A few years ago, there were some news stories about a ridiculous U.S. military report from 1994 which encouraged developing "Harassing, Annoying and 'Bad Guy'-Identifying" chemical weapons. These could have included everything from making the enemy a natural target for bees, to a chemical causing "severe and lasting halitosis", to, yes, a fart bomb (eventually dismissed because "people in many areas of the world do not find 'fecal odor' to be offensive.").
Berkeley watchdog group The Sunshine Project recently re-ignited the flames over one of the silliest ideas: an aphrodisiac bomb. Basically, this would involve developing a chemical to drop on enemy soldiers so that they would find each other sexually irresistible. The request for seven million dollars to research this was denied, with the final report calling the whole idea "distasteful".
The watchdog group tagged it as a "gay bomb" - which is of course how the military thought it might be most useful, and is also a stupid enough buzz phrase for the local news to jump on, igniting about a bajillion blog posts and "news of the weird" articles. But really, this would have been more of a loooove bomb, or, erm, maybe more like a rape bomb. Either way, sexuality wouldn't have to play into it. One could easily imagine it affecting everyone: male and female soldiers, civilians, grandparents, maybe even pets.
So, old news, sort of. But it did lead me down this path: Say this had been developed. And what if, say, some militant group got their hands on one and were threatening to expose innocent people to overactive hormones. This could either be the plot to a whole new chapter in the Porky's franchise, or the best season of 24 ever.
PS - Why is no one making fun of the fact that the military actually uses the phrase "Bad Guy-Indentifying"?
Practically speaking, a horny bomb is quite within the realm of current technology. A mixture of DMSO and viagra would probably work quite well. I'm not sure that giving enemy soldiers woodies would really impede their ability to kill; in fact it would merely add an extra dimension of unpleasantness to the whole proceedings. The idea that they would use their new found guns on each other is something only the military mind could imagine. I think it gives us some insight into the nature of the establishment in general...
OTOH, the spec did call for "annoying" weapons and this would definitely be that. Of more interest to me is just what sort of tactical advantage was envisioned from this class of weapons.
Posted by: K | June 16, 2007 at 07:32 PM
The widespread use of "bad guys" among military and police personnel is possibly the very dumbest of the current dumbing-down propaganda practices, and it has gone unchallenged by every media toady in the presence of the men in these interviews.
But yeah, the idea that they thought you could make a chemical that would identify their "badness" makes you really start to understand why they would also expect a gay bomb to work: a basic lack of understanding of what human beings are.
Posted by: Vic Perry | June 18, 2007 at 03:46 PM
The horny bomb idea recalls Cronenberg's Shivers / They Came From Within (1975), but the vector was parasitic rather than chemical...
Posted by: Emile | June 19, 2007 at 08:09 AM