Tomgram: Nick Turse, Are the Army’s Days of the Future Past?
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: The Nation Institute’s impressive Investigative Fund offered financial support to Nick Turse for the piece that follows — and so, in a far more modest way, did TomDispatch. So, thanks to those of you who have used the "Resist Empire, Support TomDispatch" button at the right of the main screen to contribute to this site. In fact, you’ve given us — for the first time — the opportunity to offer younger writers, those with the least financial backing (and yet often traveling furthest afield) some expense money, which really makes a difference. I only wish I could thank each of you individually when those contributions come in. Unfortunately, I can’t, time being my scarcest commodity. But believe me, I see every contribution and offer a small thank you to heaven each time.]
The Pentagon pours vast sums of money into many things — and it isn’t only what you imagine. It’s not just weapons and equipment, nor even technological and scientific research. Don’t forget, for instance, the military money that goes into conferences to talk about carrying out more technological and scientific research to create more weapons and equipment. Just recently, Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog reported that "[l]ast August, the U.S. Army held a three-day conference in Portsmouth, Virginia, to look at new developments in military science and hardware." And what was it called? The "2008 Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar." Seriously! You can’t claim the Pentagon doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Last month, with the backing of the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund, TomDispatch Associate Editor Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, went to another of the Army’s gatherings — the 26th Army Science Conference. It wasn’t his first military conference. Last fall, for instance, he checked out the military’s "Joint Urban Operations, 2007" conference to find out how the Pentagon was planning on fighting wars in the planet’s cities for the next century. This time around, as you’ll see, he found the Army’s weird science shocking in quite a different way. So settle back, head for Florida with Turse, and confer with the U.S. Army’s mad scientists.
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