 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
The Men Who Stare At Goats
By Jon Ronson
Picador $30.00
 In his first book, Them, focusing on religious and political extremists far outside the mainstream, British journalist Jon Ronson showed a keen eye for the bizarre.
Considering that the cast of his splendidly titled follow-up are former or currently serving US military intelligence officers, it's a disturbing thought that his earlier subjects seem almost normal by comparison.
A month after the events of 9/11, suspecting the US planned to include paranormal tactics in its 'war on terror', Ronson began researching the careers of 'psychic soldiers' such as Gen. Albert Stubblebine III, former chief of army intelligence, who believed it possible to walk through walls (but never managed to do so), and self-proclaimed 'Jedi Warrior' Glenn Wheaton, who revealed the story about the Goat Lab on the Special Forces' top secret Fort Bragg base.
There, select soldiers sought to develop 'the power to stop a goat's heart' (they warmed up with hamsters) by simply staring at the animal for long enough. It was hoped the ploy might work with an enemy.
All roads led to Vietnam vet Lt-Col Jim Channon, who developed the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual that blueprinted a love-oriented battleplan for the US Army. It recommended carrying ginseng regulators and loudspeakers to emit 'indigenous music and words of peace'. Soldiers - 'Warrior Monks' - would enter hostile areas carrying 'symbolic animals' such as baby lambs, greeting the enemy with 'sparkly eyes' and 'an automatic hug'.
Some of the 277-pager reads like a transcript of prisoners' experiences in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. In America's Cuban toehold Muslim convert Jamal al-Harith spoke of beatings and solitary confinement in a cage open to the elements. Later came what we have now learned about - the prostitutes flown in from the US who smeared menstrual blood on the detainees and 'messed about with their genitals.'
Jamal went on to describe how prisoners were subjected to high volume industrial noises. Across the world, in Baghdad, 'psy-ops' teams were blasting Metallica's 'Burn Motherf*@#er Burn!' and the 'Barney the Purple Dinosaur' theme into container loads of Iraqi captives.
The tactic had a precedent in the siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993 when the FBI floodlit the sect's compound and deluged it with such sounds as Tibetan Buddhist chants, dentist drills, dying rabbits and Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots Are Made for Walking'.
Then the troops opened fire from hovering helicopters.
Since 9/11 the gloves have really come off, with cruelty replacing craziness, although not entirely it seems.
- Books reviewed are available at Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore.
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