Hey all you anthro students out there! Are you bored to death in that stifling classroom environment? Are you ready to escape from the tedious lectures of your professors and the endless course readings they assign? Sign up with Uncle Sam, grab the nearest rifle, and suit up for a real adventure in the "field" (the battlefield, that is).
That's right. As part of the Pentagon's latest counter-insurgency strategy, the War Department has been recruiting anthropologists and social scientists in the hopes of actually understanding the cultures they're trying to dominate.
Thankfully, not everyone has responded to the call, and some academics in the discipline are speaking out against this blatant manifestation of ivory-tower imperialism (see the Network of Concerned Anthropologists).
Posted: November 3, 2007 12:32 am | 0 comments
Tags: Afghanistan, anthropology, complicity, counter-insurgency, human rights, war crimes, war on terror
Here is a list of books you may wish to consult, all dealing in some way with the history and use of torture by the US.
Torture taxi : on the trail of the CIA’s rendition flights. Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson. Hoboken, N.J. : Melville House, 2006.
Ghost plane : the true story of the CIA torture program. Stephen Grey. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
American torture : from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond. Michael Otterman. London ; Ann Arbor, MI : Pluto Press, 2007.
American methods : torture and the logic of domination. Kristian Williams. Cambridge, Mass. : South End Press, c2006.
Torture and truth : America, Abu Ghraib, and the war on terror. Mark Danner. New York : New York Review Books, 2004.
A question of torture : CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Alfred W. McCoy. New York : Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2006.
Chain of command : the road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. Seymour M. Hersh. New York : HarperCollins, 2004.
Oath betrayed : torture, medical complicity, and the war on terror. Steven H. Miles. New York : Random House, 2006.
The torture papers : the road to Abu Ghraib. Edited by Karen J. Greenberg, Joshua L. Dratel ; introduction by Anthony Lewis. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.
The Breaking of bodies and minds : torture, psychiatric abuse, and the health profession. Edited by Eric Stover and Elena O. Nightingale.
New York : Freeman, 1985.
Medicine betrayed : the participation of doctors in human rights abuses / report of a working party [of the] British Medical Association . London ; Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Zed Books, 1992.
Posted: November 3, 2007 1:13 am | 0 comments
Tags: complicity, Iraq, militarism, torture, war crimes, war on terrorism
Here are a few books on the subject.
Universities and empire : money and politics in the social sciences during the Cold War. Edited and introduced by Christopher Simpson. New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., 1998.
Academic freedom in action: an up-to-date account of the counter-insurgency activities pursued by scholars round the world under the banner of ’academic freedom’. Hoch, Paul. London, Sheed and Ward, 1970.
The Cold War & the university : toward an intellectual history of the postwar years. Noam Chomsky ... [et al.]. New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., c1997.
The Cold War and American science : the military-industrial-academic complex at MIT and Stanford. Stuart W. Leslie. New York : Columbia University Press, 1993.
Posted: November 3, 2007 1:47 am | 0 comments
Tags: complicity, human rights, Iraq, militarism, torture, war crimes, war on terror
The last few years have witnessed the gradual resurrection of an old and storied student organization from the 1960s, Students for a Democratic Society. SDS organizers and activists were - and continue to be - at the heart of many social movements in the United States, and students across the country are attempting to revive the moribund student left with a firm vision of totalist politics and participatory democracy.
The Nation had an interesting article on this Lazurus-like development in April, and a website for the new SDS is up and running.
The most recent document to come out of the past summer's National Convention in Detroit is fascinating, and I daresay, inspiring and quite exciting. The Final Convention Bulletin also looks rather professionally-designed. Take the time to read it and stay tuned . . .
Posted: November 7, 2007 12:49 am | 0 comments
Tags: antiwar activism, SDS, student activism, student radicalism, Students for a Democratic Society
Did you happen to see the latest PR piece in the mainstream media about driverless cars? The title alone had "DARPA" written all over it. Who the fuck else would want to invent a "driver-less" car?
DARPA, which stands for Defense Advanced Research Pojects Agency, is the section of the Pentagon that directs and funds military research throughout the military-industrial-academic complex. The motivations for the above-mentioned competition, of course, are obvious: IEDs and EFPs are blowing the shit out of military vehicles in Iraq and account for a large proportion of US casualites. Fewer casualties = less media attention, and - they hope - less public concern.
If the student antiwar movement ever decides to strategically tackle academic complicity with the war, they will have to confront DARPA, this many-tentacled Leviathan of military research.
We can expect a common refrain from researchers and professors working on DARPA-funded projects: "We're doing basic research that has no military application." Don't buy this line of bullshit. No matter how abstract and unrelated it may seem to the uninformed observer, DARPA-funded projects are military research projects. If their research couldn't be translated into an increased capability for the killing machine, DARPA wouldn't bother to fund it! In fact, the extent to which DARPA research has been used for crafting deadlier weapons is proudly trumpeted in an extensive report that highlights many of the Agency's successful so-called "technology transitions." Hell, I wouldn't be using this blog if it weren't for DARPA!
Charges of Luddism will follow, surely, and other counter-arguments equally as absurd. We will have to clearly state that we are not opposed to scientific enquiry or technological innovation, but rather we oppose the ends to which our society directs them: violence and domination, instead of peace and cooperation. How can the government justify throwing billions of dollars to DARPA for inventing better bombs and missiles when our bridges are collapsing, our suburbs are consumed by fire, and our cities are drowning? Until the US government decides to invest in healing human beings rather than harming them, military research should be challenged.
Posted: November 7, 2007 1:18 am | 0 comments
Tags: complicity, DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, militarism, military research
