The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there’s no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they’re on fire.

OK, OK. Maybe that isn’t precisely the logic being employed by those segments of the American military who would like to deploy the Active Denial System to Afghanistan. I’m sure they’re telling themselves
that the generally non-lethal microwave weapon is a better, safer crowd
control alternative than an M-16. But those ray-gun advocates better
think long and hard about the Taliban’s propaganda bonanza when news
leaks of the Americans zapping Afghans until
they feel roasted alive.

Because, apparently, the Active Denial System is “in Afghanistan for testing.”

An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory are just two of the people telling Danger Room co-founder Sharon
Weinberger that the vehicle-mounted “block 2″ version of the pain
ray is in the warzone, but hasn’t been used in combat.

[Update: "We are currently not testing the Active Denial System in Afghanistan," Kelley Hughes, spokesperson for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, tells Danger Room.

So I ask her: Has it been tested previously? She hems and haws. "I'm not gonna get into operational," Hughes answers.

Hughes also disputes the assertion that Active Denial creates a burning feeling. "It's an intolerable heating sensation," she says. "Like opening up an oven door."]

For years, the military insisted that the Active Denial System — known as the “Holy Grail” of crowd control — was oh-so-close to battlefield deployment.
But a host of technical
issues hampered the ray gun: everything from overheating
to poor performance in the rain. Safety concerns lingered; a test
subject had to be airlifted to a burn center after being zapped by the
weapon. (He eventually made a full recovery.) And then there were
concerns about “the atmospherics” — how the
locals might react — when they learned that the United States had
turned a people-roaster on ‘em. “Not
politically tenable,” the Defense Science Board concluded.

I pinged Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s staff about the use of Active Denial in Afghanistan. I’ll let you know if I hear anything back. But a few months ago, a source told me that a representative from the Joint
Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate was in Afghanistan. Did that mean Active
Denial was about to be put into action? Nope, the source said. “She’s
just out getting some atmospherics on the use of non-lethals.”

Update 2: “The active denial system is in the country,” e-mails
Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for Gen. McChrystal. “However, it
has not been used operationally and no decision has been made at this
time to deploy it.”

Photo: JNLWD

See Also:

• Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows ‘Potential for Death …
• Pain Beam to Get Tougher, Smaller, More Powerful
• Pain Ray Test Subjects Exposed to ‘Unconscionable Risks’
• Video: Pain Ray Fries Reporter
• Pain Ray Heading for LA Streets?
• Pain Ray ‘Six Months’ from Iraq. Again.
• Pain Beam Staying Put; No ‘Need’ in Iraq
• ‘Ray Gun’ a Lethal Weapon, Says Former OSI Agent
• Iraq WMD Evangelist’s New Crusade: Secret Ray Guns