TECHNOIR (19 page)

            One of the witnesses to the aftermaths is a prominent violinist of Baghdad’s orchestra. The others are the mentioned Iraqi doctors who worked on the dead and injured of this apparent strange combat aftermath. The violinist claimed a large van with several civilian passengers was heat-warped into a "wet rag." He added that other vehicles with civilians were also targeted. He said he saw victims with their faces melted off, but their bodies were untouched. He said in some cases the dead were hastily buried by US troops, but the bodies were later unearthed and taken away into the ink-stained night. The Iraqi doctors claim that during the same week the violinist discovered the melted van, about twenty-plus dead civilians were brought to their morgue with a confusing array of brutal injuries. Types of wounds they were not familiar with. Mysteriously, there was no sign of bullet or artillery wounds, they said.

            These witnesses and their stories were first reported in detail by two respected Italian journalists, Maurizio Torrealta and Sigfrido Ranucci. They work for RAI Television, one of three major broadcasting channels serving Italy. The channel is owned by the government and controlled by the Italian parliament. Thus RAI is considered state-run news, and probably close to what PBS has to offer. Not surprisingly, the channel’s share of the Italian audience is nearly half the nation.

            Torrealta and Ranucci's half-hour video is titled after America’s biggest symbol of science fiction:
Star Wars in Iraq
. A video whose production and professionalism rivals that of any US-based effort, such as a story by NBC’s
Dateline
. The two journalists also traveled the world to get the story, speaking with experts like retired US Colonel John B. Alexander, a former program director at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory – a place widely believed to house a significant percentage of the US military's secret "black" laser research. Interestingly, Colonel Alexander told the pair, "The research and certainly the concepts for direct-energy weapons go back many decades. What is happening is that the technology has now advanced sufficiently that we’re starting to see the weapons come into fruition. In other words, they’re becoming real."

            The two journalists also dug up statements made at the onset of the invasion by then-Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld during a press conference. The footage shows an American journalist asking Rumy specifically about "directed energy and high-powered microwave technology," and the reporter added, "When do you envision that you can weaponize that type of technology?"

            Rumsfeld, who undoubtedly had, and still has, millions of dollars worth of stock invested in the company’s developing lasers for the US military, seemed to lose his cool a bit. Stumbling over the first part of his answer, then steadying himself:

            "In the normal order of things, when you invest in research and development and begin a developmental project, you don't have any intention or expectations that one would use it," he said, as American troops closed in on Baghdad. "On the other hand, the real world intervenes from time to time, and you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it. So the – your question’s not answerable. It is – it depends on what happens in the future and how well things move along the track and whether or not someone feels it’s appropriate to reach into a development stage and see if something might be useful, as was the case with the unmanned aerial vehicles."

            Which prompted the journalist to ask,
"
But you sound like you're willing to experiment with it?"

            Also standing on the podium that day with Rumsfeld was Gen. Richard Myers, who responded or attempted to respond to the question, saying, "Yeah, I think that’s the point. And I think – and it’s – we have, I think, from the beginning of this conflict – I think General Franks has been very open to looking at new things, if there are new things available, and has been willing to put them into the fight, even before they’ve been fully wrung out. And I think that’s – not referring to these particular cases of directed energy or high-powered microwave, but sure. And we will continue to do that."

            Let’s analyze what he had to say. The General stated, "…We have, I think, from the beginning of this conflict – I think General Franks has been very open looking at new things available, if there are new things available, and has been willing to put them into the fight." At first Myers attempts to be half honest by saying, "We have," but then like any PR-whipped General, he qualifies it with "I think." He does it again by saying Franks is "very open," and qualifies it with "if there are new things available," which is safe to say he damn well knows they are.

            According to Dr. Carlo Kopp, a well-known defense expert from Australia, "The next ten years will see the emergence of high energy lasers as an operational capability in US service." He wrote that in
Air Power Australia magazine
in 2006. Two-decades ago, US defense contractors were able to unleash 60 kilowatts (60,000 watts) of power from a Gas Dynamic Laser (GDL) for a few milliseconds. In March of 2009, defense contractor Northrop Grumman and the US military’s Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) project announced they had reached the 100-kilowatt level of laser power with a duration of over 85 minutes.

            The 100-kilowatt threshold is what some experts have called the "holy-grail level" of laser power, or as the Pentagon likes to refer to it, "weapons grade," or capable of shooting down a cruise missile or ICBMs. The military has consistently reached this level with gas-powered or chemically powered lasers, but not solid-state lasers, until Northrop Grumman did it in 2009. Yet the Pentagon may be shifting away from gas-powered or chemically induced lasers because for starters, they’re so damn big and heavy. Take the Air Borne Laser or ABL, the huge Boeing 747-freighter jet turned flying laser cannon being designed and tested by the US Missile Defense Agency.

            The ABL, if it survives the Obama administration, might be capable of taking out boost-phase ICBMs (in the Earth’s atmosphere) by focusing its laser beam on the skin of the missile and simply melting a small hole, causing the missile to disintegrate due to its velocity. The ABL did this first time during a test in
2010 over central California
. The ABL’s laser is the result of a chemical reaction amongst chlorine, hydrogen peroxide and iodine e, which creates an explosion of light. The ABL conducts this chemical reaction at the back of the plane in a set of six modules weighing, with chemicals added, a gut-busting 6,500 pounds each. One module is nearly the size of a Chevy Suburban. The reaction’s burst of light is then funneled down a mirrored tube and shot from a large circular lens that's attached to the front nose cone of the plane. This chemical reaction, however, requires thousands of gallons of the aforementioned liquid mixture, with the ingredients stored separately in the back. Each of the six modules conducts its own chemical reaction, with the light output being combined and sent down the mirrored tube. And finally out the lens-turret at the front of the plane.

            Due to the size of the equipment and the fact you need thousands of gallons of hazardous chemicals nearby, it might be safe to assume that such a laser was not used in the battle for the Baghdad airport or anywhere else. But was a smaller version used? There is the
Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL)
, for instance, a joint project with Israel. The THEL has a mobile counterpart (MTHEL), and between 2000 to 2004, shot down artillery rockets and shells, mortar rounds, and low-flying drones.

            The program’s funding was cut-off in 2006, however. Similar to the ABL, another chemical laser still surviving is the
Advanced Tactical Laser or ATL,
which is loaded onto a C-130 aircraft. In September of 2009, the ATL completed its first air-to-ground engagement with a movable target. It melted a hole in the fender of a moving vehicle, said the US military and Boeing, the ATL’s civilian contractor. Another liquid laser making serious progress is the HELLADS, or the, which is projected by 2012 of having a power level of a 150 kilowatts, but weighing only 1,300 pounds, which according to
Wired
, would make it ten times lighter than other liquid laser systems.

            Like the planet-destroying laser cannon on the Death Star, many of today’s military-researched lasers are actually a chain of lasers that converge into one beam. In reality, this laser chain is found in solid state lasers, which more-than-likely will become the US military’s next-gen laser weapon as researched under the JHPSSL program. Solid state lasers are not bulky, some are as large as refrigerators and can be loaded onto an F-35, for example. Plus they don't need thousands of gallons of chemicals. And considering a laser cannon has never truly been widely-used within the US military, this finally could be the US laser that not only shoots down fighter jets and satellites, but even sinks Naval warships and melts tanks. All without leaving a trace of where it came from. The Zeus laser is invisible, for instance. Gas-powered lasers, however, leave a plume of exhaust smoke.

            Solid state lasers, as the name implies, are not powered by liquid chemicals, but by electricity. An electric current is pumped into a laser diode, or
Light Emitting Diodes
, which can be found in traffic signals, for instance. A laser diode is equipped with a miniature optical resonator, so when electricity is pumped into the diode at a maximum current, it creates an oscillation of light.

            But of all US military laser programs, only one (apparently) has been prominently utilized in Iraq or Afghanistan. According to military sources, Zeus has saved countless lives by blowing up nearly 2,000 IEDs in both wars. It is a solid-state laser, and can eat metal from over 300 meters away. And the Humvee it tops is not your average Army jeep. The back end of the vehicle is equipped with a coolant system; and the laser’s turret is operated from the back seat by joystick.

            So as Majid Al Ghezali, the Baghdad violinist, believes, was Zeus turned loose on Iraqi civilians? Or could it have been another HEL, one that shoots a beam wider than and not as precise as Zeus’s. "We saw the bus like a cloth, like a wet cloth. It seemed like a Volkswagen, a big bus like a Volkswagen," he told the two Italian journalists in halting English. He had no hard evidence, such as photos, but he said, "just the head was burnt. In other parts of the body there was nothing." He said there were anomalies about the terrain surrounding this bus; as if bodies had been buried, dug up, and the empty graves filled with fresh dirt.

            Around this same time, ten Iraqi surgeons also believed they were witness to a strange US weapon that had been turned on Iraqi civilians with cold brutality. "They were 26 in the bus," said Dr. Saad al Falluji, "about 20 of them had no head, the head had been cut, some of them had no arms or no legs." Just the driver had survived, they said. "In the roof of the car there were parts of the body."

            Dr. al Falluji said the injured that could speak did not hear any noise. The injured said there was no explosion. Plus there was no sign of metal fragments, shrapnel or bullets. "We didn’t find bullets in their bodies...We are here 10 surgeons and we couldn’t decide which was the weapon that hit this car."

            "They are trying to do experiments on our civilians. Nobody could identify the type of this weapon," said an unnamed doctor during the documentary.

Staking out GameWorks for a serial killer

           In the nonfiction book turned HBO miniseries
Generation Kill
, one of the younger, greener Marines is infamously heralded as a machine – because he kills without feeling, without question, without hesitation, and last but certainly not least – with uncanny accuracy. In
Generation Kill
, the story of an elite Marine reconnaissance unit as it spearheads the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the older Marines can only wonder how the greenback grunt got this way. He can’t even legally buy a beer, for Christsake, yet after one unforgettable incident, he was able to severely wound an Iraqi child from thousands-of-feet away with a machine gun. The scientist and the expert might offer a complicated answer to why the “baby killer” is so cold blooded. The experts will more than likely cite theories from universities that point to either nurture and nature, or even a combination of both. But the Marines in
Generation Kill
offer a more succinct explanation as to why their younger comrade is so adept at spilling blood so easily and callously from distances where the targets are mere specks.

           “Video games,” mutters one of the senior Marines. “Video games.”

            Without question there is a global consensus among millions that violent video games, like
Grand Theft Auto
or the
Call of Duty
series, have created and are still churning out generations of merciless killers, and in the case of the US, merciless killers ripe for the frontlines. Testimony to how popular and what kind of hold violent games have on the youth and young adults of America were the lines of hundreds waiting outside Walmarts before midnight, November 10
th
, the day
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
was released. A few months later, a Microsoft Xbox commercial boasted that over 20 million gamers were playing
Modern Warfare 2
online via their console alone.