← Back to context

Comment by kyboren

4 days ago

I think this was a brilliant operation and perfectly lawful. I also think that if Lebanon (not Hezbollah) were in a state of war with Israel, yes, that would (depending on proportionality and target discrimination) be perfectly legal, too.

10 comments

kyboren

Reply
ignoramous  4 days ago

> perfectly lawful

Are you a lawyer / expert in conflicts? If not, curious how you arrived at this conclusion.

  • kyboren  4 days ago

    No, I am not a lawyer. Does that preclude my having an opinion on the value and legality of a military strike? Anyway it seems to me that it was:

      - highly discriminatory

    - only Hezbollah commanders received these devices

    - it's an essential piece of military C2 gear so you'd expect they would keep possession of them at all times

    - the explosive was small enough to mitigate any risk to bystanders

  - targeted at combatants

  - likely to achieve (and in fact did achieve) military effects at least proportional to any collateral damage

    Passes the smell test to me.

    Would you still have a bone to pick with my credentials if I said that I thought the Dresden firebombings were not brilliant and not perfectly legal? Or the same about US military strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels?

    • KingMob  4 days ago

      > No, I am not a lawyer. Does that preclude my having an opinion on the [...] legality of a military strike?

      Hacker News arrogance in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen.

      Feel free to also weigh in on Napoleonic currency reform, the proportion of Siberian anime fans, DNA methylation rates of Tyrannosaurs, and anything else you know nothing about.

      Or maybe I just skipped CS456: "How To Know Everything About Non-Tech Topics" in college.

    • ignoramous  4 days ago

      > Passes the smell test to me

      Gotcha. Thanks.

      > Does that preclude my having an opinion on the value and legality of a military strike?

      Words mean things. "Perfectly lawful" means just that? And so, I was curious.

      > Would you still have a bone to pick with my credentials if I said that I thought the Dresden firebombings

      Felt the need to know whether I was mistaking an arm-chair opinion for an expert opinion, is all.

      2 replies →

    • tstrimple  4 days ago

      As long as it's other people's children being killed by Zionist terrorist attacks I'm sure you're perfectly okay with it. Typical conservative response to any tragedy. You'll only ever change your tune when it personally impacts you and then you'll be all confused about how anyone could support that.

Zetaphor  4 days ago

[flagged]

  • kyboren  4 days ago

    The most brilliant part about the civilian casualties from this operation is how many fewer of them there were than there would have been with any alternative means available to Israel.