A polite, little suggestion to The Stranger's new leadership. Read through every comment in yesterday's Slog A.M. comment thread:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/09/30/79718670/slog-am-mystery-firework-show-strikes-again-spd-lost-23-guns-hurricane-helene-death-toll-up-to-110/comments

And ask yourself if you think providing a forum for this sort of discourse aligns with how you want to represent this publication. Maybe it is. It's not for me to judge.

Israel Is Preparing A Risky Incursion Into Lebanon — As Biden Stands By

Fighting on the ground in Lebanon risks millions of lives, and officials tell HuffPost the White House is prepared to let it proceed.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lebanon-invasion-israel-biden_n_66fae3cee4b029b6b7a6f0dc

@1 - Can you be more specific?

'... a Black man
sitting at a transit station
holding a paper bag could be dangerous.'

--GOP candidate for
Attorney General
Pete Serrano's
video

other than
fear and loathing
What has Else the gop Got?

@1

the easily-offended
are offended by Everything but
seldom by Authoritarian/Corporate Control

WTF is "Libra Coded"? Asking as a Libra.

@5: "WTF is 'Libra Coded'"

It's yet another attempt to categorize people based on the circumstances of their birth, but you know, like, in a fun way!

@: "Fighting on the ground in Lebanon risks millions of lives"

Millions of lives! Millions! No, wait, BILLIONS!

“ The workers want higher wages, better benefits, and to prevent companies from automating their jobs”

I say automate whatever can be automated at the ports

@7 oh, ok it's only 100,000s. Feel better now? or is that not enough for you?

@3

see: @6 & 7,
& their gleeful
endorsements on
yesterday's Schlog AM

if you've got the stomach

@9: Tens of thousands, actually. Your understanding of the stakes is off by a couple orders of magnitude, which might actually explain part of why you get so hysterical. War is hell, but this ain't World War III.

@1, the only reason I read the stranger is for the comments. It provides at least a little context to the day's news!

Phoebe @3, I apologize. I should have been more precise than to say "EVERY comment." I should have suggested that The Stranger leadership read through the comment thread AS A WHOLE.

@12
and Mostly
why I read the nyt.

@13: Understood, but your take might not be what others think unless you're specific about what is provoking your angst.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JIMMY f'n CARTER

Thee Most Moral (and
Christian!) PRESIDENT the
USofA's EVER fucking HAD.

and then
there's
Don-
old:

Vote Blue.

@9 Nope. Lebanon has ~4 times the population of Gaza (including refugees from Syria). and there will be 190,000 dead Palestinians as of August in Gaza according to the Lancet due to Israel targeting civilians. You do the math, genius.

Note that even 10,000s murdered civilians is beyond the pale.

@9, That is the nature of war. We tried passing legislation outlawing war in 1928. The Kellog-Briand Pact. How well did that legislation work?

@1 I actually agree that cheering on the assassination of Hezbollah leaders and rank and file through the obliteration of entire apartment blocks, and at the cost of great many civilian lives is grotesque but this is very unfortunately normalized discourse at all levels of society, including congress so I believe that we are much better off having the monsters show themselves for what they are while confronting them rather than push the issue under the carpet. I also find that slandering people as anti-semites to suppress historical facts and anti-colonialism is abject and shows that these individuals aren't interested in honest conflict resolution, only in imposing their views and state of the world upon all of us.

@9, If there is a prohibition of war, and someone is really insistent on doing it anyway, who goes to war to force them not to make war, or to keep attacking them until their capacity to make war is destroyed?

@18 If we all had your views, we'd still be fighting for a sharp stick in the mud.

@20 Stop undermining the UN and we may get somewhere without warfare.

@19 -- Bravo, avergebob.

I only Wish I were
as articulate.

@13, Maybe the The New Stranger Publisher will finally just spin off Everout and Brown Paper Tickets (the parts of the business that actually make money) and stop their "news" and editorial functions altogether. They are much more viable as stand-alone businesses, and then there would not be the opportunity for such objectionable comments.

Or they could make the already marginal news and editorial side an even bigger drag on those profit centers and higher full-time content moderators to watch comments 24/7 and see if that person could get stay ahead of new commenter registrations, which can be automated BTW. It might drag down the whole barely solvent, because of maintaining a few underpaid "news" and editorial writers, enterprise.

Or they could not have comments at all, many of which attract eyeballs and internet traffic to publication sustaining adds.

What's your favored option to getting to an echo chamber that just reinforces your own presuppositons. How is it paid for?

@17: lol, you might want to double-check the meanings of words like murder, genocide, and apartheid. And especially anti-semitism, eh? 😉

@16
You pretend you weren’t going to vote for someone even older.
Have you ever considered that your name calling is just as childish as Trump’s? It’s something you have in common.

@19 Sure, Bob. You arbitrarily pick a date to decide when your "historical" facts begin. Sure. (And, of course, ignore anything contradictory to your preconceived view.)

Keep supporting Hamas and Hezbollah; both of those organizations have proven to be a shining light for human rights and moral endeavors! And, hey, look! - Iran is going to join in! Another bastion of human rights! But it makes it okay if they hate Jews.

If you don't want to be called an anti-semite, don't be anti-semetic!

@22, And how does the U.N. enforce its will when some group our country tells it "f off?," and launches a war, genocide, etc. anyway? With what army or force?

What happens when some fascist group of countries gets hold of the U.N., like a fascist group may soon get control of the U.S. Presidency, Senate, and House? Hungary is already there. The Netherlands is already there. Italy is already there. France, Finland, and Germany are on the cusp.

That is the history of humankind, unchanging over 10,000 years without moderation or break. Someone always tries to use the tech of the day to engage in war (civil or international) to get what they want by force.

Why do you assume democratic majorities aren't susceptible to being corrupted? What evidence in the historical record is there of human nature being chageable? None.

We could sure use a Klaatu and Gort right about now...

I don’t see much hypocrisy in voting for an old guy when your only options are two old guys because age cancels out. OTOH it takes ovaries of steel for one of the old guys to make age a defining campaign issue and that has a way of biting you in the ass when the other old guy cedes his candidacy to someone 20 years younger.

I think it’s perfectly fair for voters to be concerned about Trump’s advanced age and rambling, old-man-yells-at-cloud incoherence. Say what you will about the guy but he has a point. This country deserves better than an old man on the brink of dementia.

No weapons ban and, since it's Oct 1 (the start of the new fiscal year), $3 billion in fresh military aid. It's like the three armies you get every time you make it around the board playing Risk.

@26

sans Ranked
Choice Voting
Rs & Ds Don't offer
Us much of a 'Choice.'

& if calling Donold Donold
is stealing Donold's
thunder than
so Be it.

@30, The remaining old guy's age is the least thing we should be concerned about when it comes to him.

@16 &@32 kristofarian: +2 For the WIN!!!
Obviously, Donald Trump wins the booby prize for being the World's Oldest Baby.

Happy Hundredth, 39th President Jimmy Carter, and bless you and your late wife, Roslyn, for all your diligent service to the people of our country, specifically your tireless work for Habitat For Humanity--into your 90s!
And, while we're at it......
Happy Eighty-Ninth, Julie Andrews! I'm ready to watch The Sound of Music all over again.
Rest in peace, Christopher Plummer.

@19: “… assassination of Hezbollah leaders and rank and file through the obliteration of entire apartment blocks, and at the cost of great many civilian lives…”

Then maybe Hezbollah shouldn’t have put their hardened leadership bunker underneath a civilian neighborhood?

“…having the monsters show themselves for what they are…”

Specifically, I’m a supporter of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly forbids using civilians to protect combatants. Monstrous, right?

@27 "You arbitrarily pick a date to decide when your "historical" facts begin"

That is certainly not true. I started with Bronze age inhabitants, including Palestinians who have since continuously occupied the land (it wasn't called Palestine at that time).

"Keep supporting Hamas and Hezbollah"

More slander from the pro-Zionist crowd. Hamas and Hezbollah are reactionary theocrats and do commit war crimes, yet Palestinian and lebanese grievances against Israel are legitimate as pointed out by a slew of United Nations reports. Note that Israel persecutes all Palestinians who oppose its expansionism irrespective of their religious belief or absence thereof

"Iran is going to join in"

Thanks to Bibi and other extremists who are pushing toward a regional conflict that'll drag us in

"Another bastion of human rights!"

It is indeed as bad as Israel's human rights record toward Palestinians

"don't be anti-semetic!"

Here we go again. Citing facts about who occupied Palestine and for how long isn't antisemitic. Denying Palestinians their humanity and rights is however deeply racist.

@18, @20, @24, and @28 NotGettingIt: WowEEE, you sure do spew a lot of misinformed word salad for someone who has absolutely nothing to say.
Here's some actual news that raindrop doesn't want you to figure out: Fox TeeVee causes brain cancer.
Ask yourself if the free WiFi and Twinkies are worth becoming a blob of dead matter.

@36: Not to worry, averagebob, those heroic "anti-colonialists" in the Iranian army are shooting ballistic missiles into Israel. That will teach those awful Jews not to "colonize" Persia!

@35 I am not sure if you are really dumb or if you are deliberately distorting what I said to better obfuscate. In the comment you are strategically truncating, I was objecting to the cheering of these acts as being grotesque. You certainly are capable of saying very stupid stuff (and often the exact opposite) but considering your comment history and lackluster character as shown by your arsenal of dirty rhetorical tricks, I'll bet it's the later: you are an obfuscator.

thumper the
Chatterbox's™
an unprincipled
troll & loves his werk

is he pro bono
or does he
work for
Pooty

Time to take
Out the
Trash
@tS.

@19, Since you are so fond of quoting international law as the basis for your argument, let's look at the Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 52, paragraph 2, which defines what is, and is not, a military object.

"In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage."

The instant Hezbollah chose to put a command and control bunker in an apartment building, they made it into a valid military objective, subject to attack. It ceased being a civilian object and became subject to attack.

You are also fond of citing the U.N. So lets look at the U.N. Charter, Chapter VII, Article 51.

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,"

If an "armed attacker" can make themselves immune from attack, by surrounding themselves by civilians, then this right under the U.N. Charter is null and void. Nations no longer have an "inherent right of individual ... self-defense."

@38: Wow, another no- or low-casualty result for Israel. Way more ballistic missiles got through the air defense than in April, but they don't seem to have caused any damage. The Iranians truly are the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The SM-3s and Arrows obviously turned in an amazing performance as well. Still, there will have to be a counterstrike on Iranian soil, this is way too many missiles to shrug off.

@42 CNN is discussing several possibilities: 1) Destroy the oil facilities at Badar Abbas, crippling the already shakey Iranian economy. This would hurt the average citizen in Iran. 2) Decapitation strike to kill the Ayatollah and government leaders. This could lead to revolution in Iran, removing the clergy from power.

Who knows?

soon-to-be
Jailbirds donold
and bibi Know that if
they can start a Regional War
and drag Us into it both of their Long
odds against freedom Decrease Exponentially

for either one
it's an Existential*
Threat. their War'll
insure they Never see
the Inside of any Prison
but'll set the Planet waaaay
back. This is NOT Their Concern.

*for Us too

@43: Given the extremely limited damage in Israel, the Israelis can probably get away with something a little less dramatic. My guess is, a single day of strikes against missile production, storage, and launch facilities. Probably will have to knock out some air defense sites to make that happens, but that’s all to the good. Time will tell, as always.

@39: “I was objecting to the cheering of these acts as being grotesque.”

Which acts, the killing of terrorists, or the collateral damage resulting from the killing of terrorists who were cowering behind civilians? Cheering the deaths of terrorists, which I was most certainly doing, is not grotesque. Cheering the deaths of innocent civilians would be grotesque, but I haven’t done any of that.

It’s not my fault you’re either a very bad writer, or that you’re intentionally making false accusations.

@46 Typical incoherent drivel from you given that the bombs that killed Hezbollah leaders are the same bombs that killed these innocent civilians. Trying to dissociate one from the other is impossible and cheering on these bombings is abject no matter how many ridiculously contortions you attempt to avoid taking responsibility.

@47, And you still haven't responded to the U.N. Charter language and Geneva Convention Language that says that is perfectly permissible. See @41.

@48 dude, this is tiresome.

First, see my response @39 discussing the fact that my initial comment wasn't about the legality of these specific bombings, although they may well be illegal

Second, the Geneva accords were amended several times since 1948 including in 1977 to address issues such as what are indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks upon civilians

All of this has been discussed several times here, ad-infinitum, in recent weeks including on days you were present on this board and even if I recall well specifically in response to your comments

So, although you have shown to be perfectly capable of searching the internet for the relevant articles and that I have already multiple times posted links to said addendum , here is a link to rule 12 of the1977 addendum to the Geneva Convention concerning indiscriminate attacks. Please be sure to bookmark the relevant page so that we don't need to have this discussion again. I am sure the other participants to comments would appreciate it entirely if we didn't rehash the same stuff forever, except for tensorna of course who revels in torturing words so that they don't mean anything anymore and because he expects that propaganda works best through repetition

Definition of Indiscriminate Attacks

Rule 12. Indiscriminate attacks are those:
(a) which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law;
and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12#Fn_E41C220B_00001

So for example ammunition that destroy entire city blocks to take out a couple of guys in a basement are most likely indiscriminate. And yes these concepts have already been used in war crime tribunals like that for the former Yugoslavia conflict. I remember posting such tribunal records in reply to the same comments you are making today.

@47: "... the bombs that killed Hezbollah leaders are the same bombs that killed these innocent civilians."

Oh, look: you switched from "acts" to "bombs," in the hope no one would notice. (That's clever. For you.) The act of building a hardened bunker (!) beneath a civilian neighborhood (!!) was Hezbollah's, not Israel's, and (as you can read up-thread) per the laws of armed conflict, Hezbollah bears all responsibility for the deaths of those innocent civilians. So yes, I cheer on the deaths of jihadi terrorists, and one reason I cheer their deaths originates from their constant cowering behind the very civilians they loudly claim to care so very, very much about.

Going forward, you're going to need a lot more than such obvious sleights-of-hand, though, and you revealed you know that by your cheap shot in yesterday's thread, about what '...Western news stenographers are "reporting."' In Gaza, Hamas controlled the flow of information, and folks like you could obediently parrot all of Hamas' lies about Israel's "indiscriminate" bombing. Now, in Lebanon, anyone can see the ruins of the hardened bunker, which Hezbollah had cynically constructed beneath a civilian neighborhood.

Nailing Hezbollah's top leadership, right in their coward-hole, makes it very hard for you to cast doubt on Israel's target selection (although, again in yesterday's thread, you did obediently try), and the sickening ugliness with which terrorists act will become ever-harder for you to ignore -- or even to make false equivalences with Israel. One side callously and cynically places innocent civilians in danger as a matter of policy, and the other does not; no matter how many examples you scrounge of the latter for your false equivalences, you'll never be able to find enough evidence to counter the terrorists' policy.

@50: Yup, Hizbollah doesn’t get to build a command center beneath an apartment building and then stick its tongue out at its enemies cause they can’t shoot back. If 80-some bunker-busting heavy munitions are what it takes to wipe out the command center, then 80-some bunker-busting heavy munitions are what Israel is entitled to fire. Hizbollah’s inhumane decision to site the command center under the building does not, contra averagebob, create a “no shooting allowed” zone.

Speaking of heavy munitions, hey, averagebob, why no condemnation of the 200 long-range ballistic missiles launched by one sovereign nation at another? I thought you were against escalation! 😄😄😄 just kidding I didn’t really!

@51: "Speaking of heavy munitions, hey, averagebob, why no condemnation of the 200 long-range ballistic missiles launched by one sovereign nation at another?"

From the way you present it, merely lobbing hundreds of ballistic missiles at another country sounds an awful lot like "indiscriminate" targeting of that country's civilian population. Anyone who grew up during the Cold War could have told you that's not true. ;-)

uh-oh.

see: what bibi’s
Keep-outta-Prison
Gambit/Campaign/
Genocidal War on Gaza’s
doing for Jews, Planet-wide?

and all you Cheerleaders’re
merely making the Anti-
Semitism Even Worse:

the Guardian:

British Jews
experience more anti-
semitism as Middle East war escalates

Community Security Trust
says the number of anti-
semitic incidents
has tripled

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/02/british-jews-experience-more-antisemitism-as-middle-east-war-escalates

Hamas's played you
and you Fell for it
Hook, Line and
Stinker.

oh & btw?
@53's Not an
Endorsement for
Hamas~ no matter How
Wormtongue'll try to Spin it

and he's a Real
Spinsmeister.

The
Debate
was a Tie. Walz
was over-caffeinated
and Maybelline Vancelot
was smarmy, prevaricating & Lying

and could Not admit
donold Eltumpfster
LOST. to have done
so wouldda been to
sabotage the sabotage of
tfg's next attempt at Election
Theft and ruined vanceys' chanceys to
become Ruler of the (formerly-) Free World.

Go, Kamala!
GO!

@53: Anti-semitism is not the fault of Jews. Anti-semitism is the fault of anti-semites. Thought you could use the reminder, lol

@49 The U.N. has not repealed Article 51, granting nations the right to self-defense, which they would have to if your reading of the 1977 language is correct. Under your reading of the 1977 language of the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. right of self-defense in Article 51, is war crime.

Under your reading of the indiscriminate attacks language the U.S., and others, have been wasting billions on tank armor. It would be far cheaper to chain a bunch of civilians all over a car with a cannon on it, and drive that into the enemy, since the enemy could then not fire on the tank without committing a war crime. Under your reading of the 1977 language nations are wasting millions on missile silos, hardened in concrete, and buried in the earth, to survive all but the largest and most pinpoint nuclear device. Just put them in Central Park, or downtown Pyongyang. Such missiles can be launched offensively, and no adversary can legally fire back. Under your reading of the 1977 language, all Russia has to do to conquer Ukraine, is drive tanks and march soldiers into Kiev, surrounded by masses of civilians, chained to the weapons. Russia can fire from amongst the civilians, and Ukraine can't fire back without committing a war crime.

In 1977 they did not repeal the language of the 1949 treaty. It's still binding. So they must be read together. Had they meant to repeal the language of the 1949 treaty, they would said so explicitly. So they language must be read together. Obviously they had something else in mind with the "indiscriminate attacks" language of 1977 than attacking a facility that a combatant was using to advance their war effort.

The very vagueness of the language, the lack of repeal of prior language, etc. is why many human rights lawyers acknowledge that the international human rights law they use, because its all they've got, is insufficient to protect non-combatants. It's why so few cases are brought under that law.

Then there is the issue, of what international army, is going to enforce a human rights court's ruling against an army that violates it. If that enemy puts their weapons and troops in apartment buildings, the court can't enforce their own ruling, without violating their own law.

"Anti-semitism is
not the fault
of Jews."
--@56

bingo.
and I Never
said it Was. you're
Deflecting because
your Cheerleading bibib's
Genocidal War on Palestinians
is GROWING & it's turning this Planet

WRONGLY -- against
ALL Jews. that you cannot
seem to comprehend this'd be
Baffling were it not for your insidious
propensity for Perpetual prevarications

such as Anti-Genoide
being Anti-semitism.

Yet another Lie.

time to step In
Wormtongue

your little
Sockpuppy's
gpt himself into
yet another Pickle.

@58: You specifically wrote that Israel's defense of itself and its citizens against a terrorist army, and those of us who approve of Israel's defense of itself and its citizens against a terrorist army, are "making the Anti-Semitism even worse." No, we're not responsible for the illegal acts of hateful bigots thousands of miles away, no matter how hard you lie about it. (Or how tediously; you merely copypasted your same lies from yesterday's Slog AM thread.)

Amazing, how in your world, a terrorist bears absolutely no responsibility of any kind whatsoever for the deaths of the innocent civilians he intentionally used as human shields, and yet, Israel and Americans are somehow responsible for a rise in bigoted British hate crimes.

@60

What
Took you
so Long, wormmy?

@60: For a thousand years, anti-semites have excused their own anti-semitism by blaming the conduct of Jews. "If only the Jews hadn't done 'X,' then maybe they wouldn't be quite so hated," they claim. Kristofarian's argument at @58 is a classic example of the trope. The content of 'X' varies from century to century, but the form of the argument is always the same.

@Wormtngue:

Read harder:

bibib's Genocidal War on Palestinians
is GROWING* and it's turning this
Planet -- WRONGLY -- against
ALL Jews.

*so we're
gonna Bomb
Iran? you're Cheer-
Leading US -- and the
PLANET -- into World War Three.

Nice Going,
Wormtongue.
JRR Tolkien's rol-
ling Over in his Grave.

@50 "you switched from "acts" to "bombs,""

and? didn't these actions consist of dropping bombs? You are quite some weirdo

"I cheer on the deaths"

Sadly, you have lost your humanity which we already knew considering your insane defense of Israeli actions in Gaza

"Western news stenographers are "reporting."'

They have a long history of it too to justify killing brown people: from the Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnam) to Kuwaiti incubators (1st Iraq war) to Iraqi WMD's (2nd Iraq war) to 50 severed baby heads on Oct 7 (Biden even claimed to have seen the pictures) to cite just a few instances. The Western press is basically regurgitating Israeli press communiques with hardly any push back or balance, which is a sure sign that something terrible is going to happen to Lebanese civilians.

"Hamas controlled the flow of information"

That is very possible, though probably not in the last year. You have the gall to bring up this topic without mentioning that IDF soldiers have a history of assassinating reporters, of which ~200 press employees killed in the last year in Gaza. And that is when Israel allows reporters in Gaza to do their job.

"right in their coward-hole"

You are such a dimwit. From American patriots to French resistance to whatever, all asymmetric warfare fighters throughout history hide among the population at least some of the time. They might as well commit suicide if they didn't.

@52 & 53

Why didn't you people ask me if I condemned the repeated Israeli bombing raids and assassinations throughout the region? Do you condemn them yourselves? Did you condemn the killing of 10,000s of Gaza civilians? The answer is no to all these questions

I personally find it indecent to see Western governments rush to condemn Iran when they hardly said anything about Israeli actions that led to this escalation in the conflict. I personally condemn all acts of war, which you already knew since I have argued repeatedly for a political solution, which you keep refusing while calling for more bloodshed. So what's the point of asking if not committing slander again (it's all you have)

The current escalation is largely provoked by Israel, and the senseless killing of civilians didn't start on October 7 (~200 murdered West Bank Palestinians between Jan and Oct 2023). Iran clearly doesn't not want to enter an open regional conflict, especially not with the US. Netanyahu is doing his best to get the US in a war with Iran and you morons are cheering him on. It could also well cause Democrats to lose this the election since they are squeezed between the anti-war left and the all out neocons on the right (to which you, apparently, belong)

@65: "Iran clearly doesn't not want to enter an open regional conflict, especially not with the US"

Well they have a funny way of showing it! 😃

@56 "Anti-semitism is not the fault of Jews"

Very true but nobody here made that claim. Israeli policies of expansionism and refusal of political solutions do not represent all Jews by far, it represent some Israeli Jews and fewer as every day goes by. By all measure, Israel's actions are making antisemitism worse, so do you by debasing the meaning of antisemitism when conflating anti-colonialism with antisemitism. All of this is very unfortunate, antisemitism like all form of racism should be fought with all we've got, which includes fighting the denial of Palestinian rights and humanity.

@66 Yesterday's bombing could also be understood as a warning (like last April) for Biden to reign in Netanyahu even if this analysis is nowhere to be seen in corporate media

@67: "Anti-semitism is not the fault of Jews ... nobody here made that claim."

Also @67: "By all measure, Israel's actions are making antisemitism worse"

Ha ha ha, nice one, Bob!

"By all measure,
Israel's actions are
making antisemitism
worse, so do you by debasing
the meaning of antisemitism when
conflating anti-colonialism with antisemitism.."
--@67

claiming to be
PRO-Israel whilst
Undermining Israel

the utter Essence
of insidious
clueless-
ness.

Massive
FAIL.

@68: "this analysis is nowhere to be seen in corporate media"

snicker

@64: “and? didn't these actions consist of dropping bombs?”

Sigh. As I already explained, the “act” by Hezbollah consisted of building a hardened bunker beneath a residential neighborhood, intentionally using the civilians living there as human shields. If Hezbollah had built their hardened bunker in an unpopulated area, the result would have been the same for Hezbollah, but with zero dead civilians. See the difference?

Not that you care about dead civilians anyway: “From American patriots to French resistance to whatever, all asymmetric warfare fighters throughout history hide among the population at least some of the time.”

Examples of General Washington deliberately hiding soldiers behind civilians, please.

And, your baldly manipulative emotional appeals aside, Hezbollah is not some group of freedom fighters. They’re a nonstate militia, dedicated to the destruction of Israel. They’re one of the main reasons Lebanon remains a failed state. They’re of no use to anyone, save the women-beating theocracy in Iran, which funds them. Yes, I’d be happier with all of them gone. (Mangle my quotes all you like, it shows your “honesty” at its finest.)

@61 Each time Wormtongue writes "terrorist" you have to empty your glass. That's 3 shots just for the comment immediately preceding yours

@72: "Examples of General Washington deliberately hiding soldiers behind civilians, please."

The Continental Army famously built a secret underground bunker in Valley Forge, right beneath a Quaker meeting-house! 😂

@72 twisting twisting twisting

building a bunker and dropping a bomb on it cannot be ONE action since they were done by different actors separated in time by probably years in this case, but whatever. You'll clearly say anything that sounds good to your twisted mind but you could at least be more respectful of your readers.

so much drivel, so little time

@72 "Examples of General Washington deliberately hiding soldiers behind civilians, please."

is this what YOU claim because I can't find anybody else saying it. Anyway, it's a fairly safe bet that American patriots hid within the population sometime to avoid detection.

@74 There was no need to build underground bunkers during the revolutionary war. Quit building strawman arguments.

@75: "building a bunker and dropping a bomb on it cannot be ONE action..."

Which is why I'm objecting to one and not the other. See how that works?

Look, you're just not going to admit Hezbollah built the bunker and used it, knowing they were putting every civilian above it at risk. You're not going to assign any responsibility to them for what they did, especially not for the civilian deaths they caused. You've made that clear. Given all of that. why do you persist in believing I could possibly care about your judgment of me, or of anything else?

Sociopathy means
Never having to
say "I'm sorry."

@77 "Which is why I'm objecting to one and not the other."

so stop pretending that you are answering my initial comment since I was talking about people cheering the act of dropping the bomb that killed Hezbollah leaders and civilians.

" you're just not going to admit Hezbollah built the bunker and used it, knowing they were putting every civilian above it at risk"

so why did I mention that in all asymmetric conflicts fighters hide among civilians? Stop lying.

@79: I'm cheering the deaths of jihadi terrorists. I'm sorry the leaders of the jihadi terrorists made civilian deaths inevitable by hiding behind those civilians. Their use of civilians as human shields violates the laws of armed conflict, and therefore, the jihadi terrorists bear sole responsibility for those civilian deaths. I really can't explain it in any fewer syllables.

@76: You explicitly wrote that "American patriots" did "hide among the population at least some of the time." I asked for examples of this being General Washington's policy, and you haven't answered. You then mumbled something about how what you believe simply has to be true, even if you can't produce any evidence for it, but that's just your normal belief, and really not worth pursuing further.

@80 Cheering actions that killed both a few fighters and many civilians is grotesque, whatever the fighters' responsibility for hiding among civilians.

The American war of independence was extensively fought by militia who were part time soldiers and didn't have uniforms to identify them. They lived at home, worked during the day and fought the British once in a while. George Washington made extensive use of militia in his campaigns. What would the British say and do when advancing in regions with militia? What would militiamen do to escape capture and whatever else by the British?

@80: "...a few fighters..." like @49, "...couple of guys in a basement..."

Oh, you mean this "couple of guys"? "Iranian Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, a deputy commander in the IRGC, was killed in the Israeli attack targeting Nasrallah," yeah, those would be very high-value targets. But wait, there's "a few fighters" more: "Senior officials from Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also at the site," (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-brings-fight-to-beirut-still-assessing-whether-hezbollahsleader-is-dead-1bf0d098?mod=Searchresults_pos6&page=1)

Now, for the sake of completeness, let's look at whether this haul of top terrorists and rogue-state military officers might have been "indiscriminate":

"Rule 12. Indiscriminate attacks are those:
(a) which are not directed at a specific military objective;"

A meeting of the leaders of the world's largest non-state militia, and military leaders from the state which fund that militia, would always qualify as "a specific military objective," so no, not "indiscriminate" by this definition.

"(b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective;"

Bunker-busting bombs have long been "directed at a specific military objective," so it's no again.

"... or (c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction."

As we've seen, the "methods or means" of bunker-busting have been used for quite awhile. The civilian deaths happened because the targets intentionally met in a bunker which had many civilians overhead and nearby. The exact same "methods and means," when applied to a bunker of the same construction in the middle of nowhere, would have resulted in exactly zero civilian deaths. These civilian deaths were therefore not the fault of the "methods or means" employed.

So no part of this definition has been met, and therefore the attack cannot have been "indiscriminate."

Finally, if you're actually equating an army's "use of militia" as reserves or auxiliaries, with terrorists' cowering behind civilians, then that's a lot of words just to admit you really have got nothing here. Reservists have been employed in many wars alongside regular soldiers, and this perfectly-legal employment of armed citizen reservists has no relation to the illegally non-consensual use of noncombatant civilians for human shields.

@63: "JRR Tolkien's rol-
ling Over in his Grave."

Yeah, and as for causing that, which do you think bothers him most: your theft of his property, the extreme pettiness in your misuse of his stolen property, your craven nature in stealing from someone who is no longer around to defend himself, or that a miserably failed writer has stolen from a both a literature professor (!) AND published author of (immensely popular and enduring) popular fiction?

Try to discuss.