« previous | MUCK HOME | next »
State's New Plan For Baghdad Security: Blinding Lights
How to get Baghdad cars out of the way of diplomatic motorcades? The old answer -- an escalation of force beginning with thrown water bottles and ending with rifle fire -- clearly isn't in the cards after Nisour Square. So what's left to try?
The State Department is experimenting with an idea to make the Baghdad streets both safe and stylish. Convoy drivers will be fitted with -- yes -- laser helmets able to emit a beam of bright light to blind errant and potentially dangerous motorists.
Seriously, from ABC's The Blotter:
Security experts say the lasers, emitting a green beam and already in use at some U.S. military checkpoints in Baghdad, overload the optic nerve but, if used from at least 10 feet away, will not cause any permanent eye damage. ..."I've had them tested on me, and while it is certainly uncomfortable, like a flashbulb going off in front of your face, there is no permanent damage whatsoever," said Tony Diebler, a former State Department security official who now works at Cohort, International, the company providing the lasers and helmet cameras to the State Department.
Huh. A former State Department security official who now sells security equipment to the State Department. I'd say that might be something the inspector general should look at, but, you know....
Comments (17)
TEL wrote on November 15, 2007 2:11 PM:It seems they'll have the same problem they had with their shoot-first strategy.... When you temporarily blind the driver of a vehicle, how can they react at all? Just once, the idiots who come up with these ideas should think them through.
P J Evans wrote on November 15, 2007 2:21 PM:I seem to recall that the first batch of shootings was because the drivers didn't see (or didn't understand) the hand signals - non-standard, of course - that the convoys used to warn them off.
So the convoys went to throwing stuff at them before shooting (and apparently didn't actually throw stuff either).
Now they're going to use blindingly bright lights? Can we say clueless?
First, stop driving on the wrong side of the street, so people won't have to figure out what you're doing. Then, give them time to actually get out of the way. Third, don't shoot before you've actually gone through your published warning procedures. And don't assume that someone who's just been shot or dazzled by your helmet-laser will have control of his vehicle.
(I wonder how long before this becomes SOP in the US. George and Dick already think holding up traffic without warning is fine.)
Thrackazog wrote on November 15, 2007 2:31 PM:All I want is some frickin' mercenaries with frickin' laser beams on top of their frickin' heads.
tin foil wrote on November 15, 2007 2:42 PM:Has not the threat been parked cars without drivers that blow up? How will bright lights during the day prevent the remote blowing up of a car? Sounds like someone at State is talking out the side of their neck.
JA wrote on November 15, 2007 2:56 PM:"Sounds like someone at State is talking out the side of their neck."
Actually it sounds like someone is going to make a ton of money off a stupid idea and product with a no-bid contract.
Anonymous wrote on November 15, 2007 3:31 PM:Unbeleivable! And these are the same idiots that bitch about welfare mothers, when they are stealing the US Treasury blind!
It's like Tasers...for your eyes!
TheraP wrote on November 15, 2007 3:34 PM:That way they'll be ready to do interrogation at a moment's notice.
Paranoid yet? wrote on November 15, 2007 3:35 PM:Will they get portable waterboards too?
Rodney Lamprey, jr. wrote on November 15, 2007 3:45 PM:It would be much more effective and practical just to ban Iraqis from driving on their roads. Obviuosly, if the Iraqi motorists don't understand standard traffic security signals such as obscene hand gestures, thrown water bottles, and yells of profanity in English, then they don't deserve to drive on their own roads.
Mary wrote on November 15, 2007 4:25 PM:It would be much more effective and practical just to ban Iraqis from driving on their roads.
Exactly. This will also help save oil for US consumption; help balance the US military's carbon footprint in Iraq; and provide both contractors and the military with a ready supply of pedestrian Iraqis who can be rounded up and marched in front of their vehicles, hopefully triggering some of the more rudimentary ieds before US vehicles reach them.
What a win win.
jon wrote on November 15, 2007 5:26 PM:Blind 'em with the frickin' lasers from your Star Wars helmet. Then shoot them, when they start driving all crazy like.
Great plan. What could possibly go wrong?
With every death you make at least two new friends. Soon, it's gonna be candies and flowers for everyone!
Of course, I don't recall my driver's ed class covering any of this.
guyermo wrote on November 15, 2007 5:44 PM:bright light to blind errant and potentially dangerous motorists
cosmic charlie wrote on November 15, 2007 6:42 PM:or to make harmless motorists blind, errant, and potentially dangerous.
Don't laze me, Bro!
Kathryn Thomas wrote on November 15, 2007 9:07 PM:I agree with JA,oooooohh a new product for the war profiteers. No contract;loads of taxpayer money
parrot wrote on November 16, 2007 2:39 AM:As for the laser idea itself; are there really any people who think this is a good idea? Obviously there are, and obviously idiots are running rampant.
All in a day's work...for war profiteers. Basically, blind people and then get a contract from the U.S.G. to take care of blind people. Never mind that the whole idea was stupid...I mean, it is hard to feel it is stupid if you are making money off of the pain and suffering of an occupied nation, right? So, now the occupiers have hit upon another amazing way to make money from the pain and suffering of a people that the U.S. is obligated by various international treaties to protect...treaties that the U.S. has either been lead incompetently to ignore...at our own peril.
OleHippieChick wrote on November 16, 2007 5:24 AM:Cohort? COHORT?
Richard M. Mathews wrote on November 16, 2007 4:59 PM:Why not CRONY, International?
"There is no permanent damage whatsoever," that is, ignoring the damage created when the blinded driver crashes into something.