Pager attacks make the world less safe
The loop of violence and vengeance just became more unbreakable
When thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies suddenly exploded in Lebanon earlier this week, pro-Israeli factions around the world cheered the two-day military event as a surgical strike that took out the “bad guy” terrorists without much collateral damage or civilian causalities.
Putting aside for a moment of whether that’s true, now is the time to condemn the idea that any government or group might weaponize civilian communications devices. As Edward Snowden pointed out on the social media platform X, “if it were iPhones that were leaving the factory with explosives inside, the media would be a hell of a lot faster to cotton on to what a horrific precedent has been set today.”
A precedent indeed. If one side applauds the use of a weapon because the outcome appears to favor them, don’t be surprised when the other side deploys the same tactics to our common detriment. After exploding smartphones land in the homes of Israeli-allied generals or politicians or civilians, it’ll be too late offer condemnations. This is the time to really consider the state of the world and the use of ubiquitous technologies to carry out acts of violence at scale in common places instead of on the battlefield.
Having given praise to Israel for these attacks, what moral argument can be used to stop Hezbollah or similar groups with a common enemy from arranging phones or cars or toys from being similarly equipped and distributed anywhere on the planet?
Moreover, if anyone thinks that somehow Hezbollah or the Iranians or any other countries and groups will be disillusioned and give up, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The magnitude of the psychological trauma caused by these attacks appears to have solidified ordinary Lebanese to Hezbollah and Hamas goals.
Videos from places like Beirut show civilians going about their day getting to watch in horror as people paying for groceries, or riding in cars, or walking along the street suddenly blew up in front of them.
At least two children were killed, including Fatima Jaafar Abdullah, 9, (shown above) who picked up her father’s rigged pager to hand it to him when it exploded, tearing apart Fatima’s face.
Imagine the impact seeing such horror might have on you. Would it make you angry? Sad? Would you feel that the perpetrators of the attacks are “good guys” or “bad guys”? Would you be motivated to do something in response?
Israel and its enemies have been locked in a loop of violence and vengeance for decades, egged on by the military industrial complex, the intelligence industrial complex, and their puppet politicians. Now, both sides weigh the benefits of a new vector of attack, a new way to inflict harm, and that’s nothing worth celebrating.
Now you are making sense. I do not know how you can change the world.
There is no place in the world where we do not have a conflict. The human race has failed now it is time to start all over.