Page 119 - Elana Freeland - Under an Ionized Sky
P. 119

What if this graphic of Q-Warrior headgear is really about what’s being done to his brain?

                     Invented in 1985, modern-day magnetic stimulators charge up to a whopping 3,000 volts and produce peak currents of
                     up to 8,000 amps—powers similar to those of a small nuclear reactor. That pulse of current flowing from a capacitor
                     into a hand-held coil creates a magnetic field outside the patient’s head. The field painlessly induces a current inside
                     the brain, affecting the electrical activity that is the basis for all it does. 48


                   Do we want soldiers acting without conscience? What happens when they come home and
               re-enter society?
                   The Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program is Spartan programming. Stress-
               inoculation torture—waterboarding,  stripping,  strapping,  binding,  beating,  anal rape,  firing an
               unloaded gun at one’s covered head, etc.— turns any human being into a killer plagued by PTSD
               flashbacks and nightmares, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, sleep
                                                           49
               apnea, paranoia, suicide and murder ideation.  Stimulants like cocaine and coca leaves, nicotine,
               amphetamines, crystal meth (the Nazis’ favorite), and Modafinil counter fatigue and weakness,
               while propranolol blocks torturous memories.
                   Being a soldier these days is all about being little more than a guinea pig for barrages of
               vaccinations, popping pills, chemical and mental domination by computers and satellites, and
               proximity to ionized and non-ionized radiation. The malaria drug Lariam (mefloquine) produces
               PCP-like states of consciousness that have ended in the murders of Afghan civilians and Fort
               Bragg  wives.  Extreme  panic,  paranoia,  and  rage  with  out-of-body  dissociative  and  dreamlike
               states in which one watches oneself perform violent acts as if it were someone else are among
                                   50
               Lariam  side  effects.   As  Howard  Medical  School  psychiatrist  Roger  Pitman  queries,  “The
               problem  is,  what  else  are  they  blocking  when  they  [administer  Lariam]?  Do  we  want  a
               generation of veterans who return without guilt?” 51
                   Of the 1.2 million men on active duty in 2012, 13,900 were raped, compared with 12,100 of
               203,000 women in uniform—that’s thirty-eight men and thirty-three women per day. Given that
               male survivors of rape report abuse less than female survivors, and all combatants who report
               abuse are systematically punished either by ambush or officer neglect, male rape may be much
               greater, particularly as male rape is often viewed as an initiation rite in cultures of violence. 52
                   Beyond  rape,  there  is  the  increase  in  suicides  and  murder-suicides.  At  Joint  Base  Lewis-
               McChord  (JBLM)  south  of  Seattle,  eleven  “suspicious  deaths”  took  place  in  2011  alone:
               suicides, murders, setting fire to wives after serial deployments, waterboarding of a daughter.
               The Afghan kill team that went on a three-month kill spree against Afghani civilians was from
   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124