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Tue 12 Sep, 2006 06:14 pm
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.
"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."
The Air Force has paid for research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service is unlikely to spend more money on development until injury problems are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.
Nonlethal weapons generally can weaken people if they are hit with the beam. Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also can be effective in disabling some electronic devices.
On another subject, Wynne said he expects to choose a new contractor for the next generation aerial refueling tankers by next summer. He said a draft request for bids will be put out next month, and there are two qualified bidders: the Boeing Co. and a team of Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the majority owner of European jet maker Airbus SAS.
The contract is expected to be worth at least $20 billion (15.75 billion).
Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing lost the tanker deal in 2004 amid revelations that it had hired a top Air Force acquisitions official who had given the company preferential treatment.
Wynne also said the Air Force, which is already chopping 40,000 active duty, civilian and reserves jobs, is now struggling to find new ways to slash about $1.8 billion (1.4 billion) from its budget to cover costs from the latest round of base closings.
He said he can't cut more people, and it would not be wise to take funding from military programs that are needed to protect the country. But he said he also incurs resistance when he tries to save money on operations and maintenance by retiring aging aircraft.
"We're finding out that those are, unfortunately, prized possessions of some congressional districts," said Wynne, adding that the Air Force will have to "take some appetite suppressant pills." He said he has asked employees to look for efficiencies in their offices.
The base closings initially were expected to create savings by reducing Air Force infrastructure by 24 percent.
A group of Bush protestors should do nicely.
My God, what have we become?
SHORTER VERSION...
"If we torture our own people first, we will get less grief from the rest of the world once we start doing it to others. So lets experiment on our own citizens."
Thank God this attitude was not evident with the Manhatten Project.
This is America, and we have a government official who draws his salary from all of us saying that the government should attack US citizens with weapons which nobody can say are torturous or not.
I think that is a most insane attitude, berift of any form of social conscience this side of a crazed Mengele-type Nazi. And we hear it from the mouth of the US Air Force Sec?
There are certain paths civilized peoples do not trod. This is one.
I do hope someone teminates that SOB for even thinking about it or a God in Heaven who will smit such wickedness.
Not quite the Manhattan project, kuvasz, but a fair number of soldiers were fairly close to some of the early nuclear test sites. This one is not quite so implausible as it first sounds.
NYPD okays permit for anti-war march to UN during Bush visit
RAW STORY
Published: Friday September 15, 2006
The New York Police Department has reversed its position and will now allow an anti-war group to march to the United Nations during President Bush's visit next week.
"On Thursday United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the nation's largest antiwar coalition, learned it would be given a permit for a peaceful antiwar protest march in New York City to coincide with President Bush's visit to the United Nations," states a UFPJ press release received by RAW STORY.
"In a stunning turn of events, the NYC Police Department reversed its previous decision to deny UFPJ the right to march on Sept. 19th within proximity of the U.N.," the press release continues.
UFPJ has agreed to march on the sidewalks, instead of the streets on September 19.
On Thursday, AFP reported that the group had planned to face possible arrest and march even without a permit which a NYPD had called an "absolute impossibility."
"That it an absolute impossibility when the president's in town, you can't have people roaming around a motorcade route," Detective Theresa Farello was quoted by AFP. "It was a total impossibility with the New York city police department."
According to UFPJ, the group's stance prompted the reversal.
"United for Peace and Justice stood up against an attempt to limit our right to peacefully protest the Iraq war -- and we won," said Leslie Cagan, UFPJ's National Coordinator in the press release. "It is clear that our determination to march with or without a permit -- our determination to be heard -- had an impact on the NYPD's decision to give us a permit for our protest."
The United for Peace website sports "We won! We're Marching!" on its homepage.
The anti-war group wants to "make this a large and loud call for an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq -- all the troops must be brought home, and brought home now!"
Re: Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs
blueflame1 wrote::
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.
"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."
The Air Force has paid for research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service is unlikely to spend more money on development until injury problems are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.
Nonlethal weapons generally can weaken people if they are hit with the beam. Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also can be effective in disabling some electronic devices.
On another subject, Wynne said he expects to choose a new contractor for the next generation aerial refueling tankers by next summer. He said a draft request for bids will be put out next month, and there are two qualified bidders: the Boeing Co. and a team of Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the majority owner of European jet maker Airbus SAS.
The contract is expected to be worth at least $20 billion (15.75 billion).
Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing lost the tanker deal in 2004 amid revelations that it had hired a top Air Force acquisitions official who had given the company preferential treatment.
Wynne also said the Air Force, which is already chopping 40,000 active duty, civilian and reserves jobs, is now struggling to find new ways to slash about $1.8 billion (1.4 billion) from its budget to cover costs from the latest round of base closings.
He said he can't cut more people, and it would not be wise to take funding from military programs that are needed to protect the country. But he said he also incurs resistance when he tries to save money on operations and maintenance by retiring aging aircraft.
"We're finding out that those are, unfortunately, prized possessions of some congressional districts," said Wynne, adding that the Air Force will have to "take some appetite suppressant pills." He said he has asked employees to look for efficiencies in their offices.
The base closings initially were expected to create savings by reducing Air Force infrastructure by 24 percent.
its amazing that we are more concerned about how our we would be "vilified in the world press" than how we we be vilified here if our our citizens were injured oe worse by non-leathal weapons.
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