Perpetual War

You know what it is. Bob talks about it.

Bad Guy Identifying Chemicals

Want a good laugh? Then check out this rejected research in the form of a 1994 memo on non-lethal chemical agents proposed by the brilliant minds at the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio:

1. Title: Harassing, Annoying, and "Bad Guy" Identifying Chemicals

2. Type of Effort:S & T

3. Proposed by: Wright Laboratory

4. Capability Sought and uses to Which it Could Be Put:

     a. Chemicals that can be sprayed onto enemy positions or onto infiltration routes used by enemy forces. Three classes of chemical weapon are proposed:

          (1) Category #1: Chemicals that attract annoying creatures to the enemy position and make the creatures aggressive and annoying. Stinging and biting bugs, rodents, and larger animals would be candidates to be drawn to the enemy positions.

          (2) Category #2: Chemicals that make lasting but non-lethal markings on the personnel.

               (a) Those that were exposed to the chemicals during travel on infiltration routes or from being sprayed while in the enemy camp could be easily identified (by smell or appearance) weeks later, making it impossible for them to blend with the local population. The chemical marking should also be annoying to the exposed individuals and to those around him/her. Spray equipment could be used as part of a perimeter defense system (if decontamination for friendly forces is available).

               (b) A variation on the theme would be that we would have the counteracting treatment. This version would be especially suitable for use against mixtures of enemy forces and non-combatants. Civilians would come to us for treatment, and the enemy forces that did not seek treatment could be identified.

               (c) A more subtle version would be some lasting chemical marker that was not obviuos to humans, but would be obvious to trained dogs or special detecting equipment. These chemicals could be sprayed on infiltration routes. Marked individuals would not know they were marked, and would not know how the dogs/equipment identified them.

                    (1) These chemicals could also be used as part of a security system (for civilian or DoD use) for high value stored items, being released when the building was broken into.

                    (2) Small dispensers of the chemical could be used by banks as an alternative to exploding red dye for marking stolen money and marking the robber. Unlike red dye, the robber would not know he was being marked and would be easier to identify.

          (3) Category #3: Chemicals that effect (sic) human behavior so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely effected (sic). One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior. Another example would be a chemical that made personnel very sensitive to sunlight.

5. Technical Description: Objectives, Approach, What Will Be Done:

     a. Category #1 Chemicals: Identify and/or develop chemicals that attract annoying or injurious creatures and make them aggressive. Sex attractant chemicals for bugs is one candidate. Another example: A "sting me/attack me" chemical that causes bees to attack would be especially effective for infiltration routes. Treat a section of trail with the chemical, and position multiple bee hives a short way down the trail.

     b. Category #2 Chemicals:

          (l) Obvious and Annoying Chemicals: identify and/or develop chemicals that create lasting markings (smell or appearance) on exposed personnel. The obvious markings should also be annoying to exposed and adjacent personnel, and difficult or impossible to remove. One example: develop a low toxicity compound of                       that still retains the characteristic of creating                                   (severe and lasting halitosis) for those exposed to small concentrations. Counteracting or decontaminating treatments should be devised for some chemicals.

          (2) Hidden marking Chemicals: Identify and/or develop chemicals that can create lasting but not obviuos scent markings on people. Develop equipment or train dogs to detect the scent.

     c. Category #3 Chemicals: Select types of personnel behavior changes/effects desired, create and test chemicals.

     d. For all chemicals: Conduct tests to determine safety/toxicity for humans, then conduct field trials to determine initial and lasting effectiveness in various climates and conditions. Modify existing delivery systems/application techniques as needed (spray tanks or aircraft, artillery shells, etc) to apply the chemicals, or create specialized dispensers. One example: Spray equipment and associated detection equipment which would be positioned beside infiltration routes, and would apply free chemicals to the trail when personnel approached.

6. Risks and limitations:

     a. Status of Technology: Attractant chemicals for many bugs that are harmful to food crops are known and widely used.                            c compounds are known to cause                                  , which lasts for months, but                    compounds used commercially are toxic. Many chemicals are known that cause exposed personnel to stink badly. Application equipment needed is low tech, state-of-the-art.

     b. New Discoveries Needed. Chemicals that attract bees and cause them to sting would need to be identified or created. Attractant chemicals for other bugs of interest would need to be indentified or created. Non-toxic compounds of                would need to be developed that still created                       Various chemicals that created lasting and obviuos markings (smell and/or appearance) on personnel would need to be identified or created, then tested. Decontamination procedures would also need to be created, preferably treatments that could not be obtained from anyone but our forces. Chemicals that created lasting but unnoticed markings on personnel would need to be developed, along with the detection equipment to identify effected (sic) personnel. Special dog training program (sic) may also be needed. Chemicals that effected (sic) human behavior in ways that would be disruptive to unit morale and effectiveness would need to be created. Manufacturing techniques would need to be developed for chemicals needed in large quantities.

     c. Operational limitations and susceptibility to countermeasures: Some chemicals should only be used on enemy forces, while others could be used on mixtgures of enemy personnel and civilians. Decontamination would be the countermeasures.

7. Project Plan: (Assume start date 1 Oct 94)

     a. Step 1: Select/assign DoD organizations with expertise to run/participate in the development programs. Participating organizations should provide knowledge about medicine, chemical manufacturing, and weapons application/use. Completion 1 Feb 95

     b. Step 2: Select types/categories of chemicals to be developed. (Completion 1 May 95) Then, have various companies develop chemicals and conduct laboratory tests. Complete 1 Dec 97

     d. Step 3: Conduct field tests in different climates/conditions with chemicals known to have acceptable toxicity to determine effectiveness and best application techniques/procedures. Completion 1 Sep 98

     e. Step 4. produce effective and safe chemicals in large quantities and conduct operational evaluations, to perhaps include selected use during actual hostilities. Complete 1 Sep 00.

8. Project Cost:

FY95	FY96	FY97	FY98	FY99	FY00
600K	800K	600K	1500K	2000K	2000K

One could argue that war itself is damned stupid. Why should the methods of it be anything else?

A "sting me/attack me" chemical. Has a nice ring to it, eh? (These guys have watched one too many B horror movies.) It might be a bit of a problem to carry around and tend large enough insectaries or hives for deployment of the numbers of bees one would need to successfully deploy this plan. (Of course it would be less than what might be required to house and tend enough "rodents" or "larger animals".)

Did they have some entomology experts help with this plan? Do the enemy troops release the bees from the hives when they walk by after passing through the chemical exposure area? In the alternative scenario, if they were able to get close enough to an enemy camp to spray it.... Maybe this plan needs a little more thought.

How about the "severe and lasting halitosis" plan? An enemy with extremely bad breath. That should identify him in a crowd, eh?

I guess they had to black out the chemical compounds because the enemy isn't smart enough to read pesticide labels and figure out which ones have what effects. But I really can't tell you why they blacked out the medical term for severe halitosis while leaving in the definition.

And, I'm really not understanding how any of these sprays could be used as a "perimeter defense", decontamination capabilities for friendly forces or no. What? You surround your compound with halitosis-producing chemicals and the enemy is too ashamed of his bad breath to come into your area? You have a spray fence around your compound, lined with killer bees? Wouldn't sentries work just as well?

Category #3 includes what they refer to as a "gay bomb." That's what's in the news the past couple of days and what has gotten media attention. Why the utter stupidity and non-viability of these ideas isn't the issue, I can't tell you. Subplan (c) of the chemical markers program sounds reasonable compared to the other stunts, doesn't it?

Also, I don't understand how the example of a sunlight-sensitive chemical fits into category 3 (adverse effects on behavior and morale), but, at least they were smart enough to know they might want decontamination or "counteracting treatment" possibilities for friendly forces. On the other hand, I see a small oversight when planning for civilians to seek decontamination treatment: Tell me why it is that the enemy, who is otherwise indistinguishable from the civilian population, wouldn't also line up for decontamination. Not to mention the problem they've alluded to in the need to keep the enemy from also having a decontamination program.

Category #3 Chemicals: Select types of personnel behavior changes/effects desired, create and test chemicals.

I wonder who they've been testing that "gay bomb" on. Surely they didn't really reject these great proposals.

Do the insurgents and al-Qaeda cells in Afghanistan and Iraq have "infiltration routes?" Oh well, that was 1994. Who knew we'd be in another urban warfare quagmire?

With great minds like these planning combat methods, it's no wonder we're having trouble.

Update: Check here for the segment on yesterday's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! on this story. (Starts at 4:45 minutes into the file.)

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Further Update: You know, it occurs to me that there's no need to create a chemical to attract "annoying creatures to the enemy position and make the creatures aggressive and annoying." At least in the eyes of the insurgents, those creatures are already there. They can be identified by their desert camo and U.S. military gear.

American War Policy

I don't remember when I first heard of this incident, but it was within the last year or so, aand it was back in the news yesterday.

Six years after declaring the U.S. killing of Korean War refugees at No Gun Ri was "not deliberate," the Army has acknowledged it found but did not divulge that a high-level document said the U.S. military had a policy of shooting approaching civilians in South Korea.

The document, a letter from the U.S. ambassador in South Korea to the State Department in Washington, is dated the day in 1950 when U.S. troops began the No Gun Ri shootings, in which survivors say hundreds, mostly women and children, were killed.

Exclusion of the embassy letter from the Army's 2001 investigative report is the most significant among numerous omissions of documents and testimony pointing to a policy of firing on refugee groups — undisclosed evidence uncovered by Associated Press archival research and Freedom of Information Act requests.

South Korean petitioners say hundreds more refugees died later in 1950 as a result of the U.S. practice. The Seoul government is investigating one such large-scale killing, of refugees stranded on a beach, newly confirmed via U.S. archives.

[...]

Muccio's message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk states unambiguously that "decisions made" at a high-level U.S.-South Korean meeting in Taegu, South Korea, on July 25, 1950, included a policy to shoot approaching refugees. The reason: American commanders feared that disguised North Korean enemy troops were infiltrating their lines via refugee groups.

[...]

No Gun Ri survivors said U.S. soldiers first forced them from nearby villages on July 25, 1950, and then stopped them in front of U.S. lines the next day, when they were attacked without warning by aircraft as hundreds sat atop a railroad embankment near No Gun Ri, a village in central South Korea. Troops of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment followed with ground fire as survivors took shelter in twin underpasses of a concrete railroad bridge.

[...]

The Army veterans' estimates of dead ranged from under 100 to "hundreds." Korean survivors say they believe about 400 were killed.

[...]

No Gun Ri, where no evidence emerged of enemy infiltrators, was not the only such incident. As 1950 wore on, U.S. commanders repeatedly ordered refugees shot, according to declassified documents obtained by the AP.

[...]

Deliberately attacking noncombatants is a war crime.

  Yahoo AP article

Via Josh Marshall, here's a link to a website devoted to the story.

Job Available

If you meet the qualifications...

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

  WaPo article

Josh Marshall's quick translation:

Bush wants to find a general to do his job for him. But he can't get anyone to agree to do it.

Indeed, that is his job. But, Preznitin' is hard.

He probably should have gotten someone to do his job for him about six years ago.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Surge and Purge

Troop Surge

A few weeks ago, [Mark] Benjamin wrote a piece exposing how a group of soldiers from the 3rd Brigade-3rd Infantry at Ft. Benning, GA had their medical statuses summarily downgraded in February so they could be re-deployed to Iraq.

This week, Benjamin examines how some of those soldiers, plus many others, were recently sent to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA for "training," despite being physically unable to perform most usual exercises.

The injured soldiers were not forced to train, but were simply housed in tents on site--their physical presence apparently being good enough to count them among the numbers cited as "trained" for the surge.

  Iraq Slogger post - links embedded

Attorney Purge

Warned to shut up.

...[FBI] bureau chief for San Diego Dan Dzwilewski had complained to the press about Carol Lam's firing, said that he "guaranteed" politics was involved, and that without her, a number of ongoing investigations might be jeopardized. Specter didn't want to hear that from the press -- he wanted to hear that sort of thing from [Bureau Chief Robert] Mueller.

Mueller responded that Dzwilewski hadn't passed such complaints up the chain, and that "my understanding is that our chief out there believes he was misquoted, but that our investigations were continuing, without any diminishment."

Misquoted? Sen. Dianne Feinstein followed up:

FEINSTEIN: Well, we followed up and I had my chief counsel call them to verify what they said. And they said, yes, they said it. But they also said they'd been warned to say no more. Are you aware that they had been warned to say no more?

MUELLER: Yes, I am.

  TPM Muckraker article

Carol Lam's dismissal is (okay, "allegedly") connected to the Duke Cunningham bribery case, the fallout of which is ongoing.

[Congressman Henry] Waxman has asked for all MZM contracts related to the White House and other materials...

[...]

It could be that MZM in the summer of 2002 managed to snag a small White House contract in legitimate fashion, even as Wade was plotting a quick, bribery-greased rise to the top. But given that the Cunningham/MZM tale is one of sleaze and crime--I haven't even mentioned the prostitutes Cunningham received as bribes--Wade's first contract with the Bush administration deserves scrutiny. Republican legislators--no surprise--expressed no interest in this when they ran Congress. And, coincidentally or not, the US attorney in charge of the Cunningham case, Carol Lam, is one of the prosecutors who was fired by the Bush administration. But here comes Waxman, and the Case of MZM's First Contract is alive and open.

  David Corn post

Gettin' a little hot in the kitchen for Gonzo.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dashed out of a Chicago news conference this afternoon in just two and a half minutes, ducking questions about how his office gave U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald a subpar rating.

Gonzales, who increasingly faces calls for his resignation, was here to promote a new ad campaign and had planned a 15-minute press availability. He left after taking just three questions over a firing scandal consuming his administration.

Before leaving, Gonzales said he wanted to "reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here."

  Chicago Sun Times article

Rich.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Preparing for martial law

It’s [...] what allows some of the most mediocre political and military intellects in the last century (and that is a highly competitive claim) to create one of the most dangerous and decisive historical conjunctures we may ever witness… and hopefully survive.

It appeared in the most arcane of headlines, this desperate new phase in the empire that had been gestating in the tense womb of the Pentagon-White House nexus.

“US military rethinking the two-war strategy”

It wasn’t actually the military as a whole reconsidering anything, we find upon reading the article. This is a leak from high-level Pentagon insiders to the press, and more than one insider. There is an artful rebellion taking place among generals.

[...]

So what is going on, and why did this leak come at the same time that the Department of Defense published its strange and alarming “Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support"? To answer that rhetorical question, I will have to go to the strategy document itself, hot off the presses.

Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., June 2005 - Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support.

[...]

Each section of this ten-year strategy outline for the Department of Defense is headed by an italicized quote from Reich Fuehrer Bush. This is what must be borne in mind as part of any analysis of this document, which is scaring the bejesus out of a lot of civil libertarians. Because it is - and I will describe exactly how as we go along - it is a roadmap to martial law.

Read more of Stan Goff's article: The Evolution of the Bush-Rumsfeld War Doctrine - Roadmap to Martial Law

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The "next 9/11"

I read somewhere recently (but can't remember where) an article claiming that the Pentagon is currently drawing up plans to attack Iran in the event of another 9/11-type incident. Reminds me of Sy Hersh's comments early this year to the same effect.

Get it? Same idea as invading Iraq. Draw up plans to invade a country that you want to invade, "wait for" a terrorist attack on American soil, then go in. No matter who you use to carry out is responsible for the attack. That's irrelevant.

So, anyway, I'd be expecting another terrorist attack as soon as those plans are finished. They'll probably want to do a better job of contingency and exit plans this time. And we know that we are aready flying info-gathering missions illegally over Iran and running war games involving the use of Azerbaijan for invasion-launching ground.

A bomb scare emptied the nation's busiest commuter rail station Sunday for about an hour, disrupting service on trains and subways.

The midday threat at Pennsylvania Station arose after someone threw a backpack at an Amtrak ticket agent and said it was a bomb, said Marissa Baldeo, a spokeswoman for New York City Transit.

[...]

Also Sunday, a double-decker tourist bus was evacuated in midtown Manhattan after a bus company supervisor became suspicious of five passengers with "stuffed" pockets. Police handcuffed them and searched about 60 passengers before determining there was no threat.

  Chicago Tribune article

New York City police officers stand over men who were detained briefly after a bomb scare
on a double-decker tourist bus in New York City. No explosives were found and the men were released.
(AP)   courtesy CBS

Sunday, a Southwest Airlines flight bound for Phoenix from Burbank was forced to instead land back at Bob Hope Airport after a possible bomb threat.

  CBS article

Akbar Ganji was once a loyal Revolutionary Guard and veteran of the religious revolt that brought clerical rule to Iran. He became an operative for the country's intelligence services and spied on enemies of the regime.

But now Ganji has become the Republican Party's darling and a hero to its neo-conservative wing who are pressing for a hardline US policy on Iran. President George Bush has spoken glowingly of Ganji, who has become a vocal critic of Iran's ruling mullahs and the country's leading political dissident. 'His calls for freedom deserve to be heard. His valiant efforts should not go in vain,' Bush said.

  Observer article

Our next Chalabi.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.