your miss cleo horoscope predicts you'll start posting increasing amounts of content sympathetic to hezbollah and iran in the coming weeks

"Basically, the new plan sucks and will likely confuse voters by being on the ballot next to the original, way better I-137."

No one is going to get confused. Voters are perfectly capable of considering multiple options. It's not hard to bubble in a form.

RFK jr. had an affair?
I guess he’s more like his father, and Uncle John, than people thought.

cool squid.

I don't live in North Carolina. Does Mark Robinson actually have a shot at winning? Cuz that's a lot of tawdry Mark Robinson content, Slog.

Chris Rufo is a fucking scumbag. I'm sure he's caught up in some weird shit. Beware, Gig Harbor.

he's a Kennedy.
like that Whacko
('Hide your Head in
a Bag!') senator John
Kennedy (R LA)? maaybe

but at Least the former's
Family's disowned Bobby's
weirdo dabbling into presidential
monkeyshines shenanigans & runs.

as Bad as North Carolina Lt. (running
for) Gov. Mark Robinson aka minisoldr?

oh Fuck no

"All the Best People!"
welcome to MAGAtyville
and the Dark Fucking Ages

we have too many
fucking Billionaires
& too Few guardrails
they're gonna buy up
Earth & Evict our asses

“Is West Seattle light rail a pipe dream?”

Yes, it is.

For a fraction of the cost they could fund insanely great bus service that would carry as many if not more passengers, with far greater flexibility than rail service, and implement it very quickly.

Sound Transit is trying to do much more than it can with the available resources, and losing credibility with delays and escalating costs.

They need to remember that their core mission is to move people… regardless of the mode.

Crypto hackers are of the impression that their transactions are anonymous and can't be scrutinized.

Recently, some geniuses burned some Vegas casinos; they won't even have the courtesy of having some holes poked into their personal 50 gallon barrel at the bottom of the harbor.

@1: If history is any guide, within a few years they'll be questioning whether anything out of the ordinary even happened on October 7. Where is the written order from Yahya Sinwar to commence an attack? Isn't it the case that many non-Jews died on that day? And these so-called survivors, why can't they tell a consistent story about what supposedly happened? All very suspicious.

@4,

I kinda dig it. Feels like a throwback to the old days when Dan Savage was a regular contributor here and most of the content was ridiculous and salacious. And this Robinson fellow certainly checks those boxes. I don't know much about the situation back east either, but did a quick search and he appears to be faring rather poorly, trailing by a few points across all the polls.

Now if we could just get raindrop to chime in with some ridiculous moral pandering and maybe like fnarf or Catalina or someone to call him out as a dumb idiot, it'd make for a nice transition to a lovely fall weekend.

@1, heard! File Graham’s (and other Stranger writer’s) pro-terrorism/antisemitic posts under the “irony of woke white privilege”.

ST's rail priorities should be: (1) Graham Street Station; (2) extending the 1 line to Tacoma; (3) extending the 1 line to Everett. Everything else can and should wait until these essential city-to-city connections (which should have been done decades ago) are complete. Love the squid video.

@6
It’s not a secret that RFK & JFK each had adultery as their primary hobby.
Worse even than DJT.
They probably had more scores than Bill Clinton.
Just another of the many ways Rs & Ds are more alike than not.

@11 Opposition to the policies of Israel's Likud government is not Antisemitism. If it were, then the Jewish folks who make up Israel's left would be Antisemites. Recognizing that said government is trying to drive the Palestinian people from all of the land said state claims, a form of genocide, is not supporting Hamas. Shit, even recognizing that Hamas is all that is in the way of ethnic cleansing in Gaza is not supporting Hamas. That said, the British Crown called our Founding Father's terrorists, as they later did with Ireland's founding fathers. Next thing you'll probably call Antisemitic is recognizing that the British initially called the founders of Israel terrorists, because the Irgun used terrorism to force the British government to give them Israel.

It's a fucking mess, and the only chance for peace is a two state solution.

Trump associating with a self-professed Black Nazi? What a complete surprise. How anyone can support Trump or one of his endorsed candidates and claim to be a loyal American is beyond me. Trump isn't trying to hide it anymore, and is openly promising a one-party authoritarian state. You can't vote Republican and not be a traitor anymore.

@1, etc.: I really wish the Stranger would learn something about this topic before commenting on it. Hezbollah's pervious attacks upon northern Israel have driven civilians there from their homes. With Hezbollah's (literal) crippling from the explosive sabotage of their radios, the IDF now has a chance to drive Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, so the Israeli civilians may return to their homes. That's the motivation for both the sabotage (if Israel did it) and the IDF striking Lebanon.

@14: "Hamas is all that is in the way of ethnic cleansing in Gaza"

Nice one, Bob.

RFK Jr had like 40 affairs in one year and kept track of them in a diary. Sexting with a journalist is child’s play for him.

Accusing the antiwar left of being hateful bigots is a tale as old as time itself, or at least the last 50 years. I’m old enough to remember when people who were critical of our invasion of Iraq were called terrorist supporters who hated our own country, even freedom itself. Of course within a few years everyone came to agree it was a quagmire. Some people just need a little more time than others to catch up with history.

" so the Israeli civilians may return to their homes"

That's very nice, but when will Palestinians civilians be able to return to their homes, oh wait if they are still alive, they don't have homes anymore thanks to the IDF's disproportionate and indiscriminate bombings

"Commentators for The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Mondoweiss have noted that the attacks of the Israeli Defense Forces on the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip during the 2023 Hamas-Israel war may constitute an extension of the Dahiya Doctrine [18][19] Haaretz reported that IDF had dropped "all restraint" in its war: killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure at an unprecedented rate.[20]

Writing in The Guardian, Paul Rogers of Bradford University argues that Israel's goal in the 2023 war is to "corral the Palestinians into a small zone in the southwest of Gaza where they can be more easily controlled," and that the long-term goal is to make clear that Israel "will not stand for any opposition."[21]

Richard Falk wrote that under the doctrine, "the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism."[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine

"I’m old enough to remember when people who were critical of our invasion of Iraq were called terrorist supporters who hated our own country, even freedom itself." --@19

"Naturally the common people don't want war . . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship.

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

--Joseph Goebbels
Minister of Propaganda
Hitler's number two

"Of course within a few years everyone came to agree it was a quagmire. Some people just need a little more time than others to catch up with history." --@19 also

so much Damage
in the meantime

@14 Defenders of colonialism and other land grab have used "terrorists" to discredit resistance movements for almost a century. Before that time, they called them "savages" and the like, but "savage" is thankfully not PC anymore so "terrorist" it is. These resistance movements at times use terrorist tactics (like their oppressors use terror) but the slur is widely used as if it were a defining ideology that allows to demonize the anticolonial cause as a whole because it is waged by demons, unprincipled beasts of some sort, i.e. "savages".

The use of terror is a war crime whether it used by colonizers or colonized but it is important to understand that tactics can't be defeated as the "war on terra' proved by giving rise to the exact opposite (the rise of Daesh). The resolution of conflicts is however possible through political solutions, which Netanyahu and other extremists clearly don't want to hear.

@22: "tactics can't be defeated as the 'war on terra' proved by giving rise to the exact opposite (the rise of Daesh). The resolution of conflicts is however possible through political solutions"

You know, you're right, Bob, though perhaps not for the reason you think. Just as you say, Daesh offers a great example of the resolution of a conflict through a political solution. After we and our allies killed a few tens of thousands of Daesh fighters, bombed their infrastructure to dust, and shot our way into the towns they controlled using air strikes and artillery, suddenly a political solution to the conflict presented itself. It turns out political solutions to conflicts aren't so hard, once one side has been defeated in war.

Here's hoping the world can find a similar political solution to Israel's conflicts with Hamas and Hizbollah. Men who walk the path of jihad hope to enter paradise through the glorious death of a martyr, and the rest of the world should speed them on their way. I only hope the brave fighters of the resistance will find the courage to remove themselves from their many fellow countrymen who do not share their impatience for paradise, so that innocent lives can be spared.

@23 You are both missing the point and you also happen to be wrong on multiple fronts. 1) There was no Daesh before the "war on terror"; Daesh arose from the "front" of the war on terror, i.e. the invasion of Iraq and the dissolution of the Iraqi state. Daesh was the result of the war on terror. 2) Daesh was defeated militarily when it went from being a fluid entity practicing terror to an occupying force building a caliphate, i.e. not really a guerilla group fed by the violence of the occupier and 3) Daesh is still around in Iraq and Syria back to its former self. There was no political solution.

Sounds like a great opportunity to skip rail to W Seattle and do real bus rapid transit (dedicated lanes, no stops except as "stations", no getting buses caught in traffic). One size fits no one is no way to get things moving. Light Rail is already too big/spendy per mile. Let's add BRT and trams where they make sense, on existing roadways with traffic control to prioritize them.

@20: I understand your need for whataboutism when callously dismissing the indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians, but it’s really odd to quote the statement, “…the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets,” a few days after Hezbollah’s military infrastructure was explosively sabotaged, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Hezbollah operatives, and the crippling of thousands more, for very few civilian casualties.

@26 You are lying I didn't dismiss indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians.

You, in turn, point out indiscriminate targeting when it is Israelis who are the victims, but deny it (for months, pretty much every day) when Palestinians are the victims, and there are many more of them who pay the ultimate price. You clearly have no shame, and no ethics. Nothing new, right.

The rest of your comment is garbage that warrants no reply.

@21 & 27

pop quiz!

who said this:

It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle.

They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.

was it
P. Joseph Goebbels

or was it
Wormtongue

@24: “There was no political solution.”

Oh but there was. Where Daesh used to govern millions of people in a territory the size of Great Britain, today Daesh governs nothing. I’d gladly accept a Daesh-like solution for Hamas and Hizbollah.

@6 kristofarian and @15 Greenwood Bob We CANNOT have a repeat of 2016!
Please stop the world---my beloved Love Beetle and I want to get off.

@30 Don't worry about me, I'm behind Harris-Walz 100%. I'm not part of the loony left, even if I wish Biden and Harris could do more. I also recognize that AIPAC ownership of members of both parties in Congress makes any sensible policies regarding Israel impossible.

I'm the opposite of Zina as I recognize that while I wish her policy here was better, the only hope the Palestinian people have is that Harris beats Trump!

@29 "I’d gladly accept a Daesh-like solution for Hamas and Hizbollah."

Considering your comment history, I am sure you would, but short of a mass genocide there is no military solution to the Palestine conflict. Israel cannot force Palestinians to live as, at best, second class citizens and walled ghetto dwellers forever without rebellion as shown by the last ~80 years of the conflict and more generally global colonial history.

As for Hezbollah, Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon, cross border incursions and indiscriminate bombings to kill Palestinian militants gave rise to the existence and popularity of Hezbollah among Shiites. Muslim theocrats probably cannot live next door to a Jewish ethno-state intent on a military solution in Palestine whether they are called Hezbollah or something else. Resolution most probably lies in addressing everyone's grievances, not repeating the same cycle of violence.

@27: Sorry if I was a bit rough with you, but responding to the possible ending of indiscriminate terror attacks with, "That's nice, but whatabout what about whataboutism -- really, WTF about it?" doesn't do much toward getting anyone to believe you actually care about indiscriminate terror attacks on civilians.

Why would I bother to deny anything you have yet to demonstrate? We know what "indiscriminate" attacks upon civilians create: over one thousand casualties in a single day, 10/7. Hamas has been shooting at Israel and the IDF from behind human shields in Gaza ever since, and even so, the death rate has been a fraction of Hamas' one-day total in Israel. Given that Hamas wants more civilian deaths in Gaza, the IDF seems to have been pretty discriminating indeed in their use of force.

On top of that, you refuse even to engage on the topic of a highly targeted use of force which killed dozens of terrorists, crippled thousands more for life, but resulted in very few civilian casualties -- and those only because the terrorists had carried their military equipment in civilian areas. Was that use of force "disproportionate"? Do tell.

Enough drivel from you ...

Detailed findings on the military operations and attacks
carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 7
October to 31 December 2023

The Commission reiterates its findings that (i) the ISF had intentionally
directed its attacks against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip; (ii) the
number of casualties due to the military operations and the high number of
civilians displaced indicate that the attack, as a whole, was carried out
indiscriminately without due consideration to civilian status; and (iii) the
actions were conducted with the knowledge that they would cause extensiv e
and widespread casualties, including deaths, of civilians.

The Commission also notes that the killings of civilians were conducted
in a large-scale manner over a significant period of time and widespread
geographical area. The victims were not singled out or targeted as individual
civilians. On the contrary, it was evident they were intentionally targeted
collectively because the ISF considered the civilian population as a whole to
be associated with Hamas and other armed groups.

Exploding pagers and radios: A terrifying violation of international law, say UN experts

“These attacks violate the human right to life, absent any indication that the victims posed an imminent lethal threat to anyone else at the time,” the experts said. “Such attacks require prompt, independent investigation to establish the truth and enable accountability for the crime of murder.

“We express our deepest solidarity to the victims of these attacks,” they said.

The pagers and radios were reportedly distributed mainly among people allegedly associated with the Hezbollah movement, which includes civilian and military personnel and is involved in an armed conflict with Israel along the border.

“To the extent that international humanitarian law applies, at the time of the attacks there was no way of knowing who possessed each device and who was nearby,” the experts said. “Simultaneous attacks by thousands of devices would inevitably violate humanitarian law, by failing to verify each target, and distinguish between protected civilians and those who could potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities.

potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities.

“Such attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians, and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life,” the experts said.

Humanitarian law additionally prohibits the use of booby-traps disguised as apparently harmless portable objects where specifically designed and constructed with explosives – and this could include a modified civilian pager, the experts said. A booby-trap is a device designed to kill or injure, that functions unexpectedly when a person performs an apparently safe act, such as answering a pager.

“It is also a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians, including to intimidate or deter them from supporting an adversary,” the experts warned. “A climate of fear now pervades everyday life in Lebanon,” they said.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pagers-and-radios-terrifying-violation-international-law-say-un

@34,

"A meeting that gathered commanders of the group’s elite Radwan force in the basement of a residential building had been struck down by Israeli warplanes. .... 16 Hezbollah militants [were killed], including the Radwan force leader Ibrahim Aqil and senior commander Ahmad Wehbe.

Just two days earlier, hundreds of walkie-talkies belonging to the Lebanese militant group’s members detonated in a single minute. A day before that, thousands of exploding Hezbollah pagers maimed hundreds of people. Overall, at least 80 people have been killed in attacks since Tuesday. Most were Hezbollah operatives, but the casualties also include women and children."

CNN

80 people killed. "Most were Hezbollah operatives ..."

That is a discriminate attack. Hezbollah was targeted. It was proportionate. "Most [killed] were Hebollah."

The U.N. Human Rights staff is losing all credibility. It is legal to strike at your enemies. It's legal for their to be collateral damage to non-combatants. The U.N. Human Rights personnel know the criteria, letter of treaties, and precedent, and choose to ignore it, or apply certain parts of it selectively, while ignoring others, and apply it out of context.

Hezbollah's stated goal is an armed march all the way to Jerusalem. They have made themselves into a lawful combatant. They choose to do so in plain clothes, among the civilians, in violation of human rights law, and costing those civilians protections of international law.

Haaretz investigation unveils IDF’s systematic use of Gaza civilians as human shields - Aug, 15, 2024

A recent investigation by Haaretz has shed light on the deeply troubling practice of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) using Gaza civilians, including children and the elderly, as human shields and booby trap detectors. This report, based on testimonies from IDF soldiers, highlights a pattern of abuse that raises serious questions about Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law.

The use of human shields by the IDF is not a new allegation. Accusations of such practices date back to the founding of Israel in 1948 and have been a recurring issue in the country’s numerous conflicts with Palestinian territories. Legally, the use of human shields is prohibited under international law, specifically under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, which classifies such actions as war crimes. Despite this, evidence suggests that the IDF has repeatedly violated these standards.

https://www.nationofchange.org/2024/08/15/haaretz-investigation-unveils-idfs-systematic-use-of-gaza-civilians-as-human-shields/

@34: “We [the UN human rights experts] express our deepest solidarity to the victims of these [exploding-pager] attacks”

Solidarity! Ha ha ha, solidarity with the victims of Hizbollah’s exploding pagers! That’s a good one! OK, UN human rights experts, it’s nice to know where your allegiance lies.

For those who might be surprised that a panel of UN human rights experts would express “the deepest solidarity” with the Party of Allah, it’s important to realize that UN human rights experts are political appointees. Like all political appointees, they deliver the political results their appointing body expects. The majority of the current panel of the UN Human Rights Council consists of countries hostile to Israel, so it’s no surprise the experts they appoint express such profound solidarity with Hizbollah. From the river to the sea!

Amnesty International:

"The evidence indicates that those who planned and carried out these attacks could not verify who else in the immediate vicinity of the devices would be harmed at the time of the explosion, or even whether only fighters had been given the pagers and radios. Therefore, the attacks were carried out indiscriminately, would be unlawful under international humanitarian law and should be investigated as war crimes. The attacks also violated at a minimum the right to life under international human rights law, which continues to apply in situations of armed conflict, and likely other human rights, depending on the various impacts of the attack on the Lebanese population and their daily lives.

[...]

“The mass explosions across Lebanon and Syria in recent days bear the hallmarks of a sinister dystopian nightmare. Using hidden explosive devices concealed within everyday telecommunications devices to wage deadly attacks on such a scale is unprecedented. Even if the attacks intended to target military objectives, detonating thousands of devices simultaneously without being able to determine their exact location or whose possession they were in at the time of the attack demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the right to life and for the laws of armed conflict,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks – meaning attacks that fail to distinguish between civilians and military targets. It also prohibits the use of the type of booby-traps that appear to have been used in these attacks,” continued Aya Majzoub. “The UN Security Council should take all the measures at its disposal to ensure protection of civilians and avoid more needless suffering. An international investigation must urgently be set up to establish the facts and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Explosions took place in supermarkets, cars, residential streets and other busy public areas causing traumatic injuries, spreading widespread terror and panic across Lebanon and overwhelming a healthcare sector already impacted by an acute economic crisis.

Should Israel be determined to be responsible, then these attacks took place in the context of an ongoing armed conflict. As such, their lawfulness must be assessed on the basis of international humanitarian law, as well as applicable international human rights law, which continues to apply in situations of armed conflict. This applies in particular to the right to life, as confirmed by the UN Human Rights Committee. opens in a new tab

The reliance on routine tools of civilian daily life for the explosions, the impossibility of the perpetrators to have known the identity of all those who received the devices, who would be using them and who would be near them – all of these factors indicate that the attacks were indiscriminate and therefore unlawful. As such, they should be investigated as war crimes.

International humanitarian law also prohibits the use of booby-traps or other devices which employ a device “in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”, according to Amended Protocol II to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/lebanon-establish-international-investigation-into-deadly-attacks-using-exploding-portable-devices/

Human Rights Watch:

Photographs and videos filmed by victims and witnesses to the incident and reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed pagers exploding in various locales, such as grocery stores. Other videos that appear to be linked to the incident show adults and children in emergency rooms with severe penetrating traumatic injuries to their heads, torsos. and limbs, and other injuries consistent with the detonation of high explosives.

Hezbollah, in a statement, said that the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and blamed the Israeli government. US and former Israeli officials speaking to the media said that Israel was responsible for the attack. The Israeli military has not commented.

The following quote can be attributed to Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch:

“Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use – precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction. A prompt and impartial investigation into the attacks should be urgently conducted.”

@38: “The reliance on routine tools of civilian daily life for the explosions…”

I love that Amnesty International sees pagers supplied by Hizbollah as “routine tools of civilian daily life.” Careful, Amnesty International, you’re telling on yourself with that little comment.

It is sad that innocent people got hurt, especially that little girl who died while bringing her dad his beeping pager. Parents, please remember to keep your terrorist communication devices out of the hands of children. Please do not bring them into grocery stores either. Do not share them with the Iranian ambassador to your country. Remember that they are military objects during an armed conflict, so please secure them in an area away from civilians, as the laws of armed conflict require you to do.

"Then as now — albeit in far smaller numbers — pagers are used precisely because they are old school. They run on batteries and radio waves, making them impervious to dead zones without WiFi, basements without cell service, hackings and catastrophic network collapses such as those during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Some medical professionals and emergency workers prefer pagers to cell phones or use the devices in combination. They’re handy for workers in remote locations, such as oil rigs and mines. Crowded restaurants use them, too, handing patrons blinking, hockey puck-like contraptions that vibrate when your table is ready.

[...]

The number of pagers globally is hard to come by. But more than 80% of Spok’s paging business deals with healthcare, with about 750,000 subscribers across large hospital systems, according to Vincent Kelly, CEO of the company.

“When there’s an emergency, their phones don’t always work,” Kelly said, adding that pager signals are often stronger than cell phone signals in hospitals with thick walls or concrete basements. Cell networks are “not engineered to handle every single subscriber trying to call at the same time or send a message at the same time.”

https://apnews.com/article/pagers-explosions-lebanon-doctors-security-israel-f35bd0f0e0a57bb5f37c139d1f32926d

@41: Sounds like you’re feeling a little pager-bomb solidarity yourself, ha ha!

Pagers may be a common(?) feature of civilian life, but Hizbollah-supplied pagers are not. Civilians who may be concerned about the safety of their pagers can avoid danger by declining to join Hizbollah.

@42 The problem with your believing your own propaganda is you can't see that Hezbollah is also a major political party in Lebanon, not just a paramilitary organization. There are many civilians who work for Hezbollah. Hezbollah became immensely popular among Shiites thanks to 18 years of Israeli military occupation of half of Lebanon. May be Israel should consider a political solution rather than create powerful enemies.

how’s bibi’s keep
keep-outta-Prison
gambit going you ask?

nyt:
Raising the Stakes,
Israel Gambles That
Hezbollah Will Back Down

Israel’s intensifying strikes show how
determined it is to stop Hezbollah’s
cross-border attacks — and how
far it is from achieving that goal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-escalating.html

meanwhile donold eltrumpfster’s
struggle to stay outtta Jail
splits USofA right down
the Middle.

the Fascists have No
Compunctions about using
EVERY One as Their human shield

@43: You’ve tried very, very hard to imply ordinary civilians were greatly at risk from the terrorists’ explosive radios, but the casualty figures show that wasn’t true. (You’d already refused to answer my question about whether this attack was “proportionate” or not, based on those same numbers, but now you’re trying to insinuate it wasn’t.)

“Hezbollah is also a major political party in Lebanon, not just a paramilitary organization.”

Then, per the laws of armed conflict, Hezbollah needs to keep ALL of its military equipment out of the hands of the civilians in the organization — which they seem to have done in this case, because you haven’t yet given a single example of someone from the political side getting hurt by these exploding devices.

the return of the drivelmaster ...

Nobody said it was disproportionate, human rights advocate said it was indiscriminate

To Be An Authentic Person
Is To Stare Deeply Into
The Face Of Uncom-
fortable Truths

It’s to experience all the footage of shredded bodies in Gaza with a visceral understanding that these are real things happening to real people whose lives mattered just as much as your own.

To come to terms with the reality that the power structure you were raised to trust and the political party you were raised to side with are responsible for some of the worst things that have ever happened in our world, and that their depravity must be fought tooth and claw.

To stare unblinking into the very real possibility that the madness of our rulers could cause total human extinction by nuclear war or environmental destruction within your own lifetime.

To admit that your previous understanding of an issue was a misguided perception caused by propaganda, and to be fully open to the possibility that this is also true of your current understanding of other issues as well.

To deeply recognize the ways your own delusion and dysfunction have played a role in the delusion and dysfunction of humanity as a whole, and to cease viewing yourself as separate or separable from the self-destructive patterning of our species.

To be honest with yourself about the circumstances of your birth and the ways in which you have it better than other people in different circumstances and in other parts of the world — often at the expense of those very populations.

--Caitlin Johnstone; September 23, 2024

more
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/to-be-an-authentic-person-is-to-stare

"It is a quite
special secret pleasure
how the people around us fail
to realize what is really happening to them."

--Adolf Hitler

@43: "Hezbollah became immensely popular among Shiites thanks to 18 years of Israeli military occupation of half of Lebanon. May be Israel should consider a political solution rather than create powerful enemies."

Tried that, didn't work. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon 24 years ago. Peace did not ensue. Hizbollah today is larger, stronger, and more aggressive than ever before.

You should pay Hizbollah the respect of listening to them when they speak. They've spent 40 years telling the entire world that their purpose is the destruction of Israel, yet still the West is full of people who are like, "Hmm, they probably just want to be left alone in peace, has anyone tried just leaving them alone in peace?"

"While the pagers were used by Hezbollah members, there was no guarantee who was holding the device at the time it was detonated. Also, many of the casualties were not Hezbollah fighters, but members of the group’s extensive civilian operations mainly serving Lebanon’s Shiite community.

At least two health workers were among those killed Tuesday. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, charity workers, teachers and office administrators work for Hezbollah-linked organizations, and an unknown number had pagers.
Image "

https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah-syria-ce6af3c2e6de0a0dddfae48634278288

@46: “Nobody” there including you, because you refused to answer my direct question on that point.

Anyone who says it was indiscriminate needs to read the definitions of “pager,” “walkie-talkie,” and the rules of armed conflict on the separation of military items from civilians.

(I’d ask you if you thought the casualty figures supported “indiscriminate,” but “hurl verbal abuse and refuse to answer” is your expected value, so I won’t bother.)

@49: “Many” actually meaning “two,” we see.

While you’re certainly expected to take terrorists at their word, please bear in mind many (by which I mean, “probably far more than two”) of these devices were given to Hezbollah fighters who do not publicly identify as Hezbollah members, but who were (explosively!) revealed to be such.

‘Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic surgeon at AUBMC, said: “Basically you have thousands of young men with almost identical injuries leading to permanent disabilities. These injuries are affecting the hands and one or both eyes.”’

(https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/pager-explosions-lebanon-how-20cd5ffa?mod=series_israelhamasnav)

Apparently, in Lebanon, almost all, “Doctors, nurses, paramedics, charity workers, teachers and office administrators,” are young men.

Interesting place.

more drivel ... I'd spend the entire day answering your constant non-sequitur

"I’d ask you if you thought the casualty figures supported “indiscriminate,”"

indiscriminate has little to do with "figures". Disproportionate deals with figures. Basic English.

“hurl verbal abuse"

oh please, your nonsensical commentary is filled with smears and put down

" “Many” actually meaning “two,” we see"

2 dead medics, many maimed among civilians as said by the Associated Press (who MUST be lying, right?)

etc.. who has time answering your constant misdirection, outright lies, etc Get a life.

@51: The averagebobs of the world are acting as if Israel sprinkled exploding pagers at random all over Lebanon, hoping that at least a few of them would be picked up as a matter of chance by Hizbollah members. "Indiscriminate! Indiscriminate!"

In reality, Israel shipped exploding pagers directly into the literal hands of the Hizbollah members who ordered those specific pagers. It's tough to imagine a military strike more discriminate than that. Even Hassan Nasrallah has admitted that Hizbollah got its ass kicked. Hence the retaliatory rocket fires this morning.

It just sucks that Hizbollah does such a bad job segregating its military personnel and equipment from the surrounding population of civilians. As someone who opposes war crimes, you'd think averagebob would be outraged by such unlawful conduct.

@34,

The U.N. is losing all credibility when they will fully omit references to actual treaties and precedent, because they know they are misstating the law.

If they are so confident in there read of international law, why are they trying the case in public, and not a courtroom.

@52: Meanings of words depend heavily upon context. “Indiscriminate” bombing of military assets in an area with many civilians — like, say, the places where many Hezbollah terrorists swanned around with their cool new pagers — will lead to many civilian casualties. Therefore, your desperate scrounging for any sign of civilian casualties implies these attacks were, in fact, highly discriminate.