True, but condemning it as a war crime would do a lot to limit its use. Poison gas is also cheap and easy to deploy, but it’s rarely used because of the stigma.
This, and I wish the warnings in the article were the chief takeaway for the general public. These attacks have to be condemned internationally NOW. The use of the new weapons for the first time is a perfect time to discuss universal condemnation and agreements amongst at least state actors to never do it again.
We do have some success in regulating abhorrent uses of technology. See mustard gas and chemical weapons in general. Sure, some will persist, but it is preferable to not attempting to restrict such uses.
these are quite unfocussed weapons though, and cause mass civilian casualties. blowing up pagers bought by terrorists to avoid using the cell network is the opposite of abhorrent use of technology. it's the use of technology to minimise civilian casualties. there's no other way ever devised that would drop 4000 terrorists in an urban environment with barely a handful of collateral damage.
Obviously, my use of the word 'abhorrent' is a subjective judgement, but ask yourself honestly, if Hezbollah had carried out exactly this type of attack on Israeli defence force personal and their associates, would this not be almost universally accepted as evidence that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation?
it's almost as if "terrorism" has a specific definition. a group trying to change a legitimate government's policy through violent means that inspire fear in the general population.
if heznobollas had done it, yes, it would have been terrorism. they are a non-state actor that's been constantly firing rockets into a legitimate state for a year, and are using violence against a general population to attempt to change the policy of their legitimately elected government.
it's precisely because it was done by a legitimate state defending its population, and in this case inflicting the damage on the very terrorists that sought the communication technology with minimal collateral damage that it's a legitimate weapon of war.
State actor is an arbitrary definition, based on what states your own government recognizes. Hezbollah within Lebanon is the state, with more power than the recognized government.
If they're using terrorist actions, those should also be considered legitimate
Hezbollah represents the will of Hezbollah and Iran, not Lebanon. we didn't accept the Nazis as legitimate government of France, we bombed them to hell.
