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Sci-Fi Weapons to Join US Arsenal?
marct22 writes to tell us CNet is reporting that the next weapons coming out of the US arsenal could be stepping right off the pages of science fiction to be there. From the article: "By the end of this year, the Air Force plans to conduct a first, fully loaded test flight of its Airborne Laser, a jumbo jet packed with gear designed to shoot down enemy missiles half a world away, at the speed of light. The ABL also packs a megawatt-class punch--it's not exactly your garden-variety laser pointer."
As for depleted uranium bombs being used in Yugoslavia, I have no clue where the parent post got that. Given the amount of media attention given to the war at the time (ZOMG genocide in Europe again?! Its a modern day Hitler, someone bring Churchill back from the dead!11!!) I think this fact (if it was true) would be more common knowledge.
The P.S.A.'s military has the best equipped military in the world. On the conventional battlefield, the fight is over before it begins with the P.S.A.'s military in the winner's place. However, despite its armored exterior, the P.S.A. has a soft underbelly. As with the Roman Empire, the P.S.A. will be defeated from within. Many of its people and businesses are already poisoned with drugs, perversion, and lack of morals (along with the rest of the world).
While the P.S.A's government may be able to destroy the most well hidden military equipment, it would have a hard time defending against hords of people with Zippo lighters bent on setting everything in the P.S.A. on fire. Look at the panic two guys with a rifle caused in D.C. a few years ago. The weapons that will be successful against the P.S.A. will be those which are routinely bought in the Walmart's or other discount stores located in nearly every American town. The enemy spends $1 to destroy a thousand dollars worth of our wealth while we spend a thousand dollars to destroy $10 dollars of enemy wealth.
Go a few decades back (when the P.S.A. was the U.S.A.), one would find that this would be less and less the case. Back then, people had more freedom, and their purchasing power was much greater. Rather than spending most of their time adly playing video games, surfing the net, or watching one fo the four hundred channels of crap, they would be in their local communities talking with other members of the community. They would have had a much better idea of who belonged and who didn't. There was also reasonable tarrifs on imports which allowed goods entering the country to be more carefully inspected. This is no longer the case since large companies are allowing to import super cheap goods while having to pay few taxes and comply with even fewer regulations. The P.S.A. government giving special privileges to companies created by enemy countries also does not help our situation.
The only way for the P.S.A. to be secure again would be for it to return to being the U.S.A. It would have to return to basic morality as well as the principles on which it was founded. Since most people are now hostile to this idea, it can not possibily happen until major castastrophy strikes this nation. We have to heal the internal rot before we can effective fight against an enemy that remains largely invisible, and which changes shape and size. The P.S.A. is not only facing terrorists, it is also facing MS13, drug cartels, corrupt government officials (at all levels) as well as a corrupt "entertainment" cartel. Once the P.S.A. heals internally and returns to being the U.S.A., we have a chance of winning against our enemies. But unless that happens, we as a nation will be through.