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How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

reuters.com

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Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#91

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #87
arp242 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bit that this misses is that the root of all the problems we've seen over the last few decades is that Israel keeps doing their settlement thing. In spite of decades of pretty much the entire rest of the world – including the US – saying they should not be doing that. I don't approve of Hezbollah or Hamas; but if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable real…

> if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable reality is ... they're not wrong in their core objections Sure. Wars' aims usually aren't irrational. Both sides seem to be somewhat flippant about collateral damage. But Hamas and, to a lesser degree, to my knowledge, Hezbollah stand out for explicitly and proudly targeting Israeli civilians. > why I think you can't really…

[deleted]

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#92

Post by JoeyBananas »

The term "terrorism" is often misused. According the the actual definition, terrorism is about inciting fear and the unintended consequences that this entails, and it does not necessarily have to involve civilian casualties.

For example, imagine firing a gun in a shopping mall without killing anybody. The entire mall still has to be evacuated, people start screaming, the firefighters, paramedics, and SWAT team show up, the stores have to hire a security guard, and shoppers are afraid to return. Everyone blames the mayor for not preventing the incident from occurring in the first place, and the mayor is pressured to enact new gun laws and set up a new checkpoint. These things happen even if there was no actual danger because it was a blank cartridge and not live ammunition.

The same effect occurs when you drop bombs on a city. All of the sudden it is no longer desirable to live in that city, even if it was a very precise bombing.

If you infiltrate supply chains and plant bombs, nobody trusts the global markets, people have to spend more money on inspections, manufacturers have to pay more for insurance, there are endless consequences

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#94

Post by krick »

bhouston wrote: post #66

Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA, said that the indiscriminate nature of these attacks makes him consider these attacks to be a form of terrorism: https://thehill.com/policy/international/4893900-leon-panett... Volker Türk, the UN commission for human rights "explained that international law prohibits the use of booby-trapped items used in daily life, and 'it is a war crime to commit violence intended to spre…

Uh, does anybody not "consider this to be a form of terrorism"?

Of course it is terrorism, very much by definition. Obviously, it would be very unpalatable for any involved politician to call it as such, because of the connotations the word has (or rather "has assigned"), so they will exercise doublespeak, doing which perfectly is their core expertise. But it would be funny, if anybody at all buys into that.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#95

Post by bostik »

tharne wrote: post #69
bhouston wrote: post #66

Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA, said that the indiscriminate nature of these attacks makes him consider these attacks to be a form of terrorism: https://thehill.com/policy/international/4893900-leon-panett... Volker Türk, the UN commission for human rights "explained that international law prohibits the use of booby-trapped items used in daily life, and 'it is a war crime to commit violence intended to spre…

> Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA, said that the indiscriminate nature of these attacks makes him consider these attacks to be a form of terrorism: This was the exact opposite of "indiscriminate". The Israelis blew up pagers belonging to members of a known terrorist organization. People love to try an claim that they're anti-Israel and not antisemitic, but no other country in the world would be held to this…

If a similar and equally large-scale attack was done by a nation at war with US, targeting US military command, would that be a low-casualty operation or an act of terrorism?

And would it matter if the technical interpretation differed wildly from the general perception?

For what it's worth, I consider both parties in their forever war to be irredeemable bastards. As I learned early on, the network of tunnels in Gaza has no civilian shelter space, a clear indication that their general population's safety has not been a concern. On the upside, if there is any to be found, at least it means there won't be human shields to speak of down there.

That said, I don't know if that would make a difference. Both sides have demonstrated that they are perfectly happy to slaughter civilians.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#96

Post by JumpCrisscross »

xnyan wrote: post #70
tharne wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA, said that the indiscriminate nature of these attacks makes him consider these attacks to be a form of terrorism: This was the exact opposite of "indiscriminate". The Israelis blew up pagers belonging to members of a known terrorist organization. People love to try an claim that they're anti-Israel and not antisemitic, but no other country in the world would be held to this…

>The Israelis blew up pagers belonging to members of a known terrorist organization. And the people who happened to be next to them when they went off?

> the people who happened to be next to them when they went off?

Collateral damage. Same as in any war.

This discussion belies a naivete about how wars are fought. War--theconventional, legal, internationally-sanctioned kind--is horrible. The moment any side commits to war, it's committed to committing atrocities. You can't fight war without being shockingly cruel and inhumane.

We have certain limits that have been internationally agreed. But let's be honest, nobody in the Middle East is following them. (The difficulty being compounded when one side is filled with quasi-insurgent/quasi-state participants.) And let's be more honest: nobody has treated them as totally binding ever.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#97

Post by dttze »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #87
arp242 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bit that this misses is that the root of all the problems we've seen over the last few decades is that Israel keeps doing their settlement thing. In spite of decades of pretty much the entire rest of the world – including the US – saying they should not be doing that. I don't approve of Hezbollah or Hamas; but if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable real…

> if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable reality is ... they're not wrong in their core objections Sure. Wars' aims usually aren't irrational. Both sides seem to be somewhat flippant about collateral damage. But Hamas and, to a lesser degree, to my knowledge, Hezbollah stand out for explicitly and proudly targeting Israeli civilians. > why I think you can't really…

[flagged]

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#98

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bhouston wrote: post #88
arp242 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bit that this misses is that the root of all the problems we've seen over the last few decades is that Israel keeps doing their settlement thing. In spite of decades of pretty much the entire rest of the world – including the US – saying they should not be doing that. I don't approve of Hezbollah or Hamas; but if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable real…

In the end we need a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians have self-determination and security. The faults of those involved are many, but the solution is known - it is a two-state solution, an end to armed attacks on Israeli civilians/homes and an end to the settlements. Thomas Friedman has great takes on this regularly in his NYTimes column: https://www.nytimes.com/column/thomas-l-friedman

> In the end we need a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians have self-determination and security

The problem is the history of extracting a region from this miasma has involved (a) invasion and unconditional surrender to an outside power or (b) subjugation and thus the erasure of the divide. We decided after WWII the latter is unacceptable. That leaves the former.

The proper parties to do it would be the Middle Eastern military powers. But they, being monarchies and dictatorships, lack the legitimacy and stability to engage in such projects.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#99

Post by tptacek »

bhouston wrote: post #88
arp242 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bit that this misses is that the root of all the problems we've seen over the last few decades is that Israel keeps doing their settlement thing. In spite of decades of pretty much the entire rest of the world – including the US – saying they should not be doing that. I don't approve of Hezbollah or Hamas; but if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable real…

In the end we need a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians have self-determination and security. The faults of those involved are many, but the solution is known - it is a two-state solution, an end to armed attacks on Israeli civilians/homes and an end to the settlements. Thomas Friedman has great takes on this regularly in his NYTimes column: https://www.nytimes.com/column/thomas-l-friedman

I agree wholeheartedly.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#100

Post by dttze »

tptacek wrote: post #68
bhouston wrote: post #66

Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA, said that the indiscriminate nature of these attacks makes him consider these attacks to be a form of terrorism: https://thehill.com/policy/international/4893900-leon-panett... Volker Türk, the UN commission for human rights "explained that international law prohibits the use of booby-trapped items used in daily life, and 'it is a war crime to commit violence intended to spre…

These takes are problematic because it's clear to most observers that the attacks were, by the standards set by ground combat in Fallujah, NATO air operations in Kunar Province, or operations against ISIL in Inherent Resolve, the pager/radio attacks were drastically more discriminating, and caused a tiny fraction of the noncombatant casualties. This, of course, is also a distorted standard capturing only NATO/aligned…

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