transmissions from a compromised antenna

Is up here.

Feel free to argue or add your own thoughts in the comments.

I heard something today on Democracy Now that really blew my mind. It was especially strange because it was more science fictional than most of the SF I read and yet it was not science fiction. It was journalism covering the US military.

This documentary, called "Guerre Stellari," which means Star Wars in Italian, was directed by Maurizio Torrealta and Sigfrido Ranucci and was produced by Italy's amazing public TV station RAI. I used to watch a lot of RAI when I was living in Albania and they often produced very serious disturbing documentaries about the situation on the ground in Iraq.

This particular video focuses on how Iraq is being used as a sort of laboratory for the testing of various categories of experimental "directed energy" weapons. These weapons do not involve bullets or other kinetic agents. Rather they utilize microwaves, sound waves, lasers, or gamma rays. The filmmakers assemble significant evidence that weapons using these technologies are in experimental use in Iraq. Also worth noting is the fact that an earlier Torrealta documentary accused the US military of using white phosphorous, which Torrealta claims is forbidden by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Ban. The US military first denied that it was using WP, then admitted it but claimed that it was not a chemical weapon. (Hmm... Is phosphorous a chemical? Let me get out the periodic table.)

There's a lot of talk in the film about the Geneva Convention and Human Rights Watch considers the new weapons excessively cruel. That is important stuff. If what Torrealta is saying is true, then not only are we killing and bombing the people we claim to be saving but we are using them as guinea pigs in advanced weapons experiments.

For me the most appalling part of this was the military animation of the so-called "Active Denial System," a truck mounted system that broadcasted a gamma-ray-based wave that is supposed to cause intense pain without harming the body. A computer animation sequence shows a city street full of protesters holding signs, at which point the Humvee pulls up with its giant reflecting plate and beams a pain ray into the crowd.

You can watch the RAI video here. Just don't watch it after you've eaten.

James