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Comment by jeffwask | Hacker News Reader

This was no different than any other terror attack. The person pushing the button had no visibility into who was holding the device and who would be injured in the blast radius. These sorts of attacks have always been possible, and most counties have not chosen to go this route due to the trickledown effect on society at large if they lose confidence in the safety of things they use every day,

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I'm not at all worried that any of my electronics are about to explode. Same reason I'm not worried my wedding will be blown up by a drone strike - I don't let terrorist infiltrate my society. If my family gets blown up because my neighbor was storing a cruise missile in his living room - he's my enemy. Not the person that blew them up.

This didn't happen only in living rooms... this was among the civilian and non-involved populace. It happened outside their homes, inside restaurants, inside malls.

So, if someone sets off a bomb in a mall...to kill a terrorist... it's not a terrorist act?

And do these people really have the POWER to not let terrorist infiltrate their society?

> So, if someone sets off a bomb in a mall...to kill a terrorist... it's not a terrorist act?

No, by definition a terrorist act is done to cause “terror”

These were assassinations with collateral damage

That's exactly it, it could have been sitting on a coffee table with kids playing around it. Terrorists bad, governments stooping down to the same level is also bad.

If the person blowing them up takes out the entire city block that happens to include my family, then the person blowing them up is also my enemy. Your family dies as collateral damage and your reaction is "enh, they did what was necessary"? What if your wedding is blown up by drone strike because of some analyst's mistake, or choice to err on the side of "probably terrorist"?

> some analyst's mistake

You are seriously downplaying how such decisions are made.

I'm sure there's more checks and verifications and signoffs than just "Bob says go!" I'm also sure that such processes are still very fallible [0], as demonstrated by any number of friendly fire incidents over the last few decades [1], or the London Metro Police shooting a Brazilian electrician on the train [2], or the IDF shooting three Israeli hostages trying to surrender [3]. Some mistakes, some bad decisions, some practices allowed that hadn't gone wrong until now... if my innocent family is dead because of that, I'm definitely not going to excuse them because someone else started the fight. And my willingness to allow for accidents in the fog of war is going to shrink every time such accidents are repeated, or revealed to be policy rather than mistake, or just an unwillingness to do anything to avoid them.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarnak_Farm_incident

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jean_Charles_de_Me...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam...

[edit: fix formatting and correcting info]

From the Zionist playbook to term any opposition to their occupation terrorism, and excuse collateral damage. Consistency further demands you support Trump who wanted to penalize families for the actions of individuals. Sorry, collective punishment is a war crime even if your bloodlust supports that.

I don't who is responsible for this amazing surgical attack. If someone thinks he can fight terrorist hiding missile under people homes without any coletral damage he probably never suffer terrorist attacks

What visibility do you have when you drop a bomb on a building?

When you fire a gun in combat at a target?

People who have no idea how warfare actually works have unrealistic expectations about this.

The trickle-down effect is intentional and important. Terrorists are using off the shelf technology to kill civilians and communicate. They should know that they can be hit anywhere. This is an organization that killed hundreds of Americans and fires at civilians ±25 rockets per day.

>The person pushing the button had no visibility into who was holding the device and who would be injured in the blast radius.

You sound like someone who is amazed and flabbergasted by the Iranian ambassador having (and being injured by) one of those pagers.

A joke I saw:

"Why did the Iranian ambassador have a Hezbollah pager?"

"Because he left the Hamas pager at home."

https://github.com/golergka/golergka/blob/main/israeli-pager...

The difference is:

1. Who is targeted

2. Objective of the attack

3. Value of military objective compared to expected collateral damage

In other words, everything. This attack is one of the most targeted and surgical attacks of this caliber in the history of warfare. Seeing comments like this on HN really kills my faith in humanity.

That's not what terrorism is. People seem to have forgotten in war you're allowed to kill anyone on the other side that is engaging in war against you. There aren't any times outs or safe spaces.

That's war starting wars is a bad idea.

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