News

23376 readers

2111 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

877

CNN bans guest for telling Muslim journalist 'I hope your beeper doesn't go off' (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

167 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ryan Girdusky clashed with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday night.

CNN has banned a conservative commentator from appearing on the network again after he told a Muslim journalist "I hope your beeper doesn't go off," an apparent reference to the spate of exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed members of the Hezbollah militant group last month.

Ryan Girdusky made the comment during a heated debate with Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British-American broadcaster and an outspoken critic of Israel's war in Gaza, on "CNN Newsnight" with host Abby Phillip.

The guests were discussing the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, which overshadowed former President Donald Trump's rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on Sunday and continue to make headlines two days later.

As the debate turned fractious, Girdusky and Hasan sparred over whether the latter had been labeled an anti-Semite. "I'm a supporter of the Palestinians, I'm used to it," Hasan said.

Girdusky replied: "Well I hope your beeper doesn't go off."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I think being designed to maim is but one of multiple problems with this approach, which would overall not be served by more explosives.

It looks like a pager. Yes, supply chain attack blah blah only purchased by Hezbollah folks. But if it gets stolen or found by a civilian, there is nothing about it to suggest it could be lethal or that they should leave it alone. It isn't just not marked as lethal, it's explicitly disguised as something mundane.
Hezbollah folks could be sitting next to an innocent civilian in any number of contexts.
Related to but distinct from my first point, there is an endless list of possible ways that a pager belonging to a hezbollah operative could wind up in the hands of an innocent, or in a position to harm an innocent instead of the target, and none of them are things that could be controlled or monitored for the fleet of explosive pagers. Once sold, there was literally no way to have any idea who would actually be harmed when the triggering page was sent.

Just call it terrorism perpetrated by a state actor, and we have no argument.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

All of your problems are just one and the same: statistical probability of civilian casualties. And the nice thing with discussing the ethics of the choice to do it here is that we have the exact results. Around 2750 Hezbros hit with around 10 civilian deaths.

When they destroyed ISIS in Mosul 8 years ago, they turned that dial up all the way to a 1-on-1 ratio. 10.000 innocents for 10.000 Isibro's.

When they destroyed them in Raqqa, they went even higher, to around 1.5.

And if it makes you happy to call it 'terrorism' when you see civilian casualties, go ahead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Their "success" was entirely down to luck, and all my problems were to illustrate the uncertainty built into every second that elapsed from the time they sold the pagers until the time they were detonated.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago

I think you overestimate the number of Lebanese that would steal pagers from Hezbollah.

As I said, the results just prove they made a good call (no pun intended) and with the large sample size luck just can't be a factor

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

All of your problems are just one and the same: statistical probability of civilian casualties.

"All of your problems boil down to the fact it's indiscriminate. Get over it. The problems end when you do."