Comment by H8crilA
Comment by H8crilA 2 days ago
Dropping kilotons of aviation bombs on a populated city is indiscriminate. This is nothing in comparison to that. Frankly I would even call this surgical.
Comment by H8crilA 2 days ago
Dropping kilotons of aviation bombs on a populated city is indiscriminate. This is nothing in comparison to that. Frankly I would even call this surgical.
They didn't indiscriminately set off thousands of bombs in supermarkets and homes. That's not at all an accurate description of what happened. That would be terrorism.
They gave a terrorist organization the ability to give its most important operatives a bomb to wear. And then they detonated that bomb. That's not terrorism. It's about as targeted of an attack as you can imagine. Blowing up terrorists is objectively a good thing.
They detonated the bombs in supermarkets and homes. It is 100% an accurate description of what happened.
If an enemy targeted members of American political parties that have sponsored terrorism and brutal dictatorships, detonating thousands of bombs in supermarkets and homes maiming nearby civilians and killing children, would you also call this “objectively a good thing?”
Ah, that magic word terrorist to justify any heinous crime. Funny how it always is folks in the Middle East who are.
For powers that be, every rebellion is terrorism. This isn't new. Today, in matters concerning ME, even college kids are labelled terrorists without much thought: https://x.com/gobloid3/status/1836437489831055659
> these are both terror tactics, you're setting up a false dichotomy
Eh, there is utility to this attack beyond terror. Israel just simultaneously took out Hezbollah’s communications and definitively outed its senior members. Also, strategic bombing à la WWII wasn’t psychological—it was intended to wipe out the civilian population that worked in the war factories.
States engage in what you call terror tactics all the time, for legitimate military and illegitimate reasons. The clusterfuck with the Middle East is the sheer number of non-state actors. In Gaza, that’s complicated. But in Lebanon, it’s not—-the Lebanese state is widely recognised. Hezbollah is not a state, but it’s also not purely a political party.
> Eh, there is utility to this attack beyond terror
As there was in bombing civilian cities, which housed factory workers making war machines. You have put up another false dichotomy. Terror attacks do not need to be devoid of all non-terror utility to be considered terror attacks.
If, during America's war in Afghanistan, the Taliban had blown up pagers carried by American officers going about their lives in America it would be called terrorism. The nearby civilians injured in the blasts would be a key focus, not swept under the rug.
> If, during America's war in Afghanistan, the Taliban had blown up pagers carried by American officers going about their lives in America it would be called terrorism. The nearby civilians injured in the blasts would be a key focus, not swept under the rug.
Because they’re a non-state actor. (Hezbollah doesn’t follow and isn’t bound by the Geneva Conventions, either.) Even if it only hit American military personnel, we’d call it terrorism.
You’re labelling usual acts of war as terrorism. That punts us from the uncomfortable discussion of the human cost of war to the much more palatable one of semantics. This is war. War resembles terrorism because they’re both violent and brutal and largely indiscriminate. If this is terrorism, then we’re essentially saying any warfare is terrorism. If that is the case, then states have a legitimate right to terrorism. Not sure that’s where we want to end up.
There is no way to control where the pagers will end up. No way to control who will be near them, even if they are owned by a target.
You do know that carpet bombing is a war crime by Geneva Conventions ?
What do you mean? You fire out the "detonate" command on the frequency used by Hezbollah - only pagers connected to that network blow.
It's statistically probable you'll overwhelmingly damage terrorists. Sadly collateral damage is inevitable in war, and this is far more precise than even a laser guided bomb.
You're shopping for groceries. someone is standing next to you. Their pager explodes and you are severely injured. You never had anything to do with this war.
Still think it's surgical? By that definition 9/11 was surgical as well, after all they only targeted two towers and just a few people who happened to be there got hurt.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
The US could just drop nukes on any country they have a trade dispute with. They don't, because that is insane and disproportionate and they have the capability to do better than that.
What Israel did here is something you would expect from a terrorist organization.
There is no question that an enemy setting off thousands of small bombs in American supermarkets and homes, maiming unknown numbers of bystanders and killing children, would be designated an act of mass terrorism.
Anyone who claimed such mass terrorism is acceptable because it is not as bad as obliterating cities would be condemned as an apologist for terrorism.