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ers -- the dream of creating a real-life Captain America, that weakling-turned-Axis-smashing-super-patriot by way of "super soldier serum."
Just Say "No" to No Doze, but "Yes" to Endless Combat
The U.S. military has long plied its fighting men with uppers. In Vietnam, medics sated soldiers' need for speed by doling out government-issue amphetamines. In 2002, U.S. pilots under the influence of Air Force "go-pills" (which Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Jennifer Ferrau calls a "fatigue management tool") killed four Canadian soldiers and injured eight others when they dropped a laser-guided bomb on a Canadian military training exercise in Afghanistan. Today, DARPA's Continuous Assisted Performance (CAP) program is aimed at creating a 24-7 trooper by "investigating ways to prevent fatigue and enable soldiers to stay awake, alert, and effective for up to seven days straight without suffering any deleterious mental or physical effects and without using any of the current generation of stimulants."
This is your brain on DARPA… any questions?
DARPA researchers are also at work on the "Brain Machine Interface" ("neuromics") project, designed as a mind/machine interface, allowing mechanical devices to be controlled via thought-power. Thus far, researchers have taught a monkey to move a computer mouse and a telerobotic arm simply by thinking about it. With arrays of up to 96 electrodes implanted in their brains, the animals are able to reach for food with a robotic arm. Researchers even transmitted the signals over the internet, allowing remote control of an robotic arm 600 miles away. In the future they hope to develop a "non-invasive interface" for human use. Says DARPA, "The long-term Defense implications of finding ways to turn thoughts into acts, if it can be developed, are enormous: imagine U.S. warfighters that only need use the power of their thoughts to do things at great distances." For years, the U.S. military has been improving its ability to reach out and kill someone. What's the mantra of the future? Maybe, if you think it, they will die.
Life (and Death) Sciences
Leonard J. Buckley, a program manager in materials chemistry at DARPA's Defense Science Office, has said, in regard to insect-inspired optics research, "Inspiration from nature… will allow more life-like qualities in the system." And, says DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker, "We're interested in investigating biological organisms because they have evolved over many, many years to be particularly good at surviving in the environment. …and we hope to learn from some of those strategies that Mother Nature has developed."
Poor Mother Nature! What hope has she when faced with an over $400 billion dollar defense budget. What can she do when the most powerful impetus for free-thinking scientists to consider her is in the urge to weaponize her offspring. Under DARPA, the life sciences have become a fertile area to further the science of death and destruction in an effort, in the words of the DARPA Defense Sciences Office, to overcome the "Frailties of Life" to achieve "Super Physiological Performance." How wonderfully Nietzschean!
Such is the state of government-sponsored innovation in our land. If you're a researcher in crucial fields and want the time, funding, and latitude to be creative, your work must benefit the Pentagon in its race to make sure that the next Saddam can be, in the words of Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, "caught like a rat" by Capt. Ben Willard of the Army's rat patrol.
Other than finding new ways of circumventing international law (e.g. bypassing violations of national airspace with space-launched weapons) which the U.S. already does quite well with current technology or the mountain climber's mantra "because its there," it's hard to fathom why the government is still locked in a Cold War-style arms race in a single hyperpower world. The only explanation available lies in the driving will of the ever-expanding military-industrial complex, first named by President Eisenhower back in 1961. This would certainly help explain why we have no educational or environmental DARPAs. For today's researchers, DARPA is, both intellectually and financially, a fabulous and alluring gravy train, the only agency that puts real money into and rewards creative and maverick thinking. The freedom to dream and create, DARPA's mandate, is seductive and exceptional and, as such, so dangerous that we have to ask ourselves whether war-making isn't now America's most advanced product.
Have a hankering to check out some websites dealing with the birds and the bees? Well, those are easy enough to find on your own. I'm talking about the birds and the bees, DARPA-style! If you think you're wild enough to see the Hummingbird Warrior, click here! Want to know just who is drafting bees into military service (and "exploit[ing] the capabilities of biological systems")? Then click here. Does the mere mention of a "hybrid brain-machine interface" leave you wanting to move robotic arms toward the refrigerator? Read up on it by clicking here. Or do you think the weaponization of the wild kingdom is just plain batty? If so, click here and scroll down to "Bat Bomb--Project X-Ray" where you can view of photo of that bats' handiwork --a flaming army barracks-- sure to inspire a Fox special, titled: "When Animals Attack the U.S. Military!"
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