Monday, November 5, 2012

MINDWAR:

MindWar Psychological warfare operations are aimed at sowing confusion, chaos, and terror among the enemy. One early example of a psychological warfare operation, during the Boer war the British were using Muslim troops against the Boers, who spread the rumor that the grease and oil used to maintain their British supplied rifles was derived from hog fat. The Muslim troops recoiled at the idea of cleaning their rifles using pig grease and were neutralized. Sun Tzu wrote that: To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances by diplomacy. The next best is to attack his army, and the worst policy is to attack cities. During WWII, psychological warfare was used effectively by the US military as well. The enormous success that the invasion of Normandy displayed was a fusion of psychological warfare with military deception. Before D-Day, Operation Quicksilver created a fictional "First United States Army Group" (FUSAG) commanded by General George Patton that supposedly would invade France at the Pas-de-Calais. American troops used false signals, decoy installations and phony equipment to deceive German observation aircraft and radio intercept operators. This had the desired effect of misleading the German High Command as to the location of the primary invasion, and of keeping reserves away from the actual landings. The OSS parachuted many agents behind enemy lines with the intent that they be captured and interrogated. These agents had been told that the invasion was to take place at Calais and were sacrificed to further what became known as The Great Deception. During the Vietnam War special units of US troops dressed as the enemy, massacred entire villages, leaving no one alive and making it appear as if the NVA (Vietcong) had perpetrated the crime in order to alienate the civilian populations against the enemy. Whether this type of strategy was effective is doubtful. Military Doctrine Publications: The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College produced a paper in 1994 entitled "The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflicts Short of War". A revolution in military affairs (RMA) is mentioned, "That will not only change the nature of warfare, but also alter the global geopolitical balance of power". An example of an RMA is the invention of gunpowder, or atomic weapons, in short, an innovation that turns the world upside down." The authors Metz and Kievit claim, "Behavior modification is a key component of peace enforcement," and that modification will be directed at the American people. This will take place, the authors state, through directed energy systems, whose primary advantage is "deniability", they are straightforward about the unlimited possibilities inherent in "perception molding" through the use of psycho technologies. Anyone who objects to this kind of mind warping will be "identified using comprehensive inter-agency integrated databases," then categorized into "computerized personality simulations," which will be used "to develop, tailor and focus psychological campaigns for each." (Kieth 222) New World Vistas, a book published in 1996 by the US Air Force Advisory Board, which discusses "Biological Process Control". "We will have achieved a clear understanding of how the human brain works, how it really controls the various functions of the body, and how it can be manipulated (both negatively and positively). One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscle movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set." "It would also appear possible to create high fidelity speech in the human body, raising the possibility of covert suggestion and psychological direction. When a high power microwave pulse in the gigahertz range strikes the human body, a very small temperature perturbation occurs. This is associated with a sudden expansion of the slightly heated tissue. This expansion is fast enough to produce an acoustic wave. If a pulsed stream is used, it should be possible to create an internal acoustic field in the 5-15 kilohertz range, which is audible. Thus, it may be possible to talk to selected adversaries in a fashion that would be most disturbing to them." (Kieth 223) A 1996 military paper entitled, Information Operations: A New War-Fighting Capability, written for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, designed to identify what is required for the US to remain, "the dominant air and space force in the future." The paper asserts that "for continued success as a superpower" the key is "information dominance". Part of this dominance will be the development of a space satellite-linked Information Integration Center, or IIC, which will act as a central information processing and control center. The IIC will monitor people who have been implanted with a "microscopic brain chip...(the) chip performs two functions. First, it links the individual to the IIC, creating a seamless interface between the user and the information resources (in-time collection data and archival databases.) In essence, the chip relays the processed information from the IIC to the user. Second, the chip creates a computer generated mental visualization... "Implanting "things" in people raises ethical and public relations issues". In the future, "The civilian population will likely accept an implanted microscopic microchip that allows military members to defend vital national interests". The paper goes on to note that "The California Institute of Technology has developed an energy efficient computer chip which emulates the analog thinking of the human brain...when this capability is fully mature, this chip could provide the baseline for a brain implant hooked to all the sensory segments of the brain, not just the eye". (Kieth pg 223) The military theorists writing about "psychological, biological, and defensive technologies" and "Technologies specifically designed for conflicts short of war" observe, overcoming the ethical restraints of American attitudes towards the technology and its uses would require "an ethical and political revolution would be necessary to make a military revolution". "There is another alternative: we could deliberately engineer a comprehensive revolution, seeking utter transformation rather than simply an expeditious use of new technology". (Kieth pg264) A 1996 Air Force Scientific Advisory Board report on future weapons includes a classified section on a radio frequency or "RF Gunship." Other military documents confirm that radio-frequency antipersonnel weapons programs are underway. The Air Force's Armstrong Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas is heavily engaged in such research. According to budget documents, the lab intends to spend more than $110 million over the next six years "to exploit less-than-lethal biological effects of electromagnetic radiation for Air Force security, peacekeeping, and war-fighting operations." Typical of some of the more exotic proposals are those from Clay Easterly. Last December, Easterly--who works at the Health Sciences Research Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory--briefed the Marine Corps on work he had conducted for the National Institute of Justice, which does research on crime control. One of the projects he suggested was an electromagnetic gun that would "induce epileptic like seizures." Another was a "thermal gun [that] would have the operational effect of heating the body to 105 to 107" degrees Fahrenheit. Such effects would bring on discomfort, fevers, or even death.

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