Please keep related news in this thread rather than making separate posts. Remember to include sources and avoid spreading rumours.
Please keep related news in this thread rather than making separate posts. Remember to include sources and avoid spreading rumours.
Removed by mod
Leftists don’t condemn retaliation, libs do. Iran has every right to fight back because the war was unprovoked. Israel kills ambulance drivers as a policy, if Iran doesn’t follow suit that gives them the moral high ground. Don’t attack schools, don’t murder journalists, don’t bomb hospitals and retain your humanity. History will be the judge.
History is written by the victors. Who cares if 100 years from now some kid on the internet cares that I restrained myself if that restraint led to my obliteration.
https://redsails.org/western-marxism-and-christianity/
Feels like we’ve never resolved our defeat fetishism
What does Iran gain from a moral high ground? The EU and the UN have all still vilified Iran for their retaliatory strikes, moral high ground doesn’t mean shit to these rapid dog nations.
“israelis” have never felt true fear in their lives, they’re dancing in night clubs right now, a settler colony does not have the same resolve as a nation made up of people with nowhere else to go.
I’m not sure about that. I mean, I guess I wouldn’t condemn Iran for doing so and it’d be understandable, but i feel like attacking hospitals and schools crosses a line. Not to mention that this would probably harden the Israeli population rather than demoralize them. Otherwise there are better targets to hit with missiles
It’s a form of limited non-nuclear MAD. If you show your opponent that you will respond to their actions in kind, it forces them to consider equal or great retaliation when calculating the benefit of any given action. If they attack air defense, their air defense will be attacked. If they attack civilians, their civilians will be attacked. We’d all be better off if the agressor stopped attacking altogether, but in the absence of that, proportionate response seems a valid strategy, particularly with the West and its proxies.
This implies that Bibi and the rest of the Israeli government cares about that sort of thing, or worse yet would want Iran to start attack schools and hospitals (which would be another reason why they attack schools and hospitals in the first place). Maybe it’d expend resources in recovery and reconstruction, but how many resources compared to military, logistical, and infrastructural targets? If they did something similar to what Russia is doing in the Ukraine where they attack electrical generators then i could see it, but I think direct strikes would probably be wasteful with Iran’s resources at best if not actively detrimental at worst
Exactly. It would be at best militarily pointless or even counter-productive to the military effort by wasting munitions. And moreover it would play right into the hands of the Zionist-imperialist propaganda.
Look at all of the terror shelling and drone attacks against civilians that Ukraine constantly engages in. Has that helped them militarily in any way, or has it only hardened Russian resolve?
Why is it that Russia has been so insistent to not retaliate in kind against civilians - even though they could inflict much more damage than Ukraine can - and instead responded only with strikes on military targets and dual-use infrastructure?
Because that is how you win wars. You remain disciplined and stick to the plan, especially when it is clear that the plan is working and the enemy is desperately lashing out to try to provoke you into making mistakes.
And also, the importance of the “moral high ground” should not be underestimated. Not in a liberal idealist sense but in considering the real geopolitical implications it has when you can credibly portray yourself as engaging in legitimate and legal self-defense.
The West will try to portray you as the “bad guys” no matter what, but there is a big rest of the world outside of the West and they are not stupid, they can see who the hypocrites are. And finally it is also important for your own population and your soldiers to feel like they are on the side that is acting morally.
I agree with this. Like I’m not willing to kill kids, I’m not surprised if Iranian soldiers feel the same
That line was already crossed by the “israelis”, when a line is crossed there are usually consequences, not just words denouncing
Consequences doesn’t have to mean doing the exact same thing back, especially if it’d be strategically unsound. Germans faced consequences for ww2, which did not mean the soviets started putting Germans in concentration camps and gassing them.
Edit: also last time I checked people here didn’t like the Dresden bombings despite the fact that’s exactly what the Germans had been doing to other countries for years
Strategically unsound is the stretch here. The “israelis” and americans obviously do it for a reason, I know we call them the great satan and that they do things for pure evil, but they are also competent.
To insinuate that there is no advantage to bombing a hospital and healthcare workers is something I don’t agree with.
What Iran is doing right now if they don’t retaliate with equal or greater force is letting “israel” demolish their entire healthcare system.
Are we saying that demolishing healthcare systems doesn’t have a strategic advantage here?
To my knowledge, historically, not really.
Just because the US and Israel are doing it doesn’t make it strategically sound. Did bombing aid workers in Afghanistan or carpet bombing Vietnam and North Korea win them those wars? Did the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki defeat japan or did the threat of soviet invasion do that? Did causing a mass famine in an open air concentration camp defeat Hamas?
Let’s put it like this. What advantages can be gained from bombing hospitals and schools? For schools, in my opinion, there is none. None of those people are either in active fighting nor are really going to contribute to fighting in the short term nor long term. If the Israeli military uses schools as bases that’s another thing, but otherwise youre wasting munitions that should be striking radar, government offices, etc.
Hospitals might be a different thing, but youre attacking people who are effectively already incapacitated. There’s also not really a definite goal in attacking either of these institutions. Terror? Terror is an incapacitator, it’s swift and ruthless. But it doesn’t work when you’re not already in control. The Bourgeoisie in China are subjected to a terror because they know any infraction will get them thrown in jail or worse. But terror on a military scale doesn’t really work, as the terror of the state outweighs the terror of the aircraft.
Economically it’d be better to attack infrastructure, rail, ports, roadways,etc. When you attack a hospital or a school, beyond complete destruction that place is still somewhat functional as long as the people are still alive. Attacking other places like bases, rail, etc. Can effectively disable certain important things without complete destruction.
The only thing I can think of thatd help is that Israel would have to spread their forces to protect these targets too. Assuming they do want to protect them of course. However in any case it’s not a decisions to take lightly or throw your hands up and say “eh whatever.”
Lastly, i do want to point out that, so far to my knowledge, Iran isn’t intentionally attacking these locations despite all of this. If I’m wrong please let me know but if I’m not then I feel this is a bit of a moot conversation
I’ve been reading this comment and its subsequent replies and with all due respect, I think you need to take a break from monitoring the war situation if you are reduced to arguing with people on the internet about how the country you side with should bomb schools and hospitals. Yes, I know the context is you saying “in retaliation”, it’s still not a good place to find yourself in mentally.
If you don’t live in Iran, one thing you can be doing for the situation is oppose the illegal and aggressive war perpetrated by the empire and organize in that manner, including using the opportunity to point out to people just how blatantly horrible the empire has been historically while they are more apt to be disgusted with it and listen. I feel pretty confident in assuming you are not a military general of a country of over 80 million people. Iran is not going to read lemmygrad for consultation on whether they should target civilians. All this will accomplish is making you look bloodthirsty for being reduced to supporting the direct targeting of civilians (maybe you don’t personally care about that right now, but you are part of lemmygrad for posting here and how we each post contributes to how all of us look - and contributes to how all of us think, which is why people argue over the correct line in the first place).
Jones Manoel’s essay is about multiple things, among which is the west being obsessed with purity and fetishizing defeat to the point that they lose sight of tactics and material constraints. It is not him arguing that AES states should do war crimes because the empire does. Here is an example of what he is driving at from the essay:
In other words, when a people are weak and victimized, then western Marxists will support it. When they are managing a sovereign socialist project and making mistakes of their own accord, then some of these same Marxists will suddenly become shy and heavily critical, saying that the country has lost its way, is tyrannical, is doing a bad job, etc.
You claim this is about tactics, but people generally use limited weaponry on military targets for a reason; not just because they’re trying to be ethical, but because if you blow a limited stock on civilian infrastructure with the intent to maximize casualties and without dismantling military infrastructure, the enemy may still be readily able to attack you and you will probably harden their resolve to fight to the last one standing. Colonialist thinking is not “smart” militarily in this way, it is brutal and genocidal and often relies on having a military edge over its opponent, so that anything can be a target and it still won’t run out of munitions or suffer meaningful retaliation. It appears that it is right now stuck in the same mindset in spite of the fact that Iran is capable of damaging it militarily and has already done so.
Second, as we can see (an example is recently posted in this thread: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11042011/7910365), Iran is willing to retaliate in the form of attacking some industrial infrastructure that is not strictly military, but with evacuation warnings first. So far, Iran’s strategy appears fairly consistent with the idea of: 1) Primary: target “hard power” colonial/imperial military bases in the region, targeted strikes of military in a hotel or embassy, that sort of thing; 2) Secondary: some limited targeting of “soft power” under the right circumstances, e.g. industry, but with focus on destroying the tools rather than targeting people who happen to work there, and 3) Indirectly, via blocking the strait and making oil prices spike, hit the capitalist where it cares the most (the pocketbook). Don’t let a single headline induce despair and the belief that Iran needs to divert from a strategy they surely have been planning and trialing for a long time.
As a final point, you’re not wrong about history being written by the victors, to a point, but it’s also sometimes written by the marginalized too in response to the victors writing it deceptively (ex: post Civil War US tried to whitewash slavery in classrooms in some parts of the country, but I think it’s clear in retrospect that while its deception had some success, it was also highly limited in reach). You can’t Men in Black memory wipe on a conflict this publicized and Iran is not going to take over the world and all of its media and schooling so it can control all narrative. That’s the type of thing the western empire tries to do and we know it doesn’t work forever and effectively in every way because things have internal contradictions to them.
I believe you mean well or my response would be, well… different. This is my high effort attempt to go through it with a fine-tooth comb, fairly. Please take it in the spirit of that. And please understand that when I speak of taking a break, I’m not trying to imply that you are incapable of good judgment. You are clearly capable of analyzing. But sometimes (and I am speaking from my own experience) closeness of engagement with a thing can lead to such tunnel-visioning that it becomes hard to step back and look at the bigger picture of it.
Thank you for being patient. This morning I woke up to the news that distant cousins of mine were executed in the West Bank.
You can make rational arguments, but I am at the point that I just want revenge. They’ve been massacring for almost a century now, nobody in their society is innocent. I don’t care if I sound crazy saying this, I would side with the devil if it meant wiping them off the map.
Stink, as someone who also is following this war with constant updates, I understand your frustration and your desire for imperialist blood.
However, I will share with you a simple sentiment that I have found in the Iranian Telegram channels that I am currently subscribed and that is: “We are not like them”.
It is simple yet powerful. We are not like those imperialists/fascists/zionists. We are not like those beast so we don’t need to fight like those beasts. Beasts like them are inhumane and genocidal. They don’t even care for their own people -> https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11040580
They only worry about profits and plundering the world. That’s the place where we have to fight. We will defang the tiger and take their teeth away which will nullify their way of harm.
Trust in the resistance and, if you have the means to help, please do! Even joining a solidarity rally and humanizing our fellow Iranian comrades suffering aggression is a great initiative.
Don’t stay idle and don’t keep this anger to yourself. Use it as fuel to stir the world into the desire for this genocidal empire to end.
Thank you, you’re right. Not gonna edit my posts though I want everyone to see my crashout and learn from it
I’m so sorry to hear that. Just know that we (in the lemmygrad community) are here if you need to talk about it. I know talking is never going to take the pain away on a thing like that, but it can be a help as opposed to being alone in it. I don’t have experience with that kind of grief, but I do have some experience with loss and I know words can feel kind of hollow after. I just remember that it’s important to look after yourself in those moments.
Thank you for being here. 🫂
Thank you friend
I don’t think hitting hospitals achieves anything other than wasting missiles ( and causing unnecessary suffering, of course). The zionists do this because they like killing the innocent, and because they are losing hard, and so are attempting to sow instability (which isn’t working, as Iranians are coming out every day in support of their government).
I’m more in support of iran saving up in case other imperial core countries decide to join in.
It also hardens support for the aggression. If Iran hits a hospital every family member and friend effected is more ready to put their body on the alter to get revenge.
Generally speaking, if a country is committing genocide, then diverting resources away from the genocide is an overall positive outcome.