Active Denial System

Totally safe, they say ---- IF USED PROPERLY. This is from a report on 60 minutes last night, and of course, we have lots of evidence of US troops on foreign soil who do not act properly. (And prior to this report on 60 minutes, there was a report on Chicago police who “crossed the line” and even had an officer who was proposing killing off other officers who were telling the truth about their behavior. And this was on US soil!)

In this 60 minutes report on the Active Denial System, they had “fake” protesters with signs saying “Love for All” and “Peace Now” while throwing rocks at the US soldiers. These protesters looked like regular peace protesters in the US – except for the rock-throwing part. Well, I guess the provocateurs would be doing that. They demonstrated the weapon on these people, and they retreated. Then they went on to say how this weapon could be used against the Iranian speed boats that torment the US ships….. another way of presenting reality that is totally false. These corporate “news” types love war and violence.

They even had some military guy talk about “controlling” the people who are protesting, and brought up the fact that they had Iraqi protesters in Fallujah in April 2003 who wanted the US troops out of their local school. There is no evidence that they were armed, but the US troops claimed they were fired on by the Iraqis and then they ended up killing a couple dozen Iraqis or so…. And using this weapon would have saved lives!! Well, I guess…. Except they would have had to use it A LOT to get the Iraqi people to let up on wanting foreign troops out of their country. And rather than put up with all that pain, I bet they would have taken up suicide bombing or firing rockets or something.

The problem with this system, just like the tazer weapons, is that we cannot depend on the police or our military not to use them to control people or just to inflict some pain on them.