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The answer might be “you can’t trust a flight with potential terrorists onboard”. There are obvious, but high-false-positive and non-PC, methods to make that es
by rogerrogerr 2y ago
The answer might be “you can’t trust a flight with potential terrorists onboard”. There are obvious, but high-false-positive and non-PC, methods to make that estimation.
- nemomarx 2y agoDo you think that estimation works for airlines in the middle east?
- rogerrogerr 2y agoProbably about as well as “you can’t have electronics”
- whimsicalism 2y agohizbollah is a broad political party in lebanon, not simply a paramilitary group i know blonde hair blue eye people with relatives involved, so you are just making false inferences
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> hizbollah is a broad political party in lebanon To be fair, so were the Nazis. (Trying to think of a less-combustible example.)
- hammock 2y agoThe Bolsheviks? Southern Democrats in 1883 after the Supreme Court ruled the federal government lacked jurisdiction over racist terror?
- whimsicalism 2y agoright, so if you were trying to look for militants when you should be looking for civilians with pagers… you’d be wrong
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> if you were trying to look for militants when you should be looking for civilians with pagers… you’d be wrong We're speaking within the fog of war. It's unclear, for example, what fraction of Hezbollah's ranks had a pager or walkie talkier. And what fraction of those were military. I'd still challenge that the collateral damage from such an attack constrained to Hezbollah members--even arbitrarily--is less than a conventional strike on suspected militants.
- whimsicalism 2y agoI am merely talking about criteria you would want to use in excluding people from planes. I doubt looking for stereotypical islamic militants would actually be that effective
- alephnerd 2y ago> broad political party But overwhelmingly Shia, and has token Christian and Sunni membership due to Lebanon's constitution. Hezbollah is not Lebanon, and Lebanon is not Hezbollah. Lebanon is an equal 3 way split between Sunni (Future Movement/Hariri), Shia (Hezbollah), and Christian (Kaateb and smaller parties). All 3 fought a vicious civil war from the 1970s into the 1990s, and then multiple invasions and interventions by Israel and Syria lead to factional conflicts. The Sunni bloc and Christian bloc both oppose Hezbollah in Lebanon, and this helped the Israel-Saudi rapprochement, as it is Saudi that supports Hariri and Israel supported the Christian bloc during the civil war and occupation. Edit: Love the downvotes from idiots who can't even find Tripoli or Beqaa on a map for pointing out how Lebanon is a very complex and split country.
- whimsicalism 2y agoMy understanding is cooperation between Hizbollah and some christian communities is a lot more than token, but that is mostly talking from friends with family (christian) in Lebanon
- alephnerd 2y ago> cooperation between Hizbollah and some christian communities is a lot more than token Yep. I made a broad strokes statement because it gets complex very fast. The Christian community appears to be split between anti-Hezbollah and anti-Palestinian groups like Kaateb (that were also historically pro-Israel during the civil war and intervention), and historically Syrian supported parties who supported Syria during their intervention in Lebanon such as Tashnag, Marada, etc. FPM was historically opposed to Syria but Michel Aoun made a strategic deal with Hezbollah in order to become M8's face in Lebanon, and because Hezbollah was never going to get Sunni support. Hezbollah will only accept Shia and are Shia-first, but allied with Syrian-then-Iranian backed parties because they all fought together on behalf of Assad in the Syrian Civil War, along with the alliance of convenience with FPM. The Pro-Syrian/Iranian coalition is the March 8th Coaliton (of which Hezbollah is the lynchpin), and the anti-Hezbollah/Saudi-funded coalition was the March 10th coalition before it splintered due to political infighting, corruption, and the Syrian Civil War. Furthermore, now that the Syrian Civil War is largely over, a LOT of battle hardened nuts from all sides in Lebanon have started returning, plus the economic collapse exacerbated an already tense political environment.
- crooked-v 2y agoMore than that, it's basically a mini-state within a state... and at this point more functional than the government of Lebanon. The attack was by all accounts pretty well targeted, but that still means there are probably a bunch of dead or maimed civil servants of the sort that a traditional military offensive would never care about.
- jordanb 2y ago> attack was by all accounts pretty well targeted Which accounts are you listening to? The accounts that I've heard is that they set every single one of these off all at once with no targeting and they blew up all over Lebanon in markets, theaters, schools, public transportation, etc.
- Sabinus 2y agoThey weren't a random shipment of pagers to Lebanon, they were specifically ordered and used by Hesbollah.
- jordanb 2y agoThey were distributed randomly throughout the country before detonation. The fact that they were likely purchased by Hezbollah members is kinda beside the point when Israel knew they were going to be all over the place in public places and crowds when they blew up. Thousands of people were injured and some killed for the crime of being near a member of Hezbollah (or even just their belongings) when the bombs went off. If thousands of bombs were distributed to members of a large criminal syndicate in the US or other western country and then all detonated as these people went about their lives and interacted with normal citizens, we would be absolutely horrified.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> were distributed randomly throughout the country before detonation We have literally zero evidence of this. Either way. If you think you can pierce the fog of war by looking at one side's official announcements, you're going to spend a lot of time confused.
- invalidname 2y agoThat is a "beard" they use to legitimize a large terrorist group that murdered hundreds of Americans. Fires on civilians, killed children and is conducting a war with Israel without the consent of the people of Lebanon. One of the "victims" was an Iranian ambassador to Syria. They are an arm of Iran serving their interests within Lebanon which are in conflict with the interests of the Lebanese people. They fight Israel but then hide behind civilians within tunnels. For once they became a direct target without the ability to hide behind anyone. Just recently there was declassified intel on them planting bombs within Israel trying to assassinate politicians. They already bootstrapped a phone in the past too. The reason they have popularity is due to funds they get from Iran which they use to provide loans to poor people. To make this even more attractive they push for a situation of dependency and poverty so the poor would be even more dependent on their loans. Lebanon is in deep distress (financially and politically) and these are the a*holes pushing for it on the behest of Iran.
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- girvo 2y agoI don't really get to choose the other people on my flight...
- kmeisthax 2y agoYou forgot "high false-negative". There are plenty of white guys that want to do a terrorism as well.
- bigfatkitten 2y agoAnd the security services have done an amazing job of mostly ignoring the white supremacists, Sovereign Citizens, Christian fundamentalists and other white guys with a penchant for politically motivated violence.