Missie Gefaald

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

2008/3/20, dirkie <geensloof at yahoo.com>:
> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Henk,
>
>  Een man die tegen deze oorlog stemde toen het verre van populair was, gaat met alle macht proberen om die oorlog daadwerkelijk op korte termijn te beeindigen.
>  Lukt hem dat?

Ter aanvulling wellicht:

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=24692

"
First Published 2008-03-07

Iraq's Lethal Fieldwork


No one doubts that the US military needs help understanding Islamic
cultures. But many anthropologists object to their colleagues working
with the military, especially in combat situations. Anthropologists
have a moral code similar to physicians, to first do no harm - a
difficult dilemma in war, says William O. Beeman.


The Human Terrain Systems (HTS) programme, in operation for several
years, was significantly expanded by the United States military last
September. It has recruited anthropologists to be embedded with US
troops at brigade and division level in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Administered by BAE (a contracting agency created by British Aerospace
and Marconi Electronic Systems), the programme takes anthropologists
-- some of whom are not experts in the relevant cultures -- and
charges them with advising commanders to prevent them from misreading
local actions and potentially violent situations. The idea is to
reduce casualties.

The New York Times reported 5 October 2007, on an anthropologists'
contingent involved in a major operation meant to reduce attacks
against US and Afghan troops. The anthropologists identified many
widows in the target area and surmised that their young male relatives
would be under pressure to support them and would be likely to join
the attackers out of economic necessity. A job-training programme for
the widows led to a reduction in attacks.

But the programme has caused alarm, as it recalls two programmes from
the Vietnam era in which anthropologists were involved. The first was
the short-lived Project Camelot in 1965, organised by US army
intelligence, in which anthropologists were recruited to assess the
cultural causes of war and violence. It was a benign-sounding
enterprise. But it used Chile as a test case just as the CIA was
interfering in Chile's internal affairs, having engineered the
election of Eduardo Frei as president in 1964 to prevent the election
of socialist leader Salvador Allende. The project was soon abandoned.

The second was an organisation known as CORDS (Civil Operations and
Revolutionary Development Support), formed to coordinate the US civil
and military pacification programmes in Vietnam. It operated directly
under General William Westmoreland, but was headed by a civilian,
Ambassador Robert Komer, who was his deputy. It was used to map human
terrain and identify individuals and groups that the military believed
were sympathisers of the Vietcong; they were then targeted for
assassination. Anthropological research was used.

The anthropological profession has a code of ethics which, like the
Hippocratic oath, mandates no harm to people who are studied, and
requires their informed consent in participation in research. This is
impossible under combat conditions, where there is no opportunity for
embedded anthropologists to identify themselves with ordinary people.
And the work looks enough like intelligence work to cause people to
view anthropologists as spies (even under ordinary conditions)
inhibiting their scientific mission. The HTS operation came under
immediate scrutiny by the profession.

Last September a group of scholars formed the Network of Concerned
Anthropologists, inspired by physicists who had opposed the Reagan-era
Star Wars programme, and drafted a pledge of non-participation in
counterinsurgency. One of the organisers, David Price of St Martin's
University in Lacey, Washington, said on 13 December 2007: "All of us
are not necessarily opposed to some work with the military, but
anything involving counterinsurgency… or anything that violates
ethical standards of research, we're opposed to, and we're simply
asking our colleagues to stand up and be counted with us…"

The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association issued
a statement in October 2007 which, while not explicitly prohibiting
anthropologists from activities that might be covered under the
project, warned its members that its activities are likely to violate
the code of ethics.

At the association's annual meeting in Washington, DC, last November,
the controversy took centre stage. In one session, the anthropologists
involved with the military tried to convince their colleagues that
they were helping to transform military attitudes and increase their
cultural sensitivity. Sceptics felt that those cooperating with the
military may have been naïve in their understanding of the way their
research was being used. The debate culminated in a resolution that
would, if ratified by the entire membership, prohibit any activity
involving secret research for intelligence agencies.

One of the principal proponents of cooperation is Montgomery McFate, a
Yale PhD anthropologist and senior fellow at the US Institute for
Peace. In a seminar on 10 May 2007, McFate presented a plan that was
influential in establishing the HTS project. She pointed out that the
US military spends almost nothing on social science research that
would be crucial to the success of operations, and recommended an
approach to closing the cultural knowledge gap.

She advocated the establishment of a large research programme leading
to a socio-cultural knowledge database, recruitment of young cultural
analysts into government service and establishment of a clearing house
for cultural knowledge. None of these would be a problem. The problem
arises when the expertise is made a weapon for use in combat.


William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of
anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and
president of the Middle East section of the American Anthropological
Association.
"

Wat denk je Dirkie zal e.e.a. voor consequenties hebben, en al hebben gehad?

Je huidige ´leiders´ zijn m.i. van een kaliber die naam niet waardig.
Het beeld dat wordt opgeroepen is er een dat het velen malen erger is
dan menigeen zelfs maar vermoed, of durft te vermoeden.

Excuus daarvoor ...

Wij kunnen ons de gedachte ´troosten´ dat ´ons land´ (lees: het
demissionaire kabinet destijds) al dezes politiek steunt, en al die
tijd heeft gesteund.
:(

Henk Elegeert

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********