Lots of people are talking about how the pager- and walkie-talkie explosions are going to change our conception of warfare for the future; how they violate international law & international humanitarian law. As Scahill points out, however, sabotaging items held by the 'enemy' is nothing new. Neither are random attacks against civilians a…
Lots of people are talking about how the pager- and walkie-talkie explosions are going to change our conception of warfare for the future; how they violate international law & international humanitarian law. As Scahill points out, however, sabotaging items held by the 'enemy' is nothing new. Neither are random attacks against civilians and others for political gain. That is the very definition of terrorism, a phenomenon both Israel and the US have come to perfect.
Israel's actions against its neighbors and against the Palestinians are not noteworthy because they have altered modern warfare but because they will have ended any last shreds of confidence people might have had in the global institutions, international laws and statutes they are meant to uphold. What Israel has done is to put the final nail in the coffin of our faith in the rule of law. The United Nations, the ICC, the ICJ, and other global bodies have become almost completely irrelevant. They cannot enforce their own resolutions and rulings when states refuse to abide by them - and this allows powers such as Israel and the United States to do whatever they wish with impunity.
For the UN to function properly in this world, it would need armed services with capabilities greater than those of any single state. This is apparently the only way to enforce just, legal decisions reached by consensus. (And, of course, the risk here is that a form of global tyranny could arise).
Those who still believe in the rule of law may always have the satisfaction of knowing which leaders and states are criminal violators of the universal principles most of us take for granted. But it is not enough just to know who the culprits are. Millions of human beings have been left unprotected in even the most basic of ways because there is no enforceable way to guarantee their safety and livelihoods. This leaves us in a quandary of what to do to ensure there is some justice that can be meted out, especially to those bent on destroying the worlds in which they live.
Israelis and others can "high-five" each other in the wake of the devastating and grotesque acts of sabotage just inflicted upon the people of Lebanon. There is little any of us can do to prevent another such attack from taking place, or -- worse yet --, to prevent other states and non-state actors from following in Israel's footsteps. This has already caused fear, paranoia, and demoralization among those directly affected and among those aware of the implications of these actions. What can probably be guaranteed, however, is that when the United States or Israel is the target of a similar attack, more widespread and more lethal, there will finally be some attempt to put an end to them.
Therefore, the best result we can hope for is that nations will achieve a form of high-tech deterrence similar to what exists now among the nuclear armed states: the knowledge that if you attack your enemy with your most powerful weapon, your own destruction is guaranteed. Once the ability to infect or sabotage an enemy's electronics and more has equalized amongst the high-tech powers, any given state will have to think twice before causing a mass casualty event in another country. This will, we might hope, encourage alliances among clusters of nations around a particular power and thereby have a widespread "protective" advantage to those born in the global south and elsewhere.
In the meantime, let us hope that global revulsion towards the kind of acts Israel is committing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran will solidify; that popular mobilization will stretch beyond national boundaries; and that somehow "people power" can be harnessed in ways that genuinely curtail the destructive tendencies of pariah states - those whose arrogance, sadism, and impunity are leading us each day to nuclear and environmental catastrophe.
Lots of people are talking about how the pager- and walkie-talkie explosions are going to change our conception of warfare for the future; how they violate international law & international humanitarian law. As Scahill points out, however, sabotaging items held by the 'enemy' is nothing new. Neither are random attacks against civilians and others for political gain. That is the very definition of terrorism, a phenomenon both Israel and the US have come to perfect.
Israel's actions against its neighbors and against the Palestinians are not noteworthy because they have altered modern warfare but because they will have ended any last shreds of confidence people might have had in the global institutions, international laws and statutes they are meant to uphold. What Israel has done is to put the final nail in the coffin of our faith in the rule of law. The United Nations, the ICC, the ICJ, and other global bodies have become almost completely irrelevant. They cannot enforce their own resolutions and rulings when states refuse to abide by them - and this allows powers such as Israel and the United States to do whatever they wish with impunity.
For the UN to function properly in this world, it would need armed services with capabilities greater than those of any single state. This is apparently the only way to enforce just, legal decisions reached by consensus. (And, of course, the risk here is that a form of global tyranny could arise).
Those who still believe in the rule of law may always have the satisfaction of knowing which leaders and states are criminal violators of the universal principles most of us take for granted. But it is not enough just to know who the culprits are. Millions of human beings have been left unprotected in even the most basic of ways because there is no enforceable way to guarantee their safety and livelihoods. This leaves us in a quandary of what to do to ensure there is some justice that can be meted out, especially to those bent on destroying the worlds in which they live.
Israelis and others can "high-five" each other in the wake of the devastating and grotesque acts of sabotage just inflicted upon the people of Lebanon. There is little any of us can do to prevent another such attack from taking place, or -- worse yet --, to prevent other states and non-state actors from following in Israel's footsteps. This has already caused fear, paranoia, and demoralization among those directly affected and among those aware of the implications of these actions. What can probably be guaranteed, however, is that when the United States or Israel is the target of a similar attack, more widespread and more lethal, there will finally be some attempt to put an end to them.
Therefore, the best result we can hope for is that nations will achieve a form of high-tech deterrence similar to what exists now among the nuclear armed states: the knowledge that if you attack your enemy with your most powerful weapon, your own destruction is guaranteed. Once the ability to infect or sabotage an enemy's electronics and more has equalized amongst the high-tech powers, any given state will have to think twice before causing a mass casualty event in another country. This will, we might hope, encourage alliances among clusters of nations around a particular power and thereby have a widespread "protective" advantage to those born in the global south and elsewhere.
In the meantime, let us hope that global revulsion towards the kind of acts Israel is committing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran will solidify; that popular mobilization will stretch beyond national boundaries; and that somehow "people power" can be harnessed in ways that genuinely curtail the destructive tendencies of pariah states - those whose arrogance, sadism, and impunity are leading us each day to nuclear and environmental catastrophe.