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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5800 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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There were reports of collateral victims, yes but that hardly matters. Planting hidden explosives in the consumer supply chain is normalized terrorism, so I don't really want to see people act shocked that Iran is projecting power over its Strait, literally the most normal and predictable wartime maneuverer ever.

I don’t love the term “terrorism” here since the electronics were clearly aimed at military targets and not civilians. No one calls it terrorism when you bomb an army base but some collateral damage kills civilians too. Terrorism I think by definition is causing civilian harm to change politics.

No one calls it terrorism when you bomb an army base but some collateral damage kills civilians too.

American authorities have done this regularly since at least the 1983 Beirut bombing, through the attack on the Cole, and the Kabul bombing just a few years back. Maybe their definition is slightly more consistent if you expected uniforms while doing combat actions, but "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" isn't completely wrong either.

So if a mail bomb is sent to some IDF recruit by Hezbhollah to blow up inside his house then that's not terrorism because it's a military target?

It's not the target that is exceptional here, it's the clandestine appropriation of a consumer supply chain as a weapon. That is actually unprecedented, it's a method of warfare that fundamentally erodes global trust in economic trade and cooperation, it is far more unusual than a blockade of a Strait in the middle of an existential war. As to the semantics, feel free to not call it terrorism if it makes you feel better, even though you would call it that if/when bombs are set off inside the homes of Israeli or US troops.

Spitting in the food in the back kitchen isn't such an enormous taboo because of the direct consequences, but because none of us want to live in a world where that is remotely acceptable behavior, we want to trust our food has been handled properly and not question it when we sit down to eat. But people here defending the planting of hidden explosives in consumer goods can't seem to wrap their minds around those consequences. Why is Hezbollah such a dangerous enemy Israel has to normalize spitting in the food as a method of warfare?

Targeted killing of enemy combatants is not terrorism. Simple as.

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