The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there¡¯s no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they¡¯re on fire.OK, OK. Maybe that isn¡¯t precisely the logic being employed by those segments of the American military who would like to deploy the Active Denial System to Afghanistan. I¡¯m sure they¡¯re telling themselves that the generally non-lethal microwave weapon is a better, safer crowd control alternative than an M-16. But those ray-gun advocates better think long and hard about the Taliban¡¯s propaganda bonanza when news leaks of the Americans zapping Afghans until they feel roasted alive.
Because, apparently, the Active Denial System is ¡°in Afghanistan for testing.¡±
An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory are just two of the people telling Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger that the vehicle-mounted ¡°block 2¡å version of the pain ray is in the warzone, but hasn¡¯t been used in combat.
[Update: "We are currently not testing the Active Denial System in Afghanistan," Kelley Hughes, spokesperson for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, tells Danger Room.
So I ask her: Has it been tested previously? She hems and haws. "I'm not gonna get into operational," Hughes answers.
Hughes also disputes the assertion that Active Denial creates a burning feeling. "It's an intolerable heating sensation," she says. "Like opening up an oven door."]
For years, the military insisted that the Active Denial System ¡ª known as the ¡°Holy Grail¡± of crowd control ¡ª was oh-so-close to battlefield deployment. But a host of technical issues hampered the ray gun: everything from overheating to poor performance in the rain. Safety concerns lingered; a test subject had to be airlifted to a burn center after being zapped by the weapon. (He eventually made a full recovery.) And then there were concerns about ¡°the atmospherics¡± ¡ª how the locals might react ¡ª when they learned that the United States had turned a people-roaster on ¡®em. ¡°Not politically tenable,¡± the Defense Science Board concluded.
I pinged Gen. Stanley McChrystal¡¯s staff about the use of Active Denial in Afghanistan. I¡¯ll let you know if I hear anything back. But a few months ago, a source told me that a representative from the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate was in Afghanistan. Did that mean Active Denial was about to be put into action? Nope, the source said. ¡°She¡¯s just out getting some atmospherics on the use of non-lethals.¡±