Comment by lawlessone 2 days ago
>3) There has never been, in the history of all warfare, such a surgically precise attack with such a low casualty rate of the civilian population
How do you know this ?
That sounds like a canned talking point. Up there with "Most moral army ever".
Well, I'm in awe to be perfectly honest with you.
It's like something in a James Bond movie, or a cheesy riff on the genre like Kingsman.
You might not want to acknowledge it, but this is definitely a new era of warfare, and one that hopefully has benefits for everyone - reducing the reliance on global supply chains that harm the environment because labour is cheaper elsewhere. (it's a very thin silver lining, let me have it).
>Well, I'm in awe to be perfectly honest with you.
Why? They killed 12 people including a child.
If it was bank robbery and the police shot through a child but killed 11 robbers there would be a lot of heads rolling at that police department.
No there wouldn't.
Don't be silly, 11 criminals dead and one bystander is well within limits of even a civilian police force, military ones are considered much more broad.
NATO sets the acceptable loss threshold at 4:1; for every 4 combatants killed, 1 civilian is considered acceptable.
It's very fluid, but you'll be hard pressed to find something more conservative than this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
Yes, this is callous, and cold, and awful, but emotion has no place here, we're talking about people on both sides who feel like they are fighting for their right to exist. This is quite literally war, and there will be casualties.
Truth be told, while I'm not giddy and children dying, I'm glad we're talking about so few civilian casualties despite causing so much damage to Hezbollah operatives and operations.
Don't be silly, 11 criminals dead and one bystander
You aren't even getting the military-civilian ratio for the first wave right. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry we have at least 6 civilians killed (including 4 healthcare workers and 2 children), so that's at most a 1:1 ratio, far less than the 4:1 rate that you cite as "acceptable". And this doesn't even touch on the vastly larger number of wounded (2,750 just for the first wave).
By all indications these devices were intended to maim even more so to kill -- and to do so a great scale. From Wikipedia:
At least 12 people were killed after the first wave of attacks,[73][1][74] and more than 2,750 were wounded.[6][7] Civilians were also killed,[11][14][15] including four healthcare workers[75] and two children.[76] It is not clear if only Hezbollah members were carrying the pagers.[20] Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the vast majority of those being treated in emergency rooms were in civilian clothing and their Hezbollah affiliation was unclear.[77] He added the casualties included elderly people as well as young children.
How do they know this?
What are you talking about?
What other operation ever conducted do you think even comes close?
Thousands of detonations and a fraction of 1% with any effect off target? What other operation do you think comes even close?
Canned talking point? Try like basic reasoning instead