Mehdi Hasan says US military conduct in Iran worse than Nazis in WW2

Former MS NOW host Mehdi Hasan argued to MS NOW host Chris Hayes on Friday night that the American military’s current conduct in Iran is worse than that of the Nazis during World War II.

Hayes said the American military is believed to be responsible for a strike that killed dozens of children at a girls’ elementary school in Iran while targeting a nearby naval base, killing 165 people, most of whom he said were children.

“It would be, appeared, this unfathomable tragedy, the mass slaughter of children playing at school, was simply the result of the ethos that this administration has bragged about, that the whole kind of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude, an attitude that Pete Hegseth has been promoting for months before, and then even after this strike,” Hayes said. 

He proceeded to play a clip of United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, on Wednesday, where Hegseth said: “Death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authority granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight. And it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hayes then brought Hasan onto the show, lamenting that even after such tragic incidents, the American military continues to have a rhetoric about its approach to the war.

Hasan agreed, saying this is part of a larger pattern in a war conducted by America and Israel, two countries he says have a bad record of bombing civilian targets.

“Part of the reason for this war, Chris, was supposed to be protecting the Iranian people against the regime. How’s that working out so far?” Hasan asked. 

TRUMP SAYS US ‘DOING VERY WELL’ ON IRAN NEARLY 1 WEEK INTO JOINT ACTION AGAINST TEHRAN

War Secretary Pete Hegseth countered the viral video from the Democrat lawmakers with the comment, “Stage 4 TDS.” (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Hayes noted that even before the American invasion, the Iranian people were allegedly unhappy under the regime, saying, “Iran has just come through a period in which there were, according to independent human rights groups, as many as possibly 30,000 Iranians killed by their own government amidst protests.” 

But even so, for an invading force to come in with the mentality of “We don’t care if you live or die,” Hayes said, comes across as “wildly self-defeating.”

“It’s a moral abomination. And yes, it’s tactically stupid,” Hasan said. “They, you know, they bombed a submarine and just let the sailors drown to death… Even the Nazis didn’t do that during World War II. Apparently, even the Nazis collected people from the water.”

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President Donald Trump’s military action in Iran is viewed by many, including a sizable chunk of his own longtime supporters, as a betrayal of the agenda he initially ran on, having condemned the Iraq war as unproductive. (Contributor/Getty Images)

“This is insane rhetoric. Insane behavior from people who don’t give a damn. Donald Trump has never given a damn about Iranian lives,” Hasan continued. “I see people in the diaspora cheering on this war, and I feel bad for them because Donald Trump screws over everyone, and he’s going to screw over the Iranian people as well. He’s a guy who has deported Iranians back to that government to be tortured or oppressed. He doesn’t care about the Iranian people.”

After they both agreed that this war is wildly less popular than the Iraq war was at the same stage, Hasan said that he keeps remembering a famous British “Mitchell and Webb” comedy skit where two Nazi SS officers notice their caps have Death’s Head skull-and-crossbones insignia on them and ask themselves, “Are we the baddies?”

Digital reached out to the White House and did not receive immediate reply.

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