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No! >Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with no

by wut42 2y ago

No! >Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use – precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction. A prompt and impartial investigation into the attacks should be urgently conducted. Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers-harmed-hezbollah-civilians https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers...

loeg 2y ago
These are not booby traps.
- wut42 2y ago
  still: The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    >device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate Nope, artillery shells are not illegal and you can even miss where you are aiming! We once obliterated an entire French coastal village with naval gunfire on D-Day because information in war is imperfect. Accidentally killing civilians is not illegal in war! If you have a "valid military target" who takes a cab from the airport, you can airstrike that cab and not violate the Geneva Conventions. Consider that a nuke that you detonate in the center of a military base that also "just happens" to wipe out the entire city that base is in is not a war crime!
    - wut42 2y ago
      Yeah no you are targeting somewhere specific even if you miss. This was a large scale indiscriminate attack. Which is entirely forbidden in Geneva Conventions.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        It was a large scale extremely discriminating attack, from all available reporting, right? The Geneva Conventions and ICRC documentation on IHL are online, and have been cited repeatedly on these threads; could you cite the claim you're making, just so we're all clear what it is? People might agree or disagree, but a lot of pointless flaming is driven by people that don't even agree on what they're arguing about.
        wut42 2y ago
        Article 51(4 a b c) of Genova. I really don't see how it can be a "discriminating" attack when they exploded in shops; groceries; family homes (in the face of a child) etc.
        tptacek 2y ago
        4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; So far as I can tell, this strike clears all those definitions. I think you may be reading 51(4) to be a prohibition on civilian casualties as collateral to military strikes, but that obviously can't be its meaning --- that would ban virtually all air strikes, for instance, and I'm pretty sure that isn't something the victors of WW2 were going for. Am I misunderstanding the argument you're making? It's not unlikely that I could have!
        GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
- newspaper1 2y ago
  According to that definition they are: "booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use"
  - abracadaniel 2y ago
    That would hold true for something like a pay phone, but a personal electronic device, only used by the combatant, would not be associated with civilian use.
    - newspaper1 2y ago
      A pager is a piece of consumer electronics definitely associated with civilian use. There's a story about a little girl who tried to hand her dad his pager from the dinner table and it blew up in her face. Civilians will not expect consumer tech devices to be bombs.
      - dralley 2y ago
        Her father wasn't a civilian. Had this been some other kind of strike, like a 500lb bomb, it still would have been considered legal collateral damage.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      You're assuming your premise as your conclusion. I am not at all convinced about how many of those targeted yesterday actually qualify as combatants. Also, just because a combatant owns something does not make the thing military. Pagers are commonly used by people in emergency services, industrial technicians, and so on.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        These pagers work only on Hezbollah's own military network. Lebanon literally had a civil war about this specific issue! People are doing a lot of axiomatic reasoning here about stuff they can look up.
- pvaldes 2y ago
  "Arguing over minutia to dilute and divest the focus from the main discourse" pattern detected again in this thread.

by wut42 2y ago

loeg 2y ago

These are not booby traps.

wut42 2y ago
still: The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  >device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate Nope, artillery shells are not illegal and you can even miss where you are aiming! We once obliterated an entire French coastal village with naval gunfire on D-Day because information in war is imperfect. Accidentally killing civilians is not illegal in war! If you have a "valid military target" who takes a cab from the airport, you can airstrike that cab and not violate the Geneva Conventions. Consider that a nuke that you detonate in the center of a military base that also "just happens" to wipe out the entire city that base is in is not a war crime!
  - wut42 2y ago
    Yeah no you are targeting somewhere specific even if you miss. This was a large scale indiscriminate attack. Which is entirely forbidden in Geneva Conventions.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      It was a large scale extremely discriminating attack, from all available reporting, right? The Geneva Conventions and ICRC documentation on IHL are online, and have been cited repeatedly on these threads; could you cite the claim you're making, just so we're all clear what it is? People might agree or disagree, but a lot of pointless flaming is driven by people that don't even agree on what they're arguing about.
      - wut42 2y ago
        Article 51(4 a b c) of Genova. I really don't see how it can be a "discriminating" attack when they exploded in shops; groceries; family homes (in the face of a child) etc.
        tptacek 2y ago
        4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; So far as I can tell, this strike clears all those definitions. I think you may be reading 51(4) to be a prohibition on civilian casualties as collateral to military strikes, but that obviously can't be its meaning --- that would ban virtually all air strikes, for instance, and I'm pretty sure that isn't something the victors of WW2 were going for. Am I misunderstanding the argument you're making? It's not unlikely that I could have!
        GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
newspaper1 2y ago
According to that definition they are: "booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use"
- abracadaniel 2y ago
  That would hold true for something like a pay phone, but a personal electronic device, only used by the combatant, would not be associated with civilian use.
  - newspaper1 2y ago
    A pager is a piece of consumer electronics definitely associated with civilian use. There's a story about a little girl who tried to hand her dad his pager from the dinner table and it blew up in her face. Civilians will not expect consumer tech devices to be bombs.
    - dralley 2y ago
      Her father wasn't a civilian. Had this been some other kind of strike, like a 500lb bomb, it still would have been considered legal collateral damage.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    You're assuming your premise as your conclusion. I am not at all convinced about how many of those targeted yesterday actually qualify as combatants. Also, just because a combatant owns something does not make the thing military. Pagers are commonly used by people in emergency services, industrial technicians, and so on.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      These pagers work only on Hezbollah's own military network. Lebanon literally had a civil war about this specific issue! People are doing a lot of axiomatic reasoning here about stuff they can look up.
pvaldes 2y ago
"Arguing over minutia to dilute and divest the focus from the main discourse" pattern detected again in this thread.