The Onion

(Caracas) As the aftermath of Saturday’s US attack on Venezuela is being assessed, alarming reports from the city show 3 hospitals, including a children’s hospital, were targeted and hit repeatedly during the fighting. The Air Force is blaming a new joint US-Israeli targeting system, Shepherd’s Arrow, for the damage.

“We tell the system to detect viable targets, and it paints the targets our bombs will strike,” explained an Air Force briefer. “We were told to trust the technology.”

Speaking off the record, US pilots note that they tried to retarget the laser several times, but on several attempts, once established, the lock could not be removed. “The most disheartening part is that when it hit the children’s hospital, it showed a pop-up window saying, ‘oh no, that was terrible, what happened.’ You don’t make a window for something like that unless you know it will happen.”

White House officials say they see nothing wrong with the results, and consider it possible the system was not put in narco-terrorist mode, but rather standard terrorist. “When in narco-terrorist the screen will have a burnt siena overlay, like you’re in Mexico in a cartel tv show. If you’re in standard terrorist mode, it can choose anything and call it a valid target.”

An IDF spokesperson says the system may have seen things to suspect a terrorist hideout at the building. “They have tunnels,” he said. “You never know what’s under a building until you collapse it.”