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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29670 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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An "IED" is merely an "improvised explosive device"; whether something fits that description says nothing about whether the use of it is according to the laws of war.

Ok? It's obviously an IED. Traditionally, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq/Afghanistan have used IEDs to target American military personnel within planted, hidden explosives. Now Israel is using IEDs for the same purpose against Hezbollah. So why object to my statement that Israel is embracing/normalizing tactics using by terrorists? Just admit they are and argue it's a good thing if you're inclined.

If it is an actual explosive, and they deliberately manufactured the devices they are no more improvised than a tank shell.

They are bombs of a sort, and bombs can be more or less targeted. It can be put on a street, it can be put under a soldiers car, or fired into an army barracks from a mortar.

Tactics used by terrorists are the same tactics used by states. The US dropped a nuclear bomb on civilians with the intent to intimidate Japan into surrender. But that isn't regarded as a terrorist attack, even though it fits most of the criteria to a tee. States plant mines and other explosive devices that are hidden, and if they can will drone strike someone, killing them and people around them. But none of that is terrorism. So it can't be that hidden bombs or collateral damage or targeting civilians that mean it's terrorism.

Taboo the term terrorism and IED for the moment. They don't add anything concrete to the discussion.

What specifically is the issue? Risk of collateral damage/deaths? Being sneaky and underhanded? Being unfair? Lack of targeting? Something else?

All IEDs are "deliberately manufactured".

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs.

The term "IED" was coined by the British Army during the Northern Ireland conflict to refer to booby traps made by the IRA, and entered common use in the U.S. during the Iraq War.[1][2]

The term came into existence to describe IRA's boobytrapped explosives, like suitcases that would explode when you opened them. This operation is obviously on the level of "send a boobytrapped explosive suitcase" to someone, which is unambiguously an IED.

What specifically is the issue? Risk of collateral damage/deaths? Being sneaky and underhanded? Being unfair? Lack of targeting? Something else?

Boobytrapping goods which are shipped internationally with explosives is a terrible precedent. Explosives which can detonate anywhere, anytime, regardless of the target in the area.

What if peace had been brokered in the months since the distribution of those explosives? Then you are just left with a bunch of untracked explosives in civilian areas? It beggars belief that you struggle to find the issues with this practice.

Yes, I am from Northern Ireland so quite aware of the etymology. But booby trapping brief cases and sabotaging pagers so cleverly at an industrial scale that you can have them running for 5 months undetected are very different things. The IRA did not have that capability. This is industrialised booby trapping, which is so far beyond IRA bombs it reaches deliberate manufacturing standards. But thats beside the point.

I never said there weren't issues with the practice. But those issues are clearly less than killing a whole city. You're also assuming the Israelis could not track them or disarm them remotely.

Bombing people is a terrible precedent. But so is shooting people and nuking them and firebombing them, and firing rockets at them, and kidnapping and decapitating them. It's not clear sneaky microbombs are a worse precedent than any of those. Indeed in death terms they clearly aren't.

I think the point you are missing is that in war, you do bad things. So if you think this is uniquely bad, you have to compare to other actions in war conditions. It's killed fewer extraneous people than a single drone strike for example. Killed fewer civilians than IRA bombs. Much fewer than nukes or air raids.

It seems to me, that it is not clearly worse than other weapons of war. Its unusual but that doesn't mean worse.

You're also running into a reputational issue here. Your feelings about Jews and Israel are well known. So anything you say about how bad they are is suspect. I am not even much of an Israel supporter (even if my brethren back home fly Israeli flags) compared to the average American and think Israel have done a lot of things which i condemn and I think your biases are blinding you here. A relatively targeted strike against Hezbollah operatives is simply not that bad in the grand scheme of war.

Ok? It's obviously an IED.

If they made them in a munitions factory, they're not "improvised". My point is your use of the term "IED" adds no light, it's nothing but heat.

Traditionally, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq/Afghanistan have used IEDs to target American military personnel within planted, hidden explosives.

Insurgents in a US-occupied country using IEDs to attack American military targets are fully within the laws of war in doing so.

So a boobytrapped suitcase is an IED, but a boobytrapped pager is a grenade or a drone strike?

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