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Please elaborate on the measures taken to protect and warn civilians, or which specific military objectives the children hurt by those exploding pagers were in

Please elaborate on the measures taken to protect and warn civilians, or which specific military objectives the children hurt by those exploding pagers were in the close vicinity of.

tptacek 2y ago
Weeks out, with more facts settled, it does appear that this was one of the most (if not the most) precisely targeted attacks in the history of modern warfare, measured either by ratio of combatants to noncombatants injured, or by the measures used to target it (which included creating a fake pager distributor that sold legitimate pagers to legitimate sources and selectively delivered compromised pagers specifically to Hezbollah, which used them on a private military network it fought a civil war in Lebanon to maintain). What isn't captured in these threads but should be obvious to anyone looking 150 miles south is that conventional warfare, as conducted by every military power in the world, kills children and noncombatants in vastly higher numbers. Use this attack to disqualify Israel's reckless and militarily pointless continued campaign in Gaza. Clearly, they had the capability not to conduct warfare the way they are there. Or, if you like, to condemn all warfare worldwide. But the attempt to single out the pager/radio attack as distinctively amoral is unpersuasive.
- jjfoooo4 2y ago
  That they are capable of this level of precision but choose not to use it in Gaza seems to imply that destroying and depopulating Gaza is the military goal there.
- edanm 2y ago
  FYI I disagree that this necessarily means that in Gaza. Israel has spent 18 years fairly convinced that Hamas isn't a major threat and that Hezbollah is, so most resources were spent on preparing for war with Hezbollah. This is maybe even mostly correct. That means Israel was far more prepared to attack Hezbollah, and it shows. If the US were ever attacked by Russia, it has battle plans in place. If it were attacked by Argentina, I don't think it has nearly as many plans/assets/intelligence/etc. So a counterattack on Argentina would have to look very different. (Though of course this mostly explains the initial response, and as you say, is far less convincing one year in!)
  - tptacek 2y ago
    Israel spent 18 years willfully not addressing Hamas the way it did Hezbollah, as a mechanism to prevent a 2-state solution. Israel is responsible for the fact that it did not have the level of seriousness and preparation for Hamas that it did for Hezbollah, knowing full well that it would ultimately end up fighting Hezbollah in the sparsely populated hills of southern Lebanon, and Hamas in dense urban areas. It is culpable for the civilian toll in Gaza that resulted. What Israel's leadership did here goes beyond not caring about civilian lives in Gaza. They cynically abetted Hamas's strategy to sacrifice those lives in a bid to start a world war that would bring on the end times, knowing that Hamas was absolutely batshit crazy and would thus keep Palestinians permanently destabilized. Please do not mistake me for someone who has any sympathy for the plight Israeli leadership finds itself in today. They belong in the Hague.
    - edanm 2y ago
      > Please do not mistake me for someone who has any sympathy for the plight Israeli leadership finds itself in today. They belong in the Hague. That's fair enough, many Israelis feel likewise. You shouldn't mistake me for liking the Israeli leadership either. That said - Hamas played a game of pretending to be appeased, and it worked. I agree that Israel has been absolutely immoral over the last 18 years, though I think the bigger problem was closing off avenues for peace and not (as Israel should've done as the stronger party) aggressively pushing for peace. That said - I do wonder what you think Israel should've done differently. Because to address Hamas earlier would've meant invading Gaza years ago. Certainly Israelis can and are upset that its leaders let Hamas build up so much strength, but do you think anyone in the world would've had any sympathy for Israel had it done a ground invasion to root out Hamas fifteen years ago? Even after October 7th there was barely sympathy to root out Hamas.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        This is like, imagine David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult took over Waco, and then the entirely of Texas CD17, and the Republican governor of Texas deliberately made space for the cult for electoral reasons. Later, Koresh starts a march towards Austin, making it as far as Temple, which he sacks before being turned back; the ensuing effort to apprehend him in Waco kills 5% of the its entire civilian population. Who do I blame for this situation? There's a lot to go around. Certainly, I do not come out thinking Koresh's Branch Davidians were the victims. I am also not so much interested in the percentage of blame allocated to each culpable party; they're all awful.
sir0010010 2y ago
The pagers were sold to Hezbollah. The military objectives achieved were: a) to prevent the combatants holding the pagers from being able to attack Israel in the future b) to disrupt the communications of Hezbollah, therefore, making it more difficult for them to coordinate attacks Israel. Also, the explosives used were weak such that most people near them were maimed rather than killed. Meaning, it is reasonable to assume that alternative methods of eliminating the Hezbollah operatives, such as airstrikes or a ground invasion, would end up with a significantly higher civilian casualty per targeted combatant ratio than what we saw with the pager attack.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  The only acceptable "civilian casualty per targeted combatant ratio" is zero. The recent terrorist attack committed by Israel in Lebanon and Syria breaks every respectable moral compass. Innocent people, including children, were harmed and continue to be harmed by Israel's ongoing war campaign. And I can't believe I have to say this, but "maiming" children is not any less morally bankrupt than killing them.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - CapricornNoble 2y ago
      > Israel is attempting to stop further attacks on the only place that Jews are allowed to protect themselves. We have the 2nd Amendment in the United States. Jews are quite able to protect themselves there. Israel isn't the only place. I liked Ari Shaffir's light-hearted retorts to Howie Mandell on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQNieyWrZ0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQNieyWrZ0c (Jimmy Dore commentary on their segment) > I consider them righteous. This is arguably why Israel exists at all: "righteous" Christian fundamentalists including Harry Truman himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elQGTyqx2x8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elQGTyqx2x8
  - tharne 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> elaborate on the measures taken to protect and warn civilians, or which specific military objectives the children hurt by those exploding pagers were in the close vicinity of This paragraph doesn't require proactive measures be taken to protect civilians. It just suspends its own restriction on booby-trapped items if there is a military objective.

Please elaborate on the measures taken to protect and warn civilians, or which specific military objectives the children hurt by those exploding pagers were in the close vicinity of.

tptacek 2y ago

Weeks out, with more facts settled, it does appear that this was one of the most (if not the most) precisely targeted attacks in the history of modern warfare, measured either by ratio of combatants to noncombatants injured, or by the measures used to target it (which included creating a fake pager distributor that sold legitimate pagers to legitimate sources and selectively delivered compromised pagers specifically to Hezbollah, which used them on a private military network it fought a civil war in Lebanon to maintain). What isn't captured in these threads but should be obvious to anyone looking 150 miles south is that conventional warfare, as conducted by every military power in the world, kills children and noncombatants in vastly higher numbers. Use this attack to disqualify Israel's reckless and militarily pointless continued campaign in Gaza. Clearly, they had the capability not to conduct warfare the way they are there. Or, if you like, to condemn all warfare worldwide. But the attempt to single out the pager/radio attack as distinctively amoral is unpersuasive.

jjfoooo4 2y ago
That they are capable of this level of precision but choose not to use it in Gaza seems to imply that destroying and depopulating Gaza is the military goal there.
edanm 2y ago
FYI I disagree that this necessarily means that in Gaza. Israel has spent 18 years fairly convinced that Hamas isn't a major threat and that Hezbollah is, so most resources were spent on preparing for war with Hezbollah. This is maybe even mostly correct. That means Israel was far more prepared to attack Hezbollah, and it shows. If the US were ever attacked by Russia, it has battle plans in place. If it were attacked by Argentina, I don't think it has nearly as many plans/assets/intelligence/etc. So a counterattack on Argentina would have to look very different. (Though of course this mostly explains the initial response, and as you say, is far less convincing one year in!)
- tptacek 2y ago
  Israel spent 18 years willfully not addressing Hamas the way it did Hezbollah, as a mechanism to prevent a 2-state solution. Israel is responsible for the fact that it did not have the level of seriousness and preparation for Hamas that it did for Hezbollah, knowing full well that it would ultimately end up fighting Hezbollah in the sparsely populated hills of southern Lebanon, and Hamas in dense urban areas. It is culpable for the civilian toll in Gaza that resulted. What Israel's leadership did here goes beyond not caring about civilian lives in Gaza. They cynically abetted Hamas's strategy to sacrifice those lives in a bid to start a world war that would bring on the end times, knowing that Hamas was absolutely batshit crazy and would thus keep Palestinians permanently destabilized. Please do not mistake me for someone who has any sympathy for the plight Israeli leadership finds itself in today. They belong in the Hague.
  - edanm 2y ago
    > Please do not mistake me for someone who has any sympathy for the plight Israeli leadership finds itself in today. They belong in the Hague. That's fair enough, many Israelis feel likewise. You shouldn't mistake me for liking the Israeli leadership either. That said - Hamas played a game of pretending to be appeased, and it worked. I agree that Israel has been absolutely immoral over the last 18 years, though I think the bigger problem was closing off avenues for peace and not (as Israel should've done as the stronger party) aggressively pushing for peace. That said - I do wonder what you think Israel should've done differently. Because to address Hamas earlier would've meant invading Gaza years ago. Certainly Israelis can and are upset that its leaders let Hamas build up so much strength, but do you think anyone in the world would've had any sympathy for Israel had it done a ground invasion to root out Hamas fifteen years ago? Even after October 7th there was barely sympathy to root out Hamas.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      This is like, imagine David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult took over Waco, and then the entirely of Texas CD17, and the Republican governor of Texas deliberately made space for the cult for electoral reasons. Later, Koresh starts a march towards Austin, making it as far as Temple, which he sacks before being turned back; the ensuing effort to apprehend him in Waco kills 5% of the its entire civilian population. Who do I blame for this situation? There's a lot to go around. Certainly, I do not come out thinking Koresh's Branch Davidians were the victims. I am also not so much interested in the percentage of blame allocated to each culpable party; they're all awful.

sir0010010 2y ago

The pagers were sold to Hezbollah. The military objectives achieved were: a) to prevent the combatants holding the pagers from being able to attack Israel in the future b) to disrupt the communications of Hezbollah, therefore, making it more difficult for them to coordinate attacks Israel. Also, the explosives used were weak such that most people near them were maimed rather than killed. Meaning, it is reasonable to assume that alternative methods of eliminating the Hezbollah operatives, such as airstrikes or a ground invasion, would end up with a significantly higher civilian casualty per targeted combatant ratio than what we saw with the pager attack.

soulofmischief 2y ago
The only acceptable "civilian casualty per targeted combatant ratio" is zero. The recent terrorist attack committed by Israel in Lebanon and Syria breaks every respectable moral compass. Innocent people, including children, were harmed and continue to be harmed by Israel's ongoing war campaign. And I can't believe I have to say this, but "maiming" children is not any less morally bankrupt than killing them.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - CapricornNoble 2y ago
    > Israel is attempting to stop further attacks on the only place that Jews are allowed to protect themselves. We have the 2nd Amendment in the United States. Jews are quite able to protect themselves there. Israel isn't the only place. I liked Ari Shaffir's light-hearted retorts to Howie Mandell on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQNieyWrZ0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQNieyWrZ0c (Jimmy Dore commentary on their segment) > I consider them righteous. This is arguably why Israel exists at all: "righteous" Christian fundamentalists including Harry Truman himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elQGTyqx2x8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elQGTyqx2x8
- tharne 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> elaborate on the measures taken to protect and warn civilians, or which specific military objectives the children hurt by those exploding pagers were in the close vicinity of This paragraph doesn't require proactive measures be taken to protect civilians. It just suspends its own restriction on booby-trapped items if there is a military objective.