Neither you or I, and esp. not the media, have any access to facts on the ground. All photographs or videos you have seen have been placed there for you to see them.

All we can work backwards from are the most reliable facts we have before the war, about capabilities on the ground. We know the rough size of the iranian missile programme, of the country, economic, various military assets and similar.

We can work backwards from this to ask, "what would we be able to see had Israel achieved its claim re iran" -- and we're talking extraordinary levels of destruction in iran, across the country, and so on. We don't have any evidence of operations of that scale even taking place, let alone having been successful.

It is most likely, at the moment, that at least some alleged air force victories by israel are actual missiles they've issued from neighbouring states on the land.

However, either way, all of this is speculation. What can be stated with near certainty is that any picture presented in the media is an extremely careful creation of the propaganda arms of our states, and not a credible military briefing.

Our only access to reliable inferences is purely rational and hypothetical: what are X's aims, what are their claims, what are they claimed strategies, what are their capabilities and so on.. and then what would we see *if*...

▲ pliny 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>All photographs or videos you have seen have been placed there for you to see them

The source of most of the videos from both sides is random social media users.

Even the videos and info from the IDF I would regard as credible, since they released similar videos and info from the Lebanon operation last year that was consistently corroborated by evidence from social media (there was no internet blackout in Lebanon so every IDF strike on an urban area had multiple videos from different perspectives).

	▲	mjburgess 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Social media users placed by iran's full missile defense systems? Social media users at the bottom of 100m of granite? Social media users amongst the iranian barracks? I called the war for Russia ~2 years ago, just as the "counter offensive" by Ukraine was starting. Go back, if you wish, to that time in the news and find exactly what english-speaking western median, and social media, was saying. What is the picture you get, of Ukraine and its counteroffensive, delivered to you from these sources? It's always a little stunning just how easy it is for publics to be manipulated. Oh what a world.

▲ whynotminot 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m sorry in all this noise I’m failing to get to your point. Are you claiming that Iran is shooting down F-35s? Because that would be a pretty important piece of information that a lot of countries who have staked their Air Forces on the F-35 would like to know. It would also be a hard piece of information (damn near impossible) to keep under wraps, given the stakes, and the number of interested parties.

▲ mjburgess 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm claiming that the alleged air superiority is most likely partial and temporary.

I can make no specific claims as to any actions by any one involved in the conflict, if iran had shot down f35s presently, it'd be highly likely covered up by both sides. Iran to protect knowledge of its capability, and israel to ensure domestic morale is maintained.

Either way, that wasn't my claim.

▲ geysersam 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I think you make a good point about the facts being heavily skewed in the reporting on the attacks in Iran. But this seems very unlikely to me:

> Iran to protect knowledge of its capability

Protect knowledge against who? Israel will know if one of their planes were shot down, US will know. Besides, Iran claims to have shot down f35s, so they clearly want people to think they have that capability.

	▲	JohnBooty 20 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		`Iran claims to have shot down f35s` The photos were so badly photoshopped, I'm honestly confused as to what their intent was.
	▲	mjburgess 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I was merely giving a reason why Iran may not offer evidence of any given success --ie., , in doing so, it would reveal sensitive military information . I was not making a claim about F35s anyway, I have no specific information nor have I considered any, on relevant claims about F35s