Pentagon Reveals Rejected Chemical Weapons
15 January 2005
(From New Scientist Print Edition. )
"THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.
Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the proposal says."
"Distasteful but completely non-lethal"? strange assumption there, that homosexuality is distasteful. To whom, in this context?
"Other ideas included chemical weapons that attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats to troop positions, making them uninhabitable. Another was to develop a chemical that caused "severe and lasting halitosis", making it easy to identify guerrillas trying to blend in with civilians. There was also the idea of making troops' skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight.
The proposals, from the US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, date from 1994. The lab sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals". The plans have been posted online by the Sunshine Project, an organisation that exposes research into chemical and biological weapons. Spokesman Edward Hammond says it was not known if the proposed $7.5 million, six-year research plan was ever pursued."
(Emphasis mine)
I don't know what's worse, the plans themselves or the fact that the US gov don't know whether or not they spent $7.5 million. But then again that's irrelevant; it's SOP for the Bush government to say they don't know whether they did something when they actually did, so look out for lots of of gay Iranian civil partnerships popping up, and then all the happy couples being tragically killed in frenzied wasp attacks while shopping for factor 150 sunblock.
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