[tptacek]

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:

(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;

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

(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol;

So far as I can tell, this strike clears all those definitions. I think you may be reading 51(4) to be a prohibition on civilian casualties as collateral to military strikes, but that obviously can't be its meaning --- that would ban virtually all air strikes, for instance, and I'm pretty sure that isn't something the victors of WW2 were going for.

Am I misunderstanding the argument you're making? It's not unlikely that I could have!

[GuinansEyebrows]

You cannot specifically target a military objective using a small explosive in a crowded area. It’s not possible other than by pure luck, which negates any assumed specificity.

[tptacek]

The whole premise of this attack is that you can, which is what makes it unprecedented. We can disagree that it succeeded! I understand skepticism about this. I've seen the same videos everyone else has, and the explosions we're talking about are quite small, but obviously there have been civilian casualties.

I see two ways history might judge this:

1. History could decide that the Geneva Conventions and current IHL with respect to combatant status, collateral casualties, and proportionality were simply wrong, and so everything done under current IHL is indefensible. Could happen.

2. It could turn out that the military impact of this strike was dwarfed by the direct civilian cost (in deaths and injuries to noncombatants and property they rely on), which we'll know more about in the coming weeks.

[GuinansEyebrows]

I can kind of appreciate where you’re coming from (in a very morbid, cynical way) but I guess I just think the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Civilians died and I’m not willing to accept the grim argument (not necessarily yours) that “civilians die in conflict and we must abide by it.”

[tptacek]

Just to be clear: I think that is very much my grim argument. There is no such thing as a modern war that doesn't kill civilians and anyone who claims otherwise is living in a dangerous fantasy. There are moral distinctions between conduct in war (for instance: Hezbollah has evacuated most of northern Israel by firing over 7,500 rockets at untargeted civilian areas, in one case killing half a youth soccer team). Israel presents a clear example of the continuum: if they're capable of remote-detonating the entire leadership structure of the Radwan Force in Lebanon, what possible justification could they have for flattening tent camps in Gaza?

The fantasy is dangerous because it creates the expectation that military force can solve problems at minimal civilian cost. It can't. Wars are fought in cities, not on marked battlefields; unless we reduce ourselves back to a pre-industrial state, they will never be fought on marked battlefields again. Factor dead children into every war that ever happens from now on.

I don't like anything that is happening in the region. I don't think morally scoring Israel and Hezbollah is productive. All I have to say is that Hezbollah and Israel are military peers, and they are extremely at war right now.

[082349872349872]

If we're getting to a point where two different cadres with a beef can settle their scores by liquidating each other's top guys instead of taking everything out on each other's pawns and unfortunately associated randoms, I say let's take this technology and run with it.