Evidence has mounted that the US is responsible for the strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed 175. On Saturday, Trump said, “No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, [the bombing] was done by Iran.” But multiple US investigations indicate otherwise, including reports from the Human Rights Watch, New York Times video footage, and a US military investigation. During a Monday press conference Trump added, “I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation,” and that he is willing to accept the findings of an investigation into the bombing.
Commentators across the spectrum condemned the strike and the administrations rhetoric. Though, commentators on the right were less likely to cover the school strike than those on the left.
The right was more likely to comment on other aspects of the war, such as its broad international implications and the downstream effects on Americans. Whereas the left was more likely to cover what they see as the US’s humanitarian violations. Most people with a bias on the left share a globalist bias, seeing themselves as citizens of the world rather than strongly identifying with their country, and are more likely to be concerned with death tolls abroad. Contrasting the right, some of which is openly “America First” and cares more about Iran as it relates to domestic politics.
The Washington Examiner (Lean Right bias) said, “Trump did not repeat his accusation that he believes Iran was responsible for the strike on the first days of the war, saying ‘that’s being investigated right now,’ but he deflected blame by insisting Tomahawk missiles are ‘generic’ weapons that are widely available…Uh, no. Iran has no known stocks of Tomahawk missiles, and the sale of them to U.S. allies is tightly controlled. The New York Times reported that only Australia and the U.K. currently have the American-made cruise missile.”
An MS NOW (Left) opinion said, “As the fatalities from the strike on the girls’ elementary school remind us, women and girls are often among the first to bear the burden of violence and political upheaval. Here, the tragedy evinces the bad-faith exploitation of gender in the modern imperial project. The U.S., the narrative holds, is acting to help save the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ — among other things — yet ends up hitting a girls’ school. The Israeli and U.S. statements that they’ll “investigate” and evasions on responsibility speak volumes. This strike is a reminder of the fallacy of gender equality and liberation for which ‘the West’ is purportedly a beacon and the pattern of exploitation of women and girls to justify horrific acts of violence.”
Tucker Carlson (Right) who has been a fierce critic of the war in Iran, said of the bombing, “The bombing of an Iranian girls’ school next to a naval base that was apparently the school of choice for officers at the naval base—these are the children, the daughters, of the people we’re fighting—you have to believe that was accidental…As an American you have to believe this was a tragic mistake, but we have to verify that because if you wake up one morning and you’re living in the kind of country that thinks it’s okay to kill not simply military officers, but their daughters, that country is not worth fighting for.”
An Iranian immigrant wrote for the Sacramento Bee (Lean Left), “I oppose the war simply because I don’t want to watch my home country burn, for people to die…What good is liberation if everyone is dead? But many members of my family welcomed the airstrikes.”
She added, “When members of the Iranian community attack those of us who are against the war, I only think of the dead little girls. When I look at photos of them smiling in their green school uniforms, their almond-shaped eyes the same shade of brown as mine, I see my friends and I running around on hot, sunny afternoons, sweating under our uniforms. They didn’t ask for the U.S. to bomb them. They didn’t know their government wouldn’t protect them, would shove them into a white van for not wearing their headscarf ‘properly.’ They didn’t ask for any of this, but they paid for it.”
