Rejected weapons show Pentagon's silly side
THE MISANTHROPE By ETHAN CHATAGNIER
Though I’ve always had a suspicion that Pentagon files read like
bad science fiction, I never could have imagined this. Recently declassified
documents detailed a list of rejected chemical weapons worthy of even
the worst B-movie plot.
These weapons, designed to pester rather than to kill, would, for example,
attract hoards of angry wasps or rats to enemy locations. Carpet-bombing
with jars of honey, I suppose, was no longer cost effective.
Another agent designed to induce chronic halitosis, or bad breath, had
the potential of spoiling numberless dates for the enemy. That’s
right, folks. Let’s get them out of the trenches and back in front
of the TV with a pint of ice cream.
The one that really takes the cake, though, is the chemical aphrodisiac
designed to make opposing troops feel uncontrollably attracted to each
other. This love potion, similar in structure to a few shots of good whisky,
would supposedly prove its effectiveness by disrupting enemy morale with
homosexual behavior.
This helpless hope of the armed forces to unleash gay drama on surprised
Iraqis really just degrades the institution.
Has the time come when we’ve grown so good at war that we feel the
need to irritate our enemies before we plop the largest army in the world
down on their soil? Did a top level official decide that war just wasn’t
silly enough?
Luckily, these are all failed ideas. Homosexuality as new secret weapon
in the war on terror seems to have fizzled as quickly as the idiotic duct
tape defense of a few years past.
But who knows what other strange weapons Dexter’s laboratory in
the five-sided building has pumped out under top secret cover. We might
have a gun that causes male pattern baldness or erectile dysfunction,
or even a car designed to drive slowly in the fast lane.
If this all seems mighty kooky, it is. From a military that does everything
society will allow it to discourage homosexuality, this could almost be
seen as a bizarre and twisted step forward.
Consider the fear of social conservatives in Congress if the next echo
of anthrax letters is this magical concoction. Death before that kind
of shame, many would say.
Because it’s important, you see, to foist what some find unmentionable
or distasteful upon our enemies.
As soon as we find a way to use Hooters as a weapon, bet your bottom
dollar that we will.
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