To the editor: We will ultimately end up with an outlaw regime, saturated in killing and lies.
First, skip the arrest, trial and verdict parts of drug interdiction; label suspects as narco-terrorists and kill them in international waters. When caught killing shipwrecked survivors in direct violation of military law, claim they remained a threat and refuse to release the video.
Next, kill U.S. citizens engaged in legal protest and call them domestic terrorists. When videos expose that lie, blame a “chaotic” situation but admit no error in the killing or the defamation.
Now, through criminal carelessness, launch a missile at a girls’ school and kill more than 170 people, if credible analyses concluding that the U.S. was responsible are accurate (“New footage raises likelihood the U.S. struck an Iranian school where a blast killed at least 165,” March 9). The president says “that was done by Iran.” As in Minneapolis, video can tell us the truth. It allegedly took this administration one day of war to have its own My Lai massacre, but it will take another administration to admit it.
Someday, there will be a monument on the site of that school, emblazoned with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s words, this time not a lie but the shameful truth: “America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.… No stupid rules of engagement.”
Michael Maniccia, Alhambra
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To the editor: The reported deaths of more than 170 people at an Iranian girls’ school raise disturbing questions about the growing use of artificial intelligence in military targeting. If reports that AI-assisted systems are helping select targets are correct, then this tragedy illustrates a familiar problem from computing: garbage in, garbage out.
AI systems are only as reliable as the data used to train them. Is the data accurate, complete and current? Some reports, including in the New York Times, say the school was previously part of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval base, but was partitioned off and no longer connected by 2016. Did our systems have all the relevant data? The United States has monitored Iran for decades. Comparing older and current satellite images should not be difficult.
The Pentagon once maintained a civilian protection office, but it reportedly lost most of its staff last year. If true, that raises another question: Who is responsible for verifying targets before weapons are launched?
AI may be the next great technology, but it cannot replace human judgment — especially in life-and-death decisions. Without careful oversight and reliable data, automated targeting risks turning technological power into tragic error.
Robert Samuelson, Marina del Rey
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To the editor: Maybe because the U.S.’s real target, the Revolutionary Guard base, was only yards from the elementary girls’ school, we could have conducted our attack during nonschool hours.
Wendell H. Jones, Ojai