8 ms·

indiscriminately? They were all used by Hezbollah operatives by definition. It is the most targeted operation if there ever was one.

alephnerd 2y ago
[flagged]
jsheard 2y ago
Indiscriminate in the sense that bombs have an area of effect beyond the person carrying them, so they couldn't possibly account for collateral damage when firing them all at once, and a conscious decision was made that any unlucky civilians are fair game. Indiscriminate in the same sense as dropping a bunker buster on a residential block because you believe there's a handful of terrorists inside, or nuking two cities to "encourage" a military surrender. If you believe this tactic was just, then I trust that if Mossad obliterated your child in the process of assassinating an enemy of Israel who happened to be nearby then you would be able to forgive and forget, since it was for the greater good and they tried their best. Even if they were targeting the wrong person, as it sometimes goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair Incidentally when they later killed the actual target of that operation they did so by detonating a 100kg car bomb on a public road, also killing 4 civilians and injuring 16 others.
- yonisto 2y ago
  [flagged]
- sudopluto 2y ago
  "unlucky civilians are fair game" that's been an unfortunate fact of war since, well, war was invented. maybe you should more angry at the people who started the war and put people in harms way, instead of complaining that one of the most precise operations still had unintended civilian consequences. taking the moral high ground is easy when you are not the one making decisions, and while the lesser of two evils (in your car bomb example) doesn't make sense on a personal level, it does make sense on a macro level
  - crossroadsguy 2y ago
    > maybe you should more angry at the people who started the war How far back are we willing to go for that? Who evicted whom? When? How many times? In what order?
- dkbrk 2y ago
  That's not what "indiscriminate" means. Indiscriminate attacks are those [0]: (a) which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. The fact that the pagers were obtained by Hezbollah to be used for their communications, and consequently could be expected to be exclusively in the possession of combatants means the attack was not indiscriminate. Causing collateral damage does not make an attack indiscriminate. The standard for permissible collateral damage is that an attack must not cause loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian property, etc. that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage [1]. The fact that it was so specifically targeted, combined with the small size of the explosive charges means collateral damage could be expected to be minor. And the evidence so far suggests that to have been accurate. The death of a single child is tragic, but negligible in comparison to the military advantage gained by thousands of combatants dead or wounded. [0]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12 [1]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14
  - calf 2y ago
    Where in aforementioned international humanitarian law, step (c), is it preordained that one child's collateral death is negligible? See, therein lies the crux of the issue. The definition itself is wise enough that you can't just lawyerese your way through the issue. In your scientistic rationalization using weaselwords like "expected to be exclusive", "the [subjective] standard for permissible..", "a death is [objectively] negligible", and so on, it is rather the case that your explanation is so laden with prejudiced pseudoreasoning that you are blind to it and unwittingly helping to spread ideological misinformation.
    - hersko 2y ago
      A non "weaselwords" version: A country has a right to defend its citizens. It can go to war to do so. War is horrible and civilians die.
- walrushunter 2y ago
  Literally no war ever has avoided collateral damage. Trying to hold Israel to that standard is absurd and pretty transparently anti-Semitic.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > Indiscriminate in the sense that bombs have an area of effect beyond the person carrying them AFAICT the stock pager models are ~95 grams, and people are suggesting 3-5g of added explosives. If they used RDX, then 3g would be ~5.5 cubic centimeters, which seems like rather a lot to try to squish into a small pager unless the design also replaced the standard battery with a smaller one to make room. In contrast, a M67 fragmentation grenade uses ~156 grams of explosives. Basically I'm saying it sounds like the bombs are small enough that it's not quite fair to call them "indiscriminate", especially if the trigger logic involves a Hezbollah radio network that nobody else would be using.
malfist 2y ago
[flagged]
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  [flagged]
anigbrowl 2y ago
operatives A lot of people seem to think Hezbollah is purely military in nature because of the 'terrorism' label. The organization was founded to respond to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and while it is a militant organization it also has seats in the Lebanese parliament, engages in a lot of non-military activities, and does not have simple politics - for example, it has condemned Al Qaeda and ISIS for terroristic attacks. Labels such as 'terrorists' are as often designed to confuse as to inform. Reductionist categorization makes people easy to manipulate.
- oytis 2y ago
  [flagged]
- yonisto 2y ago
  [flagged]
- hyperliner 2y ago
  [dead]
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  They have an assault rifle in their flag. Make no mistake about their purpose.
  - WorkerBee28474 2y ago
    Well, Guatemala has (older) rifles in theirs too...
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      And yet it doesn’t look like an obvious terrorist symbol
      - anigbrowl 2y ago
        I think you are mistaking your emotional reflexes for objective truth. Weapons on flags historically connote a message of 'don't mess with us'. The IDF's logo is a sword and an olive branch, and is more or less the same as the logo of the Haganah...a pre-independence paramilitary organization that was considered terroristic at the time when Palestine was still a British possession, and which killed hundreds of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah
ckemere 2y ago
Even if Hezbollah made the order, it would be difficult to be confident all would be distributed to operatives as opposed to sold to other civilian users.
calf 2y ago
It is a dirty (i.e. collateral civilians, maim instead of kill or deter, etc.) tactic and should be the sort of thing banned by Geneva Conventions.

alephnerd 2y ago

[flagged]

jsheard 2y ago

Indiscriminate in the sense that bombs have an area of effect beyond the person carrying them, so they couldn't possibly account for collateral damage when firing them all at once, and a conscious decision was made that any unlucky civilians are fair game. Indiscriminate in the same sense as dropping a bunker buster on a residential block because you believe there's a handful of terrorists inside, or nuking two cities to "encourage" a military surrender. If you believe this tactic was just, then I trust that if Mossad obliterated your child in the process of assassinating an enemy of Israel who happened to be nearby then you would be able to forgive and forget, since it was for the greater good and they tried their best. Even if they were targeting the wrong person, as it sometimes goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair Incidentally when they later killed the actual target of that operation they did so by detonating a 100kg car bomb on a public road, also killing 4 civilians and injuring 16 others.

yonisto 2y ago
[flagged]
sudopluto 2y ago
"unlucky civilians are fair game" that's been an unfortunate fact of war since, well, war was invented. maybe you should more angry at the people who started the war and put people in harms way, instead of complaining that one of the most precise operations still had unintended civilian consequences. taking the moral high ground is easy when you are not the one making decisions, and while the lesser of two evils (in your car bomb example) doesn't make sense on a personal level, it does make sense on a macro level
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  > maybe you should more angry at the people who started the war How far back are we willing to go for that? Who evicted whom? When? How many times? In what order?
dkbrk 2y ago
That's not what "indiscriminate" means. Indiscriminate attacks are those [0]: (a) which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. The fact that the pagers were obtained by Hezbollah to be used for their communications, and consequently could be expected to be exclusively in the possession of combatants means the attack was not indiscriminate. Causing collateral damage does not make an attack indiscriminate. The standard for permissible collateral damage is that an attack must not cause loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian property, etc. that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage [1]. The fact that it was so specifically targeted, combined with the small size of the explosive charges means collateral damage could be expected to be minor. And the evidence so far suggests that to have been accurate. The death of a single child is tragic, but negligible in comparison to the military advantage gained by thousands of combatants dead or wounded. [0]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12 [1]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14
- calf 2y ago
  Where in aforementioned international humanitarian law, step (c), is it preordained that one child's collateral death is negligible? See, therein lies the crux of the issue. The definition itself is wise enough that you can't just lawyerese your way through the issue. In your scientistic rationalization using weaselwords like "expected to be exclusive", "the [subjective] standard for permissible..", "a death is [objectively] negligible", and so on, it is rather the case that your explanation is so laden with prejudiced pseudoreasoning that you are blind to it and unwittingly helping to spread ideological misinformation.
  - hersko 2y ago
    A non "weaselwords" version: A country has a right to defend its citizens. It can go to war to do so. War is horrible and civilians die.
walrushunter 2y ago
Literally no war ever has avoided collateral damage. Trying to hold Israel to that standard is absurd and pretty transparently anti-Semitic.
Terr_ 2y ago
> Indiscriminate in the sense that bombs have an area of effect beyond the person carrying them AFAICT the stock pager models are ~95 grams, and people are suggesting 3-5g of added explosives. If they used RDX, then 3g would be ~5.5 cubic centimeters, which seems like rather a lot to try to squish into a small pager unless the design also replaced the standard battery with a smaller one to make room. In contrast, a M67 fragmentation grenade uses ~156 grams of explosives. Basically I'm saying it sounds like the bombs are small enough that it's not quite fair to call them "indiscriminate", especially if the trigger logic involves a Hezbollah radio network that nobody else would be using.

malfist 2y ago

[flagged]

llm_nerd 2y ago
[flagged]

anigbrowl 2y ago

operatives A lot of people seem to think Hezbollah is purely military in nature because of the 'terrorism' label. The organization was founded to respond to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and while it is a militant organization it also has seats in the Lebanese parliament, engages in a lot of non-military activities, and does not have simple politics - for example, it has condemned Al Qaeda and ISIS for terroristic attacks. Labels such as 'terrorists' are as often designed to confuse as to inform. Reductionist categorization makes people easy to manipulate.

oytis 2y ago
[flagged]
yonisto 2y ago
[flagged]
hyperliner 2y ago
[dead]
jncfhnb 2y ago
They have an assault rifle in their flag. Make no mistake about their purpose.
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago
  Well, Guatemala has (older) rifles in theirs too...
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    And yet it doesn’t look like an obvious terrorist symbol
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      I think you are mistaking your emotional reflexes for objective truth. Weapons on flags historically connote a message of 'don't mess with us'. The IDF's logo is a sword and an olive branch, and is more or less the same as the logo of the Haganah...a pre-independence paramilitary organization that was considered terroristic at the time when Palestine was still a British possession, and which killed hundreds of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah

ckemere 2y ago

Even if Hezbollah made the order, it would be difficult to be confident all would be distributed to operatives as opposed to sold to other civilian users.

calf 2y ago

It is a dirty (i.e. collateral civilians, maim instead of kill or deter, etc.) tactic and should be the sort of thing banned by Geneva Conventions.