Date: June 9, 2006 9:05:47 PM PDT
Subject: Fwd: Pentagon Tests Pain Beam
WASHINGTON -- Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the
Pentagon's new, Star Trek-like weapon, but no one has withstood the pain
it produces for more than three seconds.
People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say
they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain
disappeared instantly.
The long-range column of millimeter-wave energy is known as the "Active
Denial System" for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing.
Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop
evaluation this fall, say years of testing has produced no sign it will
lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.
It is among the most potent of a new generation of futuristic,
"less-than-lethal" weapons being developed by the Defense Department --
tools that could dramatically alter the way police control riots and
soldiers fight wars.
Other non-lethal devices undergoing tests include "superlubricants" that
could make a road or runway too slippery for car or airplane tires to
gain traction; directed sound waves to drive people away from an area;
and nets able to stop cars.
Commentary:
God damn, these are EVIL people, with a bully's wet dream: torture that
leaves no 'offending' body scar, no bruises, no evidence at all ...
=Underground Panther in the Sky=
Marine Col. David Karcher, who heads the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal
Weapons Directorate, said the Active Denial System "is absolutely not
designed or intended
or built" to be a torture device.
"To use this as any sort of torture device would be in direct violation
of" the Pentagon's definition of non-lethal weapons, he said. "Nor, as
professionals, would any of us sign up for it."
Marine Col. David Karcher, who heads the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal
Weapons Directorate, says the energy beam is aimed at helping troops and
police in confusing situations by offering options "between bullets and
a bullhorn."
Marine Capt. Dan McSweeney, a spokesman for the Non-Lethal Weapons
Directorate, pointed to "instances in Iraq where crowd situations have
unfortunately ended in violence" and death.
Karcher and other military officials are trying to alleviate fears that
the device might be misused to harm civilians or converted into a
torture machine that leaves no marks.
In an attempt to anticipate how the world would greet the new weapon,
the Air Force this month asked social science graduate students at the
University of Minnesota and other colleges for help.
Researchers were offered $12,000 to spend the summer reviewing
literature and assessing how Americans and other cultures might react to
its use.
In the solicitation, Maj. Jonathan Drummond of the Air Force's Directed
Energy Bioeffects Division noted that the Active Denial System could
provide U.S. forces
"with a non-lethal capability in military operations other than war."
Among possible uses, he listed peacekeeping, humanitarian operations and
crowd control.
Introduction of such a device in either noncombat or wartime situations
could raise thorny questions: Would it be acceptable to inflict so much
pain on unruly protesters? How would such a weapon be viewed if used on
crowds in Third World countries? Would it violate international
humanitarian principles if used in
battle? Might it be used secretly during interrogations to torture
suspected terrorists into cooperating?
Karcher said the Active Denial System "is absolutely not designed or
intended or built" to be a torture device.
"To use this as any sort of torture device would be in direct violation
of" the Pentagon's definition of non-lethal weapons, he said. "Nor, as
professionals, would any of us sign up for it."
But in an era of secret interrogations of al-Qaida suspects and
revelations of U.S. abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison,
Executive Director Doug Johnson of the Minneapolis-based Center for
Torture Victims is skeptical.
"It seems fundamentally a weapon that's designed to create a great deal
of pain and fear," Johnson said. "The concern I would have is ... once
this kind of technology is available and there's a perception that it's
safe and nonlethal, it seems like a natural device to be used in
interrogations.
"Is it torture if it only creates a sensation of pain, but leaves no
marks and no long-term damage? I would say yes. Torture is primarily a
psychological device, and finding different ways to use the body against
the mind has been the struggle of torture technologies for thousands of
years."
He said "human history would demonstrate" that once a potential torture
technology is available, it usually is put into action.
Karcher and other military officials stressed that the device has
received interim approvals from international treaty conventions, has
twice passed Pentagon legal reviews and will be subject to clear rules
of engagement.
Eleven years in the making at a cost of more than $50 million, the
Active Denial System is still years from deployment. It weighs about 4
tons and consists largely of a big dish and antenna that are mounted on
a Humvee multipurpose vehicle.
But researchers are hoping to miniaturize it, Karcher said. Air Force
officials want to work with the prime contractor, the Raytheon Corp., to
design a version that could be mounted on a military transport plane so
its beam could cut a broader swath on a battlefield.
Once an operator has aimed the antenna using a scope, the press of a
button sends out a column of millimeter-wave, electromagnetic energy at
the speed of light. Pentagon officials say that the weapon's exact
reach and its column size are classified, but that it can extend beyond
the 550-meter effective range of bullets. Its intensity is the same at
any distance.
Susan Levine, the Pentagon's project manager for the energy beam, said
years of tests on humans and animals enabled researchers to establish a
margin of safety. After several seconds, the device automatically shuts
off to avoid burning its target, she said.
When the beam hits an individual, it penetrates 1/64th of an inch
beneath the skin and heats water molecules to 130 degrees in less than a
second.
"It tricks the pain sensors into thinking they're on fire," said Rich
Garcia, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland
Air Force Base in
Albuquerque, N.M.
Garcia knows firsthand. He was among hundreds of test volunteers,
standing in a doorway with his back facing the device.
"They did a full body back shot," he said. "It hit in the small of my
back first. For the first millisecond, it just felt like the skin was
warming up. Then it got warmer and warmer and you felt like it was on
fire."
He said he lunged out of the doorway.
"As soon as you're away from that beam your skin returns to normal and
there is no pain," Garcia said. "I thought to myself, 'Why you wimp. You
know it's not causing any damage. You'll be able to override it.' Each
of the next three times, I was on there a little bit longer.
"The fourth one was the longest. It was about two seconds. It felt
like my hair was on fire."
The beam easily penetrates clothing, he said, because clothes are
porous, though a thin suit of armor would block it.
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/359 - Release Date: 6/8/06
