US military pondered love not war

[GaryC 7]

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 they were 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 the defence department receives "literally hundreds" of project ideas, but that "none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed".

He told the BBC: "It's important to point out that only those proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered for development or acquisition."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4174519.stm

[Anonymous 57 0]

Um... how can a bomb make you have bad breath or become flatulant? Wouldn't you have to put something in their water or something? How can these things work if they're not ingested somehow?

[GabiandVi 34]

I actually find it comforting to know that the military is always actively seeking less deadly ways to combat enemies, that they are obviously open to brainstorming and apparently do not dismiss even the most farfetched ideas, but that the system works and the most impractical ideas are eventually discarded. I'm a little concerned with some of the possibilities that they've investigated described in this article, but that is part of the brainstorming process and it seems to have worked in these cases.

I remember a yaer or two back a piece about a sound wave that causes people to turn and run but does no physical damage. They demonstrated its use on US soldiers. But it would be used more for crowd control or dispersing riots than in war, I believe.