War is about weapons

By Carol Gee

. . . and counting casualties (dead and wounded). It is about how the combatants point their weapons at each other, or kill each other, and not always why. War is about moving troops into and out of harm's way, and who is winning or losing. I have written poems about war. South by Southwest has many posts about war and the Middle East. As a retiree I think I know something about war(s), plural. Though I must admit I do not know how to fire a weapon, I understand it when the face and pertinent information of the latest U.S. military casualties silently conclude the Friday night PBS news program. But the following story has me completely stumped. I have no clue of what to make of it, how to think or feel about it.

It can speak for itself: The Yahoo! News headline reads, " Pentagon nixes ray gun weapon in Iraq." It was written Richard Lardner of the Associated Press on Aug 29, 2007. To quote,

. . . according to internal military correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. commanders were telling Washington that many civilian casualties could be avoided by using a new non-lethal weapon developed over the past decade.

Military leaders repeatedly and urgently requested — and were denied — the device, which uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without firing a shot. It's a ray gun that neither kills nor maims, but the Pentagon has refused to deploy it out of concern that the weapon itself might be seen as a torture device.

Perched on a Humvee or a flatbed truck, the Active Denial System gives people hit by the invisible beam the sense that their skin is on fire. They move out of the way quickly and without injury.

. . . in August 2003, Richard Natonski, a Marine Corps brigadier general who had just returned from Iraq, filed an "urgent" request with officials in Washington for the energy-beam device. The device would minimize what Natonski described as the "CNN Effect" — the instantaneous relay of images depicting U.S. troops as aggressors.

The story goes on to chronicle the several-year history of the internal military battle over additional issues, such as safety and the cost deployment of these weapons.

Here is where I am clueless --

• Is the Active Denial System horrible or humane?
• Is a lethal weapon more appropriate in war than a non-lethal one?
• Is unintentionally killing innocent civilians better than being seen as a country that uses means that appear to be tortuous or aggressive against these civilians?
• Is it necessary for a non-lethal weapon to be proven completely safe before it use is approved?
• Is the cost of arming soldiers with these weapons one of the considerations?
• What on earth is the right thing to do here?

I am sure I have not thought of all the questions and certainly not the answers. What do you think?

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)