US-Israel Attacks Iran

[Steve_uk]

Thanks, gringo, you're far more knowledgeable on world affairs and the middle east than I am!
I may just ask Grok 'why has the USA and Israel started a war against Iran?',  just to see what kind of an answer it gives!

That's a new one to me snow66! Are all the AI sites reliable?

[snow66!]

Thanks, gringo, you're far more knowledgeable on world affairs and the middle east than I am!
I may just ask Grok 'why has the USA and Israel started a war against Iran?',  just to see what kind of an answer it gives!

OK, this is what Grok says-
Official reasons for US, Israeli air strikes named 'Epic fury' [US], 'Roaring Lion' [Israel[, necessary self-defence against imminent threat!
Irans nuclear programme, diplomacy had failed. nuclear-armed Iran posed an unacceptable threat to Israels survival.
Millitary build-up.
Support of proxy attacks, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthies, etc.
Regime change and human rights.
Iran says- they see the strikes as unprovoked, illegal acts of aggression!

In short, The US and Israel say they struck first to eliminate what they saw as an existential nuclear and terrorist threat after years of failed diplomacy.   Iran calls it naked aggression!
Thats all the reasons that Grok gives for the strikes, gringo, I will now ask Grok 'if the US need to dominate the worlds oil market had anything to do with its recent strikes on Iran?'

[Steve_uk]

Who gets to decide who is a 'terrorist' and who isn't?  Who gets to decide when the harshest sanctions are put in place and for which country? If you are a Palestinian living in fear in the West Bank, how do you apply meaningful sanctions to the people who are terrorising you?

It's all one-way traffic, isn't it..https://www.jns.org/israel-news/over-6300-terror-attacks-against-jews-in-judea-and-samaria-in-2024

[snow66!]

That's a new one to me snow66! Are all the AI sites reliable?

Grok is Twitters AI encyclopedia, Steve, I dont think any of them are 100%, depends on the wording of you're question I think.

[snow66!]

OK, this is what Grok says-
Official reasons for US, Israeli air strikes named 'Epic fury' [US], 'Roaring Lion' [Israel[, necessary self-defence against imminent threat!
Irans nuclear programme, diplomacy had failed. nuclear-armed Iran posed an unacceptable threat to Israels survival.
Millitary build-up.
Support of proxy attacks, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthies, etc.
Regime change and human rights.
Iran says- they see the strikes as unprovoked, illegal acts of aggression!

In short, The US and Israel say they struck first to eliminate what they saw as an existential nuclear and terrorist threat after years of failed diplomacy.   Iran calls it naked aggression!
Thats all the reasons that Grok gives for the strikes, gringo, I will now ask Grok 'if the US need to dominate the worlds oil market had anything to do with its recent strikes on Iran?'

OK, Grok says, In short, oil is a strategic factor in the Persian Gulf[always has been], and the conflict's escalation around Hormuz gave the US a chance to demonstrate control over shipping lanes. But claiming the strikes happened because the US 'needs worldwide oil dominance' reverses cause and effect. The initiating trigger was Irans nuclear/missile/proxy threats, not a grab for oil market supremacy.The US already produces more oil than it consumes, although the conflict has indirectly boosted US leverage, US exports have surged to record levels.
So, Grok maintains the strikes were because of the nuclear threat etc, gringo, and nothing to do with oil!
But!! Grok is only an AI tool, not a middle east expert!

[gringo]

OK, Grok says, In short, oil is a strategic factor in the Persian Gulf[always has been], and the conflict's escalation around Hormuz gave the US a chance to demonstrate control over shipping lanes. But claiming the strikes happened because the US 'needs worldwide oil dominance' reverses cause and effect. The initiating trigger was Irans nuclear/missile/proxy threats, not a grab for oil market supremacy.The US already produces more oil than it consumes, although the conflict has indirectly boosted US leverage, US exports have surged to record levels.
So, Grok maintains the strikes were because of the nuclear threat etc, gringo, and nothing to do with oil!
But!! Grok is only an AI tool, not a middle east expert!

    As you stated earlier, snow, it depends what you ask and how you word your question with all AI tools. All the LLM AI models are limited in the sense that the information they have access to is limited to whatever parameters are set. It is mostly biased western msm sources so whilst the amount of data is vast, the viewpoints are not so much. Grok uses information from the X platform so is probably better than most but it does depend on the wording of your question.
     Maybe ask Grok the following, snow.

1.) Why was Iran invaded in WW1 despite being neutral?
2.) Why was Iran invaded in WW2 despite being neutral?
3.) Why was the Mohammed Mossadegh overthrown in a coup by CIA/MI6 in 1953?
     To emphasise the constraints of AI ask the following, snow.

4.) Does the US produce enough heavy oil to be self sufficient?
     It doesn't, by the way, as a spoiler. Heavy crudes are what is required for diesel etc. Then ask Grok;
5.) What percentage of US oil refinery production is set up to process heavy crude?

    US is not self sufficient in oil which Grok's answer heavily implies without explicitly saying. The first three questions answer themself and I doubt Grok would disagree with my own assessment. With history repeating for the 4th time in just over a century, who really believes that this time it is for some moral crusade rather than the same old piracy?

[gringo]

Grok is Twitters AI encyclopedia, Steve, I dont think any of them are 100%, depends on the wording of you're question I think.

    They are nowhere near 100%, snow. David's preferred AI is Claude developed by Anthropic. Claude was used for targeting in the initial assault on Iran and the specific targeting of the Girl's school in Minab, killing 168 schoolgirls. Ask Grok about that too, snow.
    We live in the information age, snow, and there is no need to rely on biased interpretations from partial sources or AI tools using those same biased sources. We can access any treaties, agreements, UN resolutions as well as reporting from those times. It is better to rely on your own thinking abilities than to outsource it to one sided interpretation. 

[snow66!]

    As you stated earlier, snow, it depends what you ask and how you word your question with all AI tools. All the LLM AI models are limited in the sense that the information they have access to is limited to whatever parameters are set. It is mostly biased western msm sources so whilst the amount of data is vast, the viewpoints are not so much. Grok uses information from the X platform so is probably better than most but it does depend on the wording of your question.
     Maybe ask Grok the following, snow.

1.) Why was Iran invaded in WW1 despite being neutral?
2.) Why was Iran invaded in WW2 despite being neutral?
3.) Why was the Mohammed Mossadegh overthrown in a coup by CIA/MI6 in 1953?
     To emphasise the constraints of AI ask the following, snow.

4.) Does the US produce enough heavy oil to be self sufficient?
     It doesn't, by the way, as a spoiler. Heavy crudes are what is required for diesel etc. Then ask Grok;
5.) What percentage of US oil refinery production is set up to process heavy crude?

    US is not self sufficient in oil which Grok's answer heavily implies without explicitly saying. The first three questions answer themself and I doubt Grok would disagree with my own assessment. With history repeating for the 4th time in just over a century, who really believes that this time it is for some moral crusade rather than the same old piracy?

OK, i'll ask Grok those questions tomorrow, gringo!

[snow66!]

    They are nowhere near 100%, snow. David's preferred AI is Claude developed by Anthropic. Claude was used for targeting in the initial assault on Iran and the specific targeting of the Girl's school in Minab, killing 168 schoolgirls. Ask Grok about that too, snow.
    We live in the information age, snow, and there is no need to rely on biased interpretations from partial sources or AI tools using those same biased sources. We can access any treaties, agreements, UN resolutions as well as reporting from those times. It is better to rely on your own thinking abilities than to outsource it to one sided interpretation.

OK, thanks, gringo! As you can probably see, I have no strong views about the middle east situation and am more than willing to be told what is fact and what is fiction or propaganda!

[gringo]

OK, thanks, gringo! As you can probably see, I have no strong views about the middle east situation and am more than willing to be told what is fact and what is fiction or propaganda!

    You engage in debate in good faith, snow, that is clear. You are a breath of fresh air on these threads. Context is always important in analysing any event, treaty etc. This is why I regularly link to international agreements, treaties, protocols etc.
    As an example the much "reported" Budapest memorandum was often raised in the Russia threads. To read mainstream reporting at the time, you would imagine that the entirety of the Memorandum was to prevent so called Russian aggression in exchange for Ukraine "giving up their nukes". This interpretation was like "Holy Writ" in the west. The constant misrepresentation of this memorandum, reduced as it was to one line in all reporting, was incessant including on these threads. Because of this, I started a thread specifically about the subject, linked to the agreement and gave broader context than that offered in any western reporting. None of the verifiable information that I provided in that thread was discussed in western reporting because to do so would lead to their own narrative collapsing. In short, snow, any article that we read, any agreement, treaty or resolution should lead us to ask further questions in order to fully inform ourselves. Facts and full context are everything, snow.
     

[gringo]

Really?

I asked Claude "Has the CIA ever funded ISIS? Yes or No?"

    Claude doesn't even know the difference between a military target and a Girls school. What makes you imagine it can answer much more complex and multi layered queries?

[David1819]

    Claude doesn't even know the difference between a military target and a Girls school. What makes you imagine it can answer much more complex and multi layered queries?

The school is literally next to a miliary base that was targeted. If it really didn't know the difference this would not be a one off case.



However I did ask Claude how things would have transpired if it really didn't know the difference between a military target and a girls school.

Your question touches on something that actually happened — a missile strike reportedly hit a girls' school in Minab, with reports of significant civilian casualties — so this is a real and serious concern worth discussing carefully.

To answer your question directly: **a targeting system that couldn't distinguish military infrastructure from civilian buildings like schools would have made an already controversial operation catastrophically worse**, in several interconnected ways.

**Scale of civilian harm**

Over the course of the operation, more than 12,000 strikes were conducted against a wide range of targets. If even a fraction of those involved misidentified civilian structures as military ones, the civilian death toll would have been orders of magnitude higher than already reported. Schools, hospitals, and civic buildings often share physical characteristics with command facilities — large footprints, multiple floors, communications infrastructure — making them high-risk candidates for misidentification.

**Legal consequences**

The operation already faces serious legal challenges under international law, with analysts arguing neither the self-defence exception under Article 51 nor Security Council authorization under Chapter VII applies. Systematic strikes on schools would constitute war crimes under the Geneva Conventions regardless of intent, and "AI targeting error" is not a recognized legal defence — command responsibility would still apply to those who deployed the system.

**Strategic and political blowback**

Western partners already responded to the operation with studied ambiguity rather than unambiguous condemnation. Mass school strikes would almost certainly have shattered that fragile acquiescence entirely, potentially triggering sanctions, arms embargoes, or international court referrals against the US and Israel, and dramatically strengthening Iran's position in any ceasefire negotiations.

**The AI targeting dimension**

US commanders noted that AI was being employed "every single day to help sift through vast amounts of information and help make decisions faster." This is precisely the scenario that AI ethics researchers warn about: high-tempo, high-volume targeting operations where AI recommendation speed outpaces human verification. A system that conflates dual-use civilian infrastructure with military targets — due to training data bias, sensor ambiguity, or insufficient civilian pattern-of-life analysis — would propagate errors at machine speed across thousands of strike decisions.

**The bottom line**

The operation as conducted was already legally and morally contested. A faulty AI targeting layer would have transformed it from a controversial military campaign into what could credibly be characterised as a systematic attack on civilian infrastructure — with consequences for US standing, the laws of armed conflict, and the future governance of autonomous weapons that would far outlast the conflict itself.

[gringo]

The school is literally next to a miliary base that was targeted. If it really didn't know the difference this would not be a one off case.



However I did ask Claude how things would have transpired if it really didn't know the difference between a military target and a girls school.

   Being close to a military base is no excuse. the school was deliberately targeted and was in fact triple tapped. Also it isn't a one off case and in fact very far from a one off case.

https://www.dw.com/en/iran-war-health-care-destruction-threat-to-cancer-patients-lives/a-76680086

    "Iranian officials claim that many pharmaceutical factories and medical facilities have been hit since the US and Israel launched their bombing campaign in late February. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) also confirmed that the Tofigh Daru facility, which is used to make cancer treatment drugs, was among those damaged by strikes.

According to the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, bombs also damaged the country's Pasteur Institute, a psychiatric hospital, and another hospital outside Tehran. The organization has verified over 20 attacks on the Iranian health care system with at least nine deaths, Tedros added."

    "Separately, over 100 US-based international law experts, including professors from Harvard, Yale and Stanford, decried airstrikes that "hit schools, health facilities, and homes" and cited reports by the Iranian Red Crescent, which puts the number of bombed health centers at 236 at around which reported 236 health centers had been bombed three weeks into the war.

Their letter described the US and Israel attack on Iran as a "clear violation of the United Nations Charter" and said the move raised "serious concerns about violations of international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes."

     It isn't difficult to find information on systematic US targeting of Health facilities, schools etc. The Girls school bombing was neither accidental nor excused by being "next to" a military base. The recklessness of bombing "next to" a school during school hours is criminal anyway. Didn't Claude know the school hours? David, when you are reduced to having to offer a pathetic justification for a war crime where 168 schoolgirls were murdered, then you are lost.

[David1819]

   Being close to a military base is no excuse. the school was deliberately targeted

And to achieve what exactly?

  Iranian Red Crescent, which puts the number of bombed health centers at 236 at around which reported 236 health centers had been bombed three weeks into the war.

The Iranian red Crescent?    They are now claiming 760 schools have been bombed. 

The dilemma for you is, If the Iranian Red Crescents bullshit about the US doing all of this (while losing only one F-15 in the process) what does that make of your assessment below?

     The F35 avoids airspace defended by Russian air defence. It would be too humiliating and damage the bottom line once it is shown up as the overhyped flying turkey that it is. Wouldn't last 5 minutes in a defended airspace. It's carrier would last even less time.
    Iran demonstrated very publicly that US has no response to stand off missile capability.

🤡

[gringo]

And to achieve what exactly?

The Iranian red Crescent?    They are now claiming 760 schools have been bombed. 

The dilemma for you is, If the Iranian Red Crescents bullshit about the US doing all of this (while losing only one F-15 in the process) what does that make of your assessment below?

🤡

   The bombings were done using stand off munitions as is well known. The WHO verify US targeting of health facilities. Are you seriously claiming that no hospitals or schools werte targeted other than Minab? What do you think they are trying to achieve by bombing deliberately civilian targets, children and hospitals?
    There are no dilemmas for me, David. My assessment stands. F35's aren't flying freely over Iran, they are skirting the borders at best and using stand off munitions. The carriers are hundreds of miles from Iranian shores. And this doesn't divert from your pathetic apologism for blatant war crimes. Anyway, do you think Claude should have considered school opening times before bombing next to one? You avoid all questions, as usual, and divert with bullshit. You support the baby killers and are willing to justify their crimes. I doubt that you would accept such mealy mouthed justifications from Iran or others if they had bombed a girls school during school hours killing 168.
    Can you imagine that, David?
    "Yes the Iranians did bomb the girls school during school hours killing hundreds of schoolgirls but it's understandable because the US Marines had a base next to it so really it was the evil US regimes fault"