Air Force: 'Overwhelm Enemy Cognitive Abilities' with Bioscience
  a.. By Katie Drummond
  b.. November 4, 2009  |
  c.. 12:06 pm  |
  d.. Categories: Bizarro
The Air Force is looking to harness advances in bio-science so they can
"degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive
abilities." It's all part of a $49 million dollar bio-research effort
unveiled last month by the Air Force Research Lab's "Human Effectiveness
Directorate," and it's the latest in a series of out-there military ideas to
mess with adversaries' heads.

For years, armed forces and intelligence community researchers have toyed
with ways of manipulating minds. During the Cold War, the CIA and the
military allegedly plied the unwitting with acid, weed, and dozens of
psychoactive drugs, in a series of zany (and sometimes dangerous)
mind-control experiments. In the 1970s and 80s, a small group of special
operations soldiers at Ft. Bragg supposedly tried to teach themselves how to
kill with psychic power - the basis for the upcoming movie The Men Who Stare
at Goats. In 1994, one Air Force researcher proposed spraying enemies with
"strong aphrodisiacs [which] caused homosexual behavior." Last year, the
National Research Council and Defense Intelligence Agency pushed for
pharma-based tactics to weaken enemy forces.

This new Air Force project looks to do just that - and boost the cognitive
abilities of U.S. troops at the same time. One component of the research
effort, called Biobehavioral Performance, is looking for military specimens
who are already resistant to physical or mental stressors. By analyzing the
biochemical brain pathways of troops who are cool under pressure, the Air
Force wants an "external stimulant" that can act as a synthetic version of
optimal cognitive stress response and keep airmen operating at top level.

Resisting stress is good, but destroying your enemy with stress is even
better. "Conversely, the chemical pathway area could include methods to
degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive
capabilities," the Air Force call for proposals notes. No further details
are given. Researchers will just have to be creative, if they want to look
for ways to turn military foes insane in the membrane.