[QUOTE=DMC]
Just because one has an inaccurate weapon doesn’t mean that they aren’t attempting to hit a specific target.
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If a weapon cannot be aimed at a specific target than that kind of limits it from being aimed at a specific target.
[QUOTE=DMC]
Who held forth on their aiming capabilities? It certainly wasn’t me
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Your post used the words ‘aim’ or ‘aiming’ four times, and started by shifting the burden of proof by saying that although you didn’t know if they were aiming at military targets, you hadn’t seen anything saying that they weren’t aiming at military targets. You then went on to say that if they were aiming at military targets they were doing a better job than the IDF. Ignoring, for instance, that Hezbollah hides among civilians and thus the death toll of civilian deaths will almost always rise whenever Israel hits a Hezbollah position.
[QUOTE=DMC]
.Are you reading the news?
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Yes, that’s how I know that virtually every report about the katushas mentions that they are unguided.
[QUOTE=DMC]
Hezbollah, for whatever reason, is certainly killing a higher ratio of military to civilians than the IDF.According to CNN, 95 Israelis have died so far, 38 of them civilians. 706 Lebanese have died so far. In order to match Hezbollah’s ratio,
423 of those would have had to have been Hezbollah members.
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Shifting the goalposts. You did not claim that the ratio of civilians to soldiers/gueriallas was different, but that if Hezbollah were aiming at military targets, they were more efficient at targeting military assets than the IDF.
The correct comparison would be what percentage of Hezbollah unguided rockets were targeted at military targets (0% as they cannot be targeted at anything other than a large geogrphic area), vs what percent of IDF guided missiles/bombs were targeted at military targets ( greater than 0% as we know for a fact via video confirmation of IDF strikes on rocket emplacements) A number greater than zero is larger than zero. This should tell us whose rocket/missile attacks are better at targeting military assets.
You can also not handwave away the factors and context that contribute to this situation as ‘whatever reasons’. They’re tremendously important, not irrelevant.
[QUOTE=DMC]
I know of no news source, even biased ones, who have made such a claim. If you don’t have evidence that 423 of them were, then it’s all just speculation, which was my point in the first place.
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No, it’s an irrelevancy and you’re attempting to change the subject. You did not claim that Israel killed more civilians than Hezbollah, you claimed that Hezbollah, if they were targeting military targets, was better at it than Israel was. Israel can have a 99% success rate for hitting Hezbollah targets, but because they’re hiding among civilians, virtually all of those strikes will end up killing civilians as well.
If they’re hiding in densely populated areas the ratio will be even higher. The ratio itself tells us nothing about whether or not the strikes were directed at military targets.
Common sense, however, tells us that if the IDF was striking targets that they believed were not military, deliberately, in order to strike random targets or deliberately strike civilians, that there would be no two stones standing together in all of Lebanon. Indicriminate bombing with Israel’s arsenal would be carpet bombing.
Unless the IDF is just horribly lazy, and they just fire off a missile every now and again at some random location instead of actually fighting a war.
[QUOTE=DMC]
You don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not willing to make any factual claims about something which neither of us know.
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You were the one who claimed that if Hezbollah was targeting military targets, than they were better at it than the IDF. That’s a factual claim, albeit predicated on an if-then statement. Do you retract it?
You don’t know what percent of IDF strikes hit Hezbollah members, and yet you claim that if Hezbollah is targeting Israeli military assets, they’re better at it. Even though you have no idea how many IDF strikes have hit Hezbollah members. That’s a factual claim based on things that you do not know, even though you say you don’t do that, and only I do.
However, as Israel has released video of several missile strikes targeting rocket launchers, thus providing proof… we know that they are infinitely better at targeting military targets with missile strikes than Hezbollah is at targeting military targets with rocket strikes. After all, any number is infinite when divided by zero.
Israel doesn’t have to have killed a greater percent of Hezbollah than civilians, they only have to have a greater percent of their strikes targeting Hezbollah than the percent of Hezbollah’s rocket strikes that target the IDF. As we’ve already established that 0% of katusha strikes are targeted at the IDF, obviously the IDF having one single guided missile strike on Hezbollah means that they’re better at targeting military targets.
[QUOTE=DMC]
Once again, I am not appraising their targetting, as I don’t know exactly what they are shooting at, which puts me in the same boat as you.
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No, it doesn’t. Virtually every report about katushas has mentioned that they are unguided. Something not guided cannot be said to be aimed at anything other than a rough direction and range. You can shoot at something in a very general area, but you can’t be said to be shooting at anything other than that general area. That’s why they are refered to, time and again, as weapons of terror. Precision targeting, or any meaningful targeting, is impossible.
If I fire a weapon that I know will land “somewhere in or around New York City”, I can’t be said to be targeting any street address in NYC.
[QUOTE=DMC]
I have no idea what Hezbollah is actually trying to hit. You have no idea what Hezbollah is actually trying to hit.
[/quote]
Wrong. You have no idea what Hezbollah is actually trying to hit. I know that the rockets do not have the ability to target anything specific, so they cannot be trying to hit anything specific. You can’t be trying to hit something if it’s impossible to hit any specific thing/place that you’re trying to hit.
If I fire a rocket that I know will land “somewhere in or near New York City” I cannot then reasonably claim to be targeting the South Street Seaport. I cannot reasonably claim to be targeting any specific group of people. I cannot claim to be targeting anything except “the area in and around New York City”.
[QUOTE=DMC]
Hezbollah has currently killed more soldiers than civilians. Israel has currently killed more civilians than soldiers.
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Relying on the statistics alone without context serves no purpose.
[QUOTE=DMC]
I just think they overreacted, and are being less discriminate than I would like in their target selection.
[/quote]
Cite?
Something other than the simple statistics? What evidence do you have that the IDF is being indiscriminate with its fire? The statistics tell us nothing specific. All it takes is one rocket launcher on top of an apartment building, and a strike that was without a doubt targeted at a military target will also kill a number of civilians. But the fact that one guerilla may be killed along with twenty civilians in the building doesn’t mean that the strike wasn’t targeted at the rocket launcher.
