Views > November 30, 2007 > Web Only

Anthropologists on the Front Lines (cont’d)

It’s difficult to predict the potential impact of HTS on the subject population, at least in part because few details about their specific activities have been released. According to Price, this lack of transparency is the single greatest problem with the entire HTS system. His colleagues echoed his concerns.

As long as anthropologists can be upfront with their sources, the public, and their colleagues about who they are and what they’re doing, there’s no problem, Heller says.

The popular stereotype is that anthropologists study isolated cultures, but the reality is that anthropology is increasingly global in scope. The behavior of one anthropologist in Iraq or Afghanistan can have ramifications for fieldwork all over the world. What military anthropologists do can affect the image of anthropologists worldwide. The AAA is concerned that the perception of anthropology as a tool of military power could endanger anthropologist and sources worldwide.

Alan Goodman says that many of their subjects already suspect U.S. anthropologists of being soldiers or spies.

“Obviously, it makes my job more difficult. Individuals feel suspect about talking to you. Rapport between yourself and individuals reflects the belief that you come from U.S., power, U.S. global power,” says Goodman, who does fieldwork in Mexico. Some of his informants have asked him point blank whether he works for the U.S. government or military.

“There’s a sense of ‘What are you really after,’” Goodman says, “You’re asking me questions about my food, but why?”

David Price says it took a long time to reassure his subjects in Egypt that his interest in their irrigation methods was genuine, and not a front for some alternate U.S.-backed agenda.

These concerns are not far-fetched, given the history of anthropology. During the Vietnam war, a program known as CORDS was used to map the social networks of North Vietnamese fighters. This information was subsequently used to carry out targeted assassinations under the auspices of the infamous Project Phoenix. Defense official Jacob Kipp has publicly called HTS the “CORDS of the 21st Century.”

HTS is of special concern to the AAA because anthropologists are embedded with units in war zones. The demands of operating on the front lines may conflict with the accepted ethical safeguards that would be expected of them if they were to perform anthropological research in any other setting. Standards of informed consent may conflict with operational security. The duty to do no harm may not fit with the needs of a military at war with some subset of the general population. Transparency and accountability may have to take a back seat to the demands of warfare. The AAA isn’t asserting that all HTS anthropologists will violate ethical rules, but they are concerned that the risk is high.

For the AAA, the issue is not whether anthropologists should work for the military, but rather the conditions under which all anthropologists should conduct their research.

“That activity, if it’s going to be called anthropology, needs to be done in the way that we understand ethical anthropological research to be done,” says Heller.

Ultimately, it seems that both sides agree on the basic facts, but differ on how to interpret them. Everyone agrees that the HTS program is likely to require its participants to depart from generally accepted anthropological ethics in a number of significant respects. Both sides agree that anthropology has significant potential to make the military more humane and effective. HTS argues that anthropologists need to set aside rigid professional codes in order to do good on the ground. But mindful of the history of their profession, anthropologists are dubious about whether the military can be counted on to use this information strictly for the high-minded goals envisioned by the architects of HTS.

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• Reader Comments

  Hmmm —

  This concern about the ethics of studying the likes and dislikes of people, some of whom have been killing our troops, seems a bit lame. Getting shot at may give those in doubt of the ethics release from the guild of such service.

  Some of these people (the Radical ones in Sudan) want to kill a teacher for allowing a Teddy Bear to be named Mohammed by her class —

  We may all derive benefit from this new military procedure. David Price worries about the wrong issues.

  Why not just say, “Thank you General.”?

  Posted by whattheheck on Dec 1, 2007 at 9:27 AM

  Maybe. Price is not the only one with concerns, nor is his the only relevant opinion.

  For some of the lively discussion going on amongst anthropologists, see Savage Minds: http://savageminds.org/category/anthropology-at-war/
  And the AAA blog on the subject: http://aaanewsinfo.blogspot.com/

  There aren’t many circumstances these days where the ethical questions are simple and the consequences predictable. All we can do is engage in public exploration and debate of the issues. Kudos to the anthropologists-- we didn’t hear near this level of discussion from journalists regarding their -own- embedment.

  Posted by occassia on Dec 2, 2007 at 7:23 PM

  Seems to me that governments in today’s world should be collecting this kind of information to help forestall unnecessary conflict and perhaps war itself, to help them see the potential drastic blunders they themselves could avoid, more so than merely trying to find a way to persuade tribals to “jine up” as frontline sacrifices.

  Oh yeah, “allies”, I meant “allies”.

  After mountains of ethnographic data is collated, they’ll probably discover that people don’t like foreign sponsorship and promotion of madcap dictators in their country, or foreign invasion and occupation on trumped-up pretexts, or foreigners’ idiotic tactics leading to the looting and destabilization of their entire society.

  Maybe they can get a modern-day Napoleon Chagnon to write up a monograph. Any self-styled Margaret Meads out there ready to “jine up”?

  I like the Orwellian touches, especially “kinetic operation”. That’s right up there with “collateral damage” and “faulty intelligence” (although not quite as flagrantly newspeakish as “Patriot Act”, which is a masterpiece of doublethink encapsulated).

  “Non-kinetic neutralization” (i.e. the effort to enhance understanding and smoother relations) should have been a policy priorty all along, but especially before feeding Saddam Hussein money and weapons for all those years as our proxy warrior, our pet dictator. No, further. Back to before toppling Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in ‘53, which would have shaped the “human terrain” in the region into an entirely different form from what we actually fostered.

  Posted by Kuya on Dec 2, 2007 at 11:35 PM

  Occassia & Kuya,

  It is now more complicated than it needed to be only because too few politicians are familiar wiith history. Harry Truman be well be the last in depth reader of history among our Presidents.

  The folly of trying to impose democracy on a group of diverse tribes whose favorite passtimes include feuding among themselves now calls for far deeper understanding of the customs and religious conflicts among those who may possibly want some degree of peace and stability in the area.

  We also need to realize their criminal element is just like our own — only concerned with making moneyand turmoil works in their favor.

  There were warnings from former State Dept., acedemics and military professionals, but they were successfully stifled.

  All that aside, I’m for anything which benefits our own troops and ethical nitpicking be damned.

  The Sudanese wackos may be offended with naming the Teddy bear Mohammed but, could it be that Teddy Roosevelt’s memory is diminished by the act as well?

  With such extreme reactions to what we would consider minor events, we’d better increase our understanding for our own good.

  Posted by whattheheck on Dec 3, 2007 at 10:17 AM

  During the “Dirty War” years in Argentina (1970s), medical practicitioners, including a physician, assisted the military’s nuertralization of opponents by sedating those who were thrown from helicopters into the Pactific Ocean while still alive. This professional assistance was intended to reduce the resistance such condemned insurgents would be expected to effect when faced with such endgame kinetics. It is not unlikely that some of these professional care-givers might ethicitize themselves with declarations of the humanity intended by their sedations, in that those groggy with injections may have been less alarmed by the prospect before them. Such a scenario illustrates how professionals, including anthropologists, might justify forays into warfare, ostensibly to advance research and/or mitigate the horrific. However, as any fool could deduce, applying the healing arts to such pursuits is reprehensible from every and all points of view. With this as illustrative background, it would seem puerile to expect that persons intellectually empowered to attain credentials in anthorpology would assist in warfare of such questionable honor as that posed by the pre-emptive strategems of Bushdumb. Alas, as the environmental industries reflect, for all too many academics and professionals, pursuit of career advancement and Mammon’s calf are sufficient impediments to moralizations and aspirations to higher ground. One wonders whether the academics and other professionals responsible for warfare enhancements like Agent Orange, Bouncing Betty, MIRV, recylced nuclear waste as shell casings and other highlights of sinister arts deserve standing ovations at their respective professional confabs or whether they should be viewed as waterboarders.  Were I an anthropologist, I’d not touch the Pentagon with an aborigine’s pole.

  Posted by Bud Wizer on Dec 3, 2007 at 11:05 AM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 7 posts.

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