Dissenter’s account of the US Human Terrain System from the inside

Having lost his job as a Cultural Resource Management archaeologist working with the Klamath Indians, John Allison posted his cv online and was shortly contacted by the Human Terrain Systems. John had done his doctoral fieldwork in Afghanistan in 1969-70, making him a potential asset for the HTS. He listened to the HTS message that its approach will save Afghan lives and, although skeptical of the claims, decided to join up. Over the several weeks of training, his skepticism grew and, along with another skeptic, he began to raise hard questions in training sessions. He increasingly realized that HTS claims, such as building rapport with local people, were empty rhetoric that could never be achieved in the field.

Throughout several months of training before resigning, Allison corresponded by email with David Price, professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University and a member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists. Price details their interchange in an article in CounterPunch.

John Allison submitted a critique of the HTS upon his resignation, and it is included in Price’s article. The overarching message is that the HTS fundamentally does not address key issues of anthropological ethics, notably the guideline about avoiding any possible harm to people in the field who provide information about themselves and others. Allison stood out from others in his group because his primary goal was to save Afghan lives. The HTS is about saving American soldiers’ lives. Period.

Image: “Afghanistan bazaar,” from flickr user The US Army, licensed with Creative Commons.

Upcoming event at the Elliott School

For those in the D.C. area, The George Washington University Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting are hosting a fascinating event on Monday. Details below:

Afghanistan: The Human Factor

Monday February 22, 2010
1957 E Street NW, Lindner Family Commons (Room 602)

Introductions:
Sean Aday, Director, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, GW

Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Panelists:
Vanessa Gezari, Washington-based writer; forthcoming book assesses the U.S. military’s Human Terrain program, which embeds social scientists and anthropologists with troops in Afghanistan

Jason Motlagh, freelance multimedia journalist; reporting focused on civilian casualties with on-the-scene accounts of the aftermath of coalition attacks in western Afghanistan last summer

Nir Rosen, freelance writer, photographer, and filmmaker; reporting contending the results in Iraq were less than advertised and likely to be worse in Afghanistan

To RSVP, email ipdgc@gwu.edu

Heads up re: U.S. Human Terrain program

Despite the American Anthropological Association’s condemnation of the Human Terrain program, in which anthropologists have been recruited to assist with counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon wants to expand the program. Congress is currently considering the Pentagon’s request for increased funding for the program.

Please join us in expressing our firm opposition to this abuse of anthropology by agreeing to add your signature to the “Anthropologists’ Statement on the Human Terrain System Program.” Modeled after a well-publicized 2008 statement written by economists to oppose the Bush administration’s first TARP program, this statement aims to clearly and concisely state the factual grounds for our opposition.

We want to collect the signatures of as many professional anthropologists as possible before Congress takes up the issue in a hearing scheduled for as early as February. To add your name to the statement, please email your name, title and affiliation to nohumanterrain@gmail.com. Please forward this appeal widely.

You can access the AAA Commission’s report on the Human Terrain Program (PDF) here.

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists Steering Committee: Catherine Besteman, Andrew Bickford, Greg Feldman, Gustaaf Houtman, Roberto Gonzalez, Hugh Gusterson, Jean Jackson, Kanhong Lin, Catherine Lutz, David Price and David Vine

Image: “Human Terrain Team Anthropologist Alex Metz: A native of the Pacific Northwest, social scientist Alec Metz is part of the Human Terrain Team that advises the ADT on Afghan tribal culture and interactions,” creative commons licensed Flickr content by user wfiupublicradio.

Anthro in the news 1/11/10

• Tell it to the Marines
NPR aired an interview with cultural anthropologist Paula Holmes-Eber who teaches “operational culture” at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. Classes include discussion of cultural sensitivity and the cultural/social consequences of military presence and military actions, such as blowing up a bridge.

• Nacirema craziness goes global
In an article called “The Americanization of Mental Illness” in The New York Times Magazine, Ethan Watters (blog) describes how Western, especially American, globalization includes the spread of Western/American understandings of mental health and illness. He points to some of the negative consequences of this trend.

In discussing why people diagnosed with schizophrenia in developing countries fare better than those in industrialized countries, he draws on the work of medical anthropologist Juli McGruder of the University of Puget Sound. McGruder’s research in Zanzibar shows how Swahili spiritual beliefs and healing practices help the ill person by avoiding stigma and keeping social and family ties intact. Note: Nacirema is “American” spelled backwards.

• Guardians of the nameless dead
The bodies of hundreds of victims of political violence in Colombia are often disposed of by being thrown into rivers. Sometimes the bodies wash up on the river bank. WIS News describes the work of one local civil servant, Maria Ines Mejia, who spends time recovering bodies from the Cauca River and thereby helping authorities record the deaths and chronicle the killings.

Maria Victoria Uribe, an anthropologist with Colombia’s National Commission of Reconciliation and Reparation, names people like Mejia as “unknown heroes.” Michelle Hamilton, an expert in body composition who directs the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, notes that “…you can imagine trying to grab onto a water-logged body with the skin slipping off. It can come off in your hands.”

• Celebration and warning
Survival International’s “weighty coffee-table book,” We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, is reviewed in the Ecologist. The unity and diversity of indigenous peoples around the world is celebrated in beautiful photographs and through the words of tribal and non-tribal people. Given that Survival International commissioned the book, it also expectedly contains a message of deep concern about the dangers to survival that so many indigenous/tribal cultures face.

• Who rules?
Janine Wedel is a cultural anthropologist and professor of public policy at George Mason University. Her book, The Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market, was reviewed in the Financial Times and by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. Wedel has appeared at several book launches in D.C.
Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/11/10” →

Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual book event December 13

Come join members of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists Steering Committee as they discuss their new book The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society next Sunday at the Shirlington Library, with a signing to follow at Busboys and Poets Cafe down the street. Please help spread the word. The event is free and open to all.

The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society
with Hugh Gusterson, Andrew Bickford, and David Vine

Sunday, December 13, 3:00 p.m.
Shirlington Library
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, VA 22206
(703) 228-6545

Book signing and conversation to follow at Busboys and Poets–Shirlington
4251 South Campbell Ave
Arlington, VA 22206
(703) 379-9757

At a moment when the U.S. military decided it needed cultural expertise as much as smart bombs to prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual offered a blueprint for mobilizing anthropologists for war. The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual critiques that strategy and offers a blueprint for resistance. Written by the founders of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, the Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual explores the ethical and intellectual conflicts of the Pentagon’s Human Terrain Team program; argues that there are flaws in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual (ranging from plagiarism to a misunderstanding of anthropology); probes the increasing militarization of academic knowledge since World War II; suggests strategies for resisting the deformation of anthropological knowledge; and proposes alternative visions for U.S. foreign policy. This is compulsory reading for anyone concerned that the human sciences are losing their way in an age of empire. Book discussion will take place at the Shirlington Library followed by a signing at Busboys and Poets.

Tramp down Babylon

by Barbara Miller

Babylon has had its ups and downs over many hundreds of years. It is currently in a down phase thanks to the US war and occupation.

Located on the Euphrates River, about an hour’s drive south of Baghdad, it was the world’s largest city at its height with a population of over 200,000. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Sacked and rebuilt and sacked again over the centuries, Babylon is now a sad monument to the power of global politics.

The most significant remains of Babylon’s glory are not in Babylon. The Pergamon Museum in Berlin, for example, houses the famous Ishtar Gate, thanks to the European colonialist hunger for Near Eastern treasures during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and, specifically, the excavations (and extractions) carried out by archaeologist Robert Koldewey.

What is left of Babylon itself? Not much above ground: a tell (mound) and some buildings that were “reconstructed” under Saddam Hussein. After Saddam, came the US occupation.

In 2003, the US army established “Camp Alpha” on top of the remains of the ancient city. According to a CNN.com/world report, a US military spokesperson said that occupation of the site was meant to protect it from looting. A recent United Nations report documents, to the contrary, that the US occupation caused major damage to Babylon.

The United States is supposed to pay $800,000 to repair damages from its occupation of the site. $800,000? Shameful.

No one could argue that Babylon, throughout its history, was a humanitarian state. Social inequality was extreme with slaves building the impressive monuments of early times, leaders were ruthless, heads rolled. On a brighter note, however, the first king of the Babylonian empire, Hammurabi (c 1728-1686 BCE) compiled one of the first written legal compendiums: the Code of Hammurabi.

While images of Hammurabi are found throughout the Western world as a tribute to his contribution, his home is in ruins.

One question: Why did the US military treat Babylon, and many other important sites in Iraq, so disrespectfully? Possible answer: the US military presence in Iraq under Bush had no respect for or interest in any aspect of cultural heritage in the Middle East that is not Christian. Nonetheless, according to a recent New York Times article, the ancient city of Ur was protected from the ravages of war and looting because an airbase was built around it.

A second question: Why is Babylon, along with so many important sites in present-day Iraq, not listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site which would provide some protection? UNESCO has recognized only three World Heritage Sites in Iraq putting it in league with Armenia, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Turkmenistan, and Uganda. Given its importance in human history, Iraq should be peppered with World Heritage Sites, more along the lines of Italy and Spain, both with more than 40 sites.

Babylon deserves much more than a paltry $800,000 from the US. And I don’t mean just the US government. US contractors and other business interests have reaped outrageously huge profits, in the billions of dollars, from the war and the occupation. These modern-day carpetbaggers should pay back. No one would trust the likes of Halliburton to reconstruct Babylon given their narrow monetary interests and limited skills (laying down asphalt is a big one). But their money would be most welcome to support Iraqi-managed reconstruction of sites damaged by the US presence.

And the Cradle of Civilization deserves far more from UNESCO than three designated sites.

Photo, “Ishtar Gate”, from Flickr via Creative Commons.

Why they killed: the micro-politics of Rwanda’s genocide

by Barbara Miller

One of the most unusual aspects of Rwanda’s genocide that continues to shock and puzzle, 13 years after the killings, is the high level of civilian participation. Other distinguishing characteristics are the speed of the civilian mobilization, the extensive geographic spread of the killing throughout the country, the velocity of the violence, and the high percentage of the victim group killed.

Dr. Omar McDoom, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Political Science at the London School of Economics, spoke about these issues on September 17 in the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. His talk was the first in the 2009-2010 CIGA Seminar Series. CIGA is the Elliott School’s Culture in Global Affairs Research and Policy Program.

McDoom spent a year doing intensive fieldwork in Rwanda including conducting over 300 interviews with two groups of Rwandans: those who had killed (they were in prison at the time of the interviews) and those who were related to people who had been killed. He also uses population census data to estimate the number of victims and GPS data to locate regional patterns of killing.

In his talk, McDoom linked macro and micro levels in explaining why the Rwandan genocide occurred and its distinctive patterns. For example, he ties the unusual strength of the Rwandan state to the speed and extensive of the violence. Rwanda, in contrast to many other post-colonial states, had enduring boundaries and longstanding coherence as a “state.” A strong state can accomplish good things more effectively than a weak state and also bad things more effectively than a weak state.

At the micro-level, McDoom’s interviews reveal that killers cluster in families. That is, if one brother had killed, it was likely that his brother would also kill. GPS data indicate regional patterns. Killings were more frequent in densely populated areas. Those who lived in remote regions were less vulnerable.

McDoom is not a “political ethnographer” in the sense of someone who learns the local language and lives with the local people for a long time doing everyday things with them. While he did spend a substantial period of time in Rwanda, he had to use an interpreter for his interviews with killers and victims. And, of course, he was not in Rwanda during the genocide doing “participant observation.” Nonetheless, it is clear that his research benefits immensely from his interviews with many people who were involved and in recording and analyzing their views. If there were an anthropological award for a non-anthropologist, I would nominate McDoom for consideration.

McDoom’s MA training in International Development Studies at GW and his exposure to anthropology during that time likely had a formative influence on how he defines research questions and goes about finding data to answer them. His PhD from LSE is also in Development Studies. Given his postgraduate credentials (that also include a law degree), I am not quite sure how he recrafted himself to look enough like a political scientist to be hired in the Political Science Department at LSE in a regular faculty line. It is, though, a hopeful sign for the discipline. And a hopeful sign for genocide studies and genocide prevention.

Photo by Anne Wernikoff, from the GW Hatchet.