliansinconflict.org/blog/us-military-voices-speak-out-in-support-of-civilian-protection/

46 minutes ago, Roadsternut said:

So what convinced you the Hijackers were aiming at the WTCs, rather than hitting them accidently?

You waited a couple of years before official reports were issued, giving the attackers the benefit of the doubt?

I have no doubt that the school and clinic were targeted, based on inputs from ground assets. The only country to have ground assets wandering around a city is Israel. Secretary of War Hegseth condemned himself when he announced that US forces would not be constrained by "stupid rules of engagement" on the 26th February. RoEs are not stupid. Prior to the war, he deliberately reduced the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, a Pentagon office which provides advice on limiting casualties in combat and investigates the toll of military operations for 40 to 7, after he was prevented by Congress from closing it entirely. The miliary assets responsible for analyzing war zone civilian environments and red teaming targets have all been fired or reassigned. Centcom has apparently managed to preserve some such capability.

https://civiliansinconflict.org/blog/us-military-voices-speak-out-in-support-of-civilian-protection/

Thats getting a bit silly - the two are not comparable.

Across the Gulf, desalination plants convert seawater into drinking water for entire cities. In Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, roughly 90% of drinking water comes from these facilities. Oman and Saudi Arabia depend heavily on them as well.

Experts say the infrastructure is vital but dangerously exposed. Large open-air plants sit near the coast, often tied directly to power stations — meaning a single strike on electricity supply can halt water production entirely.

The vulnerability of Gulf water systems has long been known. A leaked 2008 US State Department cable warned that Riyadh could face evacuation within a week if its main desalination facility were knocked out.

The critical infrastructure that’s most vulnerable to Iranian attack

The bunker-buster bombs (ordnance dildos) can carry nuclear warheads apparently. That would be the only way to make sure Iran's nuclear program is destroyed and buried for good. I see the US and Israel up a certain creek without a paddle.