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USAF Readies Laser of Death
An anonymous reader submits: "From the SkyNet Terminator Death Beam Dept...The London Telegraph is carrying this article about U.S. military plans to outfit AC-130 Spectre gunships with a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) which can be used against personnel and materiel for lethal and nonlethal missions."
With the recent actions of Bush (ignoring the Geneva conventions), I'm not sure this is a good thing...
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
"The special operations AC-130 Spectre gunship, whose conventional weaponry has been used to devastating effect since the Vietnam War, is to be fitted with a laser that can shoot down missiles, punch holes in aircraft and knock out ground radar stations."
IIRC, use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law. Not to say it's never done, but as a recongnized capability-- I doubt it. Besides, the article only says it'll be (intended to be) used against hard targets.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Why must the US keep spending money on bigger guns?
Lets try peace! (or bigger pipes so I can have 1 Gb internet to my home!)
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"Good Heavens! That's a Laser!"
"Yes, Doctor Scott, a Laser capable of emitting a beam of pure antimatter..."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Well from my point of view.. So.. you can blow your enemies to pieces, put bits of lead at mach speed through their bodies and hack them to death with your combat knife but laser would be too inhumane?
This world doens't make alot of sense...
With this giant "laser" I could mount it on the moon and then...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
http://us.imdb.com/Details?0089886
The New York Times had a blurb about this about three months ago. For the lazy, a chemical plant that fills about 3/4 of the cargo space feeds the lasing system in the turret. Desgined to be part of the "missile shield" for the US and allies. Seems like a boondoggle to me, but who knows? The article I read focused on the laser taking down cruise missiles and other aircraft. Not usable for ICBMs for obvious reasons. I didn't know that they were going to use these against ground targets. Yikes!
The AC-130 is the USAF special ops "ship of death". More killing power - yum!
Too bad the death ray wasn't available for the recent party.
We should all keep in mind this simple truth: America's laser of death is dying. You don't need to be Kreskin to predict America's laser of death's future. The hand writing is on the wall: America's laser of death faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for America's laser of death because America's laser of death is dying. Things are looking very bad for America's laser of death.
--
Now that it's a crime to have a Death Ray, on criminals will have Death Rays...
Something to think about.
Who did what now?
don't shoot at houses with giant Jiffy-Pop tins in them!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Isn't this the most powerful weapon we're ever going to see on a battlefield?
Think about it. The time to take to shoot down a wing of jets - five of them, say - is five times the time it takes to reposition the laser, fire, and acquire a new target. Maybe a few seconds.
The Airforce might be useless. This would completely change warfare - obselete the modern armor which is dominating the battlefield; make the shield against the laser more neccessary than standard metal plating.
It's scary, guys. The United States Military might become obselete by the technology it's procuring.
I wonder how long before they unleash this on a bunch of anti-globalization protestors?
So, Mr. Bond. You have tracked me to my SPECTRE gunship. In fact, you are just in time to witness the test of my latest invention: the CHEMICAL OXYGEN IODINE LASER. AHHH HA HA HA! In mere moments, I will have vaporized the whole of France!
[bond thinks for a moment, then walks out of the room]
Fire!
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Run Forest...run!
The AC-130...zooomed in
So instead of half-inch steel armor, all the enemy needs is reflective armor? That's a camouflage problem for tanks but not a problem for missiles. Am I just being dumb?
How does the mechanism of the chemical laser work? Does the combustion of Oxygen and Iodine naturally cause the lasing effect, or does there need to be a radiation stimulus, just like a CO2 or Ruby laser?
Like the sun, its only harmful if you look directly into it. :)
--Joe Nerd
I hate sigs, and suggest we all stop using them.
having a beowulf cluster of these?
"Hex, Bugs, and Rockn'Roll"
"*pzt*...preparing to fire weapon on target.*pzt*"
"*pzt*...Roger that Spectre 1.Fire at will.*pzt*"
"*pzt*...weapon firing.*pzt*"
"*pzt*...Report Spectre 1.*pzt*"
"*pzt*...Ahhhhh, MAYDAY MAYDAY. Its a mirror. Damn them all! DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!"
If I need to heat popcorn for my battlion, can I use it to get the job done fast? All the popcorn ar once, of course. After all, what good is the laser if it can't?
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
"Once the Coil and its power plant have been fully developed, the USAF hopes to fit it to a whole range of manned and unmanned aircraft, such as the Predator reconnaissance probe, which is fitted with Hellfire missiles and has been used in CIA operations in Afghanistan. "
That is cool.
Of course also mentioned in the article is that this is a secret program and they have no idea how far along this has progressed. But how much fun would it be to have a predator with a laser on it. Probably could only have 50-100 shots at the very most but that would still be so much more fun than two or three missles. Granted that is probably several years(decades) off. But it just sounds cool.
I am 31337 or something.
Where's Mitch Taylor and Chris Knight when you need them?
This tagline is umop apisdn.
The Air Force has been working on an AirBorne Laser (ABL) project for antiballistic missile defense for a long time. Hitting targets such as SAM sites has always been a possible use of this system.
I'm honestly pretty surprised that they got it working. I had a friend working on the project for a while, but the technical obstacles were large enough that the funding was getting shaky, so he moved on to much much greener pastures..
Wow! Flying prism tanks! Can't wait to get those in Red Alert 3 ;)
Ohh ohh, before I get tired of them why doesn't someone make another stupid comment about REAL GENIUS and get free karma points!
> the ability to vaporise enemy troops
did they think about these words while writing them? does this get people off? this makes me sick. this makes me sad about all of humanity. there is so much that could be done instead of killing one another.
how many lives have been lost in this 'war on terrorism'. how much has been spent?
how many lives have been lost in the war on hunger? how much has been spent?
maybe if as a society, we stopped spending money on war machines, frivilous SUVs, and associated items, and spent more on helping the rest of the world, there would be a lot less reason to hate the US.
instead we let the world be run as an incredible pissing contest.
remember, blindly following someone elses ideas (patriotism) is the worst thing you can do. most likely they are simply doing the same.
you need to stand up for what you believe in on all fronts. you can crusade for anti-DMCA all you want, but you will never overturn the system unless you have the help of people who could be on your side, but haven't thought about the issue, because they are more concerned with anti-war.
you need to realize that it's all the same front. all the same battle for a nice, civilized, logically run society instead of the current tragedy of the commons ruled by selfish tendencies.
Qapla' batlh je!
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
"Despite the successful operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, the emergence of asymmetric terrorist warfare - attacks such as September 11 where the enemy is unseen - has led the Pentagon to identify the need for a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system."
So.... what they're saying is "We didn't see them coming, so we need bigger guns". Is it just me, or is that logic flawed? How do they get from A to B there? I think that the real need should be for better intelligence so they know more about what's going on, not bigger bang-bangs. Proactive is always better than Reactive, IMHO.
"Lasers could also be used as an additional weapon system to fighters, bombers, helicopter gunships and warships but this is unlikely for a decade."
I find this quite puzzling. One of the big threats to warships (i.e. aircraft carriers) today, is cruise missiles.
To defend against those, we use missiles and gatling guns today.
Wouldn't something like this be a ideal supplement to CIWS? Moving a mirror around, directing the laser beam, to hit a sea-skimming cruise missile, should be easier than hitting that missile with lots-of-flying-lead[tm].
/Styx
That is the ABL program: A big anti-ICMB laser on a 747. This looks to be quite diferent. This appears to be an anti-Stinger missle solution: Meaning the ability to knock down a missle fired at the plane itself.
Hooray for the spooks!
Why don't lottery players ever pick "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6"?
Actually, I know several people who do this...never won once.
I sing the doggie electric!
What to do if you happen upon a peace rally hosted by some naive, objectors to the military movement in the Middle East:
1) Approach one individual talking about "peace" and claiming there should be "no retaliation."
2) Have a brief conversation with this person and ask if military force is appropriate.
3) When he says "no," ask, "Why not?"
4) When he says, "because that would just cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful, and we should not cause more violence"
5) Punch him in the face . . . hard
6) When he gets up to punch you back, point out that it would be a mistake, and contrary to his values, to punch you, because he would be just increasing the violence.
7) When he agrees that he has pledged not to commit violence,punch him in the face again . . . harder this time.
8) Repeat steps 2 through 7 until he understands that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
9) Move on to other people in his group until all have been converted.
10) Move on to other demonstrations and repeat steps 1 through 9.
Line of sight is going to become really, really important in the battlefield. High-flying non-stealth aircraft would be in serious trouble if accurate enough fire-control systems for ground anti-aircraft lasers could be developed. Armored ground forces would regain importance. The derided Crusader artillery system could suddenly look prescient (antiaircraft suppression being one of its combat roles), assuming tracking lots of artillery shells is more difficult than tracking aircraft. F-117's ought to remain effective, but I still think it's dangerous to become overreliant on air power.
The new Spectre's might not work against ICBMs, but what about shorter range ballistic missiles, like the several hundred missiles China has pointed at Taiwan? (Yeah, why China's bitchy about America dumping the ABM treaty with that nation that no longer exists...)
Nice coincidence that it takes a free nation with a free-market economy to finance a proper high-tech military, long-term at least. Hopefully no one will figure out how to dump the "free nation" half of the equation.
We need him to play the super smart college student who cracks the computer system, aims it at the crooked prof's house and fills the house with popcorn. 'Come on, am I the only one who thought of this?
I'm not raising moral objections here, but practical ones.
Yes, okay, we now have a laser which really can be used to blow something up. Yippee, us.
The people who spent truckloads of money to develop this turkey naturally want us to deploy it.
Ask yourself: Does it have any advantages over a missile? Well, it's bigger, it doesn't go as far, it inflicts less damage, and it costs more. But it is a Laser (therefore the weapon of the future) and it does work at all.
We could also outfit our ground forces with supersonic vibrating swords. This would work, you could kill people with them. Likewise, giant robots as were discussed in a previous slashdot article.
However, the fact remains that all of these technologies, while Cool, are very much NOT the most effective means of achieving military objectives!
These laser weapons are nothing but a white elephant for defense contractors, who have seen the end of the cold war erode their profits.
The idea of using one of these things to shoot down a missile - which is a very difficult feat even using inherently practical weapons systems - is absurd.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Certain countries have tried peace, Switzerland for instance, Iceland, Eire others? You could also count countries that only use armed forces for defense of it's own borders.
The problem with the US trying peace is that it requires an intelligent, educated and compasionate population, the current population in America is none of the above.
Do you think the populations of other coutries are inherently different in their intelligence and compassion? (Education is a different issue.) Perhaps in tribes and certain cities the flavor of the people can be fundamentally different, but for the most part, people are people, and some will be bullies and some will be bullied, there will always be the one nice guy that everyone respects, and the crumb that gets what he deserves. In America, in Iceland, in Nazi Germany.
However, I'll grant you that there can be certain differences. So let's look at Japan, both pre-European influence and post. Certainly, the people of Japan are intelligent and educated. As for compassion, the entire culture is founded on the concept of family. The school teacher is very patriarchal, as is the company president, as is the Emperor. Everyone owns everything and therefore respects everything. Everyone is sort of a sibling of everyone else, so privacy as a concept didn't exist until Western influence introduced it. These people will work together without government prodding to fix things, to help each other out, to celebrate. They are extremely compassionate.
Japanese history is FULL of war. Granted, mostly civil war before Western influence, but they're an island nation. And post influence? War again! And they were willing to help us (as much as their newest treatsie would allow) with Afghanistan, with their warships.
This is not an America-specific problem.
the laser idea is cool, but woefully impractical.. it depends too much on line of sight and environmental conditions to be terribly useful. once power supplies for these things are portable we'll see grunts toting them into battle for use in land combat..
the REAL next big thing is microwave.. you could concentrate a blast of microwave radiation that would penetrate the walls of a bunker and cook human flesh at 3,000 degrees.
The whole passive resistence thing didn't work for that Ghandi guy, right?
xxx straight edge xxx
Now all I have to do is fill my professor's house with jiffy-pop, and get my teenage roommate to hack into the laser guidance system...
from the article...
In the coil, the power of a chemical reaction is converted to laser energy, and the weapon can carry on firing as long as its power source is intact.
The Navy uses nuclear reactors to power submarines and the Airforce already flies all over the place with nukes hanging by a couple of bolts under the wing, why not create a small nuclear reactor and put it in an unmanned drone aircraft. Slap some efficient electric motors on the propellors and you would be able to provide 100% uptime for a completely mobile platform to mount uber lasers on. Now imagine a beowulf cluster of these flying death squadrons equiped with eschelon/carnivore style listening equipment that has the distributed capacity to monitor, filter, digitize, and catagorize anything that the govornment had the slightest interest in. If you consider all that, then you will agree that there is no doubt: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!
That's always been the government's logic too. You remember the devices terorists used to take over those three planes? They were box cutters. Would baggage handlers have stoped them for those? No. It wasn't there fault for being lazy or underpaid or underqualified, there wasn't anything against having box cutters. That's one of those items that could end up in your bag by accident. But now a lot of people in government are screaming about federalizing bagage handlers; there's no connection.
The military always needs more funding for their little toys, so the best way to get funding is to tell the government that they need money to thwart a threat, even if the weapon doesn't counter the threat. Usually this type of funding is masked under the rhetoric of "military readiness" and "military effectiveness."
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
So, in my non-geek life, I am an Army Field Artillery officer, and I have some background in Fire Support and Close Air. This thing will be used to support US ground troops( army or marine) in the middle of bad fights, where Field Artillery, or bombs are not availble or inappropriate. AC-130s are big, slow, relatively low flying aircraft, and they are generally committed to support our guys that are in a bad fight. This weapon probably will not be used as some sort of non-discriminate area fire weapon, ( would take too much energy, plus there is a higher risk of losing it to ground fire), but it will help our guys in a fight. If we had used a Spectre in Mogadishu, you folks wouldn't be watching "Black Hawk Down" in the theaters right now. Obviously, I am for it.
For the moralist out there, I wish to ask them one simple question: If we are to be continually called to be the world's cop, like we were in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia, why are you against giving the guys who are doing the dirty work the support to do their jobs? If you don't want us to be the world's cop, then do you have any right to be self rightous about the massacres in these same countries? I oughta know. I did a tour in Sarajevo, Bosnia, right at the beginning of the US mission. So, either you want us to do these missions, and you give us the tools, or you convince your elected officials that you won't get upset by the pictures on TV, and then we don't need these sorts of tools.
By not defending himself. The British wanted control. Not the destruction of entire people e.g. Death to America. There is no compromise or appeasement with these type if terrorists.
Adam Venus removed his foreskin with one of these.
Anyone have more details on how exactly a Coil laser works? I always assumed lasers that can travel a decent distance and still carry enough power to do damage would required a huge amount of power. Assuming the best power source you can think of, how many shots would you be able to get out of something that would fit in the AC-130. Even if you used a generator, wouldn't it drain way faster than you could charge? It wouldn't be as useful if you only had one shot an hour or something.
Is blowing in the wind.
"which can be used against personnel and materiel for lethal and nonlethal missions".
meaning
"which can be used to kill people and destroy what they have".
It might be better to deploy something that would diffuse the laser's energy before it reached it's intended target...smoke, thick clouds of dust, water vapour, mylar 'chaff', etc...
Ideas anyone?
You're using her as bait, Master!
Since these babies will be totally useless for nuking terrorists (ie, one man suicide bombers, Unabombers, etc.) I propose that maybe it can take out a few SPAMMERs instead ... hmm. See if the feds are serious about this crackdown on junk email.
"Little fuckers keep jumping IP blocks, but we'll get 'em!"
RedGuard huh.... Are you a communist? That would explain a lot.
1) Approach a Spammer and punch him in the face - HARD.
2) Have a brief conversation along the lines of "This hurts me more than it hurts you"
3) Punch the spamming gobshite again, harder.
4) Laser the spammer's family and spamming friends
5) Move along to the next spammer, until all have been 'converted'
The article refers to this as a secret weapons program. Yet I am able to find all kinds of interesting info all over the web.r esearch.html
h tml
The Air Force: http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/factsheets/coil.html
The Academy of Sciences in Prague: http://www.fzu.cz/departments/gaslaser/chemlaser/
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.aae.uiuc.edu/Labs/chemlaser/chemlaser.
And much more.
There is more than enough info to tell you not only how this works, but to suggest how to go about building one. The fact that they have scaled it to high power and seem to believe that a version that can be placed in an aircraft comes as no surprise. Especially considering how these devices work. It seems to be a kind of chemical rocket engine, which when used in conjunction with an optical lazing cavity will produce a high energy beam, most labs seem to have a 1-10Kw output.
I seem to remember reading about thermal diodes being able to convert excess heat in the 200-400 range into electricity. Perhaps these two technologies could come together.
Here is a link for something along those lines
For 1200 years china was the richest empire in the world. They were initially very war like and had great military might. Soon they set out and saw the world and saw that there wasn't anything worth while out there. just barbarians and italians. So they turned inwards, stoped spending so much on military and poured more energy into civil engineering projects and stopped developing weapons technology.
Result: a hundred years later the british came kicked chinas ass and China became asia whipping boy for a few decades. Peace is overrated. Prepare for war because it will come.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Something similar is already in the works.
You're using her as bait, Master!
that I served in the military (not as a cook). I experienced having to defend myself first hand. Your theories are nice within the relative walls of safety in the United States. I know what is like to run with a machine gun to help one of my buddies who was already engaging three individuals in military uniform rushing our perimeter. I didn't have time to think of the social ramifications of using my weapon because you see, if I had, I could be dead. PERIOD. Your belief system is nice within the walls of academia.
"For those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."
-- Benjamin Franklin
The advantage of laser weapons is that they strike at the speed of light.
Yay! Who gives a flying fudge?! At the ranges where this specific laser system would be used, the difference in speed between our plain old supersonic bullets and lightspeed weapons really doesn't matter. If they're actually aimed right and firing at you, you won't be dodging either.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Now I understand why all those futuristic movies in the old days had people wearing silver jumpsuits... to protect against the lasers!
Seriously, though, would a mirror-chrome covering be enough to deflect the beams off the tanks and planes? It would make for a cool looking army!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Go smoke some pot and start a 'peaceful dialog' with Saddam Hussein.
What sort of "peaceful dialog" are you refering to? The sort conducted in the 80's by the Regan/Bush administration that led to his being able to purchase large quantities of american made weapons, including so-called "weapons of mass destruction", such as poison gas?
You're using her as bait, Master!
I think you should admit that YOU were just as impressed with the big explosions in Afghanistan as the other Yanks. Seeing thousands of innocent people blown away is a small price to pay for the ultimate destruction of one evil man...
oh, wait - they still haven't got him, have they?
but they sure did waste a lot of people.
think i need another Guinness.
Yah, these terrorists sons of bitches don't play by the rules. But if we don't play by the rules, even with scum like these, then other countries start doubting whether we'll play by the rules with them. And that's the path to a whole world of diplomatic hurt, my slashdotting friends. That's how negotiations the world over break down - when a little voice starts whispering in your head "can I trust these people to keep their word?" The United States must always adhere to the Geneva Convention, even with people who never signed it, or we will never be trusted to adhere to the Geneva Convention.
I'm the stranger...posting to
...that's the question that I'm sure you (and most other) americans are afraid of asking (or answering).
You're using her as bait, Master!
Teddy Roosevelt knew the power of the bigger guns. He built up the United States into a world naval power by giving us tons of kick-ass (for the day) battleships, and then he sent them around the world on "courtesy calls". Or he'd just park a few battleships off the coast of a country, and ask them very nicely if they would please do as the United States wanted, and if they did that would be really nice. "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." Every new weapon we own makes other countries just a little bit more afraid of us, and a bit more inclined to listen when we speak ever-so-softly-and-respectfully.
I'm the stranger...posting to
"All I want are sharks with frickin' laser beams on them."
...I thought there would be droves of Scandanavians and Germans on here denouncing this. Maybe they're all busy watching Sprockets and listening to techno music...
This just in as reports of the American military having offensive lasers reached us. Shares in silver nitrate and ammonium reached an all time high today as people rushed to coat themselves with a protective mirror film to alleviate the possibility of being hit by stray death-rays. Stay tuned. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors... (cue cheesy jingle)
Anyone out there selling a mirror suit/gas mask/silver foil beanie/flak jacket combo ?
when the m-16 was first introduced, there was some controversy over the design. a bullet, when fired from an m-16, would tend to wobble as it flew, making it more messy when it hit a target.
... early in vietnam, but i don't recall the outcome. they might have redesigned the ballistics, but i don't recall.
Here you go, an article talking about FMJ and the M-16
Snippets from the above:
The landwar convention from The Hague doesn't allow fragmenting bullets for purposes of war, so every army in the world uses FMJ bullets. Usually a hit from a conventional FMJ doesn't kill, but leaves a clean hole. No hunter will use FMJ, since they want to kill, not to wound.
[snip]
This, in theory is better for two reasons -- one, it creates a situation where instead of creating a dead enemy soldier it creates a wounded one, which must be cared for by his buddy, thus taking two men out of action with each hit. The second reason behind the idea is that it is more humane to wound than to kill. This type of ammunition was agreed upon by the Geneva convention, and both sides of the vietnam war agreed to it's use.
[snip]
So I think the difference is between temporary wounding (the above) and permanent scaring (say from blinding lasers, mustard gas, biological agents, dirty nukes). The Geneva Convention is for the former and against the latter.
What is music when you despise all sound?
They tried to do this back in the sixties with a cruise missile calles PLUTO - sucker woulda flown at supersonic speeds, treetop level, and be powered by and unshielded fission reactor ramjet. Air goes in one end, gets heated up and contaminated with radioactice byproducts, and goes out the rear. Thing would have had practically unlimited ranges, could carry and drop multiple individual bombs, and the sonic boom alone would have killed people on the ground, not to mention the contamination.
The problem, is, quite simply, nobody likes working with unshielded nuclear reactors, and shielding would made it way too heavy. Been there, scrapped that idea.
I'm the stranger...posting to
This device will let us single out particular bad guys who need killing, without all the collateral damage. I'm entirely supportive of this effort.
1) The Chinesse embassy in Yoguslavia
2) The recent death of 60 Afghani tribes leaders.
Those are just two modern examples of well planed
attacks which have singled out the "bad guys".
All sarcasm aside, there is no "perfect" attack
from space/distance, without a solid intelligence
to guide the missiles to the inded target.
America needs intelligence, and intelligence requires
diplomacy and making aliances. But then, with a
solid intelligence, our conventional weapons would
have sufficed.
Either way, this "new" weapon is simply uncalled
for. I think of it as an over-clocked wet-dream,
for irresponsible weapon geeks in th military.
--
in the immortal words of Jack Handy
Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, mankind should be thinking about getting more use out of the weapons we already have.
I hate to break it to you, but the reason we have to keep developing our military technology at the rate that we do is because people want to kill us. That's the cold reality of the world we live in. Dropping all defenses would be a naive and fatal mistake.
For whatever reason, this information doesn't seem to proliferate the American news media. You only read it in newspapers from outside the USA. But don't take my word for it. Do your own research. Search some news sites for articles involving other major world powers and the USA and you'll find that our relationship isn't as warm and fuzzy as the American news media would like you to believe.
Go back to Hobbiton and let the men take on Mordor, ya pussy.
I guess maybe my aluminum foil hat may come in handy?
Fucking racist white suburban punk
I was a field artillery forward observer (MOS 13F) and got to observe for an AC-130U... awesome plane... incredible accuracy considering what it does. Wish our the artillery was that accurate the first time.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
So Bush puts a country like North Korea in the 'Axis of Evil' for developing weapons of mass desctruction and then, as if having his own nukes weren't enough, he goes ahead with a real laser weapon.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
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I just read Sean Rayment's breathless title and note a couple of things.
- Although the article is entitled "America's laser of death cleared for take-off", a quick glance over the article itself reveals that the laser in question will be "capable of carrying out lethal and non-lethal attacks". I guess the chosen title plays better than "America's laser of death (or not) cleared for take-off".
- Mr. Rayment does a good job of noting the weaponry that was available on the AC-130 before the advent of the laser of death (or not) in question. I think we can take it for granted that getting hit by a round from any one of the "twin 20mm Vulcan cannon (capable of firing 2,500 rounds per minute), 40mm Bofor cannon (100 rounds per minute) and a 105mm Howitzer" is at least as unhappy an event as being hit by a pulse from the laser of death (or not). In fact, the laser of death (or not) may be a more humanitarian (as it were) weapon than anything the AC-130 has had to date. Of course, presenting that notion probably won't sell much copy.
My thoughts, this hyperventilated Sunday afternoon.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Only now is this technology appearing in the military, GET WITH THE TIMES MILITARY! Britain had developed a laser turret device back in WWII, to defend bases along the shore, but had no way of powering it.
More guns = better prepared IMO.
When can we get these babies in a concealed form?
-Flame away
You do yourself a disservice by assuming that people who object to spending all this money in this way don't understand that the world is a hostile place. That is a false assumption. Can we cut something else, if these giant flying lasers of death are so mission-critical? We will military-spend ourselves into another 80s-style stagnation/recession period if we are not careful.
I read that ships could use clouds of water mist to cloak themselves from detection, so I wonder if it could be used to absorb the energy of a laser. After all, it would turn to steam which would still absorb energy and dissipate the beam, would it not?
Clouds of dust could be used instead, in a desert situation I suppose.
"We will call it the Alan Parsons Project!"
Everything I say is a lie.
Except that. And that. And that. And that.
Hmmm... so now we're going to have an AC-X winged aircraft with lasers on it. Next month are we going to have a pilot named Luke flying it along a trench in Iraq trying to take out their biggest military installation?
I just hope no one is working on a genetically engineered fighting force of small, fuzzy, teddy bears...
This, combined with the recently introduced 'predator' drones..
I cant help to think of the hunter-killer drones from the "Terminator" movies.
AFAIK, the Geneva Convention only refers to soldiers in uniform... a signatory that captures anybody else under arms or performing other combatant roles (e.g. spying) can do whatever amuses it with that person.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Hasn't anyone heard of mirrors?
``Build me an army worthy of Mordor.''
Just DO think about this.
Roman Empire at that time funded that most
advanced weapons and armies. But... where is
the Roman Empire today?
Rome had to learn that those arms didn't
prevent their empire from downfall. Same
lesson may be available for others.
Swords and lasers may be effective tools to
win a war but cannot defend a society from
megalomania and degeneration.
BTW: Don't forget to visit those impressive
ruins of Circus Maximus if you should happen
to visit the city of Rome/Italy.
please
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
Who's "we"? Aren't you Finnish?
Armor is designed more to kill kinetic energy than it is to stop anything.
:)
I'm not sure of the differences, but I imagine there'd need to be a much different armor to stop a laser than a gun.
Which would make lasers obsolete if everyone switched to anti-laser armor. Pull out a gun and nail 'em.
To mental defectives, maybe... Jesus Christ, what kind of universe do we live in when some stupid reworking of a bumper-sticker slogan gets labeled as "insightful?"
Any ETs reading this convo, help me out! GET ME THE FUCK OFF THIS ROCK!
$gTrollText =
/_SUBJ_/$gTrollSubject/g
"We should all keep in mind this simple truth: _SUBJ_ is dying. You don't need to be Kreskin to predict _SUBJ_\'s future. The hand writing is on the wall: _SUBJ_ faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for _SUBJ_ because _SUBJ_ is dying. Things are looking very bad for _SUBJ_."
($troll = $gTrollText) =~ s
print "$troll\n";
## todo:
## Better deal with multiple-word subjects
## Add "river of red ink", etc.
## Update Usenet stats, insert
## need "charnel house" refs - how to autogen?
## snappy title
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
I hate to break it to you, but the reason we have to keep developing our military technology at the rate that we do is because people want to kill us. That's the cold reality of the world we live in. Dropping all defenses would be a naive and fatal mistake.
I wonder how often the Russians, the Afghanis, the Pakistanis, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Turks, the Greeks, the Romans, etc, have told themselves this?
They've certainly had more reason to do so than the Americans. 3500 people is not a war, it's a failure of intelligence and foreign policy...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Finnish?
Thanks for asking.
His finish is a light tongue oil with brown stain fixed with turpentine.
Very easy to take care of, just some teak or other danish style oil, and it will look as good as new.
Plus this finish resists the sunlight and looks great after years of heavy use.
As I said, what a great finnish.
I will catch, that's right, CATCH this laser-bolt with my teeth. You heard it right, patrons of the arts, my teeth.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Thoughts:
First, this laser works when there are no clouds. There is not enough energy in the beam to punch through the aerosol droplets of water in clouds. It is necessary to have a clear line of sight.
Second, lasers are VERY dangerous to use when there is a clear line of sight. The people at whom the U.S. government is shooting may have a mirror.
Remember, corner cubes are mirrors that automatically aim back exactly along the direction of the arriving beam. They don't need to be pointed. There are no moving parts. They work at the speed of light.
Third, powerful chemical lasers are very big and bulky weapons. They are also very expensive. Those who have the mental illness that makes them want to kill people like to try different methods. However, there may come a time when the citizens of the U.S. decide that they don't want to use their hard-earned money to support the activities of sick people.
Fourth, this laser is just one of many, many weapons designed by the U.S. government. It is a lot like angry children playing. They don't really care if the weapon is used, or who it is used to kill. They have never learned adult responsibility. They are mentally bound to their infantile conflict and have never learned to see other people as beings like themselves.
It just confuses the issues when people assume that the U.S. government has some kind of healthy rationality about weapons.
More on corruption in the U.S. government: What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
THere is a weapon like this already. It is used to shoot down nukes and such. the thing they don't tell you is that these lasers are powered by some nastie chemicals. When ever the laser fires it releases them and if one of the planes crashes there is a 2 mile kill zone form these toxic chemicals. That is a cool weapon in it self, I fly over to shoot you with my laser, you go'nna die if you shoot me down or not!
It was dark and I didn't have my contacts...
If you defeat your enemy by becoming him... whats the point? We ARE NOT under direct duress... dont believe me? Then why are you on vacation... drinking a beer... and watching TV? People like you are terrorized by the idea that one day you wont have a martini to sip while dreaming up all kinds of ideas of what to do to those silly "hatefull" terrorists... Unfortunately if you dont understand the problem... then you cant solve it.. Just cause you kill maim and torture these terrorists isnt going to make the problem go away... in fact youd just make the problem worse... NEVER EVER make a martyr of your enemy... the second you do youll have thousands upon thousands of supporters for his causes... What you want to do is catch them alive and well, treat them as good as you can, and sentance them in the most humane and respected way possible... You defeat terrorists by not being afraid to fight them with honor... Terrorists seek to destroy us by ripping our morals away from us, by convincing us to be like them through violence... If we murder and torture them to "win"... they will only get to point at us and say to the rest of the world "YOU SEE, Americans are cold blooded murderers, no better than us" Murder is murder... there is no such thing as justification of killing. Thats whats makes them "evil", and if we murder them... that makes us "evil" --VISION
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Anybody catch the bit that went "the ability to vaporise enemy troops and vehicles Star Wars-style will take a few more years to develop."
HAHA... "a few more years"?
well on that time scale i expect transportation, Molecular refabrication or sequencing (think HoloDeck and food synthisizers) within a decade or two...
That warp drive must be on schedule for mid century... Lord knows we WILL have holographic doctors that ACT better than the on on voyager by then... AND HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE NEW!!!
Commander DATA will no longer be a dream of 23rd century, but a has been of the 2010's (search about for the self navigating human shaped robots in japan)
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
"So essentially you are saying that we should use only the most efficient weapons to kill people? That infers that we should only use nukes since they are by far the most efficient......"
Nope. It infers the usage of biological weapons. Efficient at killing. Efficient at leaving infrastructure intact. Efficient if designed properly to leave plant & animal life alone.
Group think is everywhere - religious cults are perhaps the most prominent example, but you don't have to try very hard before you spot it elsewhere. (it's an especially easy task here on slashdot! =) )
most individuals are not aware that they suffer from group-think.
Group-think is what gets lemmings to walk over cliffs. There are only individuals, everything else is just a convenient abstraction.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
While energy weapons can be pretty devastating and while they offer a number of unique uses, a physical round is usually going to be less expensive and more reliable. Especially in ground situations. My guess is that the only reason they'd bring such a dumb-ass device into a ground battle for a conventional, made for TV war (like this war on terrorism crap), is to affect the minds of the public back home.
And about this airplane mounted laser system. . .
I watched some bullshit documentary on 'cutting edge' technology a month ago, and the 'cutting edge' is apparently a jumbo jet with a big-ass laser good for about 30 shots using hopelessly out of date chemical fuel to direct power technology of some sort. The contraption is designed for use as an anti-missle defense system; part of Bush's highschool campaign/drama of unmaking every last fragment of stability in the make-believe world so's he or his people can declare military rule on home soil at a moment's notice.
As for the laser jet; the U.S. is supposedly putting a (small) fleet of about these expensive aircraft into operation in the coming months, with one or two already in service.
(All this from memory taken from a piece of P.R. crap full of lies and propaganda, so take what you will with plenty of salt).
-Fantastic Lad
The US military has FINALLY upgraded to the MDC battle system. It is about fucking time. They will however ph33r m3 in my Glitterboy Mk I power armor. I shall fuck them up railgun style.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This is almost as bad as when AP and Reuters covered that idiot undergraduate who 'discovered' that TCP/IP could not work for interplanetary communications.
Maybe when you learn something for the first time, you should research its background to find out that your ignorance is not shared by others.
The technology might not be that new, but this is the first time it's going to be fielded and operational on actual deployed weapon systems.
Keep watching CNN and they might show you some krispy kritters from it soon.
My brother runs a laser laboratory. When I visited it I was amazed to find all the walls covered with plywood. He told me that plywood is inpenetrable to many laser types, since the glue in the wood vaporizes and diffuses the beam before it can penetrate the wood.
Second, the attack was not unprovoked--or rather, if you think our response was provoked, than by the same standard, so was the attack. Its victims had much more responsibility for international crimes than did the 4,000+ innocent Afghani citizens which we killed in our raids. (Many more were maimed.) After all, WTC victims are overwhelmingly citizens in a democracy, and as such had the power to stop their government in the atrocious starvation of Iraq, the destruction of the only medical supply factory in Sudan (which meant tens of thousands of Sudanese people died from treatable diseases), the arming of Israel, ... well, I could go on. The American people are not innocent of these crimes. It was in our power to prevent them, and we chose not to. On the other hand, when the leaders in Afghanistan acted criminally, the ordinary citizens had no recourse. Thus, they were innocent in a way that the even the WTC victims weren't. I'm not a fan of revenge killings, but our brutal actions don't even rise to the level of revenge. Revenge requires that we cause suffering to the people who wronged us. So far, I see no evidence that this has happened. We did cause a lot of suffering to people who did no wrong at all, and upon witnessing the destruction, found it somehow gratifying. That's not even taking an eye for an eye; it's just plain sick. I've never been more ashamed to be an American. Shitheads like you with comments like the above certainly don't help.
A well-aimed 105MM round will do the job quite well, however - and they're cheap!
That might be the problem. Remember the Korean War, in which our Army was pathetically supplied, to the point that some GI's scavenged boots off of enemy dead, while a huge part of the defense budget was going straight to Boeing. This wouldn't be the first time that a horribly expensive (read B-2., star wars, etc.) program was funded at the expense of things like more exercises, housing, pay, etc. for the troops. There's a reason why the Air Force is short on pilots, and it's not due to lack of prestige.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Er, are you seriously saying that all prisoners captured are terrorists?
From where I sit (.au) there are only a very small proportion of actual terrorists; the rest are genuine POWs.
Oh, I forgot. You're American and you make the rules. And you particularly dislike anyone who successfully stands up to you (Cuba, Vietnam...).
Is it just me or is anyone else getting flashbacks to the movie 'Real Genius'?
Popcorn anyone?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
.....Mr. Foreign Spy Looking For Good Ideas From Stuff Posted To Slashdot!! Begone with you.
What if the United States didn't go into Afghanistan, and capture people intent to collapse the U.S. economy?
Let's see...
1.) After more terrorist attacks, the US economy begins to flounder.
2.) Concurrently, the European, and Asian economies begin take drastic dives.
3.) As the world econmy suffers, the American stock market takes more hits, creates a worldwide panic, and businesses no longer have the resources to operate.
4.) The once stable US economy brings down the world's economy with it, and ~300 million people lose their jobs, with 3rd world countries being hit the hardest.
5.) Citizens in countries all over the world begin to riot (Argentina), because they can not afford to purchase food items due to inflation.
6.) Who knows what would happen next... Famine, Disease, more dictatorships (think of Great Depression), etc.
where the enemy is unseen - has led the Pentagon to identify the need for a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system.
Okaaaay...
We can't see the enemy. We don't know who he is. We don't know where he is....
Therefore we need more a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system?
This thing sounds pretty cool, I just don't follow that logic.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
*waves* We kinda, like, y'know, started the war against Iraq? We told them that their actions in Kuwait were fine by us [regional dispute we would not become involved in], and then we built up in Saudi Arabia and invaded.
Naturally, we created massive destruction and suffering in our wake and punished the nation for nearly a decade after that.
I can feel my sanity, beyond my reach and slipping...
Excuse me but I'd rather not have you guys as the world's cop. GWB seems to think force is the only way to solve problems. With that attitude and his irresponsible statements he's done a lot of damage to international relationships.
"But if we kill them, we sink to their level, and they win."
"Yeah? But there won't be as many of their boys at the trophy ceremony, will there?"
-- paraphrased Dennis Miller
Writers imply. Readers infer.
I, too, shoot to kill.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
...but not complete legalization. I think criminalizing posession of a Death Ray will clog up the courts. I mean, there seams to be this stereotype that anyone who uses a Death Ray is some Dr. Evil or something. Come on people... it's 2002!
They would've had this 15 years ago, but val kilmer foiled walter peck.
...in attacking Afganstan *after* verifying facts well enough for 3/4's of the world, *after* demanding the surrender of the peoples that we felt were responsible. After all, we didn't just fly in there immediately and started killing *everyone*! Right?
The Taliban kept putting up rediculous road blocks while saying that the US would drown in our own blood.
The Taliban and its ilk are terrorists who would love to see the US and anyone who is like-minded to us brutally killed.
Did we have to attack Afganinstan to oust the Taliban and the Al Queda? Yup, because they were more than happy treat their own, deprived, *downtrodden* people as a shield in their war against the hated 'satan'.
But in a war like that, the US played the *moderate* card. We didn't aim at civilians if we could help it. We minimalized the deaths (and if you don't think we did, you haven't checked your WWII battles.)
The US, if it had wanted to, could have wholy depopulated the entire country. And we would have been rightly called barbarians for doing it that way.
Now the US and Great Britan are helping to rebuild that country as best we can under the constraints of international law.
It sucks to be the US. We're the bad guys even when we're doing the right thing. Just because we're on top.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
Thank you for this post.
At least now I know that there are a few americans left that don't share GWBush's "Wild West" mentality. Maybe there is still some hope.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Actually, the US used M16's with wobbling FMJ's in Somalia... They're designed to hit, and then spiral inside someone on the way out, which does massive damage... The problem is that with the Somalians, they drank all day, and the M16's bullets would exit their malnourished thin bodies before they spiraled, so it'd take 5 or 6 rounds to bring down a drunken man.
I guess the positive side is that they were probably too drunk to feel it.
-=Lothsahn=-
I personally do not want you to be the world's cop. I can safely say the same is true for most people in this world.
I would be perfectly happy if no americans went to Bosnia, Kosovo or Somalia.
As far as i am concerned the military should stay here, protecting the US.
Of course i would agree to wars like WW2, but most wars after that (and i apologize if this truth offends you) have been the result of US imperialism, and have not benefited the world at large or most americans either.
And if you believe that politicians send you out there because of the pictures on TV, you are quite naive, my friend. The pictures on TV come only after the politicians decide to send you there.
Thats why you werent sent to Rwanda, or East Timor, or Turkey where some grave human tragedies (much worse than the balkans) happened.
Hmm, it seems to me that physical protection would be better than laser defense systems if a missile was coming straight at you. (If the missile was tangential, then the laser with its faster speed would be better)
If I were in, say, a warship, I'd much rather have a solid wall of bullets to stop an incoming missile. You can't argue with a million rounds a minute :)
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
The engineering effort for this weapon is massive. You need to use pure Chlorine gas to get "nascent" oxygen and Iodine vapour together in a supersonic nozzle to achieve it.. Needless to say, the nozzle design depends on the properties of the gas mixture, which cannot be determined easily in labs.. the oxygen doesn't stay in that state for more than a few milliseconds.. So it'll be a long time before we see that weapon out in production..
Hand me that mirror!
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
1.1 You could, of course, argue that the real crime was when the world ignored Afghanistan after '89 and left them to their war.
1.1.1 Somalia (no fun trying to stop civil war).
1.1.2. It's easy to give away other people's money (-: and, what's more important, easy to risk others popularity figures! :-).
2. The interesting thing is not WTC -- it's what bin Laden et al will bomb next!
2.1. Arguably this is the reason it's worth putting billions into stopping him. Especially if he continues destroying places I want to go to as a tourist!
2.2. This also makes it impossible to leave places like Afghanistan and Somalia to go to Hell in the future -- Hell spreads...
3. (-: If they nuke Redmond, I promise to send money to bin Laden... :-)
This is a pretty cool thing... but it's just a toy compared to this thingy.... www.airbornelaser.com .....and it's almost done..
It doesn't take a kreskin to tell that it's called the *Daily* Telegraph-- sheesh, learn to read.
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
"Osama, here come those infidels in that big bird with the laser beam of death"
"Quickly Mohamed, my mirror!"
Even if some of the captured combatants might be terrorist you can't know until you've interrigated them. Therefore you must treat them according to Gen. conv. because some might be legal combatants (as the taliban soldiers, some have probably have been forced into the army by the way)...
Even IF all captured soldiers ARE ILLEGAL combatants, that is no reason, not treating them according to geneva convention.
That is a matter of treating people in a humane way.
I don't say they are treated inhumane (i don't know if they are..). But what is the reason for the US NOT to treat them as prisoners of war???
The US still have to follow the UN act of human rights, but how can the rest of the world KNOW?
Bush's forign politics clearly shows the rest of the world that US do what's best for the US, not for the world. (Take Kyoto, Cape town etc.)
In Sweden, three men have been pointed out as terrorists by the US. The US have not shown any evidence of it but the have put them on the "UN ban list". All their assets have been frozen. One of the men is actually a well-respected candidate for the election to the swedish parliament.
example dialouge.....
The US says:
- He is a terrorist, punish him!
answer:
- Ok, but then, show us some evidence!
US:
- We don't have to! He is a terrorist.
answer:
- We can't punish someone without a trial and evidence.
US: - He is a terrorist, no trial is neccessary.
Makes one scared, doesn't it?
How can we trust the US when they act without trust?
/Tobias Lindblom, Sweden
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
afghans because they live near ObL. Should we (non-USians) start bombing texas because timothy mcveigh lived near there?
Did anyone see the PBS special on Tesla a while back? It seems that Tesla had plans for some sort of giant ray gun that he tried to sell to just about every major world power during WWII. I think the British actually tried to copy his design (from what they knew) but failed. After Tesla's death his papers were searched by US and who knows what other gov't officials before they were impounded by his home country. The point is that he had his ideas/ tech specs on paper and nothing has been heard of them since and nothing (suppossedly) was found among his belongings. Could the US have had his papers all along? Maybe those papers are the building block to the new laser gun that they have been quietly reasearching ever since WWII. Any thoughts or updates on Tesla's papers?
Note: we didn't really carpet bomb anything in Afghanistan. Carpet bombing is done by squadron of planes with hundreds (or thousands) of bombs dropped. What we saw was "dropping a long stick" (I think). This is a single plane blowing up a line of ground. Carpet bombing is blowing up closer to a km^2.
The only thing that matters is what people actually do, not what they are supposed to do. Most of us here aren't military so understanding the context may be difficult. In combat, the boss isn't always around to say "No, legal wouldn't like that," either because he's busy, hiding, or incapacitated. If circumstances presented themselves where a soldier had no means to defend himself or accomplish a vital part of a mission other than by using an "unlwaful" weapon, he's going to do it and there will be no one around to stop him.
The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. ~F. Bastiat
When I'm visiting the US, each time I'm stunned seeing those people who are so fat that they even hardly can walk. I think there isn't another country on earth where such a high percentage of extremely fat people can be found.
There might be people in the workd who are cheering: "Drink more Coke, eat more hamburgers. You deserve it"
That American soldier just punched that German concentration camp guard after viewing thousands of starving prisoners and seeing the extermination chambers. Those evil Americans!
Bush was very gracious to extend the Convention to the captured Taliban who, though not wearing uniforms, were nevertheless official government troops.
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
Terminator: Hasta la vista, winner.
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
The original M-16A1 had a rifling twist of "1/12", which meant the bullet would undergo 360 degrees of rotation after traversing 12" of barrel. Modern M-16A2's use either "1/7" or "1/9" twist which overstabilizes the common 55 and 63 grain projectiles. In fact, the "1/7" will acutally cause some rounds to loose their jacket and vaporize before hitting the target.
With the recent actions of Bush (ignoring the Geneva conventions), I'm not sure this is a good thing..
I haven't seen or heard of any acts by the US which violate the Geneva Convention, could you cite some examples?
What is it about vaporizing France that always gets a laugh?
Come on! The question answers itself!
I wouldn't have put it so strongly but you got all
the points across.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
My dad got 5 of 6 once playing birthdays. The payout, based on number of winners, was at an all time low per person for 5 of 6 and 6 of 6. This is because a ton of people play birthdays. Combinations of numbers all 31 or less are well covered by the population.
If 123456 won, you'd probably get $1.98 as a jackpot.
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
Lasers have a lot of other good warfare qualities, but the most important thing is that they're cheap. This was well explained in a Technology Review article last july (now only avalable for purchase).
Compare the use of a patriot missle to intercept rocket attacks with the use of a laser. The patriot will cost about $1 million per firing (if memory serves)! A laser could be used for much less, all that needs to be paid for each firing is the energy.
This will be most beneficial to peaceful, democratic countries like Israel threatened by terrorists. It doesn't make sense to try to stop every homemade quassam2 rocket with a million dollar patriot, but a cheap laser firing does.
The United States must always adhere to the Geneva Convention, even with people who never signed it, or we will never be trusted to adhere to the Geneva Convention.
This statement is a paradox. Geneva convention only applies between signatory countries. The whole point is that it represents a quid pro quo. It is very likely that the results of extending the benefits of the convention to terrorists, or non-signatory nations would actually be detrimental. If waring parties know that they will get the benefits of the Convention without signing, what is the incentive to sign?
Without a mutual agreement, it would be like saying, "We don't care if you tourture your POWs, but we are going to be nice to ours.
The Bush administration is absolutly correct. Extending Geneva protections to non-covered groups is a Bad Idea. We can still treat them humanely, but we shouldn't do it under the Convention.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
The journalists and the Christian missionaries captured in Kabul were treated quite well, all things considered. Just bringing a tiny piece of balance into the equation, folks.
BTW - It is interesting that nations that cannot afford to dress their soldiers up in proper military insignia cannot be at war, but must be harboring unlawful combatants.
And you would also admit that the enemy is allowed to torture your CIA undercover operatives by extending your argument to its logical conclusion. They don't wear insignia, they may not answer to a chain of command, and they may target civilians (unlawful combatants are civilians, though bad ones).
So - let's rather discuss a nice piece of thought experiment. If you were the enemy of the United States, who would be your best ally? That would be the Republicans, sir. By making sure the republicans go apeshit, they have also exposed not very flattering aspects of the current administration. The Al Qaeida could be winning the war as we speak.
American unilateralism has weakened popular support for continued partnership between America and its allies. The foreign governments are making sharper and sharper comments day by day concerning American unilateral interpretation of international law, and American willingness. You don't know where Osama bin Laden is, and none of your heightened states of alert have shown predictive power.
While Bush and Musharraf were shaking hands, Muslem extremeists were unhindered in plotting to attack the Indian parliament. Only after extended outrage and threat of war did Musharraf crack down on domestic extremism. Are you certain he is on your side in the war on terror? Could he be hiding the Taliban? Why or why not?
I think that's enough for today.
Stop the brainwash
Good points. Nice poem.
It's a nice theory, but it's unworkable. When hit with the kind of energy we're discussing here, the water would vaporize explosively, very possibly blowing a hole in the tank and parboiling the occupants. At the very least, the explosive rupture of the water tank would remove it from the target point. You'd get an effect, but nothing near the stopping power you'd need.
Virg
Two points: first, tanks have far more than a half-inch of armor. Second, reflective armor is tough to build, because anything that wouldn't vaporize under the level of laser power we're discussing would provide very little protection against more conventional weapons, and would be mighty heavy for missiles.
Virg
From where I sit (.au) there are only a very small proportion of actual terrorists; the rest are genuine POWs.
From where you sit perhaps you might also notice that there are only a few hundred (if that) prisoners at gitmo out of many thousands taken. I suspect we only asked our allies on the ground to give us those that were either terrorists or fairly high up in the command structure which incorporated terrorists (a significant percentage of the Talibans armed forces was made up of foreign Al Queada fighters).
Most of the Taliban did not themselves wear uniforms and many did not carry their weapons openly - and so even in Afghanistan many were unlawful combatants. As it is we have in fact accorded Taliban fighters a different legal status than Al Queada fighters, though as a practical matter it is a distinction without a differnce.
Oh, I forgot. You're American and you make the rules. And you particularly dislike anyone who successfully stands up to you (Cuba, Vietnam...)
Actually in this case the rules were made by an international convention in Geneva which pretty clearly defines the status of fighters dressed as civilians ("unlawful combatants" and when captured "war criminals" and NOT "POW's").
I suppose you could say that unfairly the western powers made the rules and there is certainly some truth to that. But I somehow doubt the rules would have been any more humanitarian if we had deferred to non-western standards. There are reports that Al-Quada prisoners are desperate to go to gitmo and be "abused" by western standards than stay in Afghanistan and be "treated well" by central asian standards.
Speaking of those our dislike of those who "stand up" to America. It's ironic that all of this concern is being focussed on the Al-Queada prisoners who are among the best treated prisoners in Cuba. We should make a deal with Castro to have the Cuban authorities take over administration of our prisoners. The prisoners would probably object (being opposed to torture when they are the object of it) but liberals around the world wouldn't (being opposed to torture except when a socialist is perpetrating it).
Who modded that warmongering diatribe up? Only an "anti-American troll" thinks that we should adhere to the Geneva Convention? Only an anti-American troll thinks it's in America's best interests to conduct the War on Terrorism without alienating our liberal coalition partners in Europe?
You are right that many throughout the world ignore the Geneva Convention. So I guess we'll ignore it too. I'm sure when you were a child, you were asked "If all the other kids were jumping off a bridge, does that mean you would too?"
War is not fought in a vacuum, and there will be ramifications. By not conferring Geneva Convention status to the Guantanamo prisoners we pour gaosile on the fire of Anti-American sentiment (the real kind, not the kind you claim I have) as people around the globe react in horror to the orange-jumpsuited detainees at Guantanamo.
*My love for my country is strong, not blind. I nurture her like a child. I speak out when she has done something wrong, that she may learn from her mistakes*
LOL If this was FreeRepublic all we'd see is "Nuke them A-Rabs" posts...RimJob has banned most of the Libertarians from that site--it's basically a bunch of Bushbots now.
If you wait until there have been a few rollovers, the expected return per dollar of investment will eventually be positive-- assuming you are the only winner; you still want to keep from having to share it with others...
So when I play Powerball, once or twice a year when there is a huge jackpot, I play consecutive runs of numbers > 31. Nobody would EVER deliberately pick 35-36-37-38-39-40, and it's as likely as any other combination.
But what do I know? I've never won more than $40.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Okay, think of it this way: is it easier to reflect sunlight using a mirror onto a moving target, use a rifle or pilot a radio controlled aircraft to that target?
If the target is moving fast and erratically, the mirror is the easiest option as the beam focus can move much faster than a bullet or aircraft.
Now the only problems are power and dissipation, and it sounds like they've been licked.
Cool!
I know this should go down in the relevent thread, but i didn't think anyone would read it. Someone said i made slashdot history by being the first user with a comment removed, can anyone verify this? also they said the secret service was involved (i find this hard to belive) can any check this too? i know this whole comment is way off-topic, but DUDE! i got a comment removed from slashdot! FREE SPEECH.. yeah
So how does it feel knowing you could be the first? - Well, we're still checking that, but if i am, obviously i will feel mighty proud, i might even auction my (low UID) account on eBay like Everquest etc...
Will the CIA catch you? - I would love to know if i have a warrent in America, "Oh, no, sorry i can't go to the US, i have a warrent out for my arrest lol)
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You are not the first. Please post a link to your removed comment. Is it mirrored somewhere?
I don't have a copy/mirror but basically, there were 3 comments that were removed (You can see the removal notice). In one, i joked that the laser could be used to kill someone without leaving any evidence. Then i said something about bush. People said it was illigal to threaten the president in America so for added fun, i replied with a formal declaration of presidential threatency (I was going to PGP sign it but i've forgotten my key.. lol). I want to put something on my website about this involving lots of colourful graphics :) but my host is in America and their T&C are a little restrictive... i see some creative 3-step hyper-linking coming on.. ;)
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you're a loser, you know that, right?
mjl
No, your a looser, and your president is a fool.
I am going to **** George W Bush using a high powered rifle and silver bullets. Censor THAT.
hmmm... kinda catchy as a new sig..
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