Mailbag from Macedonia

I asked for questions. You responded. Let’s get into it.

Peter asks:

This question has been outpaced by events. Israel has since significantly escalated its war in Lebanon — as well as Yemen and, of course, Gaza — destroying whole city blocks, including multiple residential towers in Beirut, in the course of assassinating senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. Overnight, Israeli ground troops invaded southern Lebanon. October surprise, anyone?

Still, this is a good question that deserves a response. According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, via the Guardian, over 3,500 people were injured in the pager bombings and 42 were killed, including at least two children. Reuters reported that the attack “put 1,500 fighters out of commission,” a fact that they cited to an unnamed Hezbollah official. So, if true, back of the envelope, that would put us around roughly 2,000 non-fighter victims.

Now, maybe I shorthanded this too much. It is certainly possible — maybe even likely — that the Hezbollah official was understating the number of fighters who got their hands and faces blown off, and/or that some of the remaining 2,000 or so were also fighters who were more lightly wounded. But the mitigation goes the other way as well. As Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told NPR, nearly everyone injured was at a minimum a non-combatant at the moment the pagers and walkie-talkies exploded: “I mean, they were clearly not in a battlefield, and they were clearly not in a combat. A lot of them were either in the capital, in Beirut, or the surrounding suburbs. So that's why Lebanon’s position is that this is an indiscriminate attack where a lot of civilians were involved,” he said.

And even if a victim was personally and directly linked to Hezbollah, that doesn’t necessarily mean they were a militant. As the Washington Post reported, Hezbollah runs “hospitals, social welfare institutions, unions and construction companies” and controls “40 of the country’s 128 seats in parliament.” If those don’t count as civilians in your mind, ask yourself how you’d view an indiscriminate sniper attack at the Pentagon City Mall whose victims were disproportionately federal employees, including doctors, nurses, teachers, construction workers, and off-duty military personnel (along with children and spouses). As Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction.” A shameful, illegal, immoral act, no matter how you slice it.

The great Frank X. Walker asks:

First of all, you should all check out Frank’s work, it’s incredible. I owe a lot to his teaching. And second, yes, it’s Charleroi, Pa., a town some 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. Fresh off lying about and putting the entire city of Springfield — not just Haitian immigrants but Republicans who employ and defend them — in danger, Trump is now deploying his anti-immigrant playbook against a tiny town that, as of the 2020 Census, reported just over 4,000 residents. It’s sick, gross, and dangerous.

As in Springfield, the Haitian community is filling much-needed industrial jobs that American-born workers didn’t want to do. And, as in Springfield, the town’s Republican officials keep pointing out that, while there are inevitable culture clashes and growing pains, the immigrants aren’t causing problems, nor are they eating people’s pets. (The most difficult thing for old residents, who apparently call their town SHAR-le-roy, may be hearing their town’s name pronounced in something closer to the original French.)

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