Is US using 'dangerous new form of weapon'?

OneWorld.net

By Brett Wagner 04 July 2009

Nothing in my training or experience as a national security specialist prepared me for what I witnessed last month when viewing a newly released documentary news video concerning an extremely controversial new generation of U.S. weaponry which may have already been secretly deployed in Iraq. This sort of thing is not for the faint of heart.

For the past few years the U.S. military has been developing new technology based on "directed energy" yielding two new types of weapons.

The first, "Active Denial System," has been nicknamed the "pain ray" -- and with good reason. It fires out millimeter waves -- a sort of cousin of microwaves, in the 95 GHz range. The invisible beams penetrate just 1/64th of
an inch beneath the skin, directly affecting the nerve endings, and a 2-second burst can heat the skin to 130 degrees. Charles Heal, a widely recognized authority on nonlethal weapons who has dubbed the ray the "Holy Grail of crowd control," likened it to having a hot iron pressed against the skin.

Deploying the pain ray would be a clear violation of international law, which prohibits weapons whose primary intention is to inflict pain. Earlier this year, a U.S. military commander in Iraq requested that, despite the ban, the weapon be deployed immediately. But following the efforts of our organization and others opposing that request, Washington has indefinitely delayed any deployment pending further testing and analysis.

The second form of directed energy weaponry fires out microwaves, a form of energy well known for its use in modern kitchen appliances. I have nicknamed this weapon the "death ray" -- and with good reason. Exposing mammals to microwaves is known to make them explode.

The documentary news video in question, which was released online recently (16 May 2006) by a major Italian news service, examines evidence that the U.S. military has deployed – dating back to the 2003 battle for Baghdad Airport – a new generation of weaponry likely based on firing microwaves. Viewer discretion is advised: even as a former professor for the U.S. Naval War College, this goes way beyond my comfort zone

Judging from the reported effects of the weaponry, it likely includes "speed of light" technology defying the generic term "laser" and it is my professional opinion that it also likely includes the use of microwaves, judging from the descriptions of bodies that seem to have inexplicably exploded.

However, I cannot imagine the scientific explanation for the cadavers that reportedly shrunk to the size of approximately one-meter in length after being exposed to some sort of ray (the cause of death) and then inadvertently struck by bullets. Neither do I have an explanation for what one eyewitness describes as a bus transformed "like a cloth, like a wet cloth" and shrunk to
the size of a Volkswagen. To me, it sounds like a very intense form of microwaves.

The statements by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers excerpted from a 2003 archived press conference are especially revealing:

JOURNALIST: Mr. Secretary, can I ask you a question about some of the technology that you're developing to fight the war on terrorists, specifically directed energy and high-powered microwave technology? When do you envision that you can weaponize that type of technology?

DONALD RUMSFELD (appearing noticeably uncomfortable with the question): In the normal order of things, when you invest in research and development and begin a developmental project, you don't have any intention or expectations that one would use it. On the other hand, the real world intervenes from time to time, and you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it.

JOURNALIST: But you sound like you're willing to experiment with it.

GENERAL MYERS: Yeah, I think that's the point. And I think we have from the beginning of this conflict… I think General Franks [commander of U.S. forces in Iraq] has been very open to looking at new things, if there are new things available, and has been willing to put them into the fight, even before they've been fully wrung out… And we will continue to do that.

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