Is he making policy or just doing politics, appealing to his increasingly-pro-Hamas voter base?
If he's serious about this, then the US can never, ever use aerial attacks again, because our attacks kill more unintended civilians than a bunch of exploding Hezballah radios do. The only method of making war that is more precise that blowing up someone's personal security comms device is firing at them by sniper. And even snipers sometimes hit civilians.
Is he serious?
Shouldn't someone in what we laughingly call the "American press corps" ask him?
Is Panetta announcing that from now going forward, America will not kill a terrorist except by sniper? Inserting a sniper into a hostile foreign country? In every case we intend to kill a terrorist?
Really?
Really?
Or is just pandering for the Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan?
Duane Patterson notes how very, very precise "Operation Grim Beeper" has been:
By May of 2009, it is believed that north of 50 bad guys had their ticket punched with Panetta hitting a joystick button from Washington. Mind you, it's a policy with which I'm totally supportive. Dead terrorists make the best terrorists, I always say, and if it can be done remotely without risking American personnel, icing on the cake. But now that the Israelis have upped the technology game to a ridiculously impressive level with Operation Grim Beeper and Radio Boom-Boom, Leon Panetta, Mr. Drone, has a problem with it?
In 2009, drone warfare was the most precise method of counterterrorism in the history of mankind, but there still were civilian casualties, including children. According to the Watson Institute, over the course of the entire War on Terror, Afghanistan and Pakistan phase, there were roughly 70,000 civilian casualties through early 2023. That's all forms of warfare - air, sea-based strikes, and ground forces.
By contrast, in Afghanistan alone from early 2004 through early 2020, drone strikes had a much lower ratio of combatant-to-civilian casualties. Worst-case estimates were 900 civilians, 180 of them children, were killed compared to 10,000 bad guys dispatched off this rock to go find their 72 virgins. That's about a 10-1 ratio, far better than conventional warfare. Now compare that to what the Israelis pulled off last week.
See the link for video of Panetta now claiming that putting explosives into common technology (albeit technology sold to Hezballah) is making a "war of terror" on Hezballah, and constitutes "a form of terrorism."
Meanwhile, Netanyahu says the gloves are off.
In case that needs to be said.
The IDF hit over 300 Hezbollah targets during two major rounds of strikes against Hezbollah on Monday. ...
These waves of air strikes constituted the fifth and sixth round of massive air strikes on Hezbollah since Thursday of last week, especially in southern Lebanon, including further from the border than in some prior cases.
Among the attacks was a significant strike against Hezbollah deep into Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. A senior Hezbollah official, Ali Aburia, was reportedly killed in one of the IAF strikes on Lebanon, Sky News Arabia reported on Monday, citing multiple sources.
Another video of a "regular house" being hit, with the cruise missile hidden inside of it then firing off into a random direction.
Netyanhu warned them to get out:
A former IDF spokesman says that if you sleep next to a missile, don't be surprised to be woken up by a missile strike.