It is not a trend that bodes well for humanity in the future.
This was a real decaptitation strike. US killed a major mastermind, organizer, and an icon to some. It's akin to killing Al-Baghdadi or Hannibal at the peak of their successes. It will be interesting to see how that will end up working out.
Imagine a drone the size of a fly landing on a President or someone high up in a country and 'stinging' them with a poison then flying back home? Even if it was caught/destroyed it wouldn't always be traceable if using vpn's and pre-programmed flight patterns and ai.
There's been nothing like this ever. It's scary and kind of fascinating in a JAmes Bond kind of way, but still mostly scary. If the tech is ever open sourced or democratized it could be used to attack anyone you don't agree with or who's wronged you, etc... basically a super tiny hitman that isn't as stupid/error prone as a real hitman.
its basically the same thing. just an upscale in range, and really safe distance is safe distance... doesn't really change the situation when you add more 00's to the distance.
The embassy protests (call it riots if you like) were a response to the US killing at least 25 of them [0], which was a response to them supposedly being responsible for the death of US contractor [1].
There were no casualties during the embassy protests, yet the consequence of that was the US killing QS, and other PMU leadership, near Baghdad airport.
Now some people are peddling stories about how those two were supposedly not connected at all, and the US allegedly had intelligence how QS was planning to attack US Americans all over the world, which comes across as a bit of FUD to distract from the reality that the US just assassinated the general of another nation.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50951742
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/27/politics/iraq-rocket-atta...
If we absolutely need a presence why not have coalition embassies? A single office w/ 1 member from each coalition country, and equal soldiers from all countries and diplomatically making unilateral decisions as a group not based on any country's agenda.
its basically the same thing. just an upscale in precision, and really safe distance is safe distance... doesn't really change the situation when you add more dangerous technology to the mix.
I think I agree.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstri...
Amusingly, the video starts with Wikileaks decrypted the video, but all drone feeds are unencrypted.
Drone traffic is now predominantly encrypted it’s not the early 2000’s anymore when you could tune into drone feeds with a satellite dish and $30 worth of software.
I think it is from a drone.
Also the turn radius of a helicopter is what ever the pilot wants it too be.
For CAS you wouldn’t turn on a dime you’ll take slow wide turns to allow the gunner to maintain their engagement and for you to have better situational awareness you aren’t evading incoming fire here.
This isn’t a drone you do get such angels form fixed wing drone footage, not to mention that drones don’t come with auto cannons...
Too bad the pilot was flying past a building, blocking view of the civilians carrying indistinct objects. Maybe the pilot didn't know what he was doing. I suppose I will be downvoted for my views, but I abhor dishonesty.
There was an inquiry into this, yeah mistakes were made and quite a few lessons had to be learned but this wasn’t a joy ride.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...