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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

reuters.com

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Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#661

Post by pdabbadabba »

abalone wrote: post #634
pdabbadabba wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should not be considered terrorism to the extent that the attack targeted legitimate military targets during a time of war — broadly speaking, combatants and other parts of the organization that affect its ability to wage war. Terrorism, at least least in my view, is an attack that either intentionally targets civilians or is truly indiscriminate, and is aimed at producing political cha age by causing fear…

According to the LA Times these devices are “not usually used by fighters, but by ambulance and civil defense crews and administrators affiliated with Hezbollah. The devices are unrestricted and can be sold to anyone, and as such are used by other organizations in areas of poor signal.” [1] There is no question if an enemy set off hundreds of bombs in American ambulances we would recognize it as a mass terrorist atta…

I agree that if it is confirmed that these are primarily used by civilian ambulance crews, that would make a big difference. Of course, this isn't what the LA Times actually reported, but I'm not sure what "civil defense crews and administrators affiliated with Hezbollah" actually means on the ground.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#662

Post by anigbrowl »

minkles wrote: post #331
drawkward wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try taking the matter into their own hands by bringing the illegal west bank settlers to trial. Tried that yet?

They are dealing with it... https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-police-cla...

idk about that. I picked an exemplary news story predating the Oct 7 attacks.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230130-israel-data-shows...

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#663

Post by philistine »

minkles wrote: post #417
lupusreal wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely does not. The violence will continue with both sides dishing it out and feeling completely justified in doing so because of what was previously done to them.

So what's your solution then? Incidentally it does work. It's just horrible. Nagasaki / Hiroshima are a fine example of forced capitulation. Now I'm not suggesting nuking anyone but the best way this ends, with the lowest future body count is someone wins decisively at this point.

You’re rewriting history to suit your point of view. The Japanese state was uninterested in capitulating after the nuclear bombs. It’s the declaration of war by the Soviets and rapid invasion of then-Manchuria which led the Japanese to accept unconditional surrender. They trusted the West to keep the emperor more than the Communists.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#664

Post by mrguyorama »

wut42 wrote: post #573
loeg wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not booby traps.

still: The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction

>device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate

Nope, artillery shells are not illegal and you can even miss where you are aiming! We once obliterated an entire French coastal village with naval gunfire on D-Day because information in war is imperfect.

Accidentally killing civilians is not illegal in war! If you have a "valid military target" who takes a cab from the airport, you can airstrike that cab and not violate the Geneva Conventions.

Consider that a nuke that you detonate in the center of a military base that also "just happens" to wipe out the entire city that base is in is not a war crime!

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#665

Post by ergocoder »

anthk wrote: post #642
OutOfHere wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you don't know of legitimate uses of a walkie doesn't mean they don't exist. A walkie can work independent of a cell phone network, which makes it uniquely useful for numerous applications. Not everyone can afford a cell phone bill.

For instance, emergencies at the countryside/wilderness. Or Firefighters.

And their pagers exploded?

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#666

Post by mig39 »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #534
mig39 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supermicro never happened. Zero evidence. The reporters and the paper (Bloomberg?) have never retracted it, which is a reflection of their crappy reporting. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/02/12/bloomberg-big-c...

Until a few hours ago there was "zero evidence" that thousands of pagers and walkie talkies had been tampered to explode via a remote command.

Was Bloomberg reporting that "thousands of pagers and walkie talkies had been tampered to explode via a remote command" for a decade? Without any evidence?

If Bloomberg had evidence of chips being tampered with, they could have produced that evidence.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#667

Post by anigbrowl »

PepperdineG wrote: post #650
rtsil wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about that. When Al Quaeda attacked the USS Cole, a purely military vessel without a single civilian casualty, the US administration and the entire US military called it an act of terrorrism.

Al Qaeda isn't a nation-state so by definition it falls into terrorism. It's like if Greenpeace sunk a military vessel because the sonar was killing sea life that would be terrorism. It would have some serious side effects if it was OK for private non-governmental actors being able to target militaries and be seen as legitimate in their actions.

But by definition the founders of the USA were terrorists. And they knew it too, viz. Benjamin Franklin's famous line 'Gentlemen, we must all hang together or we shall most assuredly hang separately.'

Preemptively invalidating all non-state actors is just a way for people with power to avoid challenges to it. Every single oppressive regime describes rebels as terrorists and employs circular arguments to assert its own legitimacy. Using this to dismiss military attacks on military targets is, frankly, bullshit.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#668

Post by mrguyorama »

Zironic wrote: post #174
gruez wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim isn't that they're "civilian devices", it's that they're "devices all over civilian society". That's relevant because bobby trapping them is liable to cause casualties.

It's like cluster bombs and landmines. You have no idea where all these things are. You have no idea how many of them exploded and which didn't and it's extremely hard to clean up the duds.

And neither are against the laws of war. The US has decided to reduce their usage, but Russia uses air deployed landmines with high dud rates and it is not a war crime.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#669

Post by bordercases »

lelanthran wrote: post #651
shprd wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the combatants holding those devices were at war, no? The attack wasn't as targeted as you seem to think. It also hit health workers and bystanders. Approx half the casualties are civilians (including children). According to Humans rights watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers... > Thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17, 2024, r…

> Approx half the casualties are civilians Citation needed for that. None of the news reports, even the heavily biased ones, have reported mass civilian casualties.

How many children do you expect to be combatants?

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#670

Post by zelphirkalt »

almogo wrote: post #496
ang_cire wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume. They've cracked down hard on anti-war protesters inside Israel. It's absolutely not a safe, nor even likely true, assumption that Mossad does not also surveil Israelis.

No they didn't? There's protests every day, "they" haven't "cracked down" on anything. Occasional arrests here and there on both sides of the protests. It's a democratic country, people have rights to express themselves.

Maybe still democratic, although surely dropped quite a few ranks in democracy ranking, moving ever closer to authoritarian dictator led state.
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