Hezbollah’s Exploding Electronics

[Loren Pechtel]

You are beating the carrion of a dead horse. No one in any thread here justifies the actions of Hamas or wants more dead Israelis. But that does not stop the usual suspects from their slanderous "conclusions".

But people keep minimizing the effects of Islamic terrorists and authoritarians, like Hamas and Hezbollah and Jordan and Iran.

Like blaming Israel for the massive deaths of Gazans who were used brutally for human shields.

Israel made a successful, targeted, attack on a violent and implacable enemy force of Islamic terrorists. Near zero civilians hurt much less killed. Almost 3000 terrorists in a big hurt. Somehow, that's still Israeli misbehavior.
Fuck that noise.
Tom

Has that been confirmed that almost all the targets were terrorists?

Last I saw Lebanon claimed 12 dead and Israel claimed 10 dead targets. We have one clear civilian and one I have seen nothing on beyond "child". The lack of a description makes me strongly suspect they were actually a combatant or assistant.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For shells and bombs, it's usually not important to avoid smoke. Propellants typically need to be smokeless as far as possible, so as to avoid giving away the location of the shooter (whether artillery, or small-arms, or even rockets). When they don't, it's generally cheaper and easier to use explosives that generate smoke.

There's also the factor that shooters don't want to have their view obstructed by clouds of smoke.

Surface to air rockets also prefer a lack of smoke because that makes it harder for the target to evade.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hezbollah, the gang that could not shoot straight.
IDF: Missile from Lebanon lands in West Bank, sparking fire, causing power outages; none hurt

They missed the whole State of Israel. Oy vey! That's what happens when all of their competent missile techs get sent to the ER or straight to jahannam with Nasrallah.

Hamas routinely has rockets fall into Gaza.

 

[Elixir]

I don't think anyone thinks they [Hamas] can be taken out.

That’s why they’re such a blessing for Bibi.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Smoke can also appear red if backlit, just due to scattering. But that pic looks to me like NO₂ is the colouring agent - compare the 2020 Beirut Ammonium Nitrate silo explosion, which also produced a very red smoke cloud.

I do not think it's backlight, since the hue appears in shots from other angles. And the 2020 Beirut port blast is exactly what I was thinking of. That one was much bigger though - it even generated a Wilson Cloud.

In any case, it would suggest that Hezbollah was storing ammonium nitrate or similar explosives on site. So much for it being "civilian"!

Why would it suggest that??

An Israeli bomb containing Amonal, or some other high Nitrogen explosive, as the main charge, wouldn't be in the slightest way unnormal or abusual.

Disagree--Amonal isn't going to be used in good quality military ordnance. Shipping costs dominate, you're going to use the best boom you can. I don't know what they do use but it's not Amonal. Wikipedia lists our 2000# bombs as being Tritonal, H6, or PBXN-109. Fancy stuff you use when weight is more important than cost.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Handwaved rejections of alternative reasonable possible motivation and meaning in an emotional complex issue strongly suggests an unreasonable confidence in certainty of knowledge that makes rational discussion possible and results in responses like yours.

Nothing has been presented that warrants more than a handwave.

Truly ironic.

Still not presenting anything.

There are plenty of military experts in countries hostile to Israel. If they could throw egg on Israel's face by suggesting a better answer they would. Yet none have. That silence says a lot to me.

FFS, the Israeli armed forces were and are divided on what to do.

Doesn't mean any of them thought not shooting was the right answer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am very certain some people think it is all or nothing at this point and condone the crimes committed by Hamas. But those people aren't a tool to be used as a broad brush in order to dehumanize an entire population of people. Much like how Netanyahu's actions and his shouldn't be used to broad brush the opinions of all Israelis.

"By any means necessary" is an explicit acceptance of the 10/7 atrocity. It is not dehumanizing a population to say that.

Reread my post, feel free to respond to what I actually said... or not.

But that's not the whole population.

If you choose to take part in a protest with signs like that you are effectively saying that you endorse 10/7. But not everyone took part.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Don't have to have good guys. We need to try and stop the killing. The problem we have is that the major players in the region are apathetic to the Palestinians at best, while others use them as pawns. I get the Middle Eastern nations don't like the West. There is baggage. Any deal brokered would need to have the Palestinian interests at equal with the Israelis. But with Iran, they don't care about Palestinians. They want their big bad heel in Israel to be suffering. I think the only way to go about it is to sell a final peace plan, hard... something that is great for the Palestinians, something that would make the Iranian theocracy isolated (more so) globally in rejecting it. Of course, the other issue is that the hard liners that control more policy in Israel than the percentage of the vote they receive should allow, also don't care about the Palestinians and have their own agenda.

Which leads to what makes this a difficult peace plan, current leadership on both sides do not want peace. The people are much more likely to want stability, but they aren't in charge.

Clearly showing that you do not understand the situation. It is impossible to make peace with the Palestinians because they're not the ones in charge. Suppose you had a magic wand and made peace with Hamas--the result would simply be the money moving to other groups such as Islamic Jihad. Very soon we would be right back where we were.

Any peace that Iran doesn't agree to will not hold. And Iran has no interest in agreeing to peace. And they have radical Islam in charge--and radical Islam explicitly rejects the notion of making any real peace with non-Muslims.

At this point I suspect that even if you got Iran to agree it wouldn't solve it because Russia has gotten back into the game.

Please read my posts before responding with a counterpoint that actually agrees with what I said.

You expect Iran to agree to a deal that substantially hurts Iran with no benefit to them?!

 

[laughing dog]

Handwaved rejections of alternative reasonable possible motivation and meaning in an emotional complex issue strongly suggests an unreasonable confidence in certainty of knowledge that makes rational discussion possible and results in responses like yours.

Nothing has been presented that warrants more than a handwave.

Truly ironic.

Still not presenting anything.

There are plenty of military experts in countries hostile to Israel. If they could throw egg on Israel's face by suggesting a better answer they would. Yet none have. That silence says a lot to me.

FFS, the Israeli armed forces were and are divided on what to do.

Doesn't mean any of them thought not shooting was the right answer.

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[ZiprHead]

You are beating the carrion of a dead horse. No one in any thread here justifies the actions of Hamas or wants more dead Israelis. But that does not stop the usual suspects from their slanderous "conclusions".

But people keep minimizing the effects of Islamic terrorists and authoritarians, like Hamas and Hezbollah and Jordan and Iran.

Like blaming Israel for the massive deaths of Gazans who were used brutally for human shields.

Israel made a successful, targeted, attack on a violent and implacable enemy force of Islamic terrorists. Near zero civilians hurt much less killed. Almost 3000 terrorists in a big hurt. Somehow, that's still Israeli misbehavior.
Fuck that noise.
Tom

Exactly. It's antisemitism by holding Israel to an impossible standard.

Reality:

In the numbers, Health Minister Firas Abiad details impact of Israeli strikes on Lebanon

| Lebanon News

www.lbcgroup.tv

Look at the total for Friday's strike. 11 dead. That's with 4 apartment buildings leveled. I can't imagine how they pulled that off. They clearly somehow got the area evacuated without tipping off their target.

Do you know how insane that sounds?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I am very certain some people think it is all or nothing at this point and condone the crimes committed by Hamas. But those people aren't a tool to be used as a broad brush in order to dehumanize an entire population of people. Much like how Netanyahu's actions and his shouldn't be used to broad brush the opinions of all Israelis.

"By any means necessary" is an explicit acceptance of the 10/7 atrocity. It is not dehumanizing a population to say that.

Reread my post, feel free to respond to what I actually said... or not.

But that's not the whole population.

If you choose to take part in a protest with signs like that you are effectively saying that you endorse 10/7. But not everyone took part.

And people are inappropriately using those signs to extrapolate that opinion on a much broader community.

Also, thanks. I appreciate you actually reading my post and commenting on its actual contents.

Don't have to have good guys. We need to try and stop the killing. The problem we have is that the major players in the region are apathetic to the Palestinians at best, while others use them as pawns. I get the Middle Eastern nations don't like the West. There is baggage. Any deal brokered would need to have the Palestinian interests at equal with the Israelis. But with Iran, they don't care about Palestinians. They want their big bad heel in Israel to be suffering. I think the only way to go about it is to sell a final peace plan, hard... something that is great for the Palestinians, something that would make the Iranian theocracy isolated (more so) globally in rejecting it. Of course, the other issue is that the hard liners that control more policy in Israel than the percentage of the vote they receive should allow, also don't care about the Palestinians and have their own agenda.

Which leads to what makes this a difficult peace plan, current leadership on both sides do not want peace. The people are much more likely to want stability, but they aren't in charge.

Clearly showing that you do not understand the situation. It is impossible to make peace with the Palestinians because they're not the ones in charge. Suppose you had a magic wand and made peace with Hamas--the result would simply be the money moving to other groups such as Islamic Jihad. Very soon we would be right back where we were.

Any peace that Iran doesn't agree to will not hold. And Iran has no interest in agreeing to peace. And they have radical Islam in charge--and radical Islam explicitly rejects the notion of making any real peace with non-Muslims.

At this point I suspect that even if you got Iran to agree it wouldn't solve it because Russia has gotten back into the game.

Please read my posts before responding with a counterpoint that actually agrees with what I said.

You expect Iran to agree to a deal that substantially hurts Iran with no benefit to them?!

I could mention Egypt, I could mention Jordan. Well... I guess I did. They aren't exactly pro-Israel, they also weren't very pro-Israel back in the day. Diplomacy is often a very hard game to play. Sometimes it takes multiple angles being used. Influences being taken advantage of. Sometimes it means paying a price we'd rather not pay.

The Arab nations and Iran are the key to peace in Palestine and Lebanon. One can pretend Israel has much of a say, but over the last 80 or so years, we see that it is Iran and the Arab nations. Israel can only react (and potentially play a bit nicer locally), but reaction is the best Israel has. The source of peace is generally outside of their limits of control. Their leadership can choose to make things harder though. President Obama tried to start rolling the ball with Iran via a multi-prong path of diplomacy and insurgency (Stuxnet), but Trump did a marvelous job of fucking that up. If we don't get the locals (and the not remotely local) to the table, this doesn't end. It just continues.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Iran fires missiles at Israel.

 

[Politesse]

The NYT is calling it an "intense escalation" of the conflict, as though Israel hasn't been engaged in a much more expansive and violent invasion of a neighboring country's territory, suspiciously resembling those very lands they had previously colonized, for more than a week now. But no, Iran lobbing a few hundred missiles, that's what we should see as instigation. Sending ground troops to invade another country that you have a decades long history of invading and occupying is just self-defense.

 

[Politesse]

So is the Iranian offensive somehow related to the barely-averted crippling of our cell network over the last few days, or are these things just coincidental?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Iran fires missiles at Israel.

Looks like another toothless lobbing of missiles. Iran is doing a great job at assuring the West doesn't get too strained with Netanyahu. Also, it is indicating that Iran is very limited its capacity to harm Israel with conventional weapons.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Iran threatens Israel, saying "We've got many more missiles to fill your skies... for you to intercept harmlessly except maybe one that lands in the middle of the woods. You will know our rage!"

 

[TomC]

Iran threatens Israel, saying "We've got many more missiles to fill your skies... for you to intercept harmlessly except maybe one that lands in the middle of the woods. You will know our rage!"

Imagine the outrage if Israel responded in kind.

WHEN ISRAEL DOES IT IT'S A WAR CRIME!
Fuck that noise.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Iran threatens Israel, saying "We've got many more missiles to fill your skies... for you to intercept harmlessly except maybe one that lands in the middle of the woods. You will know our rage!"

Imagine the outrage if Israel responded in kind.

As in easily dismantled in the sky sortie or an actual wave of 100 missiles that actually didn't just waste fuel to get near the border of the targeted nation?

WHEN ISRAEL DOES IT IT'S A WAR CRIME!
Fuck that noise.
Tom

I'm so sick of the terms "genocide" and "war crime". No one is using them correctly at all. Noise indeed.

If Israel fired 100 missiles into Iran as a response to the *cough* attack from Iran that led to hundreds of decibels of noise, I don't think there would be an understanding that they had the moral authority to strike as such. Iran did no harm to Israel, so a disproportionate response would be problematic. The bigger question would be... so what? What can Iran do about? Regardless, I think Israel will pick a choose something a tad more surgical than just lobbing missiles at Iranian military sites.

Got to wonder how this spins internally in Iran. Theocratic government talking all big... and this is their second impotent strike towards Israel. The hardliners would probably be pissed. The moderates would probably be pissed for different reasons.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The NYT is calling it an "intense escalation" of the conflict, as though Israel hasn't been engaged in a much more expansive and violent invasion of a neighboring country's territory, suspiciously resembling those very lands they had previously colonized, for more than a week now. But no, Iran lobbing a few hundred missiles, that's what we should see as instigation. Sending ground troops to invade another country that you have a decades long history of invading and occupying is just self-defense.

Well, Israel is sending in ground troops into southern Lebanon in order to stop the rockets. It would be easy for Hezbollah to stop the invasion: just stop the daily missile attacks.

 

[Politesse]

The NYT is calling it an "intense escalation" of the conflict, as though Israel hasn't been engaged in a much more expansive and violent invasion of a neighboring country's territory, suspiciously resembling those very lands they had previously colonized, for more than a week now. But no, Iran lobbing a few hundred missiles, that's what we should see as instigation. Sending ground troops to invade another country that you have a decades long history of invading and occupying is just self-defense.

Well, Israel is sending in ground troops into southern Lebanon in order to stop the rockets. It would be easy for Hezbollah to stop the invasion: just stop the daily missile attacks.

Hezbollah barely exists as of right now. Foreign powers are fighting a proxy war over what used to be Lebanon.