U.S. Developing 100-Kilowatt Laser for Strike Fighters

redwolfoz writes "New Scientist reports that American defence contractors, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, are developing a 100-kilowatt infrared laser weapon for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter that may be powerful enough to blind people on the ground, even if they are relatively far from the target."

Comments

Re:Inhumane Weapons (THANK U FOR SAYING THAT!)

[HiThere]

Did you sleep through your history classes?

The US has frequently used reckless and indescriminate weapons against people that it claimed were under it's protection. If they were obstrepous. If they objected to being killed. Or even if it just wanted their property.

And it has done it in peace time against "friendly foreigners". (They're only indians!)
Intentional propagation of smallpox can hardly be considered a "peaceful" act. But the calvary sold blankets known to be contaminated while officially at peace.

You can, I suppose, claim that we aren't doing anything as bad as that right now. The trouble is, most of this only comes to light decades later, so why should we believe that it isn't happening now?

You can say that all weapons are gruesome (true), and that we must be able to defend ourselves. I see. That's why there are aerial assaults being carried out in the Afganistan. Most of the people who have been harmed weren't our enemies, before we attacked them. And the people that we are ostensibly after can't be shown to have been there anyway. (I feel that Bin Laden probably went back home to Saudi Arabia before we ever attacked Afganistan.)

I see no justification for this. Hitler was, I admit, an extreme case. But if I were looking for his parallel in today's world, I wouldn't look in the middle east.