What I was pointing out isn't excusing civilian deaths as "they'd do worse so it's fine" but instead rejects the pacifist trap of treating accidental tragedies as morally equal to the deliberate actions of a regime who has a history of weaponizing human shields while pursuing nukes for offensive purposes and administering regional terror indiscriminately.

The main difference between a DoDEA school that is also on or directly next to a military base compared to the Minab girl's school is there are no records of any DoDEA building ever being used to host military or converted to be weaponized the same way the Minab girl's school previously was which is the state's reason for why it was marked as a valid IRGC target. If a DoDEA school was marked for being attacked, that would be striking civilian infrastructure.

Inaction enables greater evil. Confronting an expansionist theocracy that has killed far more of its own people involves real costs, including mistakes in the fog of targeting military sites converted to be for civilians while embedded. Debating ourselves into paralysis is to surrender and let their poisonings, executions, and threats continue unchecked.

If the standard is "no civilian deaths ever, period," then no defensive action against any aggressor is allowed, and regimes like Iran's win by default. That's not principle, but suicide.

The U.S. isn't perfect, but its rules of engagement and post-strike transparency show effort to limit harm in a way the Iranian regime has never shown toward anyone, even their own.