Air Force Chief: Test weapons on public before using them in the field.

"Air Force Chief: Test weapons on public before using them in the field. He says that he would look bad if nonlethal weapons were used in the field actually injured someone. So he proposes to test the weapons on Americans instead."

The article clearly says "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," That could mean use it in mob situations, or riots, or even peaceful protesting (because that hasn't happened before).

Why do military grade weapons of war need to be used on your own citizens. War weapons should only be used in the most emergency of situations when our nation has external threats. In which case you take your most powerful weapons, and you mobilize your most advanced troops and kick the utter daylights out of your enemy. You don't wage a 100 year war on someone. You go over and surgical remove the problem with the maximum force required.

Unfortunately, this would actually require good intelligence, which means we can't keep cutting our intelligence budget (or at least spend the money wiser). It also means we spend the money on our military, and NOT on these money guzzling contractors like Halliburton. The money pit of war is the worst it has ever been. Maybe somebody should investigate the $3.3 Trillion some dollars missing from the DOD!

Our military and all subsequent military programs should be used exclusively to protect the homeland. There used to be a day when military programs from DARPA were then converted to civilian use and then companies could actually make more money off of DOD research. The Internet TCP/IP comes to mind, and Velcro (by NASA).

read more | digg story