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

0:00Hey, 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

1:00command had created target coordinates for the strike using outdated information from the defense intelligence agency.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

2:01and 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

3:02their 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

4:07York 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,

5:07are 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

6:13out 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

7:17use 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,

8:19missiles 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

9:24since 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

10:26ships 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

11:26Allies 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

12:26having 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

13:26and 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,

14:30Senator 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

15:35in 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,

16:37we'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,

17:41massacred 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

18:41predict 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

19:48and 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

20:52that 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

21:53Beirut. 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

22:53did 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

23:57March 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

25:02loils 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

26:06fleet 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

27:10against 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

28:10straight. 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

29:12viewpoints. 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. Lots of stuff in the lower part of the page and the blog so much happening. We're extra extra busy at anti-war.com. So if you appreciate our work, please help us out with the donation. That's how we get by. We're we're totally reliant on our readers. You go to anti-war.com slash donate for that. Also, just like, subscribe, comment, share the show. You know, if you're unable to contribute to us financially, we always appreciate that. And you know, we're always going to be

30:13our content. So always going to be free and available to the public. Because we're trying to get the truth out there, trying to get all this information out there. One thing next week, I'm actually going to have a short week. I might only be doing three shows Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I'm going to do something that's pretty cool. I think I'll be able to tell you about it after the fact. But so there's definitely not going to be a Wednesday show next week. 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.