A new form of collective western punishment is on its way to Iraq in the form of the Air Force's Humvee mounted Active Denial System (ADS) - just in time for Christmas. ADS directs an energy beam at people making their skin and insides feel like they are being burned or boiled. One would think the murder of over 500,000 people and the genocidal legacy of depleted uranium munitions used in the ongoing destruction of their country was present enough. Well, one would be wrong. Wired News reports:

"According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.

The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.

The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.

"It will repel you," one test subject said. "If hit by the beam, you will move out of it -- reflexively and quickly. You for sure will not be eager to experience it again."

But while subjects may feel like they have sustained serious burns, the documents claim effects are not long-lasting. At most, "some volunteers who tolerate the heat may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters," the Air Force experiments concluded."

Calls by Air Force Secretary Michael Whyne for testing this type of weapon (non-lethal) on US citizens for crowd-control went pretty much ignored by the corporate media. CNN did report on this but has since pulled the story from its website. According to Whyne:

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a war time situation"

This logic of course doesn't apply to laser guided bombs and drones with hellfire missiles. Not yet at least.

Oops, I spoke too soon - High hopes for drone in LA skies:

"Unmanned arial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drone aircraft, are about to be launched for the first time by the police in Los Angeles."

-tdm

UPDATED: February 05, 2007

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne recently said that the ADS system should be used on US citizens before being deployed to the battlefield. “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.”