The ABL did everything it was supposed to do. Now, the Pentagon wants to call it quits. On the night of Feb. 11, off the coast of Southern California, the Missile Defense Agency scored a major achievement by destroying a liquid-fueled ballistic missile target in flight. The important part was that it did so using a laser weapon carried onboard a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. This milestone event constituted the first publicly announced test success for the Airborne Laser (ABL). However, the success was actually the second of its kind within an eight-day period. On Feb. 3, the ABL aircraft was...