I’m sure this question comes up in high up meetings. What positions are taboo for this sort of thing? Offing enemies on foreign territory isn’t new. (poisoned umbrella tips, polonium laced teas, Hillary and her drones, etc.) but now that more remote means are available to more regimes and governments what keeps someone from liquidating a pariah head of state or their inner circle?
It would seem the big players have some kind of tacit agreement, but what happens when a second rate dictator uses this option?
I don't think Israel have any taboos regarding who to kill in Iran, the constrains come from the US and the limited deterrence provided by possible Iranian response.
It usually boils down to ‘will they be able to hurt us in a way that will outweigh the value to us of taking this target out’.
If a 2nd rate dictator takes out someone from a 1st world country or their allies this way? They won’t be a dictator for long, guaranteed. Someone will get a UN resolution going, call for a coalition, and within a week they’ll have their palaces bombed - if folks want to spend the effort doing it that way instead of having Mossad or the CIA put a bomb in their car anyway.
Someone from a 1st world gov’t wanting to do this to a 2nd tier gov’t? Well, how much pull does that person have with the 1st world gov’ts allies? Is there major business or economic blowback
possible? Would they be able to start a war or blow something up that would hurt us? Is there bad PR to worry about? A congressional or parliamentary investigation that could happen? Or like in this case is the target considered ‘a bad person’ working for a ‘bad country’ that is already sanctioned and won’t hurt any major 1st world economic or business interests?
If not likely to stir up any fuss and could make something happen someone wants, some enterprising group is likely to take them out. Either military, intelligence, or private.
Apparently Castro in his own country wasn’t. That general was in a foreign conflict directing insurgent operations against us.
Do you think Iran would vacillate about liquidating a general from an inferior adversary if that adversary were inflicting loses upon it, in say, Syria?
Ideals are nice, but realpolitik sneaks up on you and you do have to do what they would do, else you are going to suffer more then the moral guilt.
War is war. There is nothing nice about it. All these these morals are only carried out 'because you can afford them' not because you have to.
At one time, in war, one spared enemy commanders, that was nice for when the upper ranks were from the elite and you ransomed them off or traded. Today, this is not the case. I don't see a lot of daylight between these two things.
What are you talking about? The US is not at war with Iran. We assassinated a general and nuclear scientist with drones after we pulled out of a nuclear agreement they agreed to. They have since said they are open to rejoin the nuclear agreement with little US response. Before we go all war hawk, let’s remember that Iran has repeatedly expressed interest in rejoining the international community and renegotiating the nuclear deal.
So we are not at war, but why is Iran advising insurgents and other groups on getting to US targets and inflicting losses on us? Their intelligence services, advisors and equipment are used to target our troops and allies in the region. Tit for tat.
What? Israel’s navy commander Sharvit just confirmed that Israel attacked Iranian ships in the Red Sea. You have this backwards.
Israel pushed the Obama administration into having no negotiations with Iran wrt nuclear power in a bid to force military intervention. This is despite the fact that Israel itself is one of only four nations (including India, Pakistan, and North Korea) who is not an NPT signatory but has nuclear weapons nonetheless. Ironically, this backfired because by forcing the issue, Obama made it a priority to establish formal relations with Iran on nuclear power, but the intention was still there to isolate and demonize Iran. And then in 2013 when AIPAC lobbied hard for military intervention in Syria. And again in 2015. If anyone is urging their “insurgents” towards war, it is Israel, not Iran, who not only complied with the terms of JCPOA, but exceeded them. And again, even though Raisi is criticizing the US for waging war via sanctions, Iran’s official position is still to negotiate a new nuclear agreement in eventual hope to join the NPT (something Netanyahu specifically tried to avoid in the terms of JCPOA).
What is your reasoning for that? He’s a clear military target who commanded attacks on American and Israeli forces and their allies. What lends him immunity?
I think the Soviet Union/Russia (in the modern era) let this genie out and it's not going back in.
If they use it, we may be able to impose economic sanctions for some time. If they get so sanctioned it makes little difference, like with Russia, then nothing will stop them at that point.
Strange place for you to force a Hillary mention. If you'd read the article you'd understand that if you want to politicize this you can start with Trump:
> Israel had paused the sabotage and assassination campaign in 2012, when the United States began negotiations with Iran leading to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Now that Mr. Trump had abrogated that agreement, the Israelis wanted to resume the campaign to try to thwart Iran’s nuclear progress and force it to accept strict constraints on its nuclear program.
Part of the article makes it sound like there was no physical person close to the vehicle with the rifle, other parts make it sound like the rifle was merely AI assisted, whatever that may mean. At the very least people assembled the whole thing and probably drove it to the target location also.
At least the NYT article seems a bit better, and looking at the picture in the NYT article it seems like there were quite a few shots fired.
I wish there was some more detailed information here.
How did they get the pick up truck close to him them? Put it at a stationary location that he usually drove by? Or remote/self driving? Or hired someone local that didn't know the full plot?
My understanding is that a big part of this type of operation is understanding their target, the patterns and schedule they move by, and then selecting a good spot that is going to work to take them out when they aren’t expecting it or prepared, and they have a good opportunity to escape or not get caught.
So most likely left there the night before (or even longer), they knew when he would be by (and it wasn’t going to be a one-off), and there you go.
I think something similar happened with the Carrero Blanco assassination by the ETA in Spain. They cased him, rented an apartment and then did their thing.
Apparently it’s the ‘professional’ way to do it, and it’s pretty terrifying if you’re a potential target of someone with the resources and desire to do something like this. It is almost impossible to defend against, except perhaps by making the consequences of attempting or succeeding not worth the cost to anyone who might be interested and able. I think this is generally the US approach, but looking at the past it clearly isn’t 100% successful.
The US Secret Service has had several folks who aren’t worried about consequences sneak through and severely injure - or depending on your pet theory regarding JFK - kill presidents.
The article said he was killed "as he was driving his wife to their country home east of Tehran". So it's probable that the Israelis knew about his house in the country and found out when he'd be going, and picked out a spot on the route that would serve the purpose, maybe on a part of the road that very few people use.
Is that more or less ethical than artillery, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, nuclear missiles, suicide bombers, ieds, weaponized drones, proxy wars, etc.?
It’s not hypocritical at all, as the whole point is to maintain an imbalance of power and capability in one’s own favor. The public reasoning and ceremony around why we prevent others from getting this capability may be run through with hypocrisy, but the real reason isn’t.
> the whole point is to maintain an imbalance of power and capability in one’s own favor
That’s one strategy. Another, once the nuclear cat is out of the bag, is mutual assured destruction (MAD). If that’s your strategy then it is hypocritical because then the point is that everyone has enough power to destroy everyone else so no one will make a move.
I personally think that both strategies are stupid. The former will just breed current and future resentment and the latter is vulnerable to one unstable person with authority to use the weapons.
But I don’t have any sort of alternative so it seems like preventing others from getting nukes and then falling back to MAD is just the way the world is working.
MAD is about having sufficient alliance networks with enough power to guarantee mutual destruction, not having everyone with lots of nukes. And usually “alliance networks” meant the old US/Soviet divide.
The whole point of nukes is that any given nation can take responsibility for its own defense and is not dependent on allies who may throw them under the bus if it is useful to do so.
The point is that the reason given is to protect the free world, when it is doing anything but. It’s just keeping the same people comfortably in power, capable of stepping on their enemies at will.
Given that there are a few nuclear powers that could meet that criteria, I really don't see a reason why Iran is a special case, especially when comparing it to Pakistan, for example.
Israel isn’t directly threatened by Iran having nuclear weapons either unless the leaders are willing to give up their lives and country for their goal.
The problem with populist-leveraging theocracies with bad economies is that you need a shared national boogie man. For decades, Iraq, Israel, and the US have been that for Iran.
Well, you need the boogie man if you're the dog and your goal is to keep your country under control.
But if the tail gets ideas about wagging you? And your populace demands you eliminate the boogie man threat with all means at hand, because you've spent decades inculcating hatred in them and blaming ills on the man?
Well... better the boogie man's head than yours on the chopping block.
If those in power are the qualifier for if a country should have nuclear weapons or not, then the US should immediately destroy their entire stockpile. Giving power to launch nuclear weapons, to someone who is clearly not mentally well, is insane.
Our foreign policy incentivizes gaining access to nuclear weapons and WMDs. It's one of the best ways to guarantee your continuing sovereignty. Nuclear countries are powerful enough that even the US is reticent to invade or destabilize them. Gaddafi gave up Libya's weapons programs and was dead within a decade. Iran gave up theirs, and the US reneged on the treaty almost immediately.
Every country's primary purposes are to guarantee continued sovereignty & obtain military superiority (or at least credible deterrence).
This is why major nuclear power invasions of non-nuclear powers are incredibly dangerous: they incentivize nuclear weapons development and disincentivize adhering to the NPT.
Where the NPT really failed was in handling actors with expansive, violent regional influence aspirations like Iran and Pakistan.
If you're inevitably going to come in conflict with the US and/or international community, your obvious move is to develop nuclear weapons. The NPT provides no carrot to balance out that reality.
> He was assassinated for his role in leading the Iranian nuclear weapons program, not for his scientific achievements.
Recall that America withdrew from the anti-nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, that Iran's Ayatollah has declared a religious prohibition against nuclear weapons and that while Israel does have nuclear weapons, Iran is instead pursuing a nuclear power program for civilian energy.
> According to Gareth Porter writing in Foreign Policy, Iran's aversion to nuclear and chemical weapons is sincere because of the "historical episode during its eight-year war with Iraq", and Iran never sought revenge for Iraqi chemical attacks against Iran, which killed 20,000 Iranians and severely injured 100,000 more.[2] According to Khalaji, the fatwa is also considered to be consistent with Islamic tradition.[4]
> Aside from that, this machine is disturbing, but not more so than a reaper drone. I’m not quite sure why they’d go through the trouble.
If I understood the article correctly, it's because the Mossad didn't want to reveal it was them, which is why the gun attempted to self-destruct after use.
So from reading the article's first couple of paragraphs my obvious question was how do you dispose of the equipment to not allow it to fall into enemy hands? And of course they didn't:
> While the pickup truck exploded after the assassination, it failed to destroy the smart rifle system beyond recognition. This allowed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to piece together what occurred
Using remote AI-assisted seems a logical conclusion. Heck I imagine they hire somebody fresh out of high school who enjoys playing CoD to pull the trigger. It's lower casualty than drones but higher risk if you can't dispose of your tech appropriately
the terrifying thing will be when this type of system gets deployed at scale with drone swarms. The dream of any authoritarian government to use against citizens to keep them in line
This thread makes me wonder how many knife-missiles the USA has in stock.
(I am using the opportunity to reference the fact that the USA indeed has a “knife missile” and it is similar in principle if not in capability to the knife missile if the “Culture” series by Ian M. Banks.)
On one hand guns on drones are less destructive than bombs and missiles we are already using. So his wife in the car survived where a US drone strike would have killed them both.
On the other more surgical strikes may promote use.
I believe civilian drone casualties are due largely to mistaken target identification. E.g. the recent incident in Afghanistan was exactly of this type. There are also stories of A-10 pilots shooting civilians by mistake
Guns only help if you've got the right person to start with.
This is almost exactly the plot of Captain America: Winter Soldier, for what it’s worth, except they use massive floating weapons platforms instead of drones
The stated goal of Iran's government is to end a specific group of humans that identify themselves as Israelis by using nuclear or conventional weapons.
Of course that's not the goal in most cases (but it obviously is the case where warfare is involved - at least ending a subset of humanity).
But if you look at food/diet changes, lifestyle changes, warfare changes, energy source/consumption changes, and so on, you can see we are working toward the end of humanity. Hopefully it will take a very long time, but there will be a tipping point where it becomes _very_ unpleasant.
Let's extrapolate with some current technologies a bit. We have these pretty cool gunshot locator systems; we have AI or robotic attack systems; we have broader control systems which can disable power and water from target zones. Heck we can control and overload industrial systems, potentially causing mass casualties.
No one sets out to end humanity. Well, most people don't. But degree by degree (pun not initially intended) we get closer to self-induced extinction.
Is there a fundamental difference between Iran having nuclear weapons compared to Pakistan? If the government of Pakistan hasn't used them so far, then why would Iran?
Why is anyone at war with anyone else? Usually the answer is, "because they did this first". But if you follow all the trails, you ultimately come to the conclusion that the real answer is either, "well, they're not us". Or "they look different".
Or sadly amusingly, because "they claim they invented hummus, but WE invented hummus". Or "they wear their little caps differently from how we do".
But if you put two people from opposing sides together at a dinner table, or with musical instruments, or in a crisis situation, you may be surprised to see that they not only can get along but can become friends.
If Iran has nuclear weapons, then its principal geopolitical rival, Saudi Arabia will want nuclear weapons. You have a proliferation risk that will greatly increase the risk of actual use of nuclear weapons.
If Israel has nuclear weapons, then its principal geopolitical rival, Iran will want nuclear weapons. You have a proliferation risk that will greatly increase the risk of actual use of nuclear weapons.
I don't want anyone having those weapons. But they exist, and worse, old ones exist and are unaccounted for.
But who should judge which regime should have them, if only some should?
Most of us are born into a belief that our people are the best, the right people, and others may also be right... and many are wrong. But regardless, we are most right. As such, we often don't question some things. This is one of them.
So should we decide we are the best, most trustworthy holders of such technology and use just about any means to prevent others from getting the technology? However you narrate this, it is an ongoing history which visiting sentient beings would probably marvel at.
In the case of Pakistan, the principal geopolitical rival is India. Despite the fact that both have nuclear arsenals and have had skirmishes over Kashmir, a couple of which after they both made public their nuclear capability, neither of them have tried to use those weapons.
What makes it any different if Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel have them instead?
It sets a precedent, inching us closer toward self destruction.
Remember that people all have their own histories and perspectives. What to us seems like prevention of something bad may seem like continued oppression to others.
And if you explore a bit online (unless you're traveling in Iran), you'll find that not all Iranians are hell-bent on destroying other people. In fact, the few I've met have been really nice, fun, "normal" people.
Likewise, should all Americans be judged as climate denying, anti-vax, racist, religious people who believe that men are the rulers over women? That's certainly what it looks like from abroad... unless you know Americans personally (or are one).
You're presenting a false choice between OK and not-OK. In reality it's a spectrum.
I am less concerned about the prospect of South Korea having nukes than North Korea if we are forced to choose. And I am less concerned about Israel having nukes than Iran, given the genocidal intentions the latter has expressed combined with the fact it's a theocratic dictatorship make it less than guaranteed that the MAD doctrine would apply.
I'd much, much, much prefer for Israel to also not have nukes, but those two situations aren't equally as bad.
Of course Iran had a secular, non-communist, anti-colonial parliament and government in the early 1950s. The UK and US supported the mullahs as a base and had Mossadegh overthrown and put a dictator in. The CIA then worked to help SAVAK kill off the secular left. In the late 1970s Iran cast off its colonial shackles, but as the US had empowered the mullahs and killed off the secular left, they took over.
The US and Israel have nuclear weapons. The US has waged nuclear war. The US was helping Iran become a nuclear power. Now that colonialism has ended, they can't pursue the nuclear energy the US and Europe and China have? The only nuclear power in the Middle East allowed is one mostly made up of non-Muslims, most of whom are not even from the Middle East but from the west?
I don't believe anyone can prove how the violence has actually preserved my "liberal" western life.
If you go to the "worst" territories with the worst regimes, you will find people surprisingly like us. They are individuals and families who care for each other, who work hard (or harder), and who don't wish anyone harm.
What we have are power hungry people, often with financial agendas, at the controls of media and politics. That's not to say that some citizens don't get caught up in these false narratives and grab their pitchforks, but without the perpetual skewed influence, "normal" people tend to behave pretty decently.
It's slightly less surprising when you remember that one of the most recent directors of the CIA & Secretary of State has stated that politics is “a never-ending struggle ... until the rapture.”
Along with the fact that he and others of his political affiliation tout “good versus evil” battles, particularly centered over the “Holy Land” of the Middle East, are signs that the longed-for end may be at hand.
For some of these people, ending humanity actually seems to be the goal. I'm mostly convinced at this point that they're letting corporations cause climate change so they can call it the rapture.
It just seems so dumb and a waste to kill people like that without pretty much any shock or scrutiny.
I value intelligence, and people who aren't demonstrating intelligence get to live through the most absurd circumstances. So it is really disturbing for me to see these meticulous targeted assassinations that at best only serves to delay the nuclear program, and at worst accelerates the irradiated glass theme park they're trying to avoid.
Reading the article (its short) it's a one ton robotic apparatus + gun, mounted, or at least transported, by a pickup truck. The gun utilized satellites to calculate its shots. This particular one wasn't much of a remote weapon deployable anywhere, but rather a weapon that replaces the requirement for an actual sniper to be competent and have a clear LOS. On some level I'd expect this thing could, for example, shoot through opaque conditions like smoke, or walls if the ballistics don't threaten it too much . It seems like it fired several shots which would help in that regard. You still, practically for a device this heavy and presumably expensive, would want a human driving it around and setting it up.
> The gun utilized satellites to calculate its shots.
highly doubtful. More likely it was something like a good quality camera fitted to a scope, outputting around 1.5 to 2 Mbps H264 or H265 4:2:0 color space video, with a data link over satellite to a remote controller. Some person staring at a screen with ability to pan and tilt the weapon.
> The gun itself was connected to an Israeli command center via a satellite communication relay. There an operative was able to control the gun and take aim at its target via a computer screen.
The key "AI" contribution, after you dig down through all the media misunderstanding, appears to be this:
[NYT]> The time it took for the camera images to reach the sniper and for the sniper’s response to reach the machine gun, not including his reaction time, was estimated to be 1.6 seconds, enough of a lag for the best-aimed shot to go astray.
So aiming and firing was initiated by a human, but hardware and software attempted to mask the time delay in doing so against a moving vehicle. Which seems plausible: optical flow + basic vehicle vector and velocity calculations.
There's also some stuff in the various articles about facial recognition, but that sounds a bit far fetched and unreliable.
If you have a person in the loop with enough resolution to accurately aim, then why are you running facial recognition to discriminate targets?
I am simultaneously in awe of the tech that it would take to pull this off and in complete revulsion at what was done.
It was interesting when I was in college to see which degrees required ethics classes and which ones didn't. Computer Science required us to take ethics classes. I assume because of the effects technology can have.
It is really subtle too. As one of my professors noted: "I'm sure none of you would write a 'BombJerusalem()' function, but you might write a 'Target(city)' function without realizing the implications."
Out of everything Israel has done, assassinating the chief of the Iranian nuclear weapons program is pretty low on the ladder of complex ethics issues. I promise you no one in the Israeli security apparatus batted an eye, and it’s not because they are any less moral than you.
I don't understand your comment. Initially you suggest that this was not so bad considering the other things they have done... suggesting that their standards were different to some. Then you go on to say they have the same moral standards as _person_on_street_. This seems contradictory?
When the leader of another country is on record calling for your genocide and actively pursuing weapon programs that can make that a reality—you might have slightly different standards on how far you might be willing to go for protection than other countries that do not have countries calling for their genocide.
Since WW2 the Jewish people tend to operate under the philosophy of “When someone tells you he wants to kill you, you should take them seriously” because the last leader of a country who decided to kill them and make an effort of it, managed to eliminate 2/3 of the jews that resided in Europe and about 40% of them worldwide.
I think that even though I am not Jewish, if I had that history and the current regional political climate…I probably wouldn’t bat an eye at a robot sniper since my moral standards would be shaped by a very real and very recent effort to wipe me off the earth. That could change a perspective and standard.
And I realize that Israel is not just Jews, but does anyone really believe that the phrase “Death to Israel” means “Death to the Arabs living there too”?
I don't see how that addresses the comment at all. You appear to be saying that Israel is correct for having different moral standards. That does not seem to address the conflict in the comment above
No, I am not saying that Israel is correct or not because the morality here is completely subjective. There is no correct and there is no incorrect.
Israel’s different moral standards are a reasonable human response for THEM because of the history of genocide attempted on the Jewish people and the present day threats of genocide that are still being made against them.
So in that sense, I believe they do have a probable similar moral standard as the average man on the street, because the average man on the street would likely take any step necessary and within their means to prevent a genocide from being committed against them, especially if an attempted genocide just recently happened to them.
What is the point of Ethics classes? Do they actually make people more ethical (and if so, is it ethical brain wash people?), or are they mostly used to pad out classes so that the philosophy department also gets some money?
I took an ethics class in college taught by the computer science department. It definitely wasn't an ethical indoctrination, as much of "here is what ethics is, here are the basic frameworks, and here's why it matters to programming."
It was more so that we all understood that the people who used the fruits of our labor were trusting our knowledge of engineering with their own lives, in the hopes of preventing tragedies such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
but yes if you failed the class, you didn't get the degree
They teach and discuss what ethics are, to me it was an invaluable series of courses (psychology in general). As was Critical Thinking and Journalism. I highly recommend them all.
"Looking forward to seeing how this technology makes it into domestic situations. It's just like space and other military technology. It'll benefit us all in the end."
Many Iranians are very proud to be Iranians in the same way many Israelis are proud to be Israelis.
If those two countries could decide on peace (or rather, if the majorities in each country that want peace could push aside the warmongers), the Middle East and the entire world would be a much better place.
I know nothing about guns, but assuming someone is walking at a typical pace, what kind of latency would you need for a robot to actually (remotely control and) shoot someone via a robot?
I think a lot would depend on whether the target was approaching you in a near linear straight line, or traveling sideways across your field of view in azimuth.
As described in the NY times article it sounds like the gun was set up to shoot straight down the road into the windshield of the approaching car.
The article says there was a 1.6 second delay between what the operator saw and what the gun saw, but it's going to depend a lot on distance and angle.
The article mentions a 1.6 second transmission delay. You can imagine how much someone could potentially move in 1.6 seconds, regardless of other factors.
Distance is the largest normal factor, and is not mentioned in the article. Under 100 meters bullet drop and time to target are negligible; with a stabilized rifle (as in this case), it would just be a matter of putting the crosshairs over the target. The communications latency, however, would make even such a short shot extremely challenging. I wonder how the AI mentioned compensated for that. They imply the vehicle may have been moving during the shot. So during a 1.6 second (presumably round trip) delay, you would need to account for movement of the vehicle during that time, movement of the target during that time, movement of the target after firing (for longer distances), wind effects on the bullet (for longer distances), and bullet drop (usually trivial, but still).
I don't know what kind of help the AI provided, but I wouldn't want to be the one with my hand on the button (normal ethical questions of assassination aside).
I really struggle to be impressed by this as it’s a gross violation of national sovereignty, similar to US aggression in the Middle East. Imagine the other way around - headline: Iranian military shoot Israeli nuclear scientists on way home from work. It would likely cause WW III!
This kind of intervention is wrong and should be condemned by the international community, not celebrated.
>We sanction Iran for aggressive behaviour in the region.
You're making their actions out to be equivalent. Iran is fomenting unrest in a whole region. Israel is trying to neutralize (not eliminate) an enemy that has vowed repeatedly to eliminate it from the planet.
Arguably, Israel has fomented unrest in the ME as well with a continued history of genocide against Palestinians. I do not understand how assassination will in any way “neutralize” an enemy. I guarantee if Iran assassinated a high-ranking Israeli or American official, the response would be far from neutral. Just look at the inciting incident for WWI.
The middle east is a jungle. If I had to make a choice between living close to a nuclear Iran - a fundamentalist regime commits horrendous acts, like public hangings of gay men *or* violating international law, I would choose the latter without hesitation.
Laws are great when there's someone who enforces them. When there's no entity that makes sure those rules are obeyed they mean nothing.
One wonders how Iran would be today if the US had not eliminated the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in favor of religious monarchy, and whether they would've continued their progressive trajectory.
I've been noticing the framing "imagine if the roles had been reversed... the reaction would be totally different!" more and more, especially around contentious issues.
I've never found it compelling. The argument seems like a variant of begging the question: we just saw that X caused Y reaction, but the argument asserts (generally without any evidence) that if the roles were reversed, then X' would cause a massively different Y'. Would it? Why? If we agree that it would, what does that demonstrate?
I wonder why the gun is not aiming on its own, like a human would do.
There would not be a problem of laatency, you would just state the expected result (shot the head you would point to first, or shot in the windshield, ...) and let the gun do it on autopilot.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 201 ms ] threadIt would seem the big players have some kind of tacit agreement, but what happens when a second rate dictator uses this option?
I'm not sure what this question means exactly? Are you asking what kind of targeted foreign aggression is informally permissible?
If a 2nd rate dictator takes out someone from a 1st world country or their allies this way? They won’t be a dictator for long, guaranteed. Someone will get a UN resolution going, call for a coalition, and within a week they’ll have their palaces bombed - if folks want to spend the effort doing it that way instead of having Mossad or the CIA put a bomb in their car anyway.
Someone from a 1st world gov’t wanting to do this to a 2nd tier gov’t? Well, how much pull does that person have with the 1st world gov’ts allies? Is there major business or economic blowback possible? Would they be able to start a war or blow something up that would hurt us? Is there bad PR to worry about? A congressional or parliamentary investigation that could happen? Or like in this case is the target considered ‘a bad person’ working for a ‘bad country’ that is already sanctioned and won’t hurt any major 1st world economic or business interests?
If not likely to stir up any fuss and could make something happen someone wants, some enterprising group is likely to take them out. Either military, intelligence, or private.
Do you think Iran would vacillate about liquidating a general from an inferior adversary if that adversary were inflicting loses upon it, in say, Syria?
Or that normalizing peacetime assassinations won't have an obvious destabilizing effect?
War is war. There is nothing nice about it. All these these morals are only carried out 'because you can afford them' not because you have to.
At one time, in war, one spared enemy commanders, that was nice for when the upper ranks were from the elite and you ransomed them off or traded. Today, this is not the case. I don't see a lot of daylight between these two things.
Israel pushed the Obama administration into having no negotiations with Iran wrt nuclear power in a bid to force military intervention. This is despite the fact that Israel itself is one of only four nations (including India, Pakistan, and North Korea) who is not an NPT signatory but has nuclear weapons nonetheless. Ironically, this backfired because by forcing the issue, Obama made it a priority to establish formal relations with Iran on nuclear power, but the intention was still there to isolate and demonize Iran. And then in 2013 when AIPAC lobbied hard for military intervention in Syria. And again in 2015. If anyone is urging their “insurgents” towards war, it is Israel, not Iran, who not only complied with the terms of JCPOA, but exceeded them. And again, even though Raisi is criticizing the US for waging war via sanctions, Iran’s official position is still to negotiate a new nuclear agreement in eventual hope to join the NPT (something Netanyahu specifically tried to avoid in the terms of JCPOA).
Iran was also working with the west to defeat Daesh.
I'm sure we appreciated that. What we didn't appreciate as much was his involvement in insurgent actions against coalition forces.
Maybe they already have. Maybe they are content to let the old powers continue to play by the old rules, while they wage a much more economic war.
In the last 20 years I have watched the US decry left and right while we seemingly accelerate our own diplomatic malpractices.
If they use it, we may be able to impose economic sanctions for some time. If they get so sanctioned it makes little difference, like with Russia, then nothing will stop them at that point.
> Israel had paused the sabotage and assassination campaign in 2012, when the United States began negotiations with Iran leading to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Now that Mr. Trump had abrogated that agreement, the Israelis wanted to resume the campaign to try to thwart Iran’s nuclear progress and force it to accept strict constraints on its nuclear program.
Curious, have you even heard of the JCPOA?
At least the NYT article seems a bit better, and looking at the picture in the NYT article it seems like there were quite a few shots fired.
I wish there was some more detailed information here.
So most likely left there the night before (or even longer), they knew when he would be by (and it wasn’t going to be a one-off), and there you go.
The US Secret Service has had several folks who aren’t worried about consequences sneak through and severely injure - or depending on your pet theory regarding JFK - kill presidents.
> Fakhrizadeh was shot at least four times by the smart rifle, which was hidden in a pickup truck a short distance away.
> Israeli operatives smuggled the weapon and its parts piecemeal into Iran before reassembling it.
While I think we ideally shouldn’t build any more nuclear weapons, I don’t think we should prevent any country from doing so.
It’s so hypocritical.
Aside from that, this machine is disturbing, but not more so than a reaper drone. I’m not quite sure why they’d go through the trouble.
That’s one strategy. Another, once the nuclear cat is out of the bag, is mutual assured destruction (MAD). If that’s your strategy then it is hypocritical because then the point is that everyone has enough power to destroy everyone else so no one will make a move.
I personally think that both strategies are stupid. The former will just breed current and future resentment and the latter is vulnerable to one unstable person with authority to use the weapons.
But I don’t have any sort of alternative so it seems like preventing others from getting nukes and then falling back to MAD is just the way the world is working.
Alliance networks are what gave us WW1.
The point is that the reason given is to protect the free world, when it is doing anything but. It’s just keeping the same people comfortably in power, capable of stepping on their enemies at will.
Even countries ruled by theocratic leaders who promote hate and obscurity ?
The problem with populist-leveraging theocracies with bad economies is that you need a shared national boogie man. For decades, Iraq, Israel, and the US have been that for Iran.
It’s like NK and the US. They keep bellowing about their rockets, but they’ll never fire them.
But if the tail gets ideas about wagging you? And your populace demands you eliminate the boogie man threat with all means at hand, because you've spent decades inculcating hatred in them and blaming ills on the man?
Well... better the boogie man's head than yours on the chopping block.
Does not seem that different from the past 4 years in the US? If NK can have nukes, I don’t see who can’t.
This is why major nuclear power invasions of non-nuclear powers are incredibly dangerous: they incentivize nuclear weapons development and disincentivize adhering to the NPT.
Where the NPT really failed was in handling actors with expansive, violent regional influence aspirations like Iran and Pakistan.
If you're inevitably going to come in conflict with the US and/or international community, your obvious move is to develop nuclear weapons. The NPT provides no carrot to balance out that reality.
Recall that America withdrew from the anti-nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, that Iran's Ayatollah has declared a religious prohibition against nuclear weapons and that while Israel does have nuclear weapons, Iran is instead pursuing a nuclear power program for civilian energy.
> According to Gareth Porter writing in Foreign Policy, Iran's aversion to nuclear and chemical weapons is sincere because of the "historical episode during its eight-year war with Iraq", and Iran never sought revenge for Iraqi chemical attacks against Iran, which killed 20,000 Iranians and severely injured 100,000 more.[2] According to Khalaji, the fatwa is also considered to be consistent with Islamic tradition.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...
Hmm, at least it’s a proxy war eh? I know only one country that has started any major wars in the past 20 years.
So of course Israel wants to do what it can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state. This would be in its top 3 foreign policy goals.
If I understood the article correctly, it's because the Mossad didn't want to reveal it was them, which is why the gun attempted to self-destruct after use.
> While the pickup truck exploded after the assassination, it failed to destroy the smart rifle system beyond recognition. This allowed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to piece together what occurred
Using remote AI-assisted seems a logical conclusion. Heck I imagine they hire somebody fresh out of high school who enjoys playing CoD to pull the trigger. It's lower casualty than drones but higher risk if you can't dispose of your tech appropriately
(I am using the opportunity to reference the fact that the USA indeed has a “knife missile” and it is similar in principle if not in capability to the knife missile if the “Culture” series by Ian M. Banks.)
On the other more surgical strikes may promote use.
Guns only help if you've got the right person to start with.
But if you look at food/diet changes, lifestyle changes, warfare changes, energy source/consumption changes, and so on, you can see we are working toward the end of humanity. Hopefully it will take a very long time, but there will be a tipping point where it becomes _very_ unpleasant.
Let's extrapolate with some current technologies a bit. We have these pretty cool gunshot locator systems; we have AI or robotic attack systems; we have broader control systems which can disable power and water from target zones. Heck we can control and overload industrial systems, potentially causing mass casualties.
No one sets out to end humanity. Well, most people don't. But degree by degree (pun not initially intended) we get closer to self-induced extinction.
I think there's a decent amount of fantastical evangelicals attempting to create their own little rapture at this point.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/15/17117298/mike-pompe...
WAPO and others have better pay walled articles.
Why?
Why is anyone at war with anyone else? Usually the answer is, "because they did this first". But if you follow all the trails, you ultimately come to the conclusion that the real answer is either, "well, they're not us". Or "they look different".
Or sadly amusingly, because "they claim they invented hummus, but WE invented hummus". Or "they wear their little caps differently from how we do".
But if you put two people from opposing sides together at a dinner table, or with musical instruments, or in a crisis situation, you may be surprised to see that they not only can get along but can become friends.
/headagainstwall
But who should judge which regime should have them, if only some should?
Most of us are born into a belief that our people are the best, the right people, and others may also be right... and many are wrong. But regardless, we are most right. As such, we often don't question some things. This is one of them.
So should we decide we are the best, most trustworthy holders of such technology and use just about any means to prevent others from getting the technology? However you narrate this, it is an ongoing history which visiting sentient beings would probably marvel at.
What makes it any different if Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel have them instead?
Remember that people all have their own histories and perspectives. What to us seems like prevention of something bad may seem like continued oppression to others.
And if you explore a bit online (unless you're traveling in Iran), you'll find that not all Iranians are hell-bent on destroying other people. In fact, the few I've met have been really nice, fun, "normal" people.
Likewise, should all Americans be judged as climate denying, anti-vax, racist, religious people who believe that men are the rulers over women? That's certainly what it looks like from abroad... unless you know Americans personally (or are one).
I am less concerned about the prospect of South Korea having nukes than North Korea if we are forced to choose. And I am less concerned about Israel having nukes than Iran, given the genocidal intentions the latter has expressed combined with the fact it's a theocratic dictatorship make it less than guaranteed that the MAD doctrine would apply.
I'd much, much, much prefer for Israel to also not have nukes, but those two situations aren't equally as bad.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PFHs3qhA6Hs/TwxioL65IxI/AAAAAAAAEg...
Of course Iran had a secular, non-communist, anti-colonial parliament and government in the early 1950s. The UK and US supported the mullahs as a base and had Mossadegh overthrown and put a dictator in. The CIA then worked to help SAVAK kill off the secular left. In the late 1970s Iran cast off its colonial shackles, but as the US had empowered the mullahs and killed off the secular left, they took over.
The US and Israel have nuclear weapons. The US has waged nuclear war. The US was helping Iran become a nuclear power. Now that colonialism has ended, they can't pursue the nuclear energy the US and Europe and China have? The only nuclear power in the Middle East allowed is one mostly made up of non-Muslims, most of whom are not even from the Middle East but from the west?
I suspect depending on where you live, your definition of "goal" will be different.
If you go to the "worst" territories with the worst regimes, you will find people surprisingly like us. They are individuals and families who care for each other, who work hard (or harder), and who don't wish anyone harm.
What we have are power hungry people, often with financial agendas, at the controls of media and politics. That's not to say that some citizens don't get caught up in these false narratives and grab their pitchforks, but without the perpetual skewed influence, "normal" people tend to behave pretty decently.
Along with the fact that he and others of his political affiliation tout “good versus evil” battles, particularly centered over the “Holy Land” of the Middle East, are signs that the longed-for end may be at hand.
For some of these people, ending humanity actually seems to be the goal. I'm mostly convinced at this point that they're letting corporations cause climate change so they can call it the rapture.
Mirror: https://archive.is/mPBhk
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2020-11/overview-nuclear-sci...
I value intelligence, and people who aren't demonstrating intelligence get to live through the most absurd circumstances. So it is really disturbing for me to see these meticulous targeted assassinations that at best only serves to delay the nuclear program, and at worst accelerates the irradiated glass theme park they're trying to avoid.
highly doubtful. More likely it was something like a good quality camera fitted to a scope, outputting around 1.5 to 2 Mbps H264 or H265 4:2:0 color space video, with a data link over satellite to a remote controller. Some person staring at a screen with ability to pan and tilt the weapon.
> The gun itself was connected to an Israeli command center via a satellite communication relay. There an operative was able to control the gun and take aim at its target via a computer screen.
Seems I misread that.
[NYT]> The time it took for the camera images to reach the sniper and for the sniper’s response to reach the machine gun, not including his reaction time, was estimated to be 1.6 seconds, enough of a lag for the best-aimed shot to go astray.
So aiming and firing was initiated by a human, but hardware and software attempted to mask the time delay in doing so against a moving vehicle. Which seems plausible: optical flow + basic vehicle vector and velocity calculations.
There's also some stuff in the various articles about facial recognition, but that sounds a bit far fetched and unreliable.
If you have a person in the loop with enough resolution to accurately aim, then why are you running facial recognition to discriminate targets?
It was interesting when I was in college to see which degrees required ethics classes and which ones didn't. Computer Science required us to take ethics classes. I assume because of the effects technology can have.
It is really subtle too. As one of my professors noted: "I'm sure none of you would write a 'BombJerusalem()' function, but you might write a 'Target(city)' function without realizing the implications."
Since WW2 the Jewish people tend to operate under the philosophy of “When someone tells you he wants to kill you, you should take them seriously” because the last leader of a country who decided to kill them and make an effort of it, managed to eliminate 2/3 of the jews that resided in Europe and about 40% of them worldwide.
I think that even though I am not Jewish, if I had that history and the current regional political climate…I probably wouldn’t bat an eye at a robot sniper since my moral standards would be shaped by a very real and very recent effort to wipe me off the earth. That could change a perspective and standard.
And I realize that Israel is not just Jews, but does anyone really believe that the phrase “Death to Israel” means “Death to the Arabs living there too”?
Israel’s different moral standards are a reasonable human response for THEM because of the history of genocide attempted on the Jewish people and the present day threats of genocide that are still being made against them.
So in that sense, I believe they do have a probable similar moral standard as the average man on the street, because the average man on the street would likely take any step necessary and within their means to prevent a genocide from being committed against them, especially if an attempted genocide just recently happened to them.
It was more so that we all understood that the people who used the fruits of our labor were trusting our knowledge of engineering with their own lives, in the hopes of preventing tragedies such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
but yes if you failed the class, you didn't get the degree
//////supervomit
It was said he liked to read poems and enjoy everyday life pleasures, maybe this was an escape he didn’t mind.
Either way this will not stop either country’s ambitions.
If those two countries could decide on peace (or rather, if the majorities in each country that want peace could push aside the warmongers), the Middle East and the entire world would be a much better place.
Amongst both peoples, it’s all love.
As described in the NY times article it sounds like the gun was set up to shoot straight down the road into the windshield of the approaching car.
Distance is the largest normal factor, and is not mentioned in the article. Under 100 meters bullet drop and time to target are negligible; with a stabilized rifle (as in this case), it would just be a matter of putting the crosshairs over the target. The communications latency, however, would make even such a short shot extremely challenging. I wonder how the AI mentioned compensated for that. They imply the vehicle may have been moving during the shot. So during a 1.6 second (presumably round trip) delay, you would need to account for movement of the vehicle during that time, movement of the target during that time, movement of the target after firing (for longer distances), wind effects on the bullet (for longer distances), and bullet drop (usually trivial, but still).
I don't know what kind of help the AI provided, but I wouldn't want to be the one with my hand on the button (normal ethical questions of assassination aside).
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/world/middleeast/israel-i...
Not trying to put words in your mouth, but it feels like you're saying the rest of the world isn't allowed to care because this is what they do.
We sanction Iran for aggressive behaviour in the region. Our national reactions to this seem a little one-sided.
You're making their actions out to be equivalent. Iran is fomenting unrest in a whole region. Israel is trying to neutralize (not eliminate) an enemy that has vowed repeatedly to eliminate it from the planet.
Ah, just like how Israel is doing that to the Palestinians.
Laws are great when there's someone who enforces them. When there's no entity that makes sure those rules are obeyed they mean nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
I wonder why? It couldn't have anything to do with Western colonialism and meddling could it? Nah.
I've never found it compelling. The argument seems like a variant of begging the question: we just saw that X caused Y reaction, but the argument asserts (generally without any evidence) that if the roles were reversed, then X' would cause a massively different Y'. Would it? Why? If we agree that it would, what does that demonstrate?
There would not be a problem of laatency, you would just state the expected result (shot the head you would point to first, or shot in the windshield, ...) and let the gun do it on autopilot.