archomrade

No, the distinction being made between article 4 and 5 is intended to separate intentionally and mindfully placed mines on military objectives where the risk of civilian injury is low and explosives that are 'remotely sent' where the locations must be accurately recorded to prevent accidental discharge after the conflict has ceased.

I see no way to argue that they can ensure the pagers or radios were placed on such 'military targets', nor can they account or record the locations of any that failed to discharge. For all the Lebanese know, there are pagers or radios still in circulation that did not explode on the day of the attack, or that there are more explosives in other mobile devices that have yet to be activated, or were abandoned for use for whatever reason and may go off unexpectedly in the future. It is exactly that uncertainty and the use of everyday objects that makes this terror attack a war crime - not that it matters to a body that has been completely neutered and is incapable of holding Israel accountable without the consent of the US.

Hiding behind the verbiage of the UN charter is cowardly.

I think you're splitting hairs.

The intent of the inclusion of boobytraps within that definition is pretty clear. Ordinary objects, when used as the vector for unexpected explosive discharge, become something distrustful and fearsome. How does one know if a device they are purchasing or picking up is one that's been modified to explode during normal usage?

Hezbollah isn't just a paramilitary group, though, it's an actual political party in Lebanon.

You'd have to have an extremely narrow understanding of who Hezbollah even is to claim the attack was legitimate

Not to mention the intentional fear the strike created that now legitimizes Hezbollah's mandate against Israel. Yea, it was 'shite', but it seems pretty well designed to manufacture fear and chaos and to bait Lebanon into a broader conflict.

I was pointing out the ideological difference at the root of our disagreement.

Not "capitalism bad", but "economic systems are unimportant"

IMO economic systems don’t really matter nearly as much as the rules and regulations above those systems

Whoomp, there it is

Maybe we just don't share the same political goals, then.

This is why nobody should ever disclose who they are voting for in public.

I'm not engaging with this anymore, you've obviously not understood my perspectives here (intentionally or not).

I'm speaking to a very specific set of material conditions that a particular subset of the electorate is experiencing and liberal policies fail to address, and you've dismissed them yet again. It's extremely calloused to ignore the economic hardships experienced by these workers when the industry that supports them and their community is broken into pieces and replaced by another, and I don't think you're in the right place to see or acknowledge those. Maybe that's just a function of where we are in the election cycle. A part of the way capitalism works is by holding the means of survival hostage to coerce labor to protect it, and when democrats turn a blind eye to the trap those people are stuck in it solidifies reactionary political perspectives.

I don't give a shit what O'Brian's personal politics are or what Teamsters endorsement or platforming at the RNC means to the democratic campaign. He represents a segment of the population that is experiencing conditions not addressed by current or proposed democratic policies, and he's using his platform to put pressure on both parties to address them by dangling Teamster's influence, and I think that's a fine (good, even) strategy.

And I couldn’t care less if this artist endorses Harris.

Well there ya go! Agreement!

Funny, you have now moved the goal posts from “forced” to “she feels pressured” without a single admission that you used the wrong word.

"I didn't force you to eat dog shit, you chose to do it of your own volition while I stood next to you with my gun to your head" 🤷

Lmao jesus christ. Is 'compelled' a better word, then? Her entire statement is about how she is explicitly not endorsing because of how shit kamala is, but if you'd like count that as an endorsement for your team then all the power to you, bud

Well I do attack democrats an awful lot, but not because they're any kind of model of leftist governance

Those are the metrics any leftist would be interested in with any highly developed state or economy. How distributed is the wealth? Are low-earners able to afford a comparative standard of living? Do they have economic and employment mobility? ect. They look to answer the question, "to what degree is the working class subject to coercive capitalist conditions?"

Other economic metrics are weighted toward assessing the performance of capital, and are far less relevant to the questions leftists care about answering.

Yes, she was pressured into both of those decisions. Pretending as if it were not only a 'free choice' but an actual endorsement is cringe-levels of desperate, honestly.