Thursday, July 05, 2012

Comparing a suicide bomber to a cruise missile [UPDATED]

This thought came to my mind yesterday, when my family was having some discussions about a news story, while we were watching TV.

What is a suicide bomber like? He's like a very, very intelligent cruise missile. A cruise missile cruises its way to its target. It can be steered during its course, and it explodes and damages/destroys its target when it finally reaches it.

If we forget for a while that a suicide bomber is a human whereas a cruise missile is a machine, a suicide bomber can be thought of as a cruise missile that happens to also have all the nice qualities of a human - intelligence, locomotion, dexterity, etc. A cruise missile might be able to carry higher and deadlier payload [and faster too], but contemporary cruise missiles can't beat the intelligence of a human suicide bomber. The bomber can look around at the situation and can continuously adjust his approach depending upon changing circumstances - his path, his gestures, his timing, etc. - in order to ensure a successful kill. A modern cruise missile cannot do this.

Yet, fundamentally the method and purpose of both weapons remains the same - rapidly travel to the target while evading detection, and damage/destroy the target in a suicidal way.

UPDATE [10-Nov-15]: Armed drones carrying cruise missiles can also be roughly thought of as a type of cruise missile, since both follow a "cruising" path, or more correctly, a path that can be dynamically adjusted in real-time. On the other hand, while missile-laden drones provide photographic and other data, cruise missiles don't [or could cruise missiles be armed with high-speed cameras to provide photos/videos of the path that the missile traverses?].

3 comments:

  1. When is the last time a Terrorist that blew him/her self up a Northern/Western European..looks sort of like a Celt...PC taken to its' most ludicrous boundaries...

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  2. Above comment referring to the Graphic Pic...#2...Have to publish as anon. because site won't accept Any of my "ID's"...

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  3. @kathleen

    Sorry, I didn't clearly understand your comment. Could you please elaborate? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete