An inclusive U.S. military wants you, and it has adopted a big tent recruitment policy to prove it. It no longer matters whether you’re pro-war, anti-war or just indifferent. Uncle Sam has got a spot waiting for you.
If you want to “be all you can be” with a machine gun and embark on an indefinite tour of duty in Iraq, no problem. A recruiter is standing by.
If you’re feeling left out because you opposed invading a country with weapons of the administration’s imagination, fear not. The military has a place for you too, as a guinea pig, or to put it more precisely, as a guinea pig in a microwave oven.
Today’s more compassionate military is in the process of developing a new tool for crowd dispersal called the Actaive Denial System (ADS). According to the New Scientist, the ADS works by focusing a 95-gigahertz microwave beam on its victims.
While proponents claim this innovative weapon inflicts no real physical damage, the broiling effect is purported to cause excruciating pain after about five seconds of exposure, forcing those targeted to reflexively vacate the area.
Leery of testing this device overseas, U.S. military developers have devised a brilliant plan that will ultimately ‘kill two birds’ with a single laser beam.
What’s the plan you ask? Test the new weapon on American citizens first. Not random civilians mind you, just the ones waving the protest signs.
“If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” Air Force secretary Michael Wynne said while discussing the use of ABS.
Wynne’s heartfelt rationalization continued, “If I hit somebody with a non-lethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”
Apparently Wynn is unconcerned about our own neutered American press, as testing in the U.S. has already begun.
The Air Force has been working diligently to perfect the Active Denial (of free speech) System and recently ran trials with military personnel playing the part of placard-waving protestors.
Those recruits were ordered to remove all metal items as well as contact lenses prior to the test. Some still suffered burns.
No word yet on whether the military plans to install adjustable settings for zapping protestors with loose change, zippers or belly button rings. Perhaps those protestors can be targeted with a giant electromagnet instead.
Either way, the paradox of a freedom-loving democracy investing in high-tech gadgets to stifle dissent proves beyond a doubt that irony was not lost with the passing of Shakespeare.

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