CROWD CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES - Omega Research Foundation

humiliation they had suffered in Somalia at the hands of unruly crowds and a ragtag militia during
operation Restore Hope. Despite deploying much superior firepower on the streets of Mogadishu, 18
US soldiers were slaughtered and filmed being slaughtered. In the ensuing battle 300 Somali citizens,
both civilians and guerrillas were also dead - a highly embarrassing debacle which did not restore
hope.
It was thought that weapons which might be able to target guerillas and civilians together might just
do the trick. In 1995, the Pentagon and the US Justice Department signed a secret memorandum of
understanding authorising the Pentagon to receive almost $50 million for additional black box or
secret research programme funding for less-lethal weapon research. 316 There was now a mutual
desire to find a magic bullet that would neutralise the CNN Factor. Whilst the full range of many of
these highly secretive programmes may never be known, some of the projects have been reported as
being associated with particular research laboratories. Eg. Laser research (ARPA, ARDEC, Los
Alamos, Army Communication Electronic Command); Optical munitions (ARDEC/Los Alamos and
Phillips Laboratories); Acoustics (SARA, ARDEC, Los Alamos); Electromagnetic pulse(ARDEC, Los
Alamos, Harry Diamond Laboratory, Eglin Air Force Base); Foam and Slickums (Sandia); Grenade
launched foam (ARDEC, Army Research Laboratory), rubber bullets (ARDEC/ARL). 317
Critics both inside and outside the US government saw many dangers in such unaccountable black
programme funding. It was reported that, )One of the immediate consequences of the excessive
secrecy is a wasteful duplication of effort. Justice Department officials who surveyed some of the black
budget programmes for possible law enforcement applications found the same technologies being
developed in as many as six independent programmes.....The waste results from a lack of independent
oversight of non-lethal programmes, which like other highly classified special access or black
programmes in defence and intelligence - operate beyond the reach of the checks and balances that
US citizens take for granted.( 318 By 1999, the Pentagon benefited even further from this post cold-war
doctrine, with a gold plated spending increase of $110 billion over six years to boost "military
readiness". According to William Hartung, senior research fellow at the US World Policy Institute at The
New School, the total US military budget of $260 billion plus, only makes sense in terms of politics and
economics, rather than any real threat to American security since it is "already twice as large as the
combined budgets of every conceivable U.S adversary, including major powers like China and Russia
and regional rogue states such as Iraq, North Korea and Libya(. 319 For Hartung, the weapon makers
are shaping US foreign and military policy. He might have also added by default, NATO & UN peace
keeping strategies. By 1998, the US had an integrated product team: consisting of the Marines,
Airforce, Special Operations Command, Army, Navy, Joint Staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
Departments of Transportation, Justice and Energy. 320
In October 1999, NATO announced a new policy on non-lethal weapons and their place in allied
arsenals. Officials said that the policys purpose )was two fold, namely to clarify the legal ambiguities
surrounding the use of non-lethal weapons and to broaden the range of combat options for military
commanders, especially for purposes of peacekeeping and peace enforcement(. 321 The NATO doctrine
confirms that:-
+ )The availability of Non-Lethal Weapons shall in no way limit a commanders or individuals
inherent right and obligation to use all necessary means and to take all appropriate action in self
defence.( In other words,
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