Are Dazzlers Dangerous?

There are many valid questions that could (and should) be raised about the fielding of dazzling lasers to troops in Iraq, but it's not clear if there is anything substantial in a Canadian think tank's objections to the devices. The Rideau Institute in Canada is concerned that Canadian military forces may circumvent proper review processes (even though the military there says it isn't using laser dazzlers).

Military companies pitch these weapons as a safe alternative to guns, but in the absence of a testing process, and I stress this, we cannot be sure of their safety nor their compliance with Canada's national and international obligations," Anthony Salloum of the Rideau Institute said Monday at a news conference in Ottawa.

"You only have to look at the current controversy in Canada over the use of Tasers."

Laser dazzlers are intended to be used for crowd control and convoy protection. They work by disrupting the vision of those targeted.

Canada has used deadly force against Afghan civilians who have gotten too close to military convoys. An Afghan civilian died last Thursday in an incident involving a Canadian convoy.

There is an international treaty -- the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, Protocol IV of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons -- that Canada signed in 1995.

Groups like the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch speculate whether "dazzlers" are another way of marketing the banned blinding laser weapons.

I still don't understand the concern. Canada isn't using them and the Pentagon has a review process for dazzling lasers so extensive that it's surprising anything is making it to the field at all. The bigger issue is whether the U.S. military has allowed some lasers -- intended for dazzling -- slip through the review process by classifying them as target designators.

Also:

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