Comment by Terr_

Comment by Terr_ a day ago

13 replies

Hold up, that skips over the crucial issue of triggering-logic.

It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah.

In contrast, an uninvolved civilian medical doctor buying a booby-trapped pager secondhand shouldn't be at significant risk, since before carrying the pager around all day they'll first configure it to use their hospital's radio network, which should only be broadcasting innocuous hospital messages.

> There is no question if an enemy set off hundreds of bombs in American ambulances we would recognize it as a mass terrorist attack.

However if those bombs were only triggered by the code "Immediate Mobilization" broadcast over a CIA/DIA pager network, then the real question would become why so many ambulance staff were holding down a second secret job as spies and soldiers.

aziaziazi a day ago

> uninvolved civilian medical doctor buying a booby-trapped pager secondhand shouldn't be at significant risk

Pretty sure any doctor (or anyone else) owning one of those pager wouldn’t want to keep it, even if configured safely. Would you carry an hand grenade in your backpack all day long, as safe as it it because the pin is still in?

> why so many ambulance staff were holding down a second secret job as spies and soldiers

Hezbollah is a legal and popular party in Lebanon and is at war with another country, of course the medic staff is involved what’s else would you expect ? However "all parties must refrain from attacking and misusing medical facilities, transport, and personnel", what happens here is a crime for the Geneva convention.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_neutrality

  • oldandboring 14 hours ago

    > Hezbollah is a legal and popular party in Lebanon

    Hezbollah is an Iran-backed militia whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel.

    > and is at war with another country

    No, they're not. They're a militia.

    Here is a timeline of major Hezbollah terrorist activities. Left out, of course, is the constant barrage of missiles rained down on northern Israel by Hezbollah. I copy-pasta'd this from another source for convenience:

    1983: Hezbollah sends suicide truck bomb against US embassy and murders 63 people

    Also 1983: Hezbollah murders 241 American soldiers and 58 French soldiers with another suicide truck bomb

    1984: Hezbollah murders 18 American soldiers with bombing in Spain

    Also 1984: Hezbollah murders 11 people with another truck bomb against US embassy

    1992: Hezbollah murders 29 people with suicide bombing of Israeli Embassy in Argentina

    1994: Hezbollah murders 85 Jewish Argentinian civilians in another suicide truck bomb

    1996: Hezbollah murders 19 American Air Force personnel with bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia

    2005: Hezbollah murders 22 civilians in assassination on Lebanese PM

    2011 to present: Helped Assad murder up to half a million Syrian civilians, carrying out starvation sieges and ethnic cleansing against Sunni towns and cities

    • cholantesh 11 hours ago

      >Hezbollah is an Iran-backed militia whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel.

      This is the official position of Israel, yes, but the international community, including the US acknowledges that they are a political entity as well. You actually don't need to be on side with their positions to accept this fact.

lfxyz a day ago

> It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah.

Why is this a reasonable thing to guess?

  • Terr_ a day ago

    Nobody that goes through all that effort of making secret customized electronics and then sneaking them into usage by your foes wants the plan to be ruined because one went off in an uncontrolled/unexpected way, blatantly alerting all the other targets to toss their pagers into a shallow hole.

    Even if the engineering makes it's a choice of "all blow up" or "none blow up", they'll also want to have control when that moment happens to be, either to pre-empt discovery and defusal or to coincide with other events and factors.

    • ithkuil 13 hours ago

      I agree.

      I'm often confused about the incoherent picture that paints Israel as having blatant disregard for civilian casualties while at the same time devises complicated and risky strategies to perform targeted strikes.

28304283409234 a day ago

> In contrast, an uninvolved civilian medical doctor buying a booby-trapped pager secondhand shouldn't be at significant risk,

The end result is still that innocents are walking around with a bomb planted in their pocket.

  • dlubarov 14 hours ago

    Wars often result in innocent farmers having mines in their fields (at least temporarily). How is this worse?

    • yellowapple 10 hours ago

      Farmers having to worry about mines in their fields is also something that I would consider to be a bad thing.

      • dlubarov 4 hours ago

        Do you consider it worse than conventional alternatives, such as artillery strikes, even if the latter is likely to result in a worse civilian casualty ratio?

        Also, if booby traps aren't considered a legitimate tactic in a military conflict, why does noone complain when, say, Ukraine mines a field?

[removed] a day ago
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creer 15 hours ago

> made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah.

The latest round is handheld radios, not even cellphones or even pagers. You are trying to stretch justification far beyond the breaking point.