These Weapons That Won't Kill, but Will Continue to Frighten
    By J r me Fenoglio and Piotr Smolar
    Le Monde

    Friday 04 February 2006

    Forget about rubber bullets and tear gas. War without deaths (or almost), maintenance of order without weapons that kill, are already being prepared in secret laboratories.

    On the roads, "anti-traction" lubricating jellies would be spread to prevent any vehicle from advancing, any soldier from moving. A suspect who doesn't stop at a roadblock would catch pulsed energy projectiles: a cloud of plasma would unleash a traumatizing flash near the person, a sort of air explosion that won't burn, but disorient for a time. Electronic bullets culminating in the impact of a punch and an electric discharge would also do the trick. Not forgetting acoustic weapons, unbearable infrasound aimed at vehicles, buildings, or reverberating inside skulls.

    Aerosols with disgusting smells would disperse an aggressive crowd immediately. A new type of anti-personnel mine would protect prohibited areas: after signaling to an intruder by setting off a light or sound warning system, they would inflict blasts of electric waves capable of immobilizing him for several seconds. Electromagnetic impulsion weapons would destroy electronic equipment. Bacteria would "eat" asphalt from roads, concrete from buildings, would decompose fuels and explosives. Pulverizations of hyper-corrosive chemical agents would weaken steel.

    Obviously, this theatre of operations of the future can only be described now in the conditional tense. The confidentiality that surrounds these projects, the even clandestine character that conceals certain American "black programs," makes it impossible to distinguish which ones will remain in the state of an unrealizable idea and which will rapidly be put into effect. Pulsed energy machines, still too heavy, are on the point of being tested by the American Army in Iraq.

    These limitless researches demonstrate above all that the attraction of so-called non-lethal weapons is not diminishing. According to the customary definitions, these are conceived to incapacitate personnel and materiel through temporary and reversible effects, while minimizing lethal risk. They naturally interest police, but also the military, which must ever more frequently effect operations for the maintenance of order under the eye of public opinion by minimizing civilian losses. The American Defense Department was convinced of this need after the failure of its pacification attempt in Mogadishu (Somalia) in 1993. The war in Iraq has certainly not changed the state of affairs.

    It is undoubtedly no accident that information - confidential up to now - has filtered out the last few months in specialized journals, as though it were necessary to begin to prepare public opinion for the generalized roll-out of these new weapons. Similar in appearance to an enormous water pistol, a laser gun was presented by the members of the very secret US Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico as the revolutionary prototype of a weapon able to blind the enemy at a distance. Incidentally, the military slipped in that the legal department was to be associated with its development, without mentioning the reason for it: since 1995, blinding weapons capable of inflicting lasting burns on the retina are formally outlawed by a United Nations Convention.

    In fact, most of the devices described in the introduction to this article would fall under international treaties prohibiting chemical or biological weapons. That's the principal worry of adversaries to these non-lethal technologies: to see the growth in research that secretly violates rules presently in effect, risking the launch of a new clandestine arms race. Partisans of the new techniques, for their part, demand an adaptation of the laws to take into account the number of lives that could be spared.

    That innocuousness is not, however, self-evident. The many deaths that occurred in the aftermath of the hostage-taking in the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow in October 2002 demonstrated the dangers of a gas advertised as "incapacitating" by Russian forces. Most specialists today prefer to talk about "less lethal" weapons. "There are variables we cannot control," emphasizes Pierre Delaume, Head of the Center for Logistics Studies under the administration of the [French]police nationale."Each person has a tolerance threshold that varies according to his physical and psychological state."

    These debates have been fed in recent years by the surge in the first weapon of this type to be widely marketed: an electric impulsion gun made by the American firm Taser, which today equips the police of 52 countries, a gun in current use in the United States (the company has just launched a marketing campaign directed at individuals) and currently being tested in France. This device can eject, to a distance of up to 7 meters, two darts that go through clothing. They're connected to the pistol by a wire that delivers an electric shock wave that briefly disconnects the brain from the muscular system, provoking temporary paralysis. The risks linked to bad falls or cardiac reactions, or even deaths, have been reported. "The gun has never killed or seriously wounded anyone," retorts Antoine Di Zazzo of Taser France.

    For their part, the opponents of this new weapon emphasize different risks: that of facilitation of recourse to violence and a banalization of its use. "When we train officials, we insist on one point: don't become dependent on Taser," acknowledges Mr. Di Zazzo. "The devices will be equipped with cameras linked to the command center to avoid abuses." But side-effects have already occurred elsewhere. Four American soldiers were sanctioned in December 2004 for having used Taser guns to torture Iraqi prisoners. Non-lethal weapons can also supply torturers with new methods, all the while masking any trace of their brutality. Will they reduce mortality only to increase pain?

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