Pentagon Probe: US Responsible for Bombing Iranian Elementary School, Israe Pounds Beirut, and More

Hey, this is Dave DeCamp from anti-war.com and welcome to anti-war news.

It's about 9.30 on Wednesday night here in the beautiful state of Virginia,

where it was about 87 degrees today.

So pretty hot, but anyway, we have a lot of stuff to get through.

As always, and I know I keep saying it, but just can't believe that we're

actually living through this war that they actually did it.

And the first story at the top of anti-war.com today is something we already know,

but more evidence, Pentagon probe finds the US is responsible for bombing Iran Elementary School.

So the US is responsible for bombing an elementary school in Minab, Southern Iran,

during the opening hours of the US, Israeli war against Iran on February 28th.

A strike that massacred 175 people, the vast majority being young school girls and schoolboys.

And this is according to a preliminary US military investigation.

People briefed on the investigation told the New York Times that it appeared that US central

command had created target coordinates for the strike using outdated information from the

defense intelligence agency. And you see this picture here, this is the overhead shot of the

graves being dug for all these children who were massacred. And I think in the years ahead,

this is going to be a defining picture of this war. So the school building was previously part

of a nearby Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base, but was separated and turned into a school

sometime between 2013 and 2016, meaning that the US military may have used information that was

over a decade old. The US military has been using artificial intelligence to help with targeting.

But according to this report and this investigation, it appeared that the strike on the school

was the result of a human error. The Times said that it reviewed satellite imagery showing that

watchtowers that once stood near the building had been removed, three public entrances were

open to the school. Ground was cleared, play areas, including a sports field were painted on asphalt

and walls were painted blue and pink. So essentially, it looked like a school from overhead.

And Middle East I reported that the school was hit by two separate strikes. So a double tap

type attack here. And that essentially what happened was the school was bombed. And then the

teachers got most of the kids together or all of the kids together and brought them to a prayer hall

in the school. And then another missile struck and killed just about all of the survivors

of the initial strike. So they were all huddled together when this happened.

So anyway, this is what an Iranian red crescent medic told Middle East I quote,

when the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers in the principal moved the group of

students to the prayer hall to protect them. The principal called the parents and told them to come

and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. And only a small number of

those who had taken shelter survived. And quote, so the parents were on their way to go pick up

their kids when the second missile struck. I mean, these are horrors that are hard to even fathom.

And I can't think of any one single massacre that was this bad committed by the US military

in this in recent decades. So far, there's been no confirmation or acknowledgement from US

officials that the school was struck twice. But there's been other reports from people on the

ground that said, yes, you know, it was bombed once and then bombed again. And it's been clear

since the day of or the day after the bombing that this was most likely a US military strike. And

then there was footage that came out of a Tomahawk missile hitting the IRGC base nearby,

showing that Tomahawk missiles were used in the attack. There was a debris of a Tomahawk

missile found at the scene. Yet President Trump is trying to claim, you know, just a couple days

ago that it was a Ron somehow. He even said, I think I mentioned this, but that Iran has Tomahawk

missiles, which is completely nonsensical. And then he was asked on Wednesday about the New

York Times report. And he said he didn't know. He claimed he didn't know. He was asked,

are you going to take responsibility for this as the commander in chief? And he said, oh,

I don't know about that. Basically, I haven't heard that. And Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of

War, who, by the way, would not back up Trump's claim that this was that a rod bomb the school,

you know, whenever he's asked about, he says, oh, we're investigating. He can't even say like what a

tragedy, how horrible that this is. And we're going to look into it. No, he can't even say that.

But what does he say? What is he constantly saying in these press press briefings that he's doing?

That there's they're not using stupid rules of engagement. It's not a politically correct war

that they're operating and hitting Iran without mercy. And the result here is a massacre of little

school kids. And I mean, there must be consequences for this. Somebody like, obviously,

you know, we know there's not going to be any kind of real justice for this. But I mean,

are they even going to do something symbolically? I wouldn't put a past this administration to just

do nothing about this. Not even apologize. So the next one here, Iranian drone attack was

worst than the US military revealed. So more covering up from the from the Pentagon,

from Hegseth's Pentagon. So CBS News reported on Wednesday that an Iranian drone attack that

hit a makeshift US military operation center at a port in Kuwait on March 1 and killed at least

six US troops was much worse than the Pentagon had revealed. Sources told CBS that dozens of US

service members suffered injuries, including brain trauma, shrapnel wounds, burns, and at least

one soldier made in an amputation. As of Tuesday night, more than 30 US troops are still hospitalized

from the attack, including 12 at Walter Reed Medical Center in the suburbs of DC and about 25

medical center in Germany. The Pentagon has not disclosed all the injuries and they only admitted

that at least 140 US soldiers have been injured after that Reuters report. They have not been coming

out with this information. They want to hide it. They don't want the public to freak out too much

about these this large number of American casualties. And so far, they've confirmed the death of

eight US soldiers, including seven who they say were killed by Iranian attacks and one who they

say died of an unspecified medical emergency in Kuwait. All right. So the next one here, the

Department of War is using Palantir AI to pick targets in Iran. So this one's from Kyle Anzalan

from the Libertarian Institute. So the Pentagon is using an artificial intelligence system developed

by Palantir to select targets in Iran. Some members of Congress are considering legislation to

place restrictions and safeguards on the Department of Wars use of AI to congressional sources

speaking with NBC news confirm the use of this Palantir targeting and representative Sarah Jacobs

said quote AI tools are not 100% reliable. They can fail in subtle ways and yet operators continue

to over trust them. We have a responsibility to enforce strict guard rails on the military's

use of AI and guarantee a human is in the loop in every decision to use lethal force because the

cost of getting it wrong could be devastating for civilians and the service members carrying out

these missions and quote. And of course, this is one thing about Israel's AI system. According to

those reports from 972 magazine, it had a pretty significant error rate. I mean, even though they're

using their AI system to intentionally target a lower level Hamas guys when they were home with

their families. And but even on top of that, there is errors and cases of been killing people and

massacring whole families of people who didn't have ties to Hamas. So in the US is using these

type of same types of targeting tools in Iran. All right. So the next one here, I just posted

that Al Jazeera live updates on the Iran war just because so much is happening here and it's hard

for us to keep track of all of it. So, you know, I mean, it's just such a mess. Rockets, drones,

missiles just flying across the region. The first update that they have here is at Saudi Arabia

intercepts a drone heading toward an oil field. Another tanker was hit near a rack and a video shows

a tanker on fire. Let's see drone sparks minor fire at Dubai residential building. Extremely heavy

air strikes are hitting Beirut's southern suburbs. Let's see one killed in an attack on oil tankers

at Iraqi port. Iraq says Iranian boats are behind the attack on oil tankers. Four killed as

Israel attacks continue in southern Lebanon. So the region is just on fire. And it's just out of

control. The next one here, Iran is exporting more oil than before the war. So Iran has been

exporting more oil through the state of Hormuz over the past week than it was before the US and

Israel launched the war against the Islamic Republic on February 28th. The Wall Street Journal

has reported the report cited data from Kepler, which is a tanker tracking firm, which found that

since February 28th seven tankers have been loaded off the coast of Iran and at least two have

already left the Persian Gulf. Kepler's data shows that over the past six days tankers have been

loaded an average of 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil per day higher than the two million barrels

that Iran exported in February. So as a result of Iran now basically taking control of the

state of Hormuz, they're able to actually export more oil. And the report comes as Trump has been

issuing all these threats about the state of Hormuz and the IRGC is maintaining that it is closed

and the only ships that can go through are ships that have permission. You can see this fire here.

This was a tie a ship from Thailand that was hit earlier in the day in the state of Hormuz.

The crew was evacuated from the ship. They abandoned ship.

And so Iran very much has control of what's going in and out of here. And they're saying Chinese

and Russian ships can go through. China is the main buyer of Iranian oil. And so to these two

ships that went through the state of Hormuz, I believe they are heading toward China, but it

really goes to show here. The US is not able to kind of reassert control over this area, not

reassert or try to take control over this area. Trump suggested a few days ago that the US

Navy could escort tankers, but there's reporting from Reuters that the US has informed the shipping

industry that actually know we can't at this time. And I believe that's because if a US

Navy ship is going to go through the state of Hormuz, that's right there. Right on the Iranian coast,

they don't need any kind of advanced long-range missiles. They could use their shorter-range missiles

and rockets and drones to try to hit a US Navy ship that goes through there. And of course,

US Navy ships, especially destroyers, have very advanced air defense systems, but they I'm sure they

could be overwhelmed if enough was launched at them. So the next one here, the US and Middle East

Allies fire 1,000 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors. So the US and its Middle East Allies have already

fired more than 1,000 PAC-3 interceptors using the US-made Patriot air defense system since the US

and Israel launched the war with Iran on February 28th, according to a report from Bloomberg. So

Lockheed Martin currently produces PAC-3 interceptors at a rate of about 600 per year. So that means

that the US and its allies have already fired nearly two years worth of production. And Lockheed

has said that it will work to produce 2,000 of these interceptors per year, but it's going to take

years to reach that production level. And these interceptors cost between 3 and 4 million dollars

a piece. So that means that just the cost of these interceptors could be as high as 4 billion,

potentially, likely even higher than that at this point. And we've also seen that the US is using

a bunch of the THAAD missiles and they're bringing stuff in from Asia, from South Korea. So they're

having some real issues when it comes to the stockpiles of the advanced interceptors and things

like that. All right, so the next one here, triple strike hits apartment building in Tehran,

killing 40. So this is a report from Dropsite News from inside Iran. I believe we actually ran

a picture from this strike. So there is a triple tap, three separate air strikes on residential

buildings in a neighborhood in Tehran. And this was late Monday. You can see the aftermath of one

of them here. And at least 40 people were killed. The Iranian Red Crescent has been working to

recover people. And I know Red Crescent rescue workers have been killed in this war, seen pictures

of their funerals. And this is an account from people who were there who were at the scene of

this horrific strike on residential buildings. And it's unclear at the time if this is a US or

Israeli air strikes. The next one here, Iran says it will hit economic targets after US

and Israeli strike hits bank. So this article is from Middle East eye. So Iran's military on Wednesday

vowed to strike US and Israeli banks and economic centers in the region. After overnight attacks,

hit a bank in Tehran. So a spokesperson for the Iranian military's central operation command said,

quote, last night, the American and Zionist terrorist army after failing in their military

objectives targeted one of the country's banks. People in the region should not be within a

one kilometer radius of banks. And quote, so they're saying they're going to start hitting banks in

other countries in the region. And there's an eight all HSBC branches and guitar were closed

until further notice to ensure the safety of staff and customers, a text message to customers on

Wednesday red. So you see how, you know, these Gulf countries, how much this is hurting them,

the fact that you have drones hitting these cities and stuff. And now even the banks are at

risk of getting hit. The whole thing is just again, such a mess. All right. So the next one here,

Senator Blumenthal says the US may put troops in Iran. So Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat

from Connecticut, he said on Tuesday that the US seems to be on a path toward deploying troops to

Iran, comments that he made after a classified briefing for members of the Senate Armed Services

Committee. If this sounds familiar, Blumenthal said this maybe a week ago, after a similar briefing,

but this one seemed a little more urgent, this idea that troops might be on the way. He said,

quote, we seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish

any one of the potential objectives and quote. And so as we've discussed, there's reports that the

US is considering sending special operations teams into Iran. I don't know exactly what they could

do. They're saying that they could potentially secure the enriched uranium. But as I understand it,

it's under a pile of rubble like under a mountain. So I don't know how they would get that. And then

the other thing being floated is capturing Carg Island or Harg Island, which is a Iranian island

in the Persian Gulf, where 90% of Iran's oil exports go through. But that's again, right off the

coast. So if you want to take that island, you're going to need a significant force. And if you

want to hold it, you know, you're going to come under a lot of attacks. Maybe they just want to

blow it up. But right now it seems like the US is still holding off on them, you know, the big

strikes on Iran's oil industry, you know, besides the ones that Israel launched over the weekend,

because they're concerned that Iran can really ramp things up and target the oil infrastructure

and the Gulf countries. And then price of oil is just going to skyrocket if that happens.

But Blumenthal who, and just to be clear of who Blumenthal is, you know, he's a total hawk,

huge supporter of the Ukraine proxy war. He was, he's Lindsey Graham's buddy whenever Lindsey

Graham visits Kiev. He's one of the people who came back from Ukraine, I think in 2023, 2024,

when they're trying to find a new way to sell the war. And he comes back and says, hey,

we're get a lot of Russians are getting killed. And no Americans are getting killed. The implication,

the implication there is that it's just Ukrainians that are getting killed who cares about them. So

he's very ghoulish in his own way, but he is concerned about this. And one thing you'll notice

when it comes to the establishment, Democrat criticism of this war, everything is focused on

how the war is being fought. They're not saying they're not arguing against, you see this

with Chuck Schumer too. He's not saying the war needs to end. We need to end it now. This is crazy.

Should have never started. It's all based on lies. No, they're saying they don't know what they're

doing. They haven't made the case. They don't have objectives. Because it looks like they want

this war to continue. And there's two reasons why, especially with Chuck Schumer for Israel's

interests, but also they know that this is hurting Trump politically. And they know that they can

do better in the midterms as long as this war drags out. So all the people being killed,

massacred across the region, who cares about that? It's good politics for them if this war goes on.

And then they can be the ones. I mean, you look at these again, some of these people,

they look sane, like Richard Blumenthal sounds sane now compared to the Trump administration.

Even Chuck Schumer can go out there and act outraged. But this is, they need to be demanding

that the war end. And then the one talking point that you see from some Republicans,

besides like Thomas Massey and Rand Paul, I think Warren Davidson, I don't know if Warren

Davidson is saying the war needs to end, but he's saying like that the Congress needs to vote on it

or whatever. But you know, I saw this from Josh Hawley. He's saying, oh, Trump should just declare

victory and call it a day. And that's, we're also seeing that from some like MAGA media saying

Trump should just declare victory and say it's over. And I could see Trump trying to do something

like that. But the question, and you just never know, you know, I can't sit here and try to

predict what Trump is going to do. But I could see him trying to do that. And then Iran saying no,

because they're from their viewpoint, they don't want to cease fire, you know, a temporary cease

fire and a war just starting again, especially if they sense some weakness from the US. But anyway,

it kind of went on a tangent there. But I think that point about the Democrats is really important.

And once like just go and see what the Democrats are saying, they're complaining about how the war

is being fought. So the next one here, speaking of Trump, Trump claims that the war is ending soon

and nothing left to strike in Iran. So this article is from the cradle. So this is one of the things

Trump said on Tuesday. I mean, I he's just all over the place. I was trying to figure out what to

write up about what he said on Wednesday, but figured I'd run this. So Trump said on March 11th,

that the war with Iran would end soon, because there's practically nothing left to target,

echoing recent claims from Washington that Tehran's launch capabilities have been diminished,

despite continued Iranian attacks on Israel and the Gulf. He told Axios, quote, a little this

and that anytime I want to end it, it will end. The war is going great. We are way ahead of the

timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.

They were after the rest of the Middle East. They are paying for 47 years of death and destruction.

They caused this is payback and they will not get off that easy, end quote. But the fact is,

is that as this article explains, you know, the Iranian attacks are continuing across the region.

And they're not showing any interest in in a ceasefire. All right. So the next one here,

pro-war GOP Senator apologizes for Iran girl's school massacre. So this one is from Brett Wilkins.

So a Republican Senator apologized this week for what US military investigators have reportedly

determined was an American missile strike on a girl's school in southern Iran that killed around

175 people, mostly children, as Trump is trying to blame it on Iran. So this is Senator John Kennedy,

Republican from Louisiana, and he supports the war. But at least he had the sense to say

that it was terrible. He said it was terrible. We made a mistake and that he is so sorry that

it happened. And again, he supports the war, but at least just at least he has the sense

or has the feeling that of course it was a horrific, terrible thing that happened. And it should

be enough, you know, I always said this with Gaza, like one baby starving the death, one baby

being bombed. That should have been enough to stop the stop US support for Gaza. This opening

strike, I mean, it's just so horrible. But you know, Trump and Hegseth, they just can't even say

that. They can't even say it was horrible. They just, you know, don't even want to talk about it.

All right. So the next one here is real attacks central Beirut as death toll rises. So this one

is from Jason Ditz. And I believe the death toll is probably even higher now. At this point,

as we saw more strikes, but Israel has continued just pounding Lebanon heavy air strikes in central

Beirut. And as of Wednesday morning, the death toll and just, you know, what since last Monday has

risen to 570, including 439 men, 45 women and 86 children, the number of displaced, of registered

displaced people is 780,000. So that means that numbers actually higher because not everybody has

registered. I guess that's they registered either with the Lebanese government or the UN.

I mean, that's just a huge number of people. Lebanon is such a small country. So this is an absolute

catastrophe that is unfolding in Lebanon. And it really does not seem like it's getting much.

It's not getting nearly enough media coverage. And Hezbollah on Wednesday night, they fired

100 rockets at Israel. There were reports of a lot of them getting through. So this is things are

really ramping up here. And of course, when we talk about this, since November 2024, Hezbollah

did not fire at Israel, Israel violated the ceasefire just about every day, killed hundreds of

people, including a lot of civilians. And then Hezbollah fired a few rockets after like the second

day of the Iran War that didn't really do anything. And then Israel used that as the excuse,

the justification to really ramp things up here, launched a new invasion and really heavy bombing

campaign. And of course, civilians caught in the middle or paying the price. We saw a Christian

Maranite Catholic priest get killed. There was a big funeral for him on Wednesday.

Just really hard, excuse me, just really horrible. The next one here, Iraqi militias claim over

30 operations on US bases within 24 hours. So another article here from the cradle. So Iraqi

resistance factions have carried out dozens of operations targeting US military sites in Iraq

over the past 24 hours in retaliation for Washington and Tel Aviv's war on Iran.

So the Islamic resistance in Iraq, the IRI, a coalition of several Iraqi factions announced on

March 11th that its fighters carried out 31 operations using dozens of drones and missiles

against the occupation bases in Iraq and the region within 24 hours. It said it brings the total

number of operations in the past 12 days to 291. They're claiming that 13 Americans have been killed

in these attacks, but there's been no confirmation of that. They say there's dozens of injuries to

US troops as well. But so and the IRI, the Iraqi resistance there, some of the militias in this

coalition are part of the PMF, which is the coalition of Iraqi militias that was formed in 2014

to fight ISIS and as part of the state's military forces. So the whole thing, I keep using this

word, but the whole thing in Iraq is just a mess and it's Iraq. I mean, the US, I was born in 1990.

The US has basically been bombing Iraq every year of my life. Just about. There were some

loils in there, but I mean, it's just, you know, it's just madness. All right. So the next one here,

Bahrain imports anti-riot troops as protests erupt over US war. So this article is by Ada Shavez

at her substack called capital and empire. So Bahrain, a key American ally that hosts one of the

most important US naval bases in the Middle East is so concerned about domestic unrest that it is

bringing in foreign security forces as protests erupt against the kingdom's role as a launch pad for

Washington's expanding war with Iran. Bahrain has brought in anti-riot troops from Jordan to help

suppress the protests. National security sources tell me confirming rumors that began circulating

last week. The deployment marks the first time since the Arab Spring that Bahrain has called in foreign

forces to quell domestic unrest, a sign of how seriously the monarchy is taking the threat of protests

from the country's Shia majority population. So if a Sunni monarchy, Shia majority, that's not

happy that their government is aligned with the US and Israel that they host the US Navy's fifth

fleet and that, you know, that they're on the side of the US and Israel against Iran.

So this is seriously a, you know, potential major uprising at hand here in 2011, Bahrain relied

on a similar regional intervention to crush mass Arab Spring protests, troops from several

Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the country as part of the Saudi-led

peninsula shield force, a security mechanism that since evolved into what is now known as the

unified military command. So again, things getting pretty, pretty dicey there in Bahrain.

So the last, the next story here, Israel to build a base in Somali land to target the Houthis

according to a report. So this is from Middle East eye. So Israel is exploring building a base in Somalia's

breakaway region of Somali land from which it can target Yemen's Houthis according to a Bloomberg

report on Wednesday. In December, Israel became the first country to recognize Somali land as a

sovereign state and Somali land will allow Israel to gather intelligence on and conduct operations

against the Houthis to Somali land officials speaking on the condition of anonymity told Bloomberg

and Israel has laid the groundwork for a possible base in the region. In June, a group of Israeli

security officials visited Somali land coastline, people familiar with the matter said.

So this is something, you know, when they announced the recognition that I suspected was part of the

deal because Israel is expecting to fight another war against the Houthis or not also known as

Ansar al-Ala in Yemen. And they, as far as I'm aware, they still have not entered the war.

They're saying that they're ready to, but it shows that Iran has other options

to escalate this thing. All right. So the next one here, US Navy aircraft flies over the Taiwan

straight. So some news from over in the Asia Pacific. This is from Kyle Anzalone, so US military,

the US military confirmed that a P8A beside an anti-submarine patrol aircraft transited the Taiwan

straight. So Chinese, sorry, US warships and warplanes go through the Taiwan straight once in a

while. The warships are usually more common. I've lost track. I don't know what the numbers are,

but for a while it was about once a month or once every two months, the US would send a ship

through the Taiwan straight. Obviously, China doesn't like it. They always protest it. And same

thing with the flights, they usually happen a little more rarely, but this happens before. Trump

is scheduled to visit Beijing at the end of this month. And Taiwan, you know, the message that she,

President Xi has told Trump is that Taiwan, you know, you guys got to back down on Taiwan. This is

the number one issue in US-China relations. The first red line that must not be crossed. And of

course, the Trump administration recently signed off on $11 billion in arms sales for Taiwan.

And China launched huge military drills simulated a blockade of Taiwan in response. So they're

showing how seriously they take this stuff. So that is it for the news. Please go check out our

viewpoints. One from Alice Johnson. First, Iran, then Cuba. Trump has dropped the peace president

mask. One from Tedgaylin Carpenter will Washington betray the Kurds yet again. One from Anel

Shilin, the unbelievable madness of our war with Iran. One from David Di Amato selling another war

who gets to speak for Iran. One from Ramsey, Barud. Israel's greatest weapon was fear and it is

now failing. One from Jack Hunter. Is it still the Department of War or not? And our spotlight from

McKnight war against the Ron proves defend the guard is the only solution. Please go read all that.

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One thing next week, I'm actually going to have a short week. I might only be doing three shows

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I may or may not do a Thursday, but I'll let you know when it when it gets closer.

But anyway, that's it for me. So one more show this week. I will talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for

listening.