Offline Illumination
Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-First Century Warfare by Colonel John B. Alexander, US Army (Retired) (1999, St. Martin's Press, 254 pp.. $24.95)
Colonel John Alexander never met a war he didn't like.
As an unofficial spokesman for the Military-Industrial Complex, Alexander has written a book called Future War in which he continues to ply his trade -- promoting war -- and most importantly advocating those all-important expendables called "weapons systems."
The oxymoronic "non-lethal weapons" which Alexander touts are anything but. They include exotic systems like electromagnetic weapons, chemical and biological warfare, so-called physical restraints like goop guns, etc., acoustic weapons, as well as information warfare technologies, which include good old-fashioned military propaganda -- like his book itself.
Without questioning the wrong-headed abstruse US Government policies of war-making, he includes a brief history of War's Greatest Hits in a chapter called "Are We the World's Police Force?"
Alexander's answer is an unequivocal yes. These include -- Restore Hope: Somalia; United Shield: Somalia Round II; Uphold Democracy: Haiti; Bosnia; The Idaho Rebellion (just kidding).
In a chapter called "Information Warfare," Alexander sounds the alarm about -- you guessed -it -- the "dangers of the Internet." You see, those nasty hackers, crackers and phrackers are out to get the Information Infrastructure.
How do we know? Alexander says so. "It is predicted that anti-hacker software sales will increase from $1.1 billion in 1995 to greater than $16 billion in 2000," he writes. "The President's Committee of Critical Infrastructure Protection noted the increased likelihood of computer terrorism and recommended that research and development, now $250 million annually, should be increased $100 million per year until $12 billion is provided on a yearly basis."
No matter what the "security" problem, all we need to do is spend more taxpayer dollars on the Military-Industrial Complex.
Virtually disregarded in this book is Alexander's spooky background as a Psy0ps (or psychological operations) expert, as well as a psychic warfare- mind control operative.
According to Alex Constantine, author of Virtual Government (Feral House, 1997), Colonel John Alexander has displayed a long term interest in the paranormal and "has actively promoted psychic metal bending among government personnel using the techniques pioneered by Jack Houck of McDonnell-Douglas."
Before his "retirement," Alexander had a 32-year career in the Army, including a stint as director of Advanced Systems Concepts Office, US Army Laboratory Command Alexander was also chief of the Advanced Human Technology Office & Security Command (INSCOM) and ran the "non-lethal" weapons lab at Los Alamos in New Mexico.
Alexander allegedly also has a doctor's degree in thanatology, the science of death.
British reporter Armen Victorian concludes that John B. Alexander is an active operative assigned to a covert military group "specializing in dissemination of disinformation," collectively known as the "Aviary." In a recent interview, David Morehouse, author of Psychic Warrior, (St. Martin's Press, 1996) reports that "Alexander was a Special Forces officer in Vietnam who commanded a Montagnard battalion. Others say he was a member of the Phoenix Project [the notorious CIA assassination program]. When he came out, he worked with the intelligence community and he never left."
Later Alexander led a CIA harassment campaign against Morehouse. Alexander, the "retired" colonel working for the CIA, Jim Schnabel and Joe McMoneagle were all actively involved in spreading disinformation Campaign against him on the Internet, says Morehouse.
And why was Morehouse harassed? Morehouse was a whistleblower who wrote a book called Non Lethal Weapons: War Without Death (1996, Greenwood Publishing) with a politically incorrect perspective. "Conventional weaponry is designed to kill. The new hybrid conventional weaponry is designed to maim. Non-lethal weaponry, by this definition, must be anti-materiel and not anti-personnel," said Morehouse in a recorded interview.
"My book takes a very philosophical approach to the concept of non- lethality," Morehouse continues. "It talks about what conventional weapons have done in this century. They've taken the lives of 170 million innocent human beings' lives -- doctors, lawyers, professors, housewives, children -- not warriors. 80 million of them were summarily executed for their refusal to participate, and that number continues to grow exponentially"
"The nature of man will never change and therefore the nature of war will never change," says Morehouse. "Only the way in which wars are fought will change. All the so-called Star Wars technology, the electromagnetic pulse weapons, are lethal high-tech conventional weaponry. That's all it is. The 900 billion dollar a year Military-Industrial Complex -- these greedy war mongers -- who build and market weapons to third world countries, don't want it."
"War is pure commerce and economics," says Morehouse. "You can't expect those who are in the business of building weapons of mass destruction to entertain notions of retooling the industry to build weapons on the opposite end of the spectrum. It's too cheap. Plus if you start saving lives and killing equipment, then you force diplomacy to take its rightful place as the tool of conflict resolution in the new millennium. So you start to screw up this perpetual market of death and destruction."
"Another IW [information warfare] subject that has long been hidden from view is 'perception management,'" writes, Alexander. "While everyone knew that perceptions played a major role in shaping the outcome of conflict, the very topic was taboo. It smacked too much of manipulating people in ways that evoked questionable legal issues -- issues no one wanted to address."
The subtext of Alexander's tortured bureaucratic jargon is that even discussing Psy0ps -- psychological-operations aimed at US citizens -- is still verboten.
Very tellingly, however, Alexander concludes that "in the amorphous gray areas between peace and conflict, there is an opportunity to apply non- lethal force selectively to prevent escalation of conflict."
"Information warfare is an ideal tool for sending a very strong message to potential adversaries. That message is that we have the capability, intent, and will to use force -- Accede to our demands!"
When the "potential adversaries" are your fellow American citizens, "Accede to our demands!" reveals a sinister message from the spooky colonel.
"Another category of concern is against whom non-lethal weapons might be employed," writes Alexander with his characteristically blithe understatement.
"Paranoia is running rampant in the United States. We have addressed the militia movements and surprising widespread support that conspiracy theories receive."
"Distrust of the government by not thousands but tens of millions of US citizens is confirmed in public opinion surveys," he continues. "The skepticism and controversy has been fueled by recent revelations that the US government has routinely lied to the people about such varied topics as human radiation experiments, withholding treatment in the Tuskegee prison syphilis experiments, the oppressive actions of the Internal Revenue Service, the amount and geographic area covered by fallout from nuclear testing, and even UFO sightings."
"Many of these conspiracy theory adherents believe that the government -- or some other supranational organization -- is attempting to take freedom away from the citizens. Some of them see non-lethal weapons as tools to facilitate those objectives. They believe that these weapons could be used to enslave them for some unstated nefarious purpose." Don't worry, says Alexander reassuringly, everything's under control. You just don't know how much.
"The fallacy of this logic should be readily apparent," he continues. "Sufficient force already exists to accomplish this task. Therefore no new non-lethal weapons would be necessary."
If you suspect that Alexander is at least disingenuous, take a look at a video which documents high-tech electromagnetic weapons. Exotic Weapons of Mass Control by Bob Fletcher is a two-video tape report with live footage on laser, hypersonic, vortex, and microwave technology weapons -- the next generation of spooky killing devices. ($34.95; Available from World News Insight, 675 Fairview Dr., #246, Carson City, Nevada 89701, 800-729-4131.)
Fletcher goes into great detail about the so-called non-lethal weapons which have been developed by the New World Orderlies with your mind in mind.
Another excellent introduction to the subject is information security analyst Winn Schwartau's classic book Information Warfare (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1996), which also contains a great resource list of online information as well as hard copy titles.
And finally another really useful book is The Professional Paranoid: How To Fight Back When Investigated, Stalked, Harassed, or Targeted by Any Agency, Organization, or Individual by H. Michael Sweeney (1999, Feral House,197pp., $12.95, http: wwwferalhouse.com)
As the late William S. Burroughs Jr. used to say, "Paranoia is just knowing all the facts."
Sweeney says that the purpose of his book is "to help the inexperienced to deal with forces intent on the invasion of your privacy, regardless of whether it's the FBL CIA, IRS, or just some idiot bent on causing you trouble."
"The final argument against non-lethal weapons as a military option has been addressed throughout the entire book," Alexander continues whining. "That position is that the United States should not engage in peace support operations."
As a Grand Master of Psy-Ops, Alexander really dwells in the art of Orwellian double-speak. 'Peace support" is war, and war, of course, is "peace support."
"I believe that point is moot," he continues. "As earlier stated in this book, we have been involved in peace support operations, we are involved in peace support operations, and we will be involved in peace support operations."
So there. You can almost see him sticking out his tongue at you. In other words, Future War by John Alexander is Psy0ps at its finest -- confusion, obfuscation, and disinformation in calculated and measured doses.
Alexander doesn't even provide a resource list of manufacturers, Addresses and phone numbers, where citizen-civilians can get the best "non-lethal" electromagnetic weapons money can buy. For that information, try Top Secret Consumertronics, P 0. Box 23097, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87192,505-237-2073, http:/ /wwwtsc- global.com).
As author William Gibson has aptly observed, the street finds its own uses for high-tech inventions. The Van Eck System, remote eavesdropping on computer and TV CRT signals, radionics gear to repel electromagnetic energy attacks, and other handy self-defense devices are all described in detail.
And what's the point of the old thanatologist's book? Alexander's Future War is just another ruse by another Doctor of Death. While civilians get disarmed with more onerous gun control laws, the Military- Industrial Complex gets more funding for so-called "non-lethal weapons."
Uri Dowbenko is CEO of New Improved Entertainment Corp. He can be reached by e-mail at u.dowbenko@mailcity.com
Previous Offline Illumination