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As attacks go, this is far more targeted than most dropped bombs. The purpose is to disable the communication infrastructure. That's a valid military target.
by jnwatson 2y ago
As attacks go, this is far more targeted than most dropped bombs.
The purpose is to disable the communication infrastructure. That's a valid military target.
To be clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It does seem to fit within the rules of war though.
- cjbprime 2y agoI don't think it's reasonable to say that the purpose was to disable those electronic devices. The devices were compromised and modified to include explosives. They could have been modified with a remote kill-switch that destroyed the device without causing a large explosion. The purpose of the explosion was to injure humans, not to make devices inoperable.
- runarberg 2y agoThe rules of war prohibit planting explosive in objects which are likely to be picked up by civilians. The rules of war also discourages fighting in civilian areas. Members of an enemy organization are not automatically valid military targets according to the rules of war. Especially when they are just going about their civilian lives far away from the battlefield. This is attack consistent with terrorist tactics, not warfare.
- meepmorp 2y ago> The rules of war prohibit planting explosive in objects which are likely to be picked up by civilians. Yes, and? They didn't just leave a bunch of attractive nuisance bombs all over Lebanon; they specifically targeted devices provided by Hezbollah to coordinate activities which were meant to be carried around on their persons. That seems like the opposite of leaving them where civilians might pick them up.
- JohnMakin 2y agoMan if only we didn’t live in a global society where carrying electronic communication devices in non-combatant (aka civilian) settings was the norm, you’d maybe have a point here. Multiple children have been reported as killed. Do you think that may fall under the category of “indiscriminate?”
- TwentyPosts 2y agoI don't think civilians regularly carry military-grade pagers. And fwiw, I heard of two tragic cases of children dying, which sounds remarkably low to me so far. If this were truly indiscriminate, this number would be significantly higher and we would've heard of it by now.
- XajniN 2y ago> Do you think that may fall under the category of “indiscriminate?” It may not, because the number of civilian casualties was way too low for that.
- JohnMakin 2y agoWhat number is the threshold? afaik this isn’t really defined anywhere
- XajniN 2y agoIt’s relative the potential threat the main target presents. So, the collateral damage is justified as long as it is approximately lower or equivalent to the lives saved by eliminating the threat.
- JohnMakin 2y agosource?
- XajniN 2y agoArticle 51 of the Geneva Conventions [1]. It is slightly ambiguous on purpose, more details can be found in the commentary [2]. [1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/arti... [2] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51/commentary/1987 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/arti...
- 2y ago
- EasyMark 2y agoHow likely are Hezbollah terrorists to hand over their communications devices to regular citizens? I’d say it’s not a very likely scenario. Obviously there will be some cases where people are adjacent who are innocent, but the same is the case when dropping bombs and shooting up a building where there at with a machine gun.
- anigbrowl 2y agoidk, just bricking the devices or (as originally conjectures when the first reports about this emerged yesterday) causing the battery to heat up and melt would be equally disruptive of communications without turning them into mini-bombs.