I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.
The Drive has a series of detailed articles about this kind of missle:<p><a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31409/everything-we-know-about-americas-sword-blade-hellfire-missile-and-its-latest-target" rel="nofollow">https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31409/everything-we-kn...</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsDjpKr2Mk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsDjpKr2Mk</a><p>The world is grey, Jack. - Clear and Present Danger<p>Was WWII a more acceptable war because one side was clearly more morally reprehensible? Even then, it seems to often be a difference in degree, not in kind. Please do not take this as an excuse or lessening of severity for any group.
tl;dr this is a gruesome but targeted missile that doesn't explode and thus reducing collateral damage.<p>Overall a good thing.<p>Overall wars are terrible and so are "police actions" that we often do.<p>So my opinion is still that we need to figure out how to combat misinformation, propaganda, and radicalism rather than figuring out better/more efficient ways to kill each other. But that requires going after both social media companies, and stabilizing governments by providing spreading of wealth in poor countries, and relief to natural disasters.
How long until the US is subject to this kind of targeted assassination? It doesn't seem that this tech is so inaccessible to state actors with billions to invest. There are sufficient such enemies. Is the Secret Service really confident that it can protect its charges from this kind of attack?<p>I think they'll find that a drone missile can also be a boomerang.<p>EDIT: The objections to this scenario are taking it more literally than I was. I was thinking of a few dozen launched together from a yacht or freighter or enemy safe house in a nearby suburb. That's a lot easier than reproducing the US global operation.<p>There was a similar sequence near the beginning of Olympus has Fallen.
It's interesting how public has forgotten that ISIS is no longer any different from your usual terrorist organization with cellular structure, which is actively eradicated by both Syrian government and Kurds. So what mandate US forces have in Syria for their military activity? Not only they occupy some strategic land (Al-Tanf), but also actively kill military forces of the internationally recognized government (you can call it a dictatorship, evil to the core, etc., but it does not change the fact) inside Syrian borders without declaring a war on it.<p>But luckily for the public in his utter unprofessionalism Trump was pretty honest about it: <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/syria-trump-stealing-oil-us-confirms-deal-1526589" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsweek.com/syria-trump-stealing-oil-us-confirm...</a>
I guess like depleted uranium bullets is a useful way to re-purpose a byproduct of nuclear weapons production, flinging blades at an enemy is a good way to re-purpose decommissioned servers. I can only imagine the military uses for all the severed cable ties.
if ISIS get stronger they'll carry out more terrorist attcks over, ratcheting up the lethality<p>why not take them out overseas first? they've declared war so are lawful combatants