It has been widely reported that in the very first phase of Israel’s surprise attack, it targeted key Iranian scientists. Israel used drones that tracked and then attacked them in the middle of the night in their homes.
Interesting question. But I think if we were to just keep to strict IHL rules, you could argue that Eichmann was just an accountant - albeit that he was calculating and counting the dead. I doubt he was ever a combat soldier. Same too with Goebbels - just an information minister, so possibly more a civilian than a soldier. Maybe too we could argue that Khamenie is just a Priest and politician, doesn't involve himself in combat - so not a legitimate IHL target.
Then we have Lord Haw-Haw, definitely as a maligned radio broadcaster simply a civilian - but the Allies hanged him in any case for spreading false information and demoralizing troops. The Allies argued, and rightly so, that he cost lives. If we extended that to today, we'd be stringing up the likes of Jonathan Cook, Asa Winstanley and Sarah Wilkinson. While that might get a heavy round of applause from many Israel-supporters on the same premise - they've cost lives (indeed as many on the Palestinian side by misleading them that they have 'right' on their side and so encouraging continued conflict with a far better equipped and stronger army)... but you can't just do that today. It breaks numerous 'free speech' laws.
But I think when it comes to nuclear scientiests, it's a question of moral conscience and responsibility. They know what the Iranian regime stands for, with constant threats against Israel and the USA, so should also know there's a high chance those weapons would be used to kill Jews and Americans - as well as perhaps a few neighbours like the Saudis. Why bother with the Houthis, when you can just press a red button and have the Saudis granting them Mecca tomorrow (another Iranian-Shia aim).
So, in ignoring those moral principles, I think they've put themselves in the firing line. If the weapons were being developed for a nation State that wouldn't use them aggressively, like Sweden or Norway, it would be a different matter.
If, for instance, I had expert locksmith knowledge - if I provided that to home or business owners to get back into their own properties when they'd locked themselves out - fine. But if I provided it to bank robbers or house thieves, then I deserve to do prison time alongside them.
John- My hunch is that what you wrote is very much similar to the thinking of Israel's government, that Iran's threats and the likelihood that they would use the nuclear weapons aggressively puts them in a somewhat different class.
Good Closing Analogy. Basically you are saying material conspirators or accessories are fair game.
Here's an interesting twist
Let's say it's a bunch of day laborers digging a latrine adjacent to a military installation.
The military installation is super secure but has no outside plumbing.
If you kill the ditch digger so there is no latrine....
This becomes pretty disruptive to the military installation.
Yeah sure they can send soldiers out to do it, But then they can be picked off. They can hire more day laborers but Do people need to leave the military inflation to do that? Or do the day laborers have to enter the military installation which might give the attackers entree either in disguise or just at the moment of entry.
Take a look at my response which I'm linking here.
I came at it a little different angle focusing more on those not following the rules which is a given with pretty much every enemy Israel has and many that the USA has.
Basically I kind of break it into three levels.
Stuff you can clearly do
Stuff you can do that might be against the rules but advances your military effort. In other words of dropping the higher standard of military benefit most outweigh the cost to the enemy
And the last level would be the stuff you would pretty much never do because it does nothing for your military and is gratitutious violence or destruction.
So this would cover things like making lampshades out of people's skin, Killing POWs, Mass execution of civilians, raping of civilians.
But if one party opens the door to the middle ground by not following the rules that is very significant. That can allow weapons of mass destruction that might not pass cost benefit test but nevertheless advance the war effort
Since there's no real way to enforce these laws during war. The only way to enforce them they just have the adversaries self enforce.
Right now we have a situation where ran or Gaza or Qatar or whoever can do her fun just about anything without any consequence so they have every incentive to do it
They knew they were consequences to the rule breaking... They might adhere to the rules
This seems all very simple and clear. What do you think?
I think the bureaucrats have over regulated something that doesn't lend itself to regulating.
Too many levels becomes unwieldy
Three is probably correct. Five would be the max I would consider
Basically just set up a framework and then let the adversaries enforce it.
So a knows if they drop from level 1 one to level 3, adversary will to.
I can think of ways to fine tune this and make it more complicated but I'm not sure that's beneficial.
It's got to be pretty simple for the soldiers and their commanders to be able to adhere to in the heat of war
Of course it doesn't do anything about one side lying about what the other side did. But I'm not sure anything can stop that. The adversaries no what each did and generally what the other did. A lot easier to lie to the media and the public than it is to lie to the adversary.
Looking forward to comments from you John and others that read this
The issue that you raise about enforcement of IHL is very important. Today the main, primary means of enforcement is supposed to be the International Criminal Court, and we know that doesn’t carry much weight.
However, IHL is set up so that violations by one side do not justify violations by the other. There is a compelling rationale for this- if violations by one side justified violations by the other, every country would allege violations by the other side and all restraint would immediately be out the window.
The only other method of enforcement is known as reprisals. This means that a country victimized by a violation of IHL pays the offender back in turn. The problem is that reprisals are extremely controversial, and legal reprisals are very, very limited in scope. The reason is both because of the overwhelming temptation for a country to use accusations against the other side to pass off its own IHL violations as reprisals, and also human rights. So for example, killing innocent civilians is a violation of those civilians’ human rights and just because Country A did it can’t mean that civilians targeted by country B lose their human rights, as human rights cannot be forfeit.
Legal reprisals are limited to very narrow violations of IHL. For example, let’s say both parties to a conflict have joined a treaty prohibiting the use of a certain weapon, such as land mines. One could argue then that violations by one side entitle the other side to correspondingly break that treaty and begin to use landmines too.
Interesting point. In the case of ‘people being picked off’, there have been in the past a number of incidents of electric pylon workers near the Gaza border being shot at. In the end, they had to be guarded by troops.
Well the picked off I was specifically referring to the soldiers coming out to replace day laborers that were killed.
So one could argue that killing the day laborers create a burden on the military facility and is therefor a military objective
Basically the current system is f****** useless It's not practical to use in the heat of war and all it does is keep f****** lawyers employed but that filthy c*** that Clooney married. That rancid snatch needs to be snatched up by Israel or the USA and forced to talk
Israel is fighting to avoid a nuclear holocaust, and yes, a lot of those IHL are written by individuals, living safely in their hobbit holes. And yes, if the guy wanting to murder me, doesn’t know how to assemble a weapon, but he’s got somebody who does, that somebody is a legitimate target if he’s helping the guy who wants to murder me.
But it’s more complicated than that because assembling a nuclear bomb is not like assembling a gun, and I don’t think the universities are churning out scientists that can easily replace the ones killed in Iran.
These are not war games. This is life and death stuff, and I shed no tears for those Iranian scientists.
It’s well good to be philosophical, but then there is real life context. We’ll see how this all turns out, and whether Israel made the right pragmatic decision. But if it turns out that killing a dozen or so nuclear scientists kept nuclear bomb out of the hands of the ayatollah, I have no problem with it.
Pandora's box was opened some time ago. This is far from a "traditional war" and the rules of engagement extend beyond troops in uniform. Those days are over and those contributing to providing the tools and know how for weapons of mass destruction become fair targets.
It could be that only scientists actively working on the nuclear program would be targets, with their active involvement being the key factor. But here’s a question- what about scientists working to increase the range or accuracy of Iran’s missiles? Engineers helping to design the fortified underground facility housing the centrifuges so they will be impervious to attacks by air? Those might be vital to Iran’s nuclear program, just in a somewhat less direct way. My point is that the farther ‘directly participate in hostilities’ is taken from its literal meaning, the more it becomes open ended and harder to define.
Agree except in situations where an existential threat is present with the wider involvement of diverse technicians and scientists. When the mantra of Iran has been to destroy Israel with intentional attacks on civilian centres, the threshold to seek out those participating individuals is considerably widened. The morality of warfare has dramatically changed our way of thinking and conducting ourselves, helas!
A friend of mine, Leon Cohen, wrote this comment on Facebook. I thought to share it here as well:
My understanding is that ever since the U.S. Civil War, an enemy's means of making war are considered legitimate targets. Those would include farms and factories, and at least sometimes the people who operate them. They certainly were included in World War II when the Allies bombed factories that made weapons and their components, and that at least sometimes must have killed civilians who worked there. Would not the designers/inventors and makers of weapons be included in that?
You're making a good point, but there is an important distinction.
Factories may in fact be considered valid military targets. But general consensus is that only the factory itself is a valid target, not the workers. The workers do not lose their civilian status just due to their job.
So if the enemy wants to attack the factory, ideally they should do so at a time when it is minimally occupied to lessen civilian harm. If that’s not possible, it may still be legal to attack the factory while workers are present if the military benefit of destroying the factory outweighs the harm to the workers (i.e. the workers would be what’s come to be called acceptable collateral damage).
But it’s still not legal under IHL to specifically target the workers. So for example, let's say the factory was heavily protected or underground, so not feasible to attack. Bombing workers’ housing at night is still not allowed, because the workers are civilians. Even though killing all the workers while they sleep would accomplish the same ends as bombing the factory, because it would thereby become idle, bombing the workers instead of the factory would still represent a violation of IHL.
That last case seems analogous to what happened in Iran with the scientists. No one is questioning that infrastructure designed to produce nuclear weapons is a valid military target. But do scientists, like factory workers, maintain civilian status that protects them in their homes?
A quick answer…. they were directly involved in hostilities by making the bombs. Just as Iran is directly involved in it’s proxies activities Hamas, Hezbollah & Houthis etc.
just as every country that supplies Israel with arms is directly involved in Israel’s war(s) whether they admit it or not. The direct “intent” is the involvement. IMO
Well, my only comment is that the whole purpose of arming proxies, or of arming an ally rather than just going to war along with it, is to stay out of the war and avoid becoming a target. We see this in Ukraine- the Western countries arming Ukraine have made clear that while perhaps an individual arms shipment could be considered a legitimate Russian target, the U.S. and Europe are not part of the war and Russia targeting U.S. and European military assets around the world should still be forbidden. As far as I know even Russia has more or less accepted that logic, expecting it to be applied to them as well regarding the proxies that they arm.
All are accessories in one way shape or form. The way of peace they know not. We are gearing up to self destruct. Some are just more ruthless than others. Some play by agreed rules of engagement, sometimes, and others just couldn’t care less. And are plain crazy psychopaths.
No matter how we look at it The trajectory foregone conclusion is not looking good for man, at the moment…..at all.
My three tier system with self enforcement by adversaries is so what like MAD.
As I said the present system gives to the west honorable every incentive to cheat and ignore the rules which is what's been happening for many many decades almost since the rules were created in the case of the Middle East.
It's been a total failure.
There may be some places where it's worked. But I would bet on ban wants it's a big failure.
With this system which I'm not wedded to I just thought of it in replying to you. There is self enforcement
With more civilized parties it probably will work.
With Aboriginal savages like in the Middle East it provides flexibility.
There's little to no chance of a ran or Gaza and similar following the rules.
So this makes it clear to them that if they break the rules the enemy will too within very broad categories.
Well that deter them? In some places maybe again the more civilized ones. In the Middle East probably not. I would be shocked.
But...what it does is give the good guys flexibility to not have their virtue be turned into a weapon against them
That is an axiom our TXIconoclast has long used.
Don't let your virtue be used as a weapon against you.
The good country always has the option of not dropping down.
As I said there is really no reason to go to the bottom level it does not aid military objectives although one might try to argue it is terrorism that could demoralize the enemy.
What would happen in most cases and I probably would Israel would do
Is it the enemy is not going to follow the rules, then one can drop from having to insure the military benefit outweighs the cost to merely making sure there is a military benefit.
The first standard is very hard to adhere to in the heat of battle. The second standard is much more clear and much easier to adhere to.
I don't see any civilized country dropping to the bottom tier.
The present system is not working and is penalizing the good guys. Not surprising as the system is dominated by the bad guys
And yes I've always argued that if someone is breaking the treaty then there's no obligation to follow it.
But I think the country can do as I said and tell the rule authority hey if they break the rules we will too whether they use my three tier system or not. Then following up with if you don't like it, we're leaving the treaty
This all seems very doable
All one has to do is get out of the mindset that these rules are somehow just and reasonable because they're created by a international org which is a fallacy.
The UN and virtually all its agencies is a joke.
Trump should have tore up the treaty the first term and created a new one. But this term he is focused on how much he can bring in in bribes.
I would not be shocked in the slightest. In the slightest. If part of any dialogue with Iran is him getting some f****** deal for his family or Trump work like you did with the five Muslim countries which is bribery.
The m*********** is giving nuclear energy to the Saudis in return for bribes
The entire world including most mammals knows this is a dumb fucking idea because it didn't work with NK and Iran.
Anybody thinking about how insane this is that he took a bribe to give the Saudis nuclear energy at the same time we're having to go to war with Iran because they Got nuclear energy for a promise not to develop nukes but of course did. North Korea the same.
When the Clintons did this and Obama perpetuated it people with a three digit IQ knew it was insane.
Just as insane as giving China WTO status for a massive enemy state with a totalitarian government
Germany and Japan were not examples for China North Korea Iran. We had total control of Japan and Germany. We have no control over North Korea, China, Iran.
Huge difference.
Hillary is a stupid Supercillious cunt and Bill didn't give a fuck as long as there was power money and pussy.
Seems like the part about the whole point is to stop access to nuclear weapons is key. These are people who are dedicated to giving Iran nuclear weapons. And Iran has clearly stated their intent of distorting Israel. So fair and in accordance with the international rules (which Iran is not following) or not; I think it is reasonable for those scientists to assume their lives are in danger.
Naomi- Similar to another reply above, I understand your thinking about the scientists, with the key factor being their direct involvement in the nuclear program. But it’s still very difficult to define who loses their civilian status to become a target. What about scientists not working on the nuclear weapons themselves, but rather working on the missiles to make them more accurate or harder to intercept? What about engineers helping to design fortifications for the underground facility housing the centrifuges? How about Iranian nuclear scientists not currently involved in weapons design at all, but who might be called on by the military should the scientists that are helping design the bombs be killed? The more we extend ‘directly participating in hostilities’ beyond the immediate battlefield, the harder it becomes to define and the more it becomes open ended.
The weapons don’t exist without the scientists who are willing to design and implement them for the state. If they are willing to provide the knowledge, then they are legitimate targets.
Regarding IHL, don’t have an answer yet, but considering this question: when faced with an existential threat are abstract principles and rules of the game worth possible self-immolation?
That’s a good point about undermining the IHL. It’s an interesting problem: what does a state do when its leadership understands the problems at hand, but other international actors haven’t caught up yet or simply don’t want to.
What you wrote about IHL is what I’d term the very provocative question I tried to ask at the end of the article. Israel may believe that its preemptive strike against Iran and the targeting of Iran’s scientists was in accordance with IHL, but it must know that’s at least a tough sell. I think it’s also possible that Israel believes that strictly following all the IHL restrictions on preemptive self-defense (and perhaps even somewhat with regard to targeting) will lead it to face a very serious risk of annihilation by a nuclear armed Iran. In that case, Israel’s view becomes that IHL is not commandments from heaven and the most important thing is to do what’s needed to ward off the threat. I just point out that argument is extremely destabilizing. By its nature IHL requires both countries as a whole and individual soldiers to accept some additional risks, and everyone views IHL as wrong or misguided when it gets in their way. Opening the door to disregarding IHL even a crack, no matter the situation, may easily lead to IHL failing completely and a return to war without any legal limits at all.
Interesting question. But I think if we were to just keep to strict IHL rules, you could argue that Eichmann was just an accountant - albeit that he was calculating and counting the dead. I doubt he was ever a combat soldier. Same too with Goebbels - just an information minister, so possibly more a civilian than a soldier. Maybe too we could argue that Khamenie is just a Priest and politician, doesn't involve himself in combat - so not a legitimate IHL target.
Then we have Lord Haw-Haw, definitely as a maligned radio broadcaster simply a civilian - but the Allies hanged him in any case for spreading false information and demoralizing troops. The Allies argued, and rightly so, that he cost lives. If we extended that to today, we'd be stringing up the likes of Jonathan Cook, Asa Winstanley and Sarah Wilkinson. While that might get a heavy round of applause from many Israel-supporters on the same premise - they've cost lives (indeed as many on the Palestinian side by misleading them that they have 'right' on their side and so encouraging continued conflict with a far better equipped and stronger army)... but you can't just do that today. It breaks numerous 'free speech' laws.
But I think when it comes to nuclear scientiests, it's a question of moral conscience and responsibility. They know what the Iranian regime stands for, with constant threats against Israel and the USA, so should also know there's a high chance those weapons would be used to kill Jews and Americans - as well as perhaps a few neighbours like the Saudis. Why bother with the Houthis, when you can just press a red button and have the Saudis granting them Mecca tomorrow (another Iranian-Shia aim).
So, in ignoring those moral principles, I think they've put themselves in the firing line. If the weapons were being developed for a nation State that wouldn't use them aggressively, like Sweden or Norway, it would be a different matter.
If, for instance, I had expert locksmith knowledge - if I provided that to home or business owners to get back into their own properties when they'd locked themselves out - fine. But if I provided it to bank robbers or house thieves, then I deserve to do prison time alongside them.
John- My hunch is that what you wrote is very much similar to the thinking of Israel's government, that Iran's threats and the likelihood that they would use the nuclear weapons aggressively puts them in a somewhat different class.
Good Closing Analogy. Basically you are saying material conspirators or accessories are fair game.
Here's an interesting twist
Let's say it's a bunch of day laborers digging a latrine adjacent to a military installation.
The military installation is super secure but has no outside plumbing.
If you kill the ditch digger so there is no latrine....
This becomes pretty disruptive to the military installation.
Yeah sure they can send soldiers out to do it, But then they can be picked off. They can hire more day laborers but Do people need to leave the military inflation to do that? Or do the day laborers have to enter the military installation which might give the attackers entree either in disguise or just at the moment of entry.
Take a look at my response which I'm linking here.
I came at it a little different angle focusing more on those not following the rules which is a given with pretty much every enemy Israel has and many that the USA has.
Basically I kind of break it into three levels.
Stuff you can clearly do
Stuff you can do that might be against the rules but advances your military effort. In other words of dropping the higher standard of military benefit most outweigh the cost to the enemy
And the last level would be the stuff you would pretty much never do because it does nothing for your military and is gratitutious violence or destruction.
So this would cover things like making lampshades out of people's skin, Killing POWs, Mass execution of civilians, raping of civilians.
But if one party opens the door to the middle ground by not following the rules that is very significant. That can allow weapons of mass destruction that might not pass cost benefit test but nevertheless advance the war effort
Since there's no real way to enforce these laws during war. The only way to enforce them they just have the adversaries self enforce.
Right now we have a situation where ran or Gaza or Qatar or whoever can do her fun just about anything without any consequence so they have every incentive to do it
They knew they were consequences to the rule breaking... They might adhere to the rules
This seems all very simple and clear. What do you think?
I think the bureaucrats have over regulated something that doesn't lend itself to regulating.
Too many levels becomes unwieldy
Three is probably correct. Five would be the max I would consider
Basically just set up a framework and then let the adversaries enforce it.
So a knows if they drop from level 1 one to level 3, adversary will to.
I can think of ways to fine tune this and make it more complicated but I'm not sure that's beneficial.
It's got to be pretty simple for the soldiers and their commanders to be able to adhere to in the heat of war
Of course it doesn't do anything about one side lying about what the other side did. But I'm not sure anything can stop that. The adversaries no what each did and generally what the other did. A lot easier to lie to the media and the public than it is to lie to the adversary.
Looking forward to comments from you John and others that read this
https://substack.com/@demediaispropaganda/note/c-127776960?r=4bdzfc
The issue that you raise about enforcement of IHL is very important. Today the main, primary means of enforcement is supposed to be the International Criminal Court, and we know that doesn’t carry much weight.
However, IHL is set up so that violations by one side do not justify violations by the other. There is a compelling rationale for this- if violations by one side justified violations by the other, every country would allege violations by the other side and all restraint would immediately be out the window.
The only other method of enforcement is known as reprisals. This means that a country victimized by a violation of IHL pays the offender back in turn. The problem is that reprisals are extremely controversial, and legal reprisals are very, very limited in scope. The reason is both because of the overwhelming temptation for a country to use accusations against the other side to pass off its own IHL violations as reprisals, and also human rights. So for example, killing innocent civilians is a violation of those civilians’ human rights and just because Country A did it can’t mean that civilians targeted by country B lose their human rights, as human rights cannot be forfeit.
Legal reprisals are limited to very narrow violations of IHL. For example, let’s say both parties to a conflict have joined a treaty prohibiting the use of a certain weapon, such as land mines. One could argue then that violations by one side entitle the other side to correspondingly break that treaty and begin to use landmines too.
Interesting point. In the case of ‘people being picked off’, there have been in the past a number of incidents of electric pylon workers near the Gaza border being shot at. In the end, they had to be guarded by troops.
To clear, those workers should be civilians and shooting at them was a plain violation of IHL.
Well the picked off I was specifically referring to the soldiers coming out to replace day laborers that were killed.
So one could argue that killing the day laborers create a burden on the military facility and is therefor a military objective
Basically the current system is f****** useless It's not practical to use in the heat of war and all it does is keep f****** lawyers employed but that filthy c*** that Clooney married. That rancid snatch needs to be snatched up by Israel or the USA and forced to talk
Sorry forgot to tag you on this reply to Shlomo. Couldn't edit as deeper replies have no edit https://hrhaggadah.substack.com/p/are-nuclear-scientists-legitimate/comment/127815820?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4bdzfc
In short. Yes.
Israel is fighting to avoid a nuclear holocaust, and yes, a lot of those IHL are written by individuals, living safely in their hobbit holes. And yes, if the guy wanting to murder me, doesn’t know how to assemble a weapon, but he’s got somebody who does, that somebody is a legitimate target if he’s helping the guy who wants to murder me.
But it’s more complicated than that because assembling a nuclear bomb is not like assembling a gun, and I don’t think the universities are churning out scientists that can easily replace the ones killed in Iran.
These are not war games. This is life and death stuff, and I shed no tears for those Iranian scientists.
It’s well good to be philosophical, but then there is real life context. We’ll see how this all turns out, and whether Israel made the right pragmatic decision. But if it turns out that killing a dozen or so nuclear scientists kept nuclear bomb out of the hands of the ayatollah, I have no problem with it.
Pandora's box was opened some time ago. This is far from a "traditional war" and the rules of engagement extend beyond troops in uniform. Those days are over and those contributing to providing the tools and know how for weapons of mass destruction become fair targets.
It could be that only scientists actively working on the nuclear program would be targets, with their active involvement being the key factor. But here’s a question- what about scientists working to increase the range or accuracy of Iran’s missiles? Engineers helping to design the fortified underground facility housing the centrifuges so they will be impervious to attacks by air? Those might be vital to Iran’s nuclear program, just in a somewhat less direct way. My point is that the farther ‘directly participate in hostilities’ is taken from its literal meaning, the more it becomes open ended and harder to define.
Agree except in situations where an existential threat is present with the wider involvement of diverse technicians and scientists. When the mantra of Iran has been to destroy Israel with intentional attacks on civilian centres, the threshold to seek out those participating individuals is considerably widened. The morality of warfare has dramatically changed our way of thinking and conducting ourselves, helas!
A friend of mine, Leon Cohen, wrote this comment on Facebook. I thought to share it here as well:
My understanding is that ever since the U.S. Civil War, an enemy's means of making war are considered legitimate targets. Those would include farms and factories, and at least sometimes the people who operate them. They certainly were included in World War II when the Allies bombed factories that made weapons and their components, and that at least sometimes must have killed civilians who worked there. Would not the designers/inventors and makers of weapons be included in that?
And this is my reply:
You're making a good point, but there is an important distinction.
Factories may in fact be considered valid military targets. But general consensus is that only the factory itself is a valid target, not the workers. The workers do not lose their civilian status just due to their job.
So if the enemy wants to attack the factory, ideally they should do so at a time when it is minimally occupied to lessen civilian harm. If that’s not possible, it may still be legal to attack the factory while workers are present if the military benefit of destroying the factory outweighs the harm to the workers (i.e. the workers would be what’s come to be called acceptable collateral damage).
But it’s still not legal under IHL to specifically target the workers. So for example, let's say the factory was heavily protected or underground, so not feasible to attack. Bombing workers’ housing at night is still not allowed, because the workers are civilians. Even though killing all the workers while they sleep would accomplish the same ends as bombing the factory, because it would thereby become idle, bombing the workers instead of the factory would still represent a violation of IHL.
That last case seems analogous to what happened in Iran with the scientists. No one is questioning that infrastructure designed to produce nuclear weapons is a valid military target. But do scientists, like factory workers, maintain civilian status that protects them in their homes?
A quick answer…. they were directly involved in hostilities by making the bombs. Just as Iran is directly involved in it’s proxies activities Hamas, Hezbollah & Houthis etc.
just as every country that supplies Israel with arms is directly involved in Israel’s war(s) whether they admit it or not. The direct “intent” is the involvement. IMO
Well, my only comment is that the whole purpose of arming proxies, or of arming an ally rather than just going to war along with it, is to stay out of the war and avoid becoming a target. We see this in Ukraine- the Western countries arming Ukraine have made clear that while perhaps an individual arms shipment could be considered a legitimate Russian target, the U.S. and Europe are not part of the war and Russia targeting U.S. and European military assets around the world should still be forbidden. As far as I know even Russia has more or less accepted that logic, expecting it to be applied to them as well regarding the proxies that they arm.
All are accessories in one way shape or form. The way of peace they know not. We are gearing up to self destruct. Some are just more ruthless than others. Some play by agreed rules of engagement, sometimes, and others just couldn’t care less. And are plain crazy psychopaths.
No matter how we look at it The trajectory foregone conclusion is not looking good for man, at the moment…..at all.
Yup aware of that and it is useless.
My three tier system with self enforcement by adversaries is so what like MAD.
As I said the present system gives to the west honorable every incentive to cheat and ignore the rules which is what's been happening for many many decades almost since the rules were created in the case of the Middle East.
It's been a total failure.
There may be some places where it's worked. But I would bet on ban wants it's a big failure.
With this system which I'm not wedded to I just thought of it in replying to you. There is self enforcement
With more civilized parties it probably will work.
With Aboriginal savages like in the Middle East it provides flexibility.
There's little to no chance of a ran or Gaza and similar following the rules.
So this makes it clear to them that if they break the rules the enemy will too within very broad categories.
Well that deter them? In some places maybe again the more civilized ones. In the Middle East probably not. I would be shocked.
But...what it does is give the good guys flexibility to not have their virtue be turned into a weapon against them
That is an axiom our TXIconoclast has long used.
Don't let your virtue be used as a weapon against you.
The good country always has the option of not dropping down.
As I said there is really no reason to go to the bottom level it does not aid military objectives although one might try to argue it is terrorism that could demoralize the enemy.
What would happen in most cases and I probably would Israel would do
Is it the enemy is not going to follow the rules, then one can drop from having to insure the military benefit outweighs the cost to merely making sure there is a military benefit.
The first standard is very hard to adhere to in the heat of battle. The second standard is much more clear and much easier to adhere to.
I don't see any civilized country dropping to the bottom tier.
The present system is not working and is penalizing the good guys. Not surprising as the system is dominated by the bad guys
And yes I've always argued that if someone is breaking the treaty then there's no obligation to follow it.
But I think the country can do as I said and tell the rule authority hey if they break the rules we will too whether they use my three tier system or not. Then following up with if you don't like it, we're leaving the treaty
This all seems very doable
All one has to do is get out of the mindset that these rules are somehow just and reasonable because they're created by a international org which is a fallacy.
The UN and virtually all its agencies is a joke.
Trump should have tore up the treaty the first term and created a new one. But this term he is focused on how much he can bring in in bribes.
I would not be shocked in the slightest. In the slightest. If part of any dialogue with Iran is him getting some f****** deal for his family or Trump work like you did with the five Muslim countries which is bribery.
The m*********** is giving nuclear energy to the Saudis in return for bribes
The entire world including most mammals knows this is a dumb fucking idea because it didn't work with NK and Iran.
Anybody thinking about how insane this is that he took a bribe to give the Saudis nuclear energy at the same time we're having to go to war with Iran because they Got nuclear energy for a promise not to develop nukes but of course did. North Korea the same.
When the Clintons did this and Obama perpetuated it people with a three digit IQ knew it was insane.
Just as insane as giving China WTO status for a massive enemy state with a totalitarian government
Germany and Japan were not examples for China North Korea Iran. We had total control of Japan and Germany. We have no control over North Korea, China, Iran.
Huge difference.
Hillary is a stupid Supercillious cunt and Bill didn't give a fuck as long as there was power money and pussy.
https://substack.com/@demediaispropaganda/note/c-127776960?r=4bdzfc
Seems like the part about the whole point is to stop access to nuclear weapons is key. These are people who are dedicated to giving Iran nuclear weapons. And Iran has clearly stated their intent of distorting Israel. So fair and in accordance with the international rules (which Iran is not following) or not; I think it is reasonable for those scientists to assume their lives are in danger.
Naomi- Similar to another reply above, I understand your thinking about the scientists, with the key factor being their direct involvement in the nuclear program. But it’s still very difficult to define who loses their civilian status to become a target. What about scientists not working on the nuclear weapons themselves, but rather working on the missiles to make them more accurate or harder to intercept? What about engineers helping to design fortifications for the underground facility housing the centrifuges? How about Iranian nuclear scientists not currently involved in weapons design at all, but who might be called on by the military should the scientists that are helping design the bombs be killed? The more we extend ‘directly participating in hostilities’ beyond the immediate battlefield, the harder it becomes to define and the more it becomes open ended.
The weapons don’t exist without the scientists who are willing to design and implement them for the state. If they are willing to provide the knowledge, then they are legitimate targets.
Regarding IHL, don’t have an answer yet, but considering this question: when faced with an existential threat are abstract principles and rules of the game worth possible self-immolation?
That’s a good point about undermining the IHL. It’s an interesting problem: what does a state do when its leadership understands the problems at hand, but other international actors haven’t caught up yet or simply don’t want to.
What you wrote about IHL is what I’d term the very provocative question I tried to ask at the end of the article. Israel may believe that its preemptive strike against Iran and the targeting of Iran’s scientists was in accordance with IHL, but it must know that’s at least a tough sell. I think it’s also possible that Israel believes that strictly following all the IHL restrictions on preemptive self-defense (and perhaps even somewhat with regard to targeting) will lead it to face a very serious risk of annihilation by a nuclear armed Iran. In that case, Israel’s view becomes that IHL is not commandments from heaven and the most important thing is to do what’s needed to ward off the threat. I just point out that argument is extremely destabilizing. By its nature IHL requires both countries as a whole and individual soldiers to accept some additional risks, and everyone views IHL as wrong or misguided when it gets in their way. Opening the door to disregarding IHL even a crack, no matter the situation, may easily lead to IHL failing completely and a return to war without any legal limits at all.