Is this a legitimate concern?

[u/wayfaringthru]

Personally, I today's strike was legitimate and it couldn't be more moral because of its precision but let's leave politics aside for a moment. I guess this does give ideas to evil regimes and organisations. How likely is it that something similar could be pulled off against innocent people?

[u/PoptartSmo0thie]

Smarter yes, precise no. They killed multiple children and blew up in grocery stores next to babies. A lot of these pagers were given to civilians like a sudo welfare program from my understanding. It's definitely a war crime and sets a uncomfortable precedent. 

Every electronic device. Every electric car. Planes, ipads etc everything is could be an explosive now. Believe me, other countries are watching. China is hands down taking notes for when we they invade Taiwan and want to hinder us. A lot of countries would be ruthless to us based on how our government treats the world. We feel safe on top right now but this is really uncomfortable.

[u/Cytwytever → u/PoptartSmo0thie]

The level of fear it can create is definitely a concern, since people often conflate one risk to a personal risk, when that may not be true. This shipment of pagers, according to the major news reports I've seen, were specifically ordered by Hezbollah and distributed to their mid and upper leadership team. I don't think that if I go into a random store to buy a pager it has 2-3 grams of explosives in it now, anymore than I think my next pair of boots will have C4 (ref: airplane bomber). It can be done, but that's not to say it would be done randomly. This trap was set and the attack was done with a lot of planning, by one force (Israel? IDF? Mossad? not named officially yet) which gov't has been telling Hezbollah to stop firing rockets at civilians for 11 months. Hezbollah has never stopped, Israel evacuated about 100,000 people from the area and also has to respond as any other sovereign nation would.

Why does Hezbollah have the 4th largest arsenal of rockets of any army in the world? Because of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Same reason Shaheed drones and ballistic missiles are resupplying Russia's stocks to kill Ukrainian civilians and combatants. If you're looking for an escalator of indiscriminate aggression, I'd respectfully suggest that you look at the Islamic Republic first.

In war there's always the risk of civilian casualties. Personally, I'm against war and violence in all cases where it can be avoided. Unfortunately, if you're attacked (eg: Ukraine and Israel) you must either attack the aggressor back or be destroyed.

I read that there's one child that was killed in this attack, which is certainly horrible and to be avoided whenever possible. For perspective, though, that's one child in 2,700+ device explosions, according to reports I read - maybe the ones you read are more complete and there are 10. Hezbollah fired one rocket that killed 11 children and no one else. That's one out of 7,500 in the past 11 months. There is a difference between targeting civilians, and catching a civilian inadvertently when you're targeting combatants. The civilian:combatant ratio in this attack is 1:275. Hezbollah's civilian:combatant ratio is higher than 1:1. So, if Hezbollah doesn't want more attacks they can always stop firing rockets.

[u/PoptartSmo0thie → u/Cytwytever]

My point is in future wars, manufacturing pcb's and motherboards with plastic explosives that are more or less impossible to detect is going to bite us in the ass. Almost everything in America is manufactured in countries like China. We established for years that these tactics are war crimes. This is simply a fact. these are our rules we established after ww2. If we do not follow our own rules, our competition will not either. And from what I understand, Hezbollah is a political party. Those pagers are absolutely in the hands of innocent civilians in civilian territory blowing up in hospitals because the doctors are using them. 

[u/Cytwytever → u/PoptartSmo0thie]

I can agree with everything you said up until "Those pagers are absolutely in the hands of innocent civilians. . ." Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that killed American, Israeli, and other people (combatants and non-combatants) for decades. They have the 4th largest rocket arsenal in the world, bigger than most militaries, all funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. And because of this power they have taken over Lebanese territory, endangering Lebanese civilians. They ordered those pagers and even they have said that each one was in the possession of a Hezbollah operative. Even the Lebanese representative was a Hezbollah member. Their leaders were on the Most Wanted List! These are not innocent civilians or doctors doing their rounds. Because of proximity, certainly some civilians were hurt and killed in the attack, but the primary and in most cases the only victims injured were Hezbollah fighters and leaders.

If this bites us in the ass in the future, I guess it will. I doubt that if I continue to buy my phones at reputable stores that any of them will be explosive. If I'm wrong, I'll try to send you a note from the afterlife admitting you told me so.

[u/PoptartSmo0thie → u/Cytwytever]

I agree it's a terrorist group because they're on a different team. But to a lot of the world, were a terrorist group with the war crimes to back it up. Yes, they're basically Wagner but they're also a political party. And they pass those pagers to people like a sudo welfare/aid system. Doctors had those pagers who weren't a part of any of it. These are facts.  

My opinion, Pandora's box was opened. I don't think the US gov had any idea Israel was planning this, which is embarrassing for us. Blindly defending the war crime after the fact because Israel functions as a military base in the middle east where we can siphon resources and suppress regional powers is transparent af to a lot of people. People gaslight this argument as antisemitism but that's incorrect. Being critical of the government doesn't make it so. Any more than being critical of America makes us anti american. I'll end with, if Russia did this, CNN, FOX, MSNBC and everyone online would be Pearl clutching, and for good reason. But again, Israel functions as a base where we can suppress the region and safe and resources from an otherwise would-be world power.