Cleanup on Aisle 5

Drawn on September 19, 2024 | Published from Miami

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Cleanup on Aisle 5

Seventeenth Century clay ceramic hand grenades, unearthed in a moat of the South-Eastern German town of Ingolstadt, could have been mistaken by their contemporaries as unconventional flower pots with a deadly stench. In trench tunnels of the first World War, doors with tripwires and makeshift shrapnel-filled tin-cans of Schmalzfleisch would blow soldiers to bits. Or maybe, was it just Canadian corned beef [1]? Although the CIA may have had plans to knock out Castro with a detonating cigar [2], legend goes that Nazis even more incredibly attempted to bump up Winston Churchill's next dentist appointment by having him crunch into an explosive chocolate bar [3]. Joke's on them, though — Brits don't visit the dentist.

"Knowing that war is a crime, what is a war crime? A soldier who refuses to kill another." [4]

— Charb (1967-2015), Cartoonist for Charlie Hebdo, 2005.

Truly, it seems, ever since the invention of gunpowder, humans have been eager to tinker in ways to fuse its properties with inconspicuous everyday items. Booby-trapped objects are not a trailblazing idea, but their extensively synchronized 2024 debut North of the Middle Eastern holy land leaves little doubt as to why their news went viral [5]. Not only was the mass execution of this operation truly unparalleled in novelty [6], but the logistics of infecting Hezbollah's radio-device supply-chain must have been months in planning, with careful oversight of the manufacturing process [7]. For an organization rhyming with Mossad, pulling this off would have required modifying the hardware during production to include small, remotely-triggered explosive boards, cleverly designed to evade detection by scanners.

Given the ubiquitous nature of pagers, walkie-talkies, and all sorts of wireless smart gadgets in everyday life, this terroristic technological deception — carried out by a loudly unnamed assailant — crucially raises concerns on the safety of Lebanese bystanders [8]. However impressive, regardless of the intended target's hostile posture [more here], the ethical implications of this tactic are as unquestionably problematic as those linked to landmines.

To put it mildly, being a mullah might call for presently avoiding the electronics aisle at the local supermarket.

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[1] Hopper, T. (2018) The Forgotten Ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers | national post, National Post. Available at: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war (Accessed: 2024).

[2] Myre, G. (2021) In the CIA’s 1st plot against the Castros, Fidel wasn’t the target, NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/04/992951030/in-the-cias-1st-plot-against-the-castros-fidel-wasnt-the-target (Accessed: 2024).

[3] Blakemore, E. Magazine, S. (2015) The Nazis wanted to beat the British with exploding chocolate bars, Smithsonian.com. Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nazis-wanted-beat-brits-exploding-chocolate-bars-180956798/ (Accessed: 20 September 2024).

[4] Original French; « Sachant que la guerre est un crime, c'est quoi un crime de guerre? Un soldat qui refuse d'en tuer un autre. » 

Charb (2005) Coupables, forcément coupables. 1. Paris: Hoëbeke.

[5] SEIBT, S. (2024) L’Iran, l’autre grand perdant de l’opération de sabotage des bipeurs du Hezbollah, France 24. Available at: https://www.france24.com/fr/moyen-orient/20240918-l-iran-l-autre-grand-perdant-de-l-op%C3%A9ration-de-sabotage-des-bipeurs-du-hezbollah?utm_slink=f24.my%2FAbi7 (Accessed: 20 September 2024).

[6] Bachega, H. (2024) Hezbollah chief says Israel crossed ‘All Red Lines’ with attacks, BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79n1v4d203o (Accessed: 20 September 2024).

[7] Bassam, L. and Gebeily, M. (2024) Israel planted explosives in Hezbollah’s Taiwan-made pagers, say sources | Reuters, Reuters. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-planted-explosives-hezbollahs-taiwan-made-pagers-say-sources-2024-09-18/ (Accessed: 21 September 2024).

[8] Bachega, H. (2024) Walkie-talkie explosions Spark Fresh Day of Chaos in Lebanon, BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c781d8y397do (Accessed: 20 September 2024).