[kj] OT : US military pondered love not war

Bob Barathy bob at bbarathy.plus.com
Sat Jan 15 03:22:17 EST 2005


No way! Wonder how the lab tests went?
  -----Original Message-----
  From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net]On
Behalf Of antoni at clara.net
  Sent: 15 January 2005 06:39
  To: gathering at misera.net
  Subject: [kj] OT : US military pondered love not war


  I'd heard of chemical warfare but surely nobody had ever considered these
such proposals ... almost choked on my bran flakes !!!

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4174519.stm

  Last Updated: Saturday, 15 January, 2005, 03:21 GMT

  US military pondered love not war

  The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy
soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.

  Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers
obvious by their bad breath. The US defence department considered various
non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale. The 1994
plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but it was apparently never
pursued.

  The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon
funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad
guy'-identifying chemicals". The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of
Information by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into
chemical and biological weapons.

  'Who? Me?'

  The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical
that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing
what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to
morale. Scientists also reportedly considered a "sting me/attack me"
chemical weapon to attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats towards
enemy troops. A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight
was also pondered.

  Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting
halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to
blend in with civilians. In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a
"Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks. Indeed, a
"Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945, the government
papers say.

  However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was
fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find faecal
odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis". Captain Dan
McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said
he had no knowledge of the proposals. He said: "There's a wide variety of
proposals, and they're treated appropriately. However we make sure that all
non-lethal weapons abide by international treaties and are assessed for
their health effects.

  * http://home.clara.net/antoni/ *

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