Pain Ray Recalled From Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Pain Ray Recalled From Afghanistan
By Noah Shachtman Email Author
July 20, 2010 | 11:09 am

The Danger Room family gets results! Several weeks ago, site co-founder Sharon Weinberger and I started pestering the military about the decision to send a microwave heat ray gun to Afghanistan. Blasting the locals with an invisible pain beam, we suggested, might not be the optimal way to promote trust in the Kabul and Washington governments.

The folks we spoke with at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Afghanistan seemed inclined to agree. (A spokesperson for the military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, on the other hand, chose to quibble with our assertion that the so-called Active Denial System made people feel like they’re on fire. Wrong, wrong, wrong, she said: “It’s an intolerable heating sensation… Like opening up an oven door.”)

Well, now the so-called “Active Denial System” has been recalled. It’s headed back to America, without ever being fired in hostility. “The system will not be used here and is being sent back to the States,” ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian tells Engadget’s Sean Hollister.

Active Denial has long been considered the “Holy Grail” of crowd control, for its ability to penetrate just a 64th of an inch underneath the skin, and inspire people to move — fast — from the pain that ensued. To Active Denial’s boosters, that made the largely non-lethal weapon safer, more humane alternative to the M-16. But this counterinsurgency is, in many ways, a battle of perceptions. The system’s tactical advantages are far outweighed by the strategically-massive propaganda boost that the pain ray would’ve given the Taliban.



unhappycamper comment: Many things are more humane that the M-16. :grr:

[Dennis Donovan]

1. What better way to promote modernism among the fundamentalist Muslims than with...

...technology that causes extreme pain?

Good decision.:thumbsup:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. it is too harsh for Afghans, so let's redeploy in the US.

Yeah, that's about right. I am happy for the Afghans, but as for the rest of it? Not so much.

Then again, we have no problems spending billions on helping Afghani and Pakistani economies. Back home? Again, not so much

[Lint Head]

3. This is a despicable weapon that will used to suppress free speech

in this country by independent contractors. The laissez faire attitude regarding these kinds of weapons is one of my pet peeves.

[truedelphi]

4. Last year, there was at least one Cable TV show that

Featured the glamor and the excitement of these modern types of weaponry.

Just the TV show was enough to make me barf, without the need of newly created weapons systems.