Although it's hard to believe this is actually a real news story. Which can be found here www.bbbc/news.co/uk

US military pondered love not war

The unconventional proposals were made by the US Air Force
The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.

Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath.

The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.

The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but they were never pursued.

The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals".

The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of Information by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and biological weapons.

'Who? Me?'

The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.

Scientists also reportedly considered a "sting me/attack me" chemical weapon to attract swarms of enraged wsps or angry rats towards enemy troops.

A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight was also pondered.

Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to blend in with civilians.

In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a "Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.

Indeed, a "Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.

However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis".

Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said the defence department receives "literally hundreds" of project ideas, but that "none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed".

He told the BBC: "It's important to point out that only those proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered fordevelopment or acquisition."

I'm not buying this yet.

I realize the govt.--and especially the military--works on some underhanded shit that would never go over publicly, and I know that even though we take such a public stance against biological and chemical agents that we would be just as willing to use them in some form against some brown people.

But, this doesn't add up. Supposedly this is making the rounds thanks to New Scientist, and the Sunshine Project originally scooped the documents and threw them online. Thing is, they seem to be taken out of context at best, which makes it more difficult to confirm that the documents are true. You would think that if their really were such plans, there would be more than 3 pages of notes.

Halitosis wouldn't make enemy soldiers that easy to spot. Even dragon breath to the 10th degree would require you to be 5-10 feet away, which is pretty dangerous for soldiers.

Oh yeah, and the Weekly World News ran an oddly similar story in August 2004.

Not picking on you, Darrin, but I've been hearing waaay too much of this on the radio, internets, etc. lately, and it just doesn't make sense. Especially since I believe that homosexuality certainly appears to be a genetic trait, in which case I doubt such a thing would work.

Which brings up another interesting question [while I ramble]: If the govt. did undertake such a project and subsequently scrapped it after finding it wouldn't work, wouldn't it make sense to stop banning homosexuals from the ranks?

Why would that make sense? and they don't ban homosexuals anymore. I see homosexuals in uniform on the base everyday. Everyone knows they're gay. It's called don't ask don't tell.

Some pretty creative ideas there. I think fondly of "The Nude Bomb" - the Maxwell Smart movie spin-off. I'm surprised that is not on the list. I mean, there you are ready to charge into ememy territory, and WHAMO suddenly your platoon is totally nekkid. That would mess with my head!

Well, if you can't tell, then that's not exactly open in my opinion. Sure, it's not technically a ban, but sexuality really shouldn't be an issue in this arena.

What I was getting at is that heterosexuals don't just turn homosexual, even when bombarded with pheremones or some other biological agent. Therefore, I doubt allowing homosexuals to serve wouldn't really queer up the army or turn the barracks into some sort of shrimping party. Given the percentage of homosexuals in the general population, I would doubt you would find a large percentage of homosexuals in the service.

Then again, I'm not in the military nor do I wish to be. Not my bag. I do have a problem with something that uses a huge amount of tax dollars for the public good to be discriminatory.

I thought this thread was going to be about OPA! telling his parents.

BBBC? What's the extra B for? BYOBB?