Posted on 09/13/2006 6:42:45 AM PDT by rightgrafix
WASHINGTON - 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, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.
"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," said Wynne.
"(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."
The Air Force has funded research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service isn't likely to spend more money on development until injury issues are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.
Nonlethal weapons can weaken people if they are hit with the beam.
Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also disable some electronic devices.
BS!! Test them on the battlefield first. If they turn out to be lethal, at least our enemies find out first.
Better yet, let's call them lethal weapons, and when the target doesn't die, we'll tell them how lucky they are to be alive!
This isn't satire, is it? Please?
You've gotta be kidding me...right?
Are we sure this isn't a transcript from one of those Rush Limbaugh satire spots? It sure reads like one.
Nope, he's a Bush appointee.
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=7919
"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens... "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon..."
Best be careful, boy. Some of us citizens don't take kindly to tyrants and might just hit back.
I'm not talking about nuking them, but we can take the gloves off and put a hellacious hurt on them and let them know if any, and I mean any, terrorist attack happens against the US again, we will obliterate all that is holy to them.
Camp Casey Weapons Proving Ground...
Scrappleface. Right?
This is really a pretty stupid thing to say...
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Where do they get these idiots????
How about testing it in Gitmo???
"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"
This guy needs to be escorted out of his office, today, this morning, right now.
You have got to be kidding. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be tested here first (they should; a battlefield is a terrible place to test anything), but the "international community"'s "safety concerns" should have nothing to do with it. How does someone spouting this kind of junk get to be an Air Force Secretary? He sounds like a perennial wimp.
How about starting with the US congress? Cannot we please ship all these congress people to North Korea and hope that little twit over there is stupid enough to keep them!
There's always the 9/11 blackshirt crowd. They could have had a big test session on Monday.
I would have been glad to squeeze off a few 'non-lethal' rounds...
This seems to be nothing new.
Didn't our government do this already? I remember back in the early 70's the papers announcing that our military leaders admitted to flying over some American cities and dumping small diluted amounts of biological or chemical weapons to observe if there would be any reaction.
Also didn't our government once detonate a nuclear devise up wind of a small town out west, to see what the effects of fallout would be on a population?? I remember 60 Minutes doing a story on it. The fallout looked like snow falling in the summer. The people of the town suffered many deformities and cancers.
I also remember something about them having a group of our soldiers in trenches close to a nuclear detonation, and then having them leave the trenches and march through ground zero soon after?.
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