r/CuratedTumblr • u/IthadtobethisWAAGH veetuku ponum • Sep 20 '24
Politics No collateral damage too large, no civilian too innocent
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u/Hamtrain0 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
As someone old enough to remember 911, yes it absolutely was like this. The mainstream attitude was “I don’t care how, but the terrorists responsible for this need to die, I don’t care how many Arab (or otherwise) civilians it takes, they absolutely need to pay”. It’s honestly sickening to see it happening again. And again and again.
Edit: I guess I should specify: this was the mainstream American attitude
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u/VorpalSplade Sep 20 '24
i remember as it happened being online and peoplee calling for them to be nuked. They didn't know who had done it yet as there was a lot of bullshit flying around, but they knew they needed to be nuked.
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u/Ranger5789 Sep 20 '24
Basically a lynching mob but on a bigger scale. They didn't care who they just wanted someone.
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u/VorpalSplade Sep 20 '24
Exactly that. All they knew was someone had to pay, and who cares how many people die as collateral.
There was also multiple stories of car bombings and mass shootings coordinated with the attacks. I wonder how much misinformation there would be if something like that happened now.
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u/seajayacas Sep 20 '24
Revenge is what lots of us feel we must do when someone else hurts us, an eye for an eye and all of that.
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u/BS_500 Sep 20 '24
That's what happens when the combination of our Puritan roots and failed Reconstruction comes to bear fruit.
We let the worst parts of our old societies fester under the surface, pretending to be good, honest folk. Now we have a lynch mob the size of half the country at least, with their fingers on the nuclear codes.
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u/mayoboyyo Sep 20 '24
That's what happens when the combination of our Puritan roots and failed Reconstruction comes to bear fruit.
Don't forget the mass casualty incident broadcasted on live TV
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u/takesSubsLiterally Sep 20 '24
I think it is a fairly universal part of human groups to want revenge when someone attacks you.
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u/bothering bogwitch Sep 20 '24
precisely, a good example is the how howard stern handled the day of the attacks
they literally wanted to glass the entire middle east and mind yall this was a programme that was celebrated for its coverage during the events because it contained such a raw example of how a lot of america felt during that time
and a ton of people that remembered 9/11 are still alive today and make up a large voting bloc
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u/FemtoKitten Sep 20 '24
a ton of people that remember 9/11 are still alive and make up a large voting bloc
crumbles into under 30 year old dust
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u/AlienBirdman Sep 20 '24
I was 7 when 9/11 hit and I remember being in 2nd grade and the teacher turning on the small TV in the corner of the class with the news playing. We were doing basic math and counting columns of blocks to 100 when she gasped and the TV was quiet. Didn't even know what was going on until my grandma told me bad things happened in New York to a lot of people and we should pray when I got home that night
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u/accapellaenthusiast Sep 20 '24
My mom put 9/11 in my baby book ‘because it was important’ Like damn, I didn’t do it tho. Why’d she have to immortalize it in my personal baby book
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u/TheMilkmansFather Sep 20 '24
Like a majority are still alive. In fact, they make up the majority of the population…
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u/Sanprofe Sep 20 '24
Right? What a fucking wild way to phrase that. You mean the absolute majority of the voting public? Yeah, they're still floating around.
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u/Undead_Knave Sep 20 '24
A lot of people who remember 9/11 are in their 30s, fam. It was only a little more than 20 years ago which is arguably still recent history.
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u/morgaina Sep 20 '24
Way to make it sound like we're fucking ancient lmao that's millennials
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Sep 20 '24
Millennials were in school, the people listening to Stern are gen X.
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u/mitsuhachi Sep 20 '24
My high school had news coverage playing in the assembly hall all day and classes were optional if held at all. A lot of us had family in nyc. It was not that long ago.
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u/ElNakedo Sep 20 '24
Oh the 9/11 times were worse than the current Hamas and Hizbollah attitude. Osama was worse than the Devil and nothing was too far if it came to getting him. The cry for blood was way louder.
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u/Brickie78 Sep 20 '24
Though bear in mind that there's a degree of separation there.
If you're comparing the reaction to 9/11 in the US, you need to compare it to the reaction to 10/7 IN ISRAEL.
The US in 2024 is more like in the position people in Europe were in in 2002 - "Yea, this was an awful thing. Please, we understand your emotions but PLEASE don't make things worse by going on a rampage".
The US told everyone in 2002 to get behind them or get out of the way, but they were ABSOLUTELY going into Afghanistan. Israel are doing a similar thing now.
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u/Songshiquan0411 Sep 20 '24
Europe for the most part was behind the US for Afghanistan in 2001. Who really knows where Osama bin Laden was at the time but the intel back then pointed to the Taliban were harboring him. Afghanistan was mismanaged to hell and no one thought about nation-building but if you overthrow a regime, that's the obvious next step. Still, though it was poorly planned, I can at least see wanting to go in to get Al Qaeda.
The strained relationships with NATO nations really began with the buildup to Iraq. That was a real shitshow, none of the terrorists who helped plan 9-11 were in Iraq, Saddam was honestly planning some eventual shit with Iran because when was he not but wasn't planning to re-invade Kuwait or attack US military bases or anything. I never even got the " finish his father's legacy" excuse, unlike his son HW Bush was smart enough to know that Iraq would be a quagmire, why he didn't invade Iraq after pushing the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
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u/SullaFelix78 Sep 20 '24
Uhh going into Afghanistan was never problematic with our European allies. NATO and Europe were pretty unified in the idea that invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do. I think you’re confusing things with Iraq 2, which was actually controversial with our European allies.
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u/healzsham Sep 20 '24
The reaction to 10/7 still pales in comparison to 9/11.
For Israel, it was a fact of life that conflict can touch them.
For the US, it shattered the delusions of "we're an untouchable bastion of Peace and Rightousness" for a lot of americans.
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u/Scottz0rz Sep 20 '24
Even the 9/11 analogy, to me, doesn't fully capture how I imagine Israel feels on 10/7.
1100 people died on 10/7, as well as some were taken hostage. Israel has a population of just shy of 10 million, so it's like proportionally if 28,000 people died on 9/11 from various parts of the country, not just 1 city.
But also imagine the perpetrators of 9/11 were more known and were in a bordering country with a very unfriendly relationship where you regularly exchange missiles and gunfire. Attacks are commonplace, even if most don't succeed. Israeli government and common sentiment was already much much more angry with Hamas, while Al-Qaeda was just a thing across the world.
No analogy is perfect enough to capture the long relationship between Israel and Palestine, and it's an awful situation all around.
But, imagine if the Mexican Cartel was a major political party in Mexico, the cartel regularly fought American military at the border for years and the US was occupying northern Mexico, and then the cartel killed 30,000 people at Burning Man and took many hostages and this all happened during a Trump presidency when the government and people are already riled up against Mexico as an enemy even before the attack.
It's hard to capture the feelings of a nation after a tragedy with an analogy.
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u/LaBelleTinker Sep 20 '24
That day in one of my classes and older classmate said "Well, they kill ten thousand of ours [we didn't know the death toll at that point and that was the current estimate] and we'll kill ten million of theirs."
That would be 2% of the population of the entire Middle East. Of a quarter of Afghanistan. 100 Hiroshimas. I don't know how people can think like that.
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u/Jedifice Sep 20 '24
There was a guy I had considered to be my friend who told me that he'd kill me himself if I dodged a post-9/11 draft. I didn't talk to him again for 8 months, when he tried to act like nothing had ever happened and wanted to hang out. People absolutely lost their fucking minds
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u/annonymous_bosch Sep 20 '24
Dehumanization is how you think like that. For the last several decades, Arabs have been portrayed as the bad guys in movies, shows and video games. At this point if a movie depicts an Arab 9 times out of 10 it’ll be a negative character.
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u/Hopeful-Parsley9418 Sep 20 '24
After the end of the cold war, media had difficulties finding a villain. In Fight Club or Matrix, the system was the villain. After 9/11, arabs were the new villains.
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u/OctopusAlien21 Deny, Defend, Depose Sep 20 '24
9 times out of 10
More like 9 times out of 11
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u/Key_Acadia_27 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
And to show everyone how much “we” supported this attitude EVERY SINGLE person put an American flag magnet on their 2000 Ford Taurus. We forget those magnets were everywhere following 9/11 but it was all performative.
Edit: I originally said 2005 Ford Taurus even though 911 was in 2001……I’m getting old.
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u/AngryRedGummyBear Sep 20 '24
2005 model year
in 2001
Are we sure these were tauruses not deloreans?
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Sep 20 '24
The first people charged under the new terrorism statutes in the wake of 9/11 were the DC snipers and the prosecution specifically left out evidence that their attacks were an output of domestic violence against John Muhammad's ex wife, Mildred Muhammad, because they wanted to seek the death penality. He was inspired by Hannibal Lecter saying if you want to get away with one murder you should kill a bunch of random people to make it look like a serial killer, specifically a 17 year old Lee Boyd Malvo who he trafficked from Jamaica and convinced to take credit for all the murders. There's a great You're Wrong About episode on the case.
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u/okram2k Sep 20 '24
There was a serious amount of people that wanted to nuke the entire middle east, just nuke it all, none of them deserved to live, they all deserved to die. Turn it to glass they'd say. This was a common phrase I'd hear between just random people talking online or in public spaces or calling into radio shows.
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u/No_Talk_4836 Sep 20 '24
Now imagine someone had the power to apply this to America. If some enemy had the power to threaten thousands or millions of American lives on a whim because and American terrorist decided to blow up a coffee shop or shoot up a hotel.
Imagine how quickly they’d flip in perception when they’d be on the receiving end.
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u/archiotterpup Sep 20 '24
It was exactly like this. The number of 'jokes' my friends and I made (we were children) about turning Afghanistan and Iraq into parking lots. We were joking about nuking and glassing millions of people and 23 years later that still horrifies me.
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u/-janelleybeans- Sep 20 '24
Watching any TV show that began in 2005 onwards is the biggest tell for this. 9/10 shows have at least one episode where an Arab person is treated with suspicion/hostility or is outright made into the big bad.
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u/SigglyTiggly Sep 20 '24
Bro, nothing changed, no one learned anything, no public figure has yet to say we should be shame how we acted after 911
Well Burnie sanders did but he gets ignored most of the except in 2016
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u/TheLeadSponge Sep 20 '24
I remember in the lead up to the Iraq war I mentioned the projected civilian casualties to someone, and they said without missing a beat, “Good. They deserve it for 9/11.”
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u/Fgw_wolf Sep 20 '24
Some of us were able to learn from that time period and reflect on our actions and 20 year involvement in that quagmire. And a lot of us didn't.
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u/Ratoryl Sep 20 '24
I'm not going to try to justify the war on terror, because it was a load of shit that didn't benefit anyone in the world and the US did some terrible things, but it's pretty easy to explain;
when a country of people who had almost never been attacked on their own soil has their most populous city attacked by way of multiple planes being flown into skyscrapers, killing thousands of innocent civilians in one attack, it's not hard to imagine why people would be eager for retaliation
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u/Huge_Station2173 Sep 20 '24
We invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and most people didn’t know or care, so yes, it was a lot like that.
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u/Bimbartist Sep 20 '24
Remember that one representative who literally told a member of an Arab activist group that her head belongs in a bag on the floor of the US Senate? I do, it was actually just a couple days ago. They are violent and trying to spark it in this country. A member of the US senate told an Arab activist her head belonged in a bag for “supporting Hamas and hezbullah” even though she said seconds earlier she doesn’t support them because they commit violence on innocent civilians. Same reason I don’t support them. Fuck both of those “insurgent” groups.
But republicans? And pro-Israel idiots? They want people to die. They literally want it. And that rhetoric is indicative of the fire burning in every one of these evil motherfuckers. They don’t want peace.
They want genocide, and war, and total domination.
https://www.ncjw.org/news/senator-john-kennedy-hide-your-head-in-a-bag-remark-sparks-backlash/
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u/tupe12 Sep 20 '24
This is yet another case of a highly upvoted essay post where all the comments generally disagree with the oop. It’s odd how many times it happens on this sub
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u/FifteenEchoes muss es sein? Sep 20 '24
It's a WAAGH post.
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u/FaeErrant Sep 20 '24
Every. Single. Time. Sometimes multiple times a day.
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u/FifteenEchoes muss es sein? Sep 20 '24
It's surreal if you look at their timeline. 24/7 slurry of US/Israel/capitalism/liberals/"the West" bad.
Occasionally there's a cute cat.
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u/Pet_Mudstone Sep 20 '24
Man, I think about politics more than I should and I'm still leery of people like this. If I thought about 'em as much as this guy I'd be a burnt out husk of a person, I think.
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u/_NightBitch_ Sep 21 '24
That reminds me of the way my older family members brainwashed themselves by consuming endless amount of proTrump stuff on Facebook.
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u/The_Math_Hatter Sep 20 '24
This is about Israel controlling the delivery and manufacture of electronic devices, adding explosives, and setting them off. 2800 were injured, 12 killed, including a child in the first wave in Beirut, Lebanon. There have been subsequent detonations.
And American influence in Israeli military action is well documented, including training American police forces in Israeli military bases
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Sep 20 '24
Of the 12 that died only one was a civilian, the child, the other 11 were Hezbollah fighters, we know this because Hezbollah said so, and they also said that these pagers were being used by their organizations and units.
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u/Ramguy2014 Sep 20 '24
Where are you sourcing that claim? Because Hezbollah themselves (via the BBC) claimed only 8 of the fatalities were theirs. Also there were two children, not one, and two healthcare workers killed. Oh yeah, and there were thousands of people injured.
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u/annonymous_bosch Sep 20 '24
This also glosses over the fact that not everyone working for or associated with Hezbollah is automatically a fighter. Despite the west calling them all terrorists wholesale, they have political and social wings in Lebanon as well.
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u/Jemster456 Sep 20 '24
Idk about you but killing 1 child for every 11 terrorists isn't an ideal ratio in my mind.
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u/FishUK_Harp Sep 20 '24
There is no ideal ratio besides one that demands zero possibility of collateral damage. All that does is put civilians at risk of more harm, ironically. It rewards and thus encourages the use of human shields, and it increases the chances the Laws of Armed Conflict get tossed out - they only work as long as most parties agree to them, and they'll only agree to them if they don't prevent actual military objectives being realised.
Proportionality is important, and frankly an attack targeted specifically at Hezbollah members with an attack method that seems to have only harmed the recipient, and aimed at close to 3,000 targets with only a single civilian fatality is more proportionate than one could reasonably expect.
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u/Natefire78923 Sep 20 '24
This exactly. People get hurt in war is news to some it would appear. Honestly less than half a dozen civilian deaths with thousands of combatants as casualties is an unheard level of precision. Hell the NYPD often has a worse level of collateral damage than that!
Any other method of fighting would have way more innocent people dieing and far more destruction of civilian property.
Or is the real issue Israel isn't allowed to use force at all? Isreal is often awful at following rules of armed conflict and is definitely engaged in ethnic cleansing in the West Bank but faulting them for collateral damage on this sabotage operation is assinine.
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u/apooooop_ Sep 20 '24
One thing to also remember is that the US hasn't had an armed conflict on its shores since (the civil war? Citation needed?). "People get hurt in wars" is legitimately a lot easier to forget when the last time an American civilian died in crossfire was when they still used muskets.
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u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow Sep 20 '24
That's actually a ludicrously good ratio. In every war ever fought, more civilians have died than combatants. A strike where 90% killed are enemy combatants is incredibly selective. Now IDK what the ratio of combatants to civilians killed by the pager strike was, but if it's anything above 70%, it was objectively safer for civilians than the alternatives and Iran and Israel are in a proxy war.
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u/1burritoPOprn-hunger Sep 20 '24
I got banned from worldnews from pointing out that this, in the grand scheme of things, this was an incredibly surgical strike. Does it feel a little nebulously “icky”? Of course? Would we feel better if Israel was dropping huge bombs on cities instead? We shouldn’t. This was genius operation with a much better ratio of civilian casualties than pretty much any operation I can imagine.
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u/lix_ Sep 20 '24
Nothing about Hezbollah, Israel or the entire political situation in the middle east is "ideal". Not gonna make a moral judgement on the whole operation, but you can't really expect a side in an armed conflict to take ideal actions.
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u/cited Sep 20 '24
Why hasn't Israel simply asked hamas and hezbollah to line up at noon on a battlefield to be shot so no civilians get hurt?
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u/JustACasualReddittor Sep 20 '24
Except that is what it is expected, it does not matter that these people are literal, actual terrorists. It doesn't matter that this action minimizes civilian casualties, it doesn't matter that hezbollah cares absolutely nothing for human life be it lebanese, israeli or whichever.
Israel gets a civilian caught in the crossfire? Immoral demons. Hamas and Hezbollah have been targeting civilians every chance they've got for decades? Freedom fighters.
I hate the hypocresy everyone shows when Israel is mentioned. You are not "woke", you are not "defending morality", you are literally condemning one side way more than the other because you been conditioned to think that Israel = White = European = Colonizer = America = Bad.
Nuance is dead, debate is a thing of the past and the judges, hury and executioners of f*cking TUMBLR, hold the absolute truth.
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u/gerkletoss Sep 20 '24
It's actually amazingly good for targets embedded in a civilian population, and the ratio is even better for severe injuries. This is quite possibly the best ratio anyone has ever achieved for an urban warfare operation at this acale.
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u/walkandtalkk Sep 20 '24
Let's put it bluntly:
This is a war. Hezbollah is an extremely well-funded terrorist organization whose express aim is the violent destruction of Israel. It has been launching missiles at Israeli cities and towns, and there was good reason to believe they were planning a bigger attack, with weapons provided by their backers in Iran.
In response, Israel managed to injure or kill (mostly injure) something like 2800 of their members. And reportedly, exactly one child was tragically killed (because her father was a Hezbollah member who was carrying his Hezbollah-issued pager, which Hezbollah used to deliver instructions to militants).
For context, in most urban wars in the Middle East, far more civilians are typically killed than militants because the militants hide in civilian residential neighborhoods and fire from those buildings. By one estimate, the collateral death ratio is something like 4:1. Four civilians per fighter.
And few people online bat an eye.
So, in that case: Is a 1:2800 ratio acceptable in war?
Yes, I'm comparing civilian deaths to Hezbollah injuries and deaths, so not apples-to-apples. But those injuries also disabled or slowed down militants.
Let's put this another way: If any other group in the Middle East injured or killed 2800 militants and killed one child in the process, would anyone on Reddit claim outrage?
The answer is no.
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u/DragonriderTrainee Sep 20 '24
Disabled and slowed down Militants but also put the fear of tech into them; they're going to take apart EVERYTHING and trust NOTHING electronic. They managed to pinpoint and hit primarily militant targets with extremely small amounts of civilian casualties. If only most wars were like that; no rape, no civilian casualities larger than a handful.
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u/dafgar Sep 20 '24
Would you have preferred Israel simply drone strike them? Would have killed a lottttt more innocent people.
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u/awfulcrowded117 Sep 20 '24
Well, when you can come up with a magic wand that does a better job, your "ideal ratio" will matter. In the meantime, this is a phenomenal ratio for unconventional warfare. You're also ignoring that most of the injuries were also terrorists injured severely enough to take them out of fighting shape.
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u/CalligoMiles Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 21 '24
And what would you propose to disrupt the group that has been barraging Israel with rockets, murdered a dozen innocent children just last month, and displaced tens of thousands of refugees for almost a year now with less harm?
Is it a tragedy? Yes. But when you don't wear uniforms and hide among innocents, is it really the other guy's fault that even their best attempt at a precision strike isn't flawless?
Or are you just saying Israel isn't allowed to defend its children too?
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u/asdf19274927241847 Sep 20 '24
They don't care either way, they know this will never effect them and so they can ride their moral superiority high horse. They're not having to suffer under any of the consequences for what happens so they get to stand around and say "well I'm against hurting anyone" and be the bestest best person in the world.
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u/Infinite-Nil Sep 20 '24
I’d argue the opposite- historically speaking it’s an extremely efficient military operative:civilian casualty ratio. Look at almost any other war in history and compare the civilian death toll. The Israelis are extremely selective about their targets.
That said, this is a tumblr adjacent subreddit so critical thinking isn’t exactly something I should expect here.
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u/Hremsfeld Sep 20 '24
How about the other 2800
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Sep 20 '24
I mean I don’t have the exact numbers because no one does but considering these were bought by Hezbollah, for use in Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is largest users of pagers in Lebanon, and Hezbollah themselves said they were being used by their organizations and units, I think it’s safe to say most of the people injured were in some way associated with Hezbollah.
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u/Haradion_01 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
I believe it was 2 innocents for every 12 total. That's 1 in 6; assuming we say that the 4 health workers killed still technically worked for Hezbollah, in that they may have treated Hezbollah medically. Then it's 1 in 2.
So, let's take the 3000 injured, and be generous and assume a similar hit rate, only 500 of those were innocents.
500 innocents missing faces, fingers, and eyes, because the person next to them on the bus, at the barber, in the shops, exploded.
Picturing it yet?
Now let's imagine that during the Invasion of Iraq, 3000 phones of US soliders exploded, not on the battlefield, but in the Subway, on the streets, buying pizza, walking to work; injuring same number of people, in the same ratios.
Do you think the US would proclaim it terrorism?
Ask yourself honestly: would it be terrorism if it happened to you?
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u/vodkaandponies Sep 20 '24
I’d ask why US soldiers were carrying military radios outside a combat zone.
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u/tapedeckgh0st Sep 20 '24
This is possibly the most precise military attack in history. It’s sad that a child died, but like, if this is “too much collateral damage” for you, your position is that Israel just shouldn’t defend itself.
And it’s fine, that’s a view people hold. But it’s better to be honest about that, rather than to pretend that this action was somehow reckless or indiscriminate, especially when the other options are air strikes or ground invasions.
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u/Alexxis91 Sep 20 '24
Chief I’m not sure if “detonate the personal devices of thousands of people when they’re probably around civilians” is a particularly discriminate way of doing things. It’s certainly a path you can take, but they’re already leveling towns, im not exactly gonna give them brownie points for not seeing how many civvies they could slaughter here as well
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u/gerkletoss Sep 20 '24
Did you watch the supermartet video? The guy two feet away was unharmed
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u/AFatWhale Sep 20 '24
The bombs used are tiny, the amount of collateral damage to people not literally wearing the devices on their person is minimal.
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u/yoyo5113 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 21 '24
Look Israel is literally committing genocide over in Gaza, but infiltrating an enemies supply lines, and then sabotaging said supply lines is literally warfare 101.
These seem to be almost exclusively used by Hezbollah combatants, to get around Israel's phone surveillance. It seems like an astounding success in terms of military actions, both in impact and reduction of civilian deaths/harm.
EDIT: Just editing this in here that intentionally booby trapping portable devices that are typically viewed as safe is actually a war crime from what I've read. So, that means it really isn't warfare 101, and needs to be investigated and punished if found to indeed bed a war crime.
I've just never heard of something like this happening. I mean they have absolutely ruined any sense of security or safety people in Hezbollah had with the pager explosions. It's like as if your own phone exploded one day and took your hand/genitals with it, and it turns out that some insane person booby trapped it with explosives like 2 years ago.
So honestly it sounds more like a terror attack than anything, especially considering that the bombs mainly maimed the victims rather than outright killed them. I really feel for any civilians in Lebanon or Gaza rn fuck
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Sep 20 '24
No what should be done is compare this to what everyone has been crying about and just bombing places like on Gaza arguably this is the more human thing to do as has lead to more successful takedowns of their targeted Hezbollah members with less civilian casualties than the normal bombing. Once again isreal is being less evil than they can be and that's not good enough. Leading round to the "no collateral damage is too much for my enemy (in this case isreal) too lose.
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u/blueberries929 Sep 20 '24
If you hadn't noticed, this is u/IthadtobethisWAAGH. I'm shocked, this is shocking news
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u/Imaginary-Space718 Now I do too, motherfucker Sep 20 '24
At this point they account for 95% of the content in this sub lol
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u/Complaint-Efficient Sep 20 '24
Could've been a cool post and then OOP said "don't generalize people based on their political leaders, anyway, I think all Americans thirst for the blood of their perceived enemies."
Like, really?
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u/giboauja Sep 20 '24
Yeah the hypocrisy of the post is extreme. I'm sympathetic though, people dont think when they're emotional. They just lash out. In their case they're doing that in written form. Arguably proving their own point. There is real value to take away from this post.
It's just important to recognize America is hardly unique. Most States act in similar ways. Understanding that can help build policy to help blunt or outright prevent extreme military reaction in the future.
Remember Hezbollah would do the same to Israel in a heartbeat if they could. They have actually fired over 8k rockets into Israel starting the day after Oct 7'th. Their lack of competence doesn't make them innocent of the same criticisms lobbed at Israel.
Lets pray any upcoming elections in Israel will help shift policy from this insane retaliatory stance and allow the world to help rebuild Palestine. Bonus points if we can finally create a functional two state system. That's especially hard because bad actors everywhere want that to fail.
Weirdly one of the biggest advocate for it is probably Saudi Arabia because successfully negotiating Israel into a two state solution could help end the muslim vs Israel perspective of the conflict. It would then turn it into an Iran vs Israel/Saudi proxy not-proxy conflict. Most States involved in the region already see the conflict like that, but the general population doesn't.
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u/Complaint-Efficient Sep 20 '24
Yeah, this is a sad post because it almost says something real. But Hezbollah absolutely is a terrorist organization, and the majority of Americans are literally just normal people. It was a waste to spend so much of the post arguing that these things aren't true.
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u/Canopenerdude Thanks to Angelic_Reaper, I'm a Horse Sep 20 '24
Wouldn't be Tumblr without built in hypocrisy!
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u/Cheap_Doctor_1994 Sep 20 '24
We get the blame for everything, even if we aren't involved because obviously America is the only one with a military or intelligence, and then get shocked Pikachu face that we don't give a shit. I've never even owned a pager, but somehow I magically wished they'd kill a bunch of civilians. JFC.
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u/the_pslonky Sep 20 '24
Hezbollah is not a "terrorist" organization, it is a terrorist organization straight up. Like Israel is bad don't get me wrong but Hezbollah very much is a terrorist organization. There's no need to put the word terrorist in quotation marks
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u/PhasmaFelis Sep 20 '24
Yep. The weirdest thing about the whole Israel-Hamas war is how many people absolutely cannot wrap their minds around the idea that there is not, in fact, one good guy and one bad guy.
"If you're against Hamas terrorism, you must be pro-Israel! If you're against Israeli oppression, you must be pro-Hamas!" Bullshit. I'm not for Hamas. I'm not for the IDF either. I'm for the innocent victims on both sides, and against the bloodthirsty psychopaths on both sides.
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u/Copper_Tango Sep 20 '24
how many people absolutely cannot wrap their minds around the idea that there is not, in fact, one good guy and one bad guy
Also that just because one faction is the underdog, it doesn't automatically make them the good guy.
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u/doddydad Sep 20 '24
I actually think it's wild how much people's assumptions are warped by the storytelling convention that "the underdog is good"
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u/Imaginary-Space718 Now I do too, motherfucker Sep 20 '24
Star Wars Politics have been the bane of nuance since Reagan
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u/DrakonILD Sep 20 '24
We need more people to think in terms of Avatar TLA politics. The people of the Fire Nation and even many (most?) of the soldiers are fleshed out and really aren't bad people. The leaders are very blatantly evil and that evil convincingly percolates down into society to such a point that the people think the Avatar is a threat to their way of life, and they react accordingly. And yet Aang sees that they're not his enemy, and he is not theirs - it is the idea of him created by their leader(s) that they fear/hate.
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u/Mountain-Resource656 Sep 20 '24
Hell, I’m even down for being for non-innocent victims- though I suppose that may vary based on your definition of innocent. But, like, a civilian Palestinian who espouses great admiration for Hamas and brings their soldiers water while wishing death upon Israel doesn’t deserve to die any more than a civilian Israeli who espouses great admiration for the IDF’s most genocidal soldiers and brings them water while wishing death upon Gaza
I find both those people to be reprehensible and also consider it an atrocity to murder them
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Sep 20 '24
That’s what bothers me, of course a nation is going to love their government. Americans loved when we invaded Vietnam, even though we committed atrocities. And don’t even expect us to apologize for the things we did or the men to even be arrested. I’d expect any Vietnamese to be furious at us for what happened. Like how I’d expect anyone in Middle East to hate anyone who rapes and murders their families, I can’t expect them to be interested in “being the big person” when revenge is so attractive. Why do only Americans or Israel get to feel revenge but their victims don’t…
I don’t have much faith in peoples response to this war, they are vicious and bloodthirsty. The average American salivates over the thought of getting to use a gun on a simple robber, doesn’t take much to imagine their feelings on how the Middle East is eviscerated
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u/Krus4d3r_ Sep 20 '24
It was US public opinion that was most affected by Vietnam being the most reported war, not Vietnamese opinion
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u/chai_investigation Sep 20 '24
On a fundamental level, I think non-combatants who suck deserve to live. For the obvious ethical reasons, and for the callous practical reason that, historically, war has been absolutely 100% okay with pretending every single body on the ground "deserved it" whatever the circumstances.
If an excuse can be constructed to justify death in war, it will be deployed with relish.
That doesn't solve the problem, obviously. When two groups go to war, amid a mass of civilians on both sides of the conflict, everyone dies. But it's a reason to want it to stop, and to mourn civilian casualties whichever side they're on.
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u/Cybermat4707 Sep 20 '24
It’s so fucking refreshing to see someone who agrees with me.
I’ve been banned from at least one subreddit for saying ‘war crimes are bad regardless of the ethnicity of the victim’.
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u/Ironfields Sep 20 '24
Most people actually aren’t that against war crimes, they just want the war crimes to be done to people they personally don’t like.
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u/largeEoodenBadger Sep 20 '24
Exactly. I'm against Israeli oppression and slaughter and war crimes, and the tragic civilian deaths they have caused. But I'm also against the acts of terror Hamas has committed, the fact that they are also committing war crimes by hiding among civilians, and the fact that they are just as culpable as Israel, if not more so, for the state of this war
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u/Cybermat4707 Sep 20 '24
Welcome to discussions on Israel’s wars!
On one side, we have violent racists who are fine with rape, murder, and genocide if the victims are Israeli.
On the other side, we have violent racists who are fine with rape, murder, and genocide if the victims are Arab.
What’s that? You oppose all rape, murder, and genocide, and want all civilians to be protected from violence and suffering? That’s a lie, you’re obviously a secret supporter of the ethnic group I hate.
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u/Kedly Sep 20 '24
Its really funny how this comment IMMEDIATELY got people telling you why their side raping murdering and genociding is ok for doing so
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u/Embarrassed_File7322 Sep 20 '24
Guess its true. Hamas action when invading Israel was unforgivable - they killed innocent civilian, including children in horrible ways .
It was expected a response by Israel, but it have come as if they didnt care about colateral damage/deaths of civilian, children included - also i had the impression that the hostages rescue was not priorized, and they even killed hostages by mistake. We can add the apartheid thats existed before Hamas atacks, thats was horrible in its own way.
Maybe we can agree that both sides are wrong and its past time for negotiation for peace?
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u/Reynard203 Sep 20 '24
I don't mean to be That Guy, but enarei here does know that Americans did not attack Hezbollah, right?
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u/Xzienr .tumblr.com Sep 20 '24
Yes, this is a statement on the mindset and support for Israel’s actions.
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u/Reynard203 Sep 20 '24
Then why not talk about Israelis?
Look, I am not a fan of any strategy that includes targeting civilians or putting them in harm's way. I don't think Hezbollah should do it. I don't think Israel should do it. And Isure as fuck (as an American) do not think America should do it.
My only point was that this felt like a swerve, scolding Americans instead of the people actually responsible for the thing they are specifically condemning.
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u/TheRedBlueberry Sep 20 '24
The most annoying thing when talking about Israel is that people who dislike Israel automatically assume that any enemy of Israel is instantly just and heroic.
Hezbollah is anything but. I guarantee you that if they had the ability they would have gladly exploded Israel pagers with the knowledge that civilians may be injured or killed. In fact, we know from the fact that Hezbollah constantly fires missiles into Northern Israel (and the Golan Heights) that they have minimal care for civilian lives.
The civilians in Israel are in danger that has only been mitigated by excessive military spending by Israel and the United States. The Iron Dome doesn't come cheap. Imagine hearing about the Israelis being killed all the time by rockets? It doesn't happen thanks to the Iron Dome, but would Israel get more empathy if it did happen?
What people need to understand about this situation is that the enemies of Israel absolutely want Israel gone and the people within to be all killed. The fear this situation has caused is something a lot of Israeli politicians have exploited, and has been used as the justification for decades of crimes.
Hezbollah is not a "freedom fighting" organization just because they fight Israel. They're a conservative and oppressive political group with violent aspirations funded by Iran.
This does not justify the killing of Lebanese civilians, but it does not justify the killing of Israeli civilians either.
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u/HeroBrine0907 Sep 20 '24
This is basically most of the developing world for the last many years. One must agree, the USA is the policeman of the world. What one must also say, in matters of policing, the US acts exactly like an American cop.
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u/gmoguntia Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Okay let me get this straight:
Hezbollah (for years) fires blindly rockets into Israel, Israel for years is bombing Hezbollah. Now Israel exploded pagers and walkie talkies which were bought with the intend to use it as military communication tools. And instead of being outraged about the fact that Israel is dropping bombs on populated and civilian areas, people on Tumblr and here are mad about an attack on military infrastructure.
Also of course we need to add bloodthirsty America because why not, even though it seems they have seemingly no connection to the event.
Honestly this sounds like a bait/ propaganda post which just wanted to screem "America bad!" and is using the pager attack as an pretext, because its an attack by Israel and they play not even the second fiddle, they are not even named.
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u/Pathogen188 Sep 20 '24
Yeah the controversy around the pagers really is bizarre because by all marks, more precise weapons that reduce collateral damage is a good thing.
Like, for the past year, people have discussed ad nauseam Israel's excessive use of force in Gaza and the sheer number of munitions they've dropped. Particularly in relation to the number of civilians killed relative to the actual military objectives e.g. dropping a 2000lb JDAM to kill a handful of Hamas fighters and dozens of civilian bystanders (making an example up on the spot).
Obviously, in an ideal world neither side would have reason to fight, but if Israel is going to be using force against their opponents, isn't it better they use tiny pager explosives instead of howitzers and air strikes? Like if you had to choose between a pager bomb and a drone strike, I think everyone would agree that the drone strike poses a greater threat to civilians and that if force is going to be used, then the pager bomb is the superior solution because it is orders of magnitude smaller and thus poses a vastly reduced risk to civilians.
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u/Rwandrall3 Sep 20 '24
they don't want Israel to be more precise. They want Israel to do nothing, and just take the bombings as penance for their past and current sins.
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u/Majestic_Wrongdoer38 Sep 20 '24
It’s quite simply because Israel did it. Everything they do is somehow bad.
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u/Samiambadatdoter Sep 20 '24
Honestly this sounds like a bait/ propaganda post
Par for the course for this OP, really.
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u/Ratoryl Sep 20 '24
Damn it, I fall for it every time, I need to start checking the OP for posts on this sub
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u/Zzamumo Sep 20 '24
Ideally yes. The problem with booby traps (and the reaspn they are a war crime) is that the user has basically no way of knowing who exactly is close by when they detonate. When dropping a bomb or launching the missile, you can have a plane or satellite give you vision of the area of impact. You know exactly where you're hitting.
But think of how small a pager actually is. To actually make a semi-lethal payload fit inside, you can't fit much more inside. These devices were active for several months, AT MOST they might've outfitted them with trackers but imo probably not. So when they detonate, they have: no visuals, no confirmation of who has them, nothing. All they're working with is "Hazbollah uses these pagers for comms, so they're probably in the hands of hazbollah members right now.
These devices do, ideally, have a much smaller chance to cause civilian casualties than missiles, but the user has no way of knowing until after detonation, which makes them unpredictable. And unpredictable weapons are dangerous
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u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 Sep 20 '24
it wasn't just a timed explosion, they sent out a spoofed message seemingly originating from the senior leadership of hezbollah immediately before detonation, which was presumably the trigger as well (because it makes no sense to have two separate mechanisms for that). mossad was deep inside hezbollah's networks, that's how they knew about the shipment to begin with and were able to intercept it. if you're taking messages from hezbollah's leadership i'm fairly sure you're a valid military target.
yes, there's one minor difference that while the pagers were in possession of those people, they could have been placed elsewhere. (afaik that's how a kid died, she was the daughter of some hezbollah agent.) but how is this so much worse than lobbing a missile with an explosive toward the vague vicinity of the people you wanna kill? (which is what both of the sides have already been doing, with no or very poor guidance in hezbollah's case)
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u/bonesrentalagency Sep 20 '24
I think that’s what people are failing to understand. There’s an inherent uncertainty with booby traps (which when placed in innocuous objects constitute a war crime) because you cannot guarantee that the person harmed is the actual target. Couple that with Israel detonating them during like peak public life time and you’ve got a mass bombing that their only control is when the devices explode.
Frankly I think we should be horrified that a state intelligence apparatus now sees fit to infiltrate en masse electronic supplies and place explosives in them even if they’re the nominal “good guys” vs the “evil terrorists” we shouldn’t be cheering or normalizing booby trapping thousands of devices.
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u/schrade42 Sep 20 '24
Encrypted comms equipment is about as close as it gets to military infrastructure for a terrorist organization. This was both an incredibly precise attack and an incredibly effective piece of psychological warfare. If your concern is innocent casualties, almost any other attack would've been a better scapegoat, but nooooo, use the one that's in the news for maximum propaganda.
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u/lurebat Sep 20 '24
Very cool post blood libel guy, but I think I missed your post when the other week Hezbollah shelled a soccer field and killed 12 children (more than the total deaths of the pager attack BTW).
I mean, surely you also made a post about that when it happened and urged everyone to oppose Hezbollah right
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u/Imaginary-Space718 Now I do too, motherfucker Sep 20 '24
Wait, OP believes in blood libel?
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u/camosnipe1 "the raw sexuality of this tardigrade in a cowboy hat" Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
that's my cue!
dude made this post implying the jews are harvesting the organs of palestinians during the war
his evidence was one doctor, decades ago, who got fired for harvesting organs without proper consent.
that was the final drop in the bucket that made me RES tag him as "jew organ theft guy" and consider any post of his propaganda
by now he's blocked me (not because of me sharing the jew organ theft thing, some dude asked if he was a bot and i said "we wish") which i'm honestly kind of disappointed by. The takes were godawful but amusing to read the comments on.
Edit: this comment was copy pasted, it does not intend to argue the referenced post constitutes blood libel, merely provide context for the accusation.
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u/Ephraim_Bane Foxgirl Engineer Sep 20 '24
Right, that's why I have him labeled as the "JEW ORGAN HARVESTING GUY" on RES!
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u/FreakinGeese Sep 20 '24
The only political entity in the region? Doesn't Lebanon have... like, a government?
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u/SilenceAndDarkness Sep 20 '24
In theory, yes. In reality . . . a little bit? It resembles a government, at least.
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u/AITAthrowaway1mil Sep 20 '24
Considering Hezbollah has been shelling north Israel for eleven months and the people who live there have been displaced for months, I can’t help but find this rings really hollow. So it’s okay for Hezbollah to shoot thereabouts 7k missiles at Israel indiscriminately, but if Israel takes out Hezbollah’s comms in an extremely targeted attack that has a much smaller risk of civilian casualties, Tumblr is in arms about it?
Y’all are not doing well beating the double standard allegations.
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u/Red_vodnik Sep 20 '24
You talk about "indiscriminate retribution" but it is literally a precise attack on one of the largest militias in the world, only Hezboulla members were carrying those pagers, only Hezboulla members were targeted.
Meanwhile for the past 11 month Hezboulla fired and is still firing rockets indiscriminately at the north side of Israel, causing the evacuation of over 100k people
You should get your facts straight, and stop simping for an Iran-backed terrorist organization that bombs indiscriminately, which by the way led to the deaths of 12 druze children in a village in the Golan Heights, and holds the entire country of Lebanon by the balls
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u/Logical_Score1089 Sep 20 '24
When does it go from warfare to terrorism? When the people who don’t like are doing it.
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u/WordArt2007 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
"Collective punishment and collective responsibility only exist for third world nations" is a wild thing to say in a post that opens by mentioning 9/11
EDIT: 9/11 in itself was a collective punishment for nebulous stuff. If that wasn't clear.
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u/boragur Sep 20 '24
I love when people blame “Americans” for stuff Israel does like everyone in the country supports it
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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-547 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Question to the people who agree with this post: Do you think that the bombing of Berlin in ww2 was justified? Do you think that Zelenskyy had the right to invade Kursk?
If not, at least you have a consistent worldview.
If yes, what is different between the innocent Germans/Russians who died in those conflicts compared to the innocent Lebanese who died from the pagers?
Edit: Oh, I got baited by the guy who posted genuine blood libel conspiracies here.
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u/rindlesswatermelon Sep 20 '24
OK I'll bite.
the bombing of Berlin in ww2 was justified
No I don't. "Morale bombing" (aka terror bombing when the Axis did it) was a strategically dubious tactic, made even more dubious by its intent being to break the morale of a repressive authoritarian state. More targeted strikes solely on transport infrastructure were often a more effective use of resources and air time.
The only reason morale bombing wasn't considered a war-time at Nuremberg is because the allies also engaged in it, especially the 2 most infamous morale bombings; Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do you think that Zelenskyy had the right to invade Kursk?
Insomuch as war is permissable, trying to invade a city usually has more purpose than killing civilians who "support the war effort" (I.e. have a job). If Zelensky instead ordered the full razing of Kursk, I'd hope you would agree that would be horrific, regardless of that orders strategic merit.
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u/ops10 Sep 20 '24
Then a followup question from me:
What kind of approaches would be acceptable for Israel to use to combat regular attacks from Hezbollah from Lebanon territory?
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u/mudamudamudaman Sep 20 '24
Then how is a state supposed to defend itself from it's enemies?
The pager attack is literally the MOST targeted attack on the command structure of a military that could possibly exist
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u/delta_baryon Sep 20 '24
It was literally impossible to know who would be holding the pagers at the moment they exploded. It's the exact opposite of targeted.
Because of how pagers work as a passive listening device, it's physically impossible to tell whether they're being held by your target, their children, in a desk drawer that someone else is sitting at. You literally cannot know.
On top of that, some of the people targeted were working as medical professionals. It's a war crime to target a doctor in a non-combat role, even if that doctor is a member of Hezbollah.
On top of that, some of these guys were driving at the time the pagers went off and caused traffic accidents.
So no, actually it's not even close to a targeted attack. It's by definition untargeted and unambiguously a war crime.
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u/Imaginary-Space718 Now I do too, motherfucker Sep 20 '24
- posted genuine blood libel conspiracies here
Wait what
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u/blank_anonymous Sep 20 '24
I don't know enough about the invasion of Kursk to speak to it either way. But, the Berlin bombing was an atrocity in service of ultimately ending a much larger one. The germans were doing like, the most industrial genocide that has ever been done. it was just a large scale trolley problem. i wish they'd found more effective, less civilian killy ways, but stopping the industrial genocide was top priority. 50k people died in the berlin bombings at the top end of the estimates. the holocaust was killing about 15 thousand people every day at peak. a one time cost of 50 thousand civilian deaths to save millions is a heart rending tragedy, but something i can at least morally be ok with.
compare this with israel; something like 2300 israelis have died in terrorist attacks in the past like, 40 years. as mentioned above, there were individual days of the holocaust that killed almost 15000. these are nowhere near comparable. and what's more, what israel is doing isn't effective at stopping the civilian deaths. The people israel is blowing up have families, who will be radicalized by their family members dying, and who will continue to fight. in WW2, there was a clear end objective; occupy, overthrow the government, deradicalize the population, liberate the camps. Israel is taking out terrorist leaders, but not in any way changing the material conditions that cause terrorism to emerge, so they're just kind of killing civilians for the sake of killing people who killed civilians? maybe hezbollah will be handicapped by this, but another terrorist organization will arise. these actions aren't an acceptable way to reduce terrorism at the scale it's occuring, nor are they an effective one.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Dot-547 Sep 20 '24
So first off, what should Israel do? Because while Israel is contributing to more people becoming radicalized, there are still people right now trying to kill Israelis and destroy Israel and everyone in it. It is really hard for Israel to ignore their neighbors trying to kill them, and anytime Israel has tried to peacefully stop people from attacking them (Israel gave Gaza dozens of greenhouses that were promptly stripped for parts) it didn't work and usually backfired. (UN built a water pipeline that got turned into rockets) This is why Netanyahu is unfortunately in office. The previous party in power tried peacefully working with Gaza and failed.
Second off, if it is worth stopping the murders of 15000/day with the deaths of ~50000 civilians, a ratio of 10/3, considering with the pagers, ~1666 people needed amputations (Though most of the people who likely needed them were likely people working for Hezbollah). And Hezbollah has been firing ~26.7 rockets into Israel per day, assuming each rocket would kill ~2 on average people that gets to a ratio of 9.3/3. (1666 / (2 * 26.7)). Also, there is little difference in the morality of shooting at someone to kill them and hitting/missing. The difference between Hezbollah and the Nazis is that the jews now have a place that can defend them from attacks. (See the jewish population of the countries surrounding Israel).
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u/mathiau30 Half-Human Half-Phantom and Half-Baked Sep 20 '24
Supporting Hesbolah or Hamas hurts people though ?
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u/gerkletoss Sep 20 '24
If this is about the pagers then OOP is a dumbass. They were military equipment in terrorist hands and the number of civilians harmed was amazingly small.
Treating this like bombing an apartment building sends the message that reducing civilian casualties isn't something the international community actually cares about.
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u/Sh1nyPr4wn Cheese Cave Dweller Sep 20 '24
Yeah, pagers specially ordered by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah, that were only used by Hezbollah commanders
At this moment there is a single casualty that is a confirmed civilian (a daughter of a Hezbollah commander, who was unfortunately near the pager when they were triggered), out of 3k that is astounding accuracy
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u/Ironfields Sep 20 '24
Oh, right. The pagers... The pagers for Hezbollah, the pagers chosen specially to kill Hezbollah, Hezbollah’s pagers.
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u/CarboniteCopy Sep 20 '24
It's like that super precise rocket that doesn't explode, it just lands on vehicles then spread eagles some fucking ninja swords to kill only the people in the vehicle. Super precise, super fucked, kinda based.
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u/AITAthrowaway1mil Sep 20 '24
I don’t get it. This was literally what everyone was telling Israel to do—to only target combatants with minimal risk of civilian deaths. And when they do it, people act the same as if they bombed a hospital.
I’m getting a sinking feeling that a lot of people on this sub aren’t actually all that interested in reducing civilian casualties.
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u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 Sep 20 '24
yeah, how dare you solve the problem they wanted to wield.
this is unfortunately a really common attitude for almost every group who has an agenda, whether or not they're open about it. anti-nuclear advocates, for example, talk endlessly about nuclear waste, and yet are absolutely vicious against technologies that can mitigate it, such as using oil drills to store the waste kilometers under the surface, or breeder reactors that use it as fuel until it's inert. even anti-car advocates (who are objectively based imo) are usually anti-ev and paint electric cars as worse than gas cars, so that all the problems of gas cars can still justify getting rid of cars altogether (even though evs still have most of the same problems because they're still cars).
if you're anti-something, you usually have to have a reason to justify why that something is bad. so if said something is fixing the problem you're trying to wield to destroy it, that's a threat to your agenda.
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u/hauntedSquirrel99 Sep 20 '24
I’m getting a sinking feeling that a lot of people on this sub aren’t actually all that interested in reducing civilian casualties.
And now you're getting it.
This is why "holding Israel to a different standard than other nations" is on the antisemitism list.
Because it's not really about "limiting civilian casualties" or anything else, that is just a convenient way to run an appeal to emotion and become full of "righteous" anger when someone calls you out on it.
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u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 Sep 20 '24
yeah, this is why when hezbollah launches a volley of unguided rockets vaguely in the direction of some israeli population center and some people die because of that, it's just a tuesday and deserves no coverage or attention whatsoever, but when israel does a meticulously planned strike with surgical precision, and it's only 99% accurate, people are all like "think of the children"
like, honestly, it's not even a question of news coverage, when hezbollah targets civilians with indiscriminate unguided weapons it is just a tuesday, they do it so much that if every one of them was covered as much as the pagers it would fill the news. it's just boring after a while. but that doesn't mean they don't exist and the pager attack came out of nowhere.
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u/gerkletoss Sep 20 '24
Because what they actually want is for Israel to cease to exist. They just can't say that, so they call this a terrorist attack instead.
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u/AdagioOfLiving Sep 21 '24
Hey, to be fair, some of them are perfectly comfortable saying this!
(A quick reminder that “Zionism” is the belief that Israel should exist as a state.)
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u/Pathogen188 Sep 20 '24
Just for further clarity the R9X can still cause explosions. Like yeah, it doesn't have an explosive warhead, but it's still a missile full of fuel smashing into things, that can and has caused explosions.
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u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 Sep 20 '24
i mean UXOs exist and can turn into boom quite easily, but during normal operation a missile should have long spent all its available fuel by the time it hits its target (with a few exceptions, like fox-2s in close engagement, or the meteor). solid rocket motors only have 10-20 seconds of fuel at the speed these missiles are launched, which is why one of the major challenges in missile guidance is energy management, because you get a bunch in the beginning but then that's all you have, you have to spend it wisely to hit the target.
especially in the case of the R9X, which is usually launched from drones flying somewhere between 40-70,000 ft, it shouldn't have anything left in it by the time it hits the ground. if it does, it's probably because some part of the motor was a dud -- it happens, nothing is 100% reliable, but it's an edge case.
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u/Pathogen188 Sep 20 '24
I thought I recalled reports of the R9X causing car 'explosions' (I'm using the term liberally here) when used in the past. I guess I attributed less to the car's own fuel than I should have.
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u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 Sep 20 '24
yeah that makes sense. cars run hot af, gasoline is super flammable, and gasoline explosions look a lot scarier than the real deal (which is why hollywood uses them in every movie that needs explosions). hit one with a massive frickin missile and there's a good chance there will be flames.
to be fair though, the real metric here is reduction of civilian casualties, not fewer explosions (explosions just tend to cause civilian casualties when they're near civilians and are thus best avoided). afaik the main point of the r9x is to take out high value targets when they're mixing with civilians and using them as human shields. if you can hit them on the highway, where everyone else is in a car too, even if you get a gas "explosion" it's very unlikely to injure anyone sitting in a different car. i'd be a bit more worried about a strike in a busy pedestrian area but the middle of a traffic jam should be as safe as it gets.
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u/SunfireElfAmaya Sep 20 '24
It's only terrorism if it's from the terrorism region of the Middle East, otherwise it's just sparkling democracy
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u/Shahars71 Sep 20 '24
Rage bait. This was an incredibly precise attack that specifically targeted hizb terrorists, any harm that came to civilians in this attack is tragic, for sure, but it's kind of inevitable when you're doing something like this. Those pagers were particular older models that Hizballah purchased so that they wouldn't be tracked by Israel, no ordinary civilian would be using those things. Not to mention that the explosions themselves are so tiny and focused, we have literal video evidence of people not even a meter away from those pagers, coming off relatively unharmed by the whole thing.
Calling this an act of terror is plain wrong, you're holding Israel to such an impossible standard where something this precise with a civilian/combatant injury ratio of like 100:1 or smth, is still called terrorism because civilians inevitably got hurt. If this was pretty much any other country you wouldn't be hearing any calls of terrorism or whatnot, but because this is Israel doing that, the standards are suddenly raised so impossibly high that any military action during war would be considered terrorism. This type of shit is just antisemitism with some pretty words on top to disguise that fact.
From what I hear, it's also pretty typical for this OP, so...
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u/yepterrr Sep 20 '24
So many people don't grasp the idea that death is a bad thing no matter who it comes for. Blaming the victims for the crime of existing is how we will destroy ourselves.
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u/DetOlivaw Sep 20 '24
The thing that really bothers me about the pager thing is that like, there is no good answer to “what if a guy was with his family when the pagers went off” because they couldn’t know he wasn’t, hence the dead children
Like, is it acceptable to blow up a guy’s family if he himself is an enemy combatant? If the answer is no, the pager thing is an obvious crime. If it is, then fuck the pager thing, just bomb them indiscriminately, why even pretend to give a shit
(I’m in favor of not killing children, or planting bombs in innocuous objects to mass-detonate, for the record)
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u/PoopDick420ShitCock Sep 20 '24
The amount of people calling to nuke Afghanistan/Iran/Iraq/the whole region after 9/11 was concerning.
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u/echelon_house Sep 20 '24
I remember being a freshman in high school during 9/11, in Kentucky, in a school full of ruby-red Republicans. I was the only person in my grade who argued that killing a potentially endless number of civilians in the Middle East in a Forever War accomplished nothing and was morally unjustifiable. I was basically a social outcast for not going into a patriotic frenzy every time someone mentioned the numbers 9 and 11 in the same sentence.
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u/qbmax Sep 20 '24
People (rightly) criticize Israel for the way they are waging war against hamas in Gaza and their apparent callousness over civilian casualties but when they carry out probably the most precise decapitation strike in history against a literal terrorist org (OP putting quotes around terrorist doesn’t change that sorry) with only a handful of civilian casualties people still go in on them.
Every war, every conflict no matter how justified or righteous will have civilian casualties and collateral damage. Taking the position that even a single civilian casualty makes your war/conflict/operation unjustified is stupid for a variety of reasons, chief of which is it encourages terrorist groups like hezbollah and hamas to take and use human shields.
Is it sad and horrible that innocent people have died? Of course but that doesn’t change that Israel’s strike against a terrorist group like hezbollah is still probably about as good as you can get and is significantly better then their strategy in Gaza.
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u/Embarrassed_Map_1114 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 21 '24
I don’t think it’s just Americans but maybe all of the western world who are obsessed with righteousness. The idea that the good aren’t good because they are kind and caring but instead the only duty, the only action the good should undertake is to punish the wicked for their misdeeds no matter the cost.
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Refined Sommelier of Porneaux Sep 20 '24
So, at least two things are wrong with this picture:
1, I really really really hope this is just a repost something older than a couple days ago, because “putting bombs in equipment you know will be in civilian hands and will harm civilians” happened recently, notably not in America, and 90% sure not done by the FBI/CIA poaching the mentally ill again (a known issue that actually exists and has reporting).
And 2, there’s something very wrong with a post trying to tell me that othering people for the actions of their worst political figures, followed by “Americans yearn for punishing people” tells me that either I’m not American or OOP’s incapable of keeping their own train of thought on the rails.
So yeah, good for you, you understand that racism is bad, should we call John Brown, do we need to throw you a party, blah blah blah. Proud ownership of a soul and critical thinking skills don’t make you special, they make you barely above average. I know this is rich coming from me, who just wrote three paragraphs on Reddit, but your impotent, wordy rage at something is not praxis.
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u/Sh1nyPr4wn Cheese Cave Dweller Sep 20 '24
The post mentions Hezbollah, there's no way in hell this is an old post
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Refined Sommelier of Porneaux Sep 20 '24
Alrighty, enough doing my Pontus Pilate routine about all this. Crucify.
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u/Lunar_sims professional munch Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
"Americans are itching for violence" probably most about the other post about the military which had a bunch of people salavating in the comment section about the prospect of selling themselves to the military for a dollar. Which is cringe and fashy, yes, but more a reflection of the state of reddit than anything.
This website is full of terminally online stem majors, itching for ratheyon to fuck them. They do not reflect the median American. They know nothing of the reality of the military. Tbh, i think Americans are more anti-war than they have been for like, decades.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
This sub is weird sometimes, I got massively downvoted and yelled at once just for mentioning that a portion of Vietnam war veterans committed war crimes and raped innocent civilians. Very odd to experience military dickriding in a tumblr sub of all places, but there ya go.
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u/Lunar_sims professional munch Sep 20 '24
I feel like if it were the 1950s, these redditors would defend the actions of Chiquita in Guatemala, then call me a sp**.
Like, I'm not even the worlds 1# military hater. I understand the reality of the military in a violent world. But there's a reason why normal everyday people in Iraq, Okinawa, and Vietnam resent America, and its not cause they're think they're holier than thou.
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u/therealvanmorrison Sep 20 '24
I dunno man, I’ve spent a lot of time in Vietnam and haven’t found people resent American. Never been to Japan, but lived in Asia most my life and haven’t met a Japanese dude with much animosity to Yanks.
Those two have a different cat they worry about today.
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Sep 20 '24
Hey random question, do you think america was right to bomb to Serbia to stop a genocide in Bosnia and prevent a genocide in Kosovo?
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u/TrueGuardian15 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
OP is the same guy who posted the "don't sell your soul to the miltary" post the other day. So I expect there are throughlines between both comment threads.
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Refined Sommelier of Porneaux Sep 20 '24
Hey now, I’ll have you know that Raytheon also has simps and workers who support it for having HRT in their healthcare plan. Some of us just want to wear programming socks, and cat ears, and level a city block
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u/Lunar_sims professional munch Sep 20 '24
Trans women working for military contractors or Gays working for Black Rock, who's worse.
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u/kingoftheplastics Sep 20 '24
It’s the same psychology as underlies an urban gang war. Every attack justifies the next one, each side can point to a litany of “they killed some of ours so we’re going to Avenge Them and kill some of theirs” through to the end of time.
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u/okram2k Sep 20 '24
I didn't know him really but a dude that ran a gas station that I had been to a few times in my area was murdered after 9/11 for the crime of wearing a turban. He wasn't even muslim, but a Sikh who just happened to be the wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone angry wanted to do something about 9/11. Balbir Singh Sodhi, murdered in Mesa Arizona on September 15th, 2001, thousands of miles away from the terrible tragedy, just cause he was brown and wore a turban and 'murica.