mhague@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I think if you were like a handler, close to the deed but not likely to immediately go down, and that the hit was obviously a hit, and it generated the kind of story Iran could package to their benefit, then they would pay you.
Don’t be a spastic killer, don’t leave any questions, get a clean kill and get out, and I’d imagine most countries would pay up. If it works once they’ll want it to work again.
sxan@midwest.social 2 days ago
I think you have four issues:
DB Cooper proved 2 and 4 are not impossible, although technology, forensics, and surveillance have drastically changed since Cooper, and I subscribe to the theory that he didn’t survive to spend the money - not only surviving the jump into dense forest, but then trekking out of deep wilderness to civilization were both challenging obstacles. Anyone who’s been through a parachuting course knows the last place you want to land is into a bunch of pine trees (Ok, water can be pretty bad too, but still).
I digress. Assuming you can pull off 1 and 2, and assuming Iran’s not just going to ghost you, 3 is sincerely a difficult problem. How do you contact the right people in Iran? How do you prove it was you, without the support of US intelligence? Maybe some GoPro footage, routed through a scope? Would that be enough?
But I’d be most worried about 4. I can’t imagine enjoying life constantly looking over my shoulder, and even then, there’s no defense from a sword missile once they’ve ID’d you. So you’re going to, what, hide in Iran for the rest of your life? Depending on your race, your options could be limited merely by how much you stick out - a rich white guy living like a king in Papua New Guinea. Maybe try to buy a new identity and continue living in the US, hoping the IRS doesn’t take an interest in you?
It might be accomplished by a terrorist group, planned and tracked hand-in-hand with Iran for verification, via a disposable fanatic and with funds going to the group upon completion. But I think if they could pull that off, they would have already. Terrorist groups tend to be a sledgehammer, rather than a scalpel: effective against unprotected soft targets, impotent against hardened ones.
I think of someone gets Trump, it won’t be for a bounty; it’ll be for ideological reasons, and they won’t expect to survive it. Heck, with the Patriot Act, I wouldn’t want to survive it, b/c they may just decide to torture you for the rest of your natural life and Americans signed away their rights to due process after 9/11. It’ll be another Thomas Crooks, only a better sniper, or some novel approach like some tech coming out of the innovations being developed during the invasion of Ukraine. If I were the Secret Service, that’s what I’d be terrified of. There are some intensely smart, innovative people in Ukraine figuring out fantastical ways of eliminating people, and I think we, the general public, are seeing only the most mundane, oldest examples of what they’re using.
Pooptimist@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What could be these fantastical ways of killing someone other than drones?
sxan@midwest.social 1 day ago
Well, it’s mostly robots of some sort, but they’ve been mounting machine guns on robot platforms, and explosives on what are essentially RC tanks.
In not suggesting they’re inventing plasma rifles in the 30 gigawatt range; it’s fantastical to me because they’ve changed the nature of warfare through some impressive innovation using cheap tech.
And I have no idea what other things they’re doing; I don’t have some inside source. Maybe they post videos about all their new innovations… but I’d bet they aren’t. I’ll bet they were using ground drones long before they started releasing clips of their use.