Iran threatens OpenAI's Stargate data center in Abu Dhabi
46 points
1 hour ago
| 5 comments
| theverge.com
| HN
stavros
53 minutes ago
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The US really pulled a Russia with this "special military operation".
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b65e8bee43c2ed0
40 minutes ago
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both wars are equally unjustified, but the US has lost what, <20 people by now, in over a month? Putin loses >20 people per hour of his war.
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stavros
31 minutes ago
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I'd say "I agree, the US should lose more people" but I wouldn't wish casualties on anyone.

Still, the fact that the US can kill people without any cost because they send drones to do it doesn't sit well with me at all.

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matusp
31 minutes ago
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Russia is actually gaining people in this war. The occupied territory they intend to keep has a prewar population of 10M.
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krige
22 minutes ago
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That would be true if they were keeping the native population there alive. We know they were importing presumably loyal people from deep Russia. What happened to original occupants? You can guess.
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OwlsParlay
36 minutes ago
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Trump has avoided a ground invasion up to this point for this exact reason, even trying to take one of outerlying islands would have heavy casualties due to drone warfare. There's speculation that the mess over the weekend was the result of a SOF mission gone wrong.
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JumpCrisscross
23 minutes ago
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> the US has lost what, <20 people by now, in over a month? Putin loses >20 people per hour of his war

Not sure why you're being downvoted. Russia's economy and military have been flogged by their war in a way America's has not. Moreover, we have midterms this year and a Presidential election in 2. Moscow has no similar 'fuck it' exit option.

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mikkupikku
13 minutes ago
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The American people are already getting flogged when they buy fuel and groceries. The longer this war continues the worse it will get. Nonetheless, the American people themselves are mostly safe at home, the precedent for Iran launching any sort of attacks against the American homeland is basically nonexistent. Even sending terror cells, you'd think Iran would be on this for how often their western critics accuse them of funding terrorism, but in America? Crickets. This war is bullshit.
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SanjayMehta
31 minutes ago
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Nonsense.

Look at the body exchange ratios. Russia exchanges 20+ bodies for each received from The Ukraine. X and Telegram channels are full of videos of freshly dug graves in The Ukraine.

Mediazona (a BBC propaganda arm) tracks obituaries in Russia and even a blatantly biased outlet is unable to prove such assertions like 20 people per hour.

Edit: since Hypocrisy News is rate limiting me I can't reply to the redditor asking for a source:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg7ed4rp7x5o

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JumpCrisscross
30 minutes ago
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> Russia exchanges 20+ bodies for each received from The Ukraine

Source?

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rainworld
22 minutes ago
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https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-repatriates-bodies-of-1-...

1000 Ukrainians for 38 Russians. Such exchanges with similarly lopsided ratios happen every couple weeks.

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JumpCrisscross
17 minutes ago
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Article says "Russia is likely handing over more bodies than it receives since its troops have captured more Ukrainian bodies than vice versa, since they have been on the offensive for most of the war."

That could be bullshit. But it holds water as a hypothesis. If Ukraine were suffering 20:1 casualty ratios against itself on the field, Russia would have won already. There are no weapons that can overcome a small belligerent losing more bodies than the larger one.

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gambiting
17 minutes ago
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Maybe it's simply because Ukrainians aren't killing Russians within territory they control, so they don't have as many bodies to exchange. Looking at body exchanges to determine the number of dead people on either side seems just...like a weird metric?
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bigfatkitten
14 minutes ago
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> The Ukraine

The fact you use this term makes it quite clear which side you’re speaking for.

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gambiting
18 minutes ago
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>>from The Ukraine

It's just Ukraine. Unless you're doing this on purpose.

>>and even a blatantly biased outlet is unable to prove such assertions like 20 people per hour

https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine

It seems to hover around 30k dead a month recently, so 1000 people a day, divided by 24, that's actually ~41 people an hour.

But you know, even if we assume these numbers are wildly innacurate and only half those given...that's still 20 per hour?

>>X and Telegram channels are full of videos of freshly dug graves in The Ukraine.

No doubt, but what does that have to do with anything.

>>Edit: since Hypocrisy News is rate limiting me I can't reply to the redditor asking for a source:

So on one hand you call BBC a highly biased source, and then you link an article from it? So which one is it? Is it biased, or is it the source of your information?

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PedroBatista
31 minutes ago
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Wait, are stargate data centers a real thing? I thought it was a financial/political vehicle to pump the markets and kick the can down the road.
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yanhangyhy
25 minutes ago
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its very smart move...for Iran. really <art of war> thing.
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mikkupikku
1 hour ago
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Oh no!

...anyway... Seriously bros, this is a war where one side is making wildly inflammatory, specific and credible threats against the civilian infrastructure of the other and this is a response to that, hardly even a response in kind. If they strike these assets it will cause financial burden for rich people, not plunge millions of civilians into darkness as the POTUS is credibly threatening to do.

Iranian attacks on US soil: Fuck all! So why is America fighting Iran? Insane ziofascist cultists picking fights on the other side of the planet to provoke the Apocalypse so they can all be raptured to paradise. (Translation: boomers are getting old and they want to see burning flesh one more time before they die.)

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graemep
55 minutes ago
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Iran has threatened to destroy water supplies in the Gulf states, which would kill huge numbers of people.
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srean
12 minutes ago
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US-Israel struck Iran's desalination plants first.

Iran's targeting strategy has been a capability restrained tit for tat, for the most part. This is true except for attacks on other gulf states right after US-Israel decapitation strike.

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ceejayoz
50 minutes ago
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Wasn’t that in response to Trump posting that he’d hit theirs?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-hegseth-and...

> In a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned that the U.S. would obliterate "all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet 'touched.'"

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pjc50
25 minutes ago
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Iran was having a water crisis before all this, to the extent of considering relocating the capital city away from Tehran's current location. Bombing Iranian water infrastructure will kill a lot of civilians, just as similar things happened in the Yemeni civil war (which Iran is a participant in). It's disheartening how much the prospect of mass murder is met with a shrug.
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JumpCrisscross
27 minutes ago
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> Wasn’t that in response to Trump posting that he’d hit theirs?

It's Iran. They haven't been following international law since 1979. That isn't an excuse to commit war crimes against them. But Iran really doesn't have any legs to stand on when it comes to complaining about targeting civilian infrastructure–they and their proxies have been doing this for decades.

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curt15
6 minutes ago
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>They haven't been following international law since 1979.

History doesn't start in 1979. Why not go back to 1953? Overthrowing another country's elected government is no more conscionable under international law.

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megous
21 minutes ago
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Just claiming something doesn't make it true. And also there's the whole scale thing.
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JumpCrisscross
14 minutes ago
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> there's the whole scale thing

Sort of? I don't think that's really how war crimes work. Unless we're objectively in eye-for-an-eye territory, in which case we're not really talking about international law anymore. (To be clear, I think everyone talking about international law in this conflict is posturing. We've been collectively setting new norms for years, and between Russia, China and America, the rules seem to have inched closer to total war.)

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graemep
43 minutes ago
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It follows Trumps threats to destroy power plants, but predates the threat you quote. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/22/iran-says-dest...

AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does.

If attacking power plants and oil production is a war crime, then Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries are guilty of it.

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embedding-shape
40 minutes ago
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> AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does.

Of course not, but I still think the expectation that someone doesn't commit war crimes against you disappears relatively quickly when you're openly and proudly admitting you'll open to violating the rules of war and saying international humanitarian law doesn't matter.

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nkrisc
33 minutes ago
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That may be so, but remember that Ukraine is fighting for its very survival, and Iran may be as well.
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cineticdaffodil
55 minutes ago
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Not only threatened it did some "teststrikes"
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megous
11 minutes ago
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You seem informed. Why did they do so? And what motivated them?

Sounds like a thing a state would not want to do to their neighbor out of the blue.

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mikkupikku
54 minutes ago
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After America attacked them, sure, and in any case they aren't even attacking America, so again, why is America involved?
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igorramazanov
35 minutes ago
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My personal opinion is that, it's because with the previous political and cultural trends, West had (maybe still has) actually quite high chances of collapsing and falling in the long term due to its own indecisiveness, lots of words mixed a lack of actions against coordinated and targeted efforts of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Cuba, China, Syria and North Korea.

I remember national state TV in Russia talking about "we are ready to nuke United States if needed" in 2014 [1].

So, domestically, government made sure people believe that the West is the mortal enemy and we were are already at some kind of cold war since Crimea annexation, it's just West didn't notice, seems like.

Then, there were also artifical immigration crisis at EU borders created by Russia and Belarus.

And many other various hybrid and asymmetrical attacks.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA9mVLomYo8

So, USA recognized the danger and started dismantling the problem piece by piece, to ensure a long term peace and safety of its people. Could it be better organized and coordinated with allies? Probably, yes, but the meaning stays.

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graemep
20 minutes ago
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If the west collapses it will be because of its internal problems. Inefficiency, bad government, inequality.

I think you are right that the West is complacent about its enemies because it cannot really shake the belief in its superiority that came from winning the cold war and dominating the world in the decades after, I just do not think that is the biggest threat.

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jurgenburgen
22 minutes ago
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> So, USA recognized the danger and started dismantling the problem piece by piece, to ensure a long term peace and safety of its people. Could it be better organized and coordinated with allies? Probably, yes, but the meaning stays.

By becoming part of the problem? Trump threatening to invade Greenland was a wake-up call for Europe. Actively supporting forces that want to tear down democracy in Europe isn’t particularly helpful either.

If we become like China and Russia then why is our civilization in any way better?

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21asdffdsa12
41 minutes ago
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Because Iran attacks them relentlessly by proxxy? Hoothis, Hezbullah, Hamas, etc. It also wars with the kurds and had some fun in afghanistan?

Iran is not passive - iran is active, a wannabe us (lets call it micro-satan) - that wants to do what russia did along its borders.

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vachina
36 minutes ago
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Still none of your business
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baq
23 minutes ago
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Persian gulf is everyone’s business.
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throwaway25231
28 minutes ago
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How about USA proxies? Or are proxy wars just reserved for other party?
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mikkupikku
39 minutes ago
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> Because Iran attacks them relentlessly by proxxy? Hoothis, Hezbullah, Hamas, etc

Iran doesn't use any of these to attack America. You seem to be confusing Israel for America, a common problem in American politics.

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gryzzly
26 minutes ago
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Iranian proxies are responsible for well over 1,000 American deaths since 1979, and there were dozens of foiled plots on American soil and hundreds of individual militia attacks in Iraq and Syria, directed by Iran.
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kdheiwns
22 minutes ago
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For reference, how many times has the US interfered with Iran's government and how many people in Iran has the US killed since 1979? That's the only way to get a fair view of this discussion. Just wondering if all this happened in a vacuum or, god forbid, Iran maybe has some reason to dislike the US.
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gryzzly
17 minutes ago
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this was a reply to people saying "Iran is not attacking the US". It is of course convenient to bend this discussion into a different direction, but this was a reply to blind propaganda that sees only one side as responsible for bad things.
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srean
4 minutes ago
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It was the US that upended Iranian parliamentary democracy with a military coup, sponsored chemical weapons attacks on Irani population (through its proxy Iraq). This killed some 30k to 50k by way of chemical attacks alone. US shot down their passenger jet. US has imposed crippling sanctions that have decimated the economic well being of the country compared to what it could have been.

Talking Iranian proxies alone is one-sided if you don't consider what US-Israel proxies have been doing to them.

You are either ignorant or deliberately underplaying that. Most likely the latter.

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poisonarena
27 minutes ago
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The navy anti-drone team on my last 2 ships in the merchant marine would argue differently
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21asdffdsa12
33 minutes ago
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The us is the peace guarantor for maritime trade in the region. Its the protector of several oil powers. When the hoothi shoot on ships, they hit the us.
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JumpCrisscross
26 minutes ago
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> they aren't even attacking America

America never invaded Greenland. Nevertheless, we're facing blowback because we threatened it.

Iran has been chanting "death to America" for decades. That isn't casus belli. Not by a long shot. But pretending Iran hasn't been playing the part of belligerent for years is rewriting history.

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SanjayMehta
27 minutes ago
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Oil.
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gryzzly
30 minutes ago
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1979-1981 - Tehran, Iran — 66 Americans held hostage 444 days

1983 Apr - Beirut, Lebanon — 17 Americans killed (U.S. Embassy bombing)

1983 Oct - Beirut, Lebanon — 241 U.S. military killed (Marine barracks bombing)

1984 Mar - Beirut, Lebanon — 1 American killed (CIA chief Buckley kidnapped, later killed)

1985 Jun - Beirut, Lebanon — 1 American killed (TWA Flight 847 hijacking)

1989 Jul - Lebanon — 1 American killed (Col. Higgins murdered)

1995 Apr - Gaza Strip — 1 American killed (car bomb)

1995 Aug - Jerusalem, Israel — 1 American killed, 100+ wounded (bus bombing)

1996 Feb - Jerusalem, Israel — 3 Americans killed, 3 wounded (bus bombing)

1996 Mar - Tel Aviv, Israel — 2 Americans killed (shopping center bombing)

1996 May - West Bank — 1 American killed, 1 wounded

1996 Jun - Khobar, Saudi Arabia — 19 Americans killed, ~500 wounded (Khobar Towers)

1997 Sep - Jerusalem, Israel — 1 American killed, 7 wounded (mall bombing)

1998 Aug - Nairobi/Dar es Salaam — 12 Americans killed, thousands wounded (embassy bombings)

2001 Sep - New York/Washington D.C. — Iran facilitated transit of hijackers (2,977 total killed)

2002 Jan - West Bank — 1 American killed

2002 Jul - Jerusalem, Israel — 5 Americans killed (Hebrew University bombing)

2003 Aug - Jerusalem, Israel — 5 Americans killed (bus bombing)

2003 Oct - Gaza Strip — 3 Americans killed (diplomatic convoy bombing)

2003-2011 - Iraq — 603 U.S. troops killed (Iranian-backed militia IED/EFP campaign)

2011 - Washington D.C. — 0 casualties (assassination plot on Saudi ambassador foiled)

2019 Jun - Strait of Hormuz — 0 casualties (U.S. Global Hawk drone shot down)

2019 Sep - Saudi Arabia — 0 American casualties (Abqaiq oil facility drone strike)

2019 Dec - Baghdad, Iraq — 0 casualties (U.S. Embassy stormed)

2020 Jan - Ain al-Assad, Iraq — 100+ U.S. troops with traumatic brain injuries (ballistic missile strike)

2021-2022 - Iraq/Syria — ongoing U.S. base attacks by Iranian-backed militias

2023 Oct-Nov - Iraq/Syria — 60+ attacks in Iraq, 90+ in Syria; scores of U.S. troops wounded

2024 Jan 28 - Tower 22, Jordan — 3 Americans killed, 34+ wounded (drone strike)

2024 - Red Sea/Yemen — ongoing Houthi drone/missile attacks on U.S. naval assets

2024 Nov - United States — 0 casualties (Trump assassination plot foiled)

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srean
1 minute ago
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30K to 50K Iranians killed by chemical weapons attacks by US proxy, Iraq.

Iran has every reason to not like the US which has been destabilising and killing and crippling them economically for several decades.

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panja
1 minute ago
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Interesting you started in 1979 instead of 1953
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JumpCrisscross
24 minutes ago
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Would be stronger with a source. Otherwise, it feels on the border of being potential AI slop.
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SanjayMehta
28 minutes ago
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And do you blame them? US behaviour in Iraq, Yugoslavia et al has always been to attack power stations and civilian infrastructure first.

The 47th war criminal in chief Trump and his Secretary of War(crimes) is making threats on TV and social media.

I would love to see the terrorist regime of Iran collapse but in this scenario, sorry, the US is completely in the wrong.

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JumpCrisscross
20 minutes ago
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> do you blame them?

Blame is a weird word. I think Iran fucked up hitting those targets pre-emptively. Someone at home had to show their hard-liner boss that they were just as hard-line as he is. So they did something macho. The consequences be damned.

The mirroring of dysfunction on each side of this war is uncanny.

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richwater
30 minutes ago
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Can't believe the top comment in this thread is defending Iran by saying they only target wealthy people. The insane astroturfing of the web and TikTokification of the brain has impacted Hacker News.
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poisonarena
25 minutes ago
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welcome to elite reddit
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