Posted on 08/30/2007 9:08:12 AM PDT by DancesWithCats
But officials refuse, concerned non-lethal effects could be seen as torture
By Richard Lardner Updated: 2:55 p.m. MT Aug 29, 2007
Saddam Hussein had been gone just a few weeks, and U.S. forces in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were already being called unwelcome invaders. One of the first big anti-American protests of the war escalated into shootouts that left 18 Iraqis dead and 78 wounded.
It would be a familiar scene in Iraq's next few years: Crowds gather, insurgents mingle with civilians. Troops open fire, and innocents die.
All the while, according to internal military correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. commanders were telling Washington that many civilian casualties could be avoided by using a new non-lethal weapon developed over the past decade.
Military leaders repeatedly and urgently requested — and were denied — the device, which uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without firing a shot.
It's a ray gun that neither kills nor maims, but the Pentagon has refused to deploy it out of concern that the weapon itself might be seen as a torture device.
Perched on a Humvee or a flatbed truck, the Active Denial System gives people hit by the invisible beam the sense that their skin is on fire. They move out of the way quickly and without injury.
On April 30, 2003, two days after the first Fallujah incident, Gene McCall, then the top scientist at Air Force Space Command in Colorado, typed out a two-sentence e-mail to Gen. Richard Myers, ...
"I am convinced that the tragedy at Fallujah would not have occurred if an Active Denial System had been there," McCall told Myers, according to the e-mail obtained by AP. The system should become "an immediate priority," McCall said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
This was news on FR three years ago.
Except for the fact that it hasn't been built, or tested, or paid for, or shipped.
But, yeah, there's no excuse ...
Is this another article complaining that the military is not using a weapon that currently doesn’t exist!?!?
But water cannons and rubber bullets aren't "torture"? What a bunch of metrosexual pu$$ies we've become.
UNBELIEVABLE that this is not already in use...the lack of wisdom in our leadership is astounding
“Torture”? This is war. Shooting and wounding can be looked at as torture by the liberals. Knocking them off their feet with a raygun is not torture. We need to tell our military to go for it. The hell with the liberals, they don’t run our military. Where’s George Patton when you need him? Do we have guys like him any more?
Please don’t fall for the MSM’s ploy.
THIS WEAPON DOES NOT EXIST YET.
An unidentified airman looks over the military's Active Denial System, a non-lethal ray gun that was demonstrated at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. The system shoots a beam of energy that makes people feel they are about to catch fire.
Not the perfect weapon. It would be useful in some instances but it has limitations and it uses a shit load of energy. Providing that energy in a mobile version has been one of the major problems. It can also be defeated, so I don’t think it would be long before the bad guys figured that out and spread the word. An examination of our own little anarchist shows how they try to find ways to defeat tear gas, rubber bullets..... But I may underestimate it’s potential and the only way to find out is to try it. I think the brass is just to afraid of our beloved lame-stream media trying to humiliate the military every chance they get. All they would have to say is they were trying to avoid the alternative, which would be killing protesters. I think everyone would understand no matter what the outcome was.
Alleged picture of nonexistent weapon:
Too many lawyers in the military.
“THIS WEAPON DOES NOT EXIST YET.”
Actually it does, in prototype form. They have a couple of working versions that have been tested on humans since at least 2003.
I think they chased away the flying saucers from Washington in the 1050s with that.
When not used for crowd control, it can makes hundreds of pounds of popcorn at one time.
“UNBELIEVABLE that this is not already in use...”
I understand your frustration.
Not only is this one not being used, but the follow-on weapon also is not over there, nor is the next breakthrough device not yet on the drawingboards!
The current, backwards policy of not deploying weapons until they are available has got to be the most hindsighted hinderance to progress, and eventual victory.
1050s? All the way back to the first Crusades? Time to bring it back, by all means!
There, fixed it.
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