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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

I'm not convinced this was a terror attack and I think Israel is within its rights to target Hezbollah, but here's a question:

If the assailant and target were reversed, would Western media hesitate at all to call it terrorism?

Or, forget Hezbollah and Israel. If ISIS had detonated thousands of explosive devices all over, e.g., the UK injuring and killing hundreds of UK military personnel and some civilians, would that not immediately be condemned as an act of terror, by everyone in the entire world, East and West? And rightly so?

If the designation of "terror" or "not terror" depends on who's attacking and whom they are targeting, then there's not much point in talking about terror or not terror at all.

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If the IDF were to detonate the rockets Hezbollah uses to explode before launch would this be different? What about gps devices or range finders?

Without a doubt it’s asymmetrical… and the common binary is military/terror but I fear this is a distinction left to the last century.

The loss of children is always unacceptable, but Hezbollah has a history of courting child soldiers… so skepticism is not unwarranted.

https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/cscoal/2008/...

Mmmm...

Hizbollah

Hizbollah was the largest armed political group in the country with a base mainly in Shia areas. It said that it supported the country's ratification of the Optional Protocol in meetings with government officials.29 The group denied any use of children in the ongoing conflict with Israel, including the war of 2006.30 In 2007 there were reports that its military wing was recruiting boys aged 16-19. [...]

The US military accepts recruits at age 17, so I think you're really stretching the definition of 'child soldiers' here. The report goes on to mention that Hezbollah organizes youth camps and suchlike, and in turn we could point out that ROTC accepts recruits aged 14 and up. While I would not say they're exactly alike, as someone who grew up outside the USA, this society is very militaristic compared to a lot of others. I was genuinely shocked when I discovered that US schoolchildren are expected to recite a pledge of allegiance every morning.

I never thought hard about the last part of your comment here, but it really seems strange that it's been normalized to train high-schoolers in the USA to do military drills and such. There's not a lot of weapons training, I don't think, but I'm starting to realize at middle-age that things I've been told as I grew up (even in adulthood) are straight out lies or at least propaganda. I am too trusting.

It depends. If ISIS does it to scare the UK into a political decision because it has no way of matching its military in the battlefield (e.g to push out UK forces in Iraq) its a Terror attack in nature.

If it is actually done to degrade the capabilities of the UK military so ISIS could use its fighters to chase them out of Iraq, or maybe, conquer a part of England - its an act of war and is actually worse from a UK POV. Calling it a terror attack would be silly.

People are biased to treat wars as better then terror because wars have rules and often involve good people trying to defend their country. But from a country's POV a terror organization is usually way less dangerous than a competent enemy military attacking.

Terror is usually done because someone lacks military competence and is willing to play dirty to even the playing field.

The establishment is so aggressive in condemning terrorism, because its easier to deal aggressively with a small terrorist organization before it becomes an established military and carves its own autonomous place on the world stage.

ISIS is a good example, it used a lot of terror tactics, but its goal was to create a country.

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