Time's a-wastin'

I've been thinking about a few things I want to write about: the varieties of political action (subtitled: the value of demonstrations or "the area under the curve"); the political uses of fear and its relation to the advance of the reactionary right; and the shift in formal US military doctrine. All topics that require some thought. And there's going to be very little of that for a while: Between finishing taxes, a new part-time job starting up, and preparations for a trip, posting is going to be kind of erratic this week. And the week after that? Vacation. Gone away, gone bye-bye. Unless we stumble across a cybercafe, there will be zippo posts, as I will computerless from the morning of Sunday the 10th to the evening of Sunday the 18th.

With that in mind, I was going to hold this for a post of military doctrine but before it gets any older I'll put it up. It's from New Scientist magazine, March 2.

The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture. ...

The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act.

One document ... concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person. The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.

According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs produced "pain and temporary paralysis" in tests on animals. This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells.

The new study, which runs until July and will be carried out with researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, aims to optimise this effect. The idea is to work out how to generate a pulse which triggers pain neurons without damaging tissue.

The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to look for "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - in other words, cause the maximum pain possible. Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.

We can expect to be told how "humane" this makes us because "the alternative is killing them. Is that what you want?" Of course, there could be the alternative of not firing at all, but consideration of that is not be allowed.

We'll also, no doubt, be assured that it would only be used on "enemies." These days, even strictly in narrow terms of personal safety, that is not a comforting thought.