IRAQ WAR - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
Pain Ray |
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by the cutter peacepalestine Entered into the database on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 @ 16:30:34 MST |
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US torture weapons used against civilians “Star Wars in Iraq” is a new investigative report by Maurizio
Torrealta and Sigfrido Ranucci. The document takes off from the disturbing eyewitness
report from Majid Al Ghezali, first violinist of the Baghdad Orchestra, who
had witnessed the conquest of the airport by the US Armed Forces. Al Ghezali
tells that he had seen the victims of the battle with their bodies shrunken
and to have heard talk about the use of laser weapons. Even the chief surgeon of the General Hospital of Hilla, Saad al Falluji,
speaks of an episode involving the horrible mutilations that had occurred to
the passengers of a bus that had been hit at an American checkpoint with a mysterious
and silent weapon. The Iraqi physician was shocked at the absence of
bullets or bullet wounds upon the dead and wounded. The journalists of Rai News
24 had requested information from the Pentagon about the possible use of lethal
laser weapons, on their effects and on their usage in war zones, but as of today,
they still have not obtained any replies. Taking off precisely from these eyewitness
accounts, the Rai News 24 investigation analyses the current use of a new typology
of weapons, destined to signal the epochal passage from “kinetic”
weapons to those run by energy. Laser devices mounted on the Humvees have already been tested in Afghanistan
and Iraq, officially to set off landmines and hidden explosive devices. In the
inquiry there is the detailed description of a weapon considered to be “non-lethal”:
the “Pain Ray”. The characteristics of this weapon, that uses an
invisible ray that provokes an extremely intense painful sensation, but does
not cause death, has brought about the preoccupation of the organisations that
work in human rights defence and see in this new weapon the risk of an instrument
of gradual and legal torture. It is an alarm that is also motivated by the fact
that the studies on the effects of these weapons on the human body are still
covered by military secret. SEE THE FILM http://www.rainews24.it/ran24/inchieste/guerre_stellari_iraq.asp in English, Italian or Arabic. READ THE TEXT OF THE FILM in .rtf An excerpt: Retired Colonel John B. Alexander The Active Denial System
is a Millimetre Wave System, operates at about 93 GHz. It sends out a beam for
a very long distance, and what’s important about it is that when it hits
the skin it penetrates only a very slight, for a few millimetres under the skin
and it it’s the pain receptors and causes, you know, people to be adverse
to the pain. It hurts, it hurts a lot. The tests that had been run they were to go for 3 seconds, each individual
was given a kill switch and nobody made 3 seconds. The answer to the pain is
extremely rapid, and you don’t have to do it very long, I mean, it gets
your attention instantly. To understand the consequences this new weapon could have for human
rights we went to the Empire State Building in Manhattan, home of the offices
of Human Rights Watch, one of the most important human rights organizations. Marc Garlasco We can see the effects of a gun very easily
and understand them, but when you cannot see the effect of a weapon because
it is not visible and because the science is not very well understood because
technology is so new, then it becomes a grieve concern that enrages the states
for potential human rights violations and abuses. And that is something that
we have to understand about the Active Denial System, that it exists to create
pain and is very different in most other non-lethal weapons where the desire
is either to immobilize someone or make it so that they cannot walk in the area.
With the Active Denial System the main desire is pain, and we have to be very
careful because in international law is very clear that devices created solely
for the creation of pain can eventually lead to torture and are therefore illegal,
and it’s very critical that the United States does a careful legal review
of the Active Denial System and is open with their findings. To date they have
not been open. William Arkin Some people say “ooh acoustic weapons,
or High Power Microwave weapons, the Active Denial System, we can use it for
crowd control…” What crowd control? What does that mean? It pretends that anyone in the crowd is eighteen years old, and male
and in good health, and we’re just going to shoot these microwaves or
shoot these acoustic weapons on this crowd, and it’s going to be carefully
calibrated at a power level, in the intensity and at a range to affect all these
eighteen years old men in the crowd. Well, what crowd is made up of just eighteen years old men? Look at the Intifada, look at any riot in Iraq today: children, women, pregnant
women, old people, and so the effect… the effect that you would need in
order to have an impact on a healthy male, you target, would be too much for
a child or a pregnant woman or an old person. Marc Garlasco There’s been a lot of discussion also
about the potential for eye damage. They have done some tests on the skin to
show that is not harmful, but where is the eye test? And there are concerns
raised by scientists about potential harm to the eyes. And we also have concerns
about the effects to children, to the infirm, to the elderly… Why are
they not producing the data? Why are they not sharing it with us? As regards the use of the pain ray in the field of war, the military
review Defence Industry Daily reports that three Sheriff vehicles were ordered
at a price of about 31 million dollars, and that approval has been requested
for another 14 vehicles by Brigadier General James Haggin, chief of staff of
the multinational forces in Iraq. Retired Colonel John B. Alexander In my view the next global
conflict has already began and we don’t have an understanding of what
that conflict looks like. Because of the issues of terrorism for instance the
adversaries are going to be I think mixed in with civilian populations. We need
weapons that allow us to be able to sort, minimize what they call “collateral
casualties”. I think the battlefields are going to be in urban areas. |