Wednesday, September 13, 2006 New GOP Military Plan on Test Subjects for Crowd Control: American Citizens shot w/ High Powered Microwave Weapons I'm innocently perusing the NYTs, and dontcha know it, just when I think the Repukes can't sink any lower on the sociopath scale, they somehow simply do: Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne (who joined the Bush admin in 2001) proposes that nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield. (Hmm, crowd control situations, huh? Lemme venture a guess... instead of just continuing to arrest and toss us Dems for daring to wear the "wrong" kind of T-shirt, being anti-war, being a Dem, or yanking us outta those hand picked GOP Kool-Aid guzzler events b/c we refuse to sign a Bush loyalty pledge card, they'll just zap us with a microwave gun, huh?) Wynne said: ''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. Because if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.'' Gee, that is awfully big of him. Think he and his family members will be volunteers for such experiments? And umm... excuse me... but doctors advise pregnant women to avoid such things as sleeping under electric blankets AND standing directly in front of microwaves while using them. Could someone please tell me how using high power microwave devices is NOT harmful to human beings if OB/GYNs advise pregnant women to protect their fetuses from such things? Will all women somehow be ruled out as NOT being pregnant BEFORE these weapons are aimed at crowds? What about elderly folks with pacemakers? Maybe Cheney could volunteer for THAT test, eh? And could someone please tell me WTF is a high powered microwave device anyway? Well, this person seems to have figured out what exactly Wynne was talking about, as did the Telegraph UK in this 2004 article: "The skin gets extremely hot, and people can't stand the pain, so they have to move - and move in the way we want them to," said Col Wade Hall of the Office of Force Transformation, a body formed in Nov 2001 to promote rapid improvement across all of the US armed services. Using technology similar to that found in a conventional microwave oven, the beam rapidly heats water molecules in the skin to cause intolerable pain and a burning sensation. The invisible beam penetrates the skin to a depth of less than a millimeter. As soon as the target moves out of the beam's path, the pain disappears. The non-lethal weapons are to be issued to US troops and fitted to vehicles already in Iraq, as concern mounts over the growing number of civilians killed in fighting. (Well, I don't know why the military even cares about such fatality numbers since they're just cherry picking the numbers of Iraqi dead by not counting people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks -- including suicide bombings.) And what kind of microwave "rays" will these things give off? Microwave ovens operate at 2.4 GHz. These "non-lethal" weapons operate at 95 GHz, and the weapon's beam causes pain w/in 2 to 3 secs and it becomes intolerable after less than 5 secs. People's reflex responses to the pain is expected to force them to move out of the beam before their skin can be burnt. BUT what if crowd or riot conditions don't allow the person to move out of the way? Will the gun just fry these people to kingdom come? And what about damage to water filled organs like the eyes? (Microwaves heat items by making water molecules heat up) Well, the experimenters banned glasses and contacts to prevent possible eye damage to the subjects, and in the 2nd and 3rd tests removed any metallic objects such as coins and keys to stop hot spots being created on the skin. They also checked the volunteers' clothes for certain seams, buttons and zips which might also cause hot spots. Wow. Call me crazy, but do these morons honesty think that in a crowd of Iraqi people, none of them will be wearing eye glasses, contacts, underwire bras, zippers, buttons, or carrying keys & coins? This is the yr 2006... not 26 B.C. for Christ's sake... which oddly enough, is the exact same year I wish we could send these GOP freaks back to if we had a time machine. |