Comment by lelanthran a day ago
> So that's 50% of those killed, right?
Wrong. You claimed:
>>> Approx half the casualties are civilians
Casualties doesn't mean "those who died", it means "Injured or killed".
If you have to use a definition for a word that differs from the dictionary for your argument to work, it's your argument that is broken, not the dictionary.
Your entire argument in this thread is based on not knowing what "casualty" means.
> First let's acknowledge that at least 50% of those killed are civilians and many were also injured. That's a fact, you aren't debating that, right?
No, I'm specifically calling out your "50% of casualties were civilians" as pure and unadulterated nonsense.
> What is the criteria for the evidence to satisfy your doubts?
There is no way to spin this negatively: 3000 enemy combatants were targeted and 12 civilians were killed.
This must be the lowest percentage of civilian collateral in the history of warfare, and you're blithely trotting out '50% casualties' as a talking point.
I wanna see what percentage of collateral Hezbollah managed, because this is a war, you understand? Enemy action in war always has collateral, and I want to see what percentage you considered acceptable from Hezbollah.
> This must be the lowest percentage of civilian collateral in the history of warfare
It's not even close. And the only way it even seems like a reasonable ratio is equivocating "targeted" with "killed".
But attacks have had as low as 0% civilian collateral casualties, so even if it was 3000 combatants and 12 civilians killed, it wouldn't be the lowest percentage of civilian collateral in the history of warfare.
> I want to see what percentage you considered acceptable from Hezbollah.
War crimes on one side don't excuse war crimes on the other, and criticizing Israel for an indiscriminate attack does not imply accepting all, or even any, of Hezbollah's attacks as "acceptable". There is a good argument that at least one side must be wrong in war, there is no good argument that at least one side must be right.
> First let's acknowledge that at least 50% of those killed are civilians and many were also injured.
To be clear, this argument is more flawed. You don't know the total dead. Do you really think a militant terrorist organization in a non democratic country would immediately and/or accurately report how devastated their combat capacity is?
What are you talking about? Lebanon is a parliamentary democratic republic. Their last parliamentary elections were held in 2022, and nobody disputes the results of those election (which admittedly had a pretty low turnout). Hezbollah is a part of an (albeit weak) coalition government and has 15 seats at the parliament (with 20% of the votes). The reports are coming from the Lebanese Health ministry which is run by Firas Abiad from the Freedom Movement, a Liberal Sunni affiliated party in the ruling coalition with no army and no fighters. Hezbollah controls only 2 ministries in this government (Labor and Public works), neither of which reported on the casualty numbers.
> Your entire argument in this thread is based on not knowing what "casualty" means.
First let's acknowledge that at least 50% of those killed are civilians and many were also injured. That's a fact, you aren't debating that, right? When you mention `my entire argument` you just mean this part "Approx half the casualties are civilians" in my original comment, correct?
What is the criteria for the evidence to satisfy your doubts? If you're demanding the government of Lebanon (or any other party) to classify Lebanese citizens who were admitted to hospitals based on their political agenda, then making such judgment is not possible even if they wanted to. To be frank, in the eyes of the government, they are all civilians, since many other political parties have arms too, if that's what you want. But of course, you don't agree with that classification and at the same time you've no counter-argument.