I get going after your ‘enemy,’ but this is even worse than firing randomly into a crowd of Palestinians. They pushed a button not knowing who would die. This is low, even for them.
I can’t even think of a devil’s advocate argument for this.
I believe the devil’s advocate argument would be that, based on Hezbollah’s internal communications, the Mossad intercepted a shipment of pagers which were being purchased to replace their (potentially compromised) mobile phones, knowing that these were - in theory - being distributed exclusively to Hezbollah operatives. That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.
Everyone who launches a rocket is accepting the possibility of “collateral damage”, but this is surely the most surgical of surgical strikes in history. And yet, yes, they must have accepted the risk of bystander casualties, which just serves to highlight how awful that logic is. It’s definitely not worse than randomly firing into a crowd, though.
I dunno man. I just feel like if you’re at the point where you can clandestinely intercept huge amounts of your enemy’s personal communication devices, ‘turn them into bombs’ feels like a bit of a low-yield outcome.
It’s literally a war crime to attack people who are not actively participating in combat. That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.
That means the term “war crimes” is meaningless because it would just mean war. The point of specifying some actions as war crimes is to denote things that even in war you shouldn’t do not just say that all wars are crimes
I get going after your ‘enemy,’ but this is even worse than firing randomly into a crowd of Palestinians. They pushed a button not knowing who would die. This is low, even for them.
I can’t even think of a devil’s advocate argument for this.
Not that I think the Israel is the good guy in this conflict, but your argument is pretty weak.
Pager are designed to be trackable. If you have such deep access to these devices, you know exactly who got called by whom and when.
Yes, there will be collateral damage, but that’s almost a given in any armed conflict.
So which armed conflict in the middle of Beirut are you talking about now?
I believe the devil’s advocate argument would be that, based on Hezbollah’s internal communications, the Mossad intercepted a shipment of pagers which were being purchased to replace their (potentially compromised) mobile phones, knowing that these were - in theory - being distributed exclusively to Hezbollah operatives. That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.
Everyone who launches a rocket is accepting the possibility of “collateral damage”, but this is surely the most surgical of surgical strikes in history. And yet, yes, they must have accepted the risk of bystander casualties, which just serves to highlight how awful that logic is. It’s definitely not worse than randomly firing into a crowd, though.
Pretty sure that honor still goes to the R9X Slap Chop. The pager explosions, on the other hand, injured thousands.
I really don’t get it. Other than the “WAOW” factor, this certainly can’t have been a good use of resources for Israel.
They already believed their communications were being intercepted so switched to another method.
That method then literally blew up in their pockets.
The amount of fear and distrust of the supply chain can’t be overstated.
I dunno man. I just feel like if you’re at the point where you can clandestinely intercept huge amounts of your enemy’s personal communication devices, ‘turn them into bombs’ feels like a bit of a low-yield outcome.
Consider it backwards: Israel sees this attack happening so valuable, that they were willing to forego using the pagers for spying.
It’s literally a war crime to attack people who are not actively participating in combat. That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.
That would make every crime a war crime going back thousands of years where they would lay siege on villages until the citizens starved
Yes?
That means the term “war crimes” is meaningless because it would just mean war. The point of specifying some actions as war crimes is to denote things that even in war you shouldn’t do not just say that all wars are crimes
Now you are getting it! War is bad!