Comment by borski

Comment by borski 2 days ago

1. Those pagers were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah. They were distributed by Hezbollah, to Hezbollah. I have extremely little doubt that Israel had intel telling them this, and that these weren’t used by hospitals by doctors and nurses.

2. Of course you can’t guarantee this, but the expectation is that operatives have these devices on them, as it is how they communicate with the rest of Hezbollah. That is a reasonable assumption in the fog of war.

3. Of course you can’t guarantee that. You minimize casualties by making the impact smaller but still meaningful; by using less explosive, but still enough to accomplish the goal.

There are no guarantees in war. Ops fail sometimes. You try to predict collateral damage, which Israel clearly did, by targeting specific devices used by and distributed by Hezbollah, and by using a relatively small amount of explosive.

Both of those things indicate that care was put into minimizing collateral damage. Even if they minimized the amount of explosive to avoid detection, that still accomplished the secondary effect of minimizing damage.

This was as successful a military op as it gets.

dragonwriter 2 days ago

> Those pagers were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah. They were distributed by Hezbollah, to Hezbollah. I have extremely little doubt that Israel had intel telling them this, and that these weren’t used by hospitals by doctors and nurses.

Hezbollah actually runs hospitals and employs doctors and nurses in them, so, "they were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah" is not, even if one assumes it is true, even remote support for "these weren't used by doctors and nurses".

In addition to being a political party, and having an armed wing, Hezbollah operates a fairly extensive set of social services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah_social_services

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borski 2 days ago

Fine. The point is that Israel is at war with Hezbollah. Hezbollah operatives were the targets. That is who was targeted and who was hit.

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- dragonwriter 2 days ago
  
  Except Hezbollah combatants are not exclusively "who was hit", and your entire argument that this was reasonably narrowly targeted on legitimate targets and not an indiscriminate attack rested on literally not understanding what Hezbollah is.
  
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  borski 2 days ago
  
  "Who was hit" specifically refers to who was the target; who owned those pagers.
  I did not misunderstand what Hezbollah was, please. I spent years working intel. I'm well aware that terrorist groups often provide social services to the civilians they claim to protect. In large part, it's how terrorist groups often maintain power.
  This attack did not target doctors or nurses. It targeted Hezbollah operatives. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and Israel is at war with them. Social services run by Hezbollah were not the target, but if a doctor or nurse happens to be a Hezbollah operative, then they were targeted.
  Again: the goal was Hezbollah operatives. If you were a doctor or nurse and unaffiliated with Hezbollah, you were not targeted.
  I'm not really sure how to be more clear.
  
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ivan_gammel 2 days ago

> 1. Those pagers were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah. They were distributed by Hezbollah, to Hezbollah. I have extremely little doubt that Israel had intel telling them this, and that these weren’t used by hospitals by doctors and nurses.

Do you have any hard evidence of that? It is absolutely plausible scenario that Hezbollah distributed some of the devices to non-members as part of civil defense plan. In case of the war they may want to have a reliable and authoritative communication channel to civilians.

> Of course you can’t guarantee this, but the expectation is that operatives have these devices on them, as it is how they communicate with the rest of Hezbollah. That is a reasonable assumption in the fog of war.

No, it is not reasonable assumption, on the contrary, and we have seen that. It does look like most of the victims weren’t on duty, so it is reasonable to assume that they won‘t be carrying the device all the time.

> 3. Of course you can’t guarantee that. You minimize casualties by making the impact smaller but still meaningful; by using less explosive, but still enough to accomplish the goal.

Minimize != avoid. They knew that the explosion may harm the wrong person, because they did not take the measures to prevent that (chosen method made it impossible). This is indiscriminate attack by definition.

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borski 2 days ago

I think you have either intentionally or unintentionally missed my point, and you're talking past me now. War never has any guarantees. You do the best you can, and you do the best the intel suggests, and you minimize and avoid civilian casualties as best you can.
Israel exploited an opportunity here to strike Hezbollah's communications network and leadership surgically; they did just that. No, there are never any guarantees there will be no collateral damage.
I'm done explaining that, as I think I have been very clear.

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- ivan_gammel 2 days ago
  
  You have been very clear in repeating the same argument again and again. I and few other commenters here think it is flawed, because you just assert rather than demonstrate sufficient care about preventing civilian casualties. It is obvious that Israel did target Hezbollah operatives. It is not obvious - and you did not prove that — they were not indiscriminate when triggering the explosions.
  
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  borski 2 days ago
  
  By targeting Hezbollah operatives, and by including a small amount of explosive rather than a large amount, triggering the explosions was intended to harm the Hezbollah operatives.
  Is your contention that they should have individually confirmed each device was in each owner's pocket before triggering the explosions? That would be both impossible and unreasonable to expect.
  (And thank you for engaging in good faith, rather than resorting to ad hominem nonense)
  
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