Targeting the pain business
The Guardian/Guardian Unlimited Technology (Großbritannien)
October 5, 2006
US-based Raytheon is marketing microwave weapon systems that 'fill the gap between shout and shoot'. But who will use them and why, ask Steve Wright and Charles Arthur
[
technology.guardian.co.uk]
Auszüge:
What is clear is that this weapon ushers in a new era of paralysing weapons for urban warfare and, potentially, a techno-politics of border exclusion and crowd control. Raytheon insists that although pain is produced instantaneously, it will cause no damage, apparently on the assumption that targets will move away at once...
UN special rapporteur on torture Theo van Boeven warns of a generation of "non-lethal weapons" that he describes as "including devices which employ high-decibel sounds and microwaves ... these technologies have the potential to be used for torture and ill treatment if abused".
In Britain, the Threshold Group has been set up at Leeds Metropolitan University, with experts on sub-lethal and unconventional weapons, to monitor and challenge unconventional military technologies. The group is worried these weapons will come to redefine existing standards of cruelty and democracy and undermine legal arrangements, and that existing oversight controls and international humanitarian law is not yet developed enough to adapt...
Just because a technology sounds futuristic doesn't mean it won't be used.
1 mal bearbeitet. Zuletzt am 06.10.2006 01:14 von Dr. Munzert.
