Heh, mine was a nurse we caught smuggling weepons
to the bad guys; she got really torqued when we stopped her Ambulance and insisted on searching it and her first attempt at blonde charm failed. She totally lost it when we found 14 weapons and a bunch of ammo. She was big girl, no razor, picked up an old Mauser, cranked off a round at me, it missed, I looked super cool (actually I was saying "wha..." and it all didn't register-- but it became a minor legend [myth?] with the troops) and the young speedy Four standing closest to her buttstroked her. :cool:
The good thing about that little soiree was that one of the weapons was an NWM made AR-10, the ones that got sold only to Batista and inherited by Castro and the S2 got to show it to the very anti-American Indian MG who was the UN rep and who was adamant there was no Cubano involvement in the Dom Rep. That and the un-PC PC nurse got hassled, oops, sorry, interrogated, for three days before we turned her over to State. :D
Some of 'em are a trip. Most are okay, a few are
great and few are flakes. Hmmm -- sounds just like your average rifle company..:D.
Get The Word Out Early, Gents
Tap your in-country connections, make her feel most welcome and keep her extra safe when she lands.
Marshall Sahlins on Anthropologists In Iraq
Apparently, Marshall Sahlins has weighed in on Anthropologists in Iraq in an open letter to the NY Times. This, according to Savage Minds...
Quote:
To the Editor:
The report (Oct.11) of the killing of two Iraqi women by hired guns of the State Department whose mission was “to improve local government and democratic institutions” bears an interesting relation to the story of a few days earlier about the collaboration of anthropologists in just such imperious interventions in other peoples’ existence in the interest of extending American power around the world. It seems only pathetic that some anthropologists would criticize their colleagues’ participation in such adventures on grounds of their own disciplinary self-interest, complaining that now they will not be able to do fieldwork because the local people will suspect them of being spies. What about the victims of these militarily-backed intrusions, designed to prescribe how others should organize their lives at the constant risk of losing them? What is as incredible as it is reprehensible is that anthropologists should be engaged in such projects of cultural domination, that is, as willing collaborators in the forceful imposition of American values and governmental forms on people who have long known how to maintain and cherish their own ways of life.
Of course, these collaborating anthropologists have the sense that they are doing good and being good. I am reminded of a cartoon I saw years ago, I think it was in the Saturday Review of Literature, which shows two hooded executioners leaning on their long-handled axes, and one says to the other: “The way I see it, if I didn’t do this, some sonovabitch would get the job.”
Marshall Sahlins
http://savageminds.org/2007/10/11/ma...gists-in-iraq/
Good, Bad, and Not the Media this Time
Heh. I had a lot of arguments with folks
who parroted the accepted wisdom of the "Middle East experts" who predicted the Sunni - Shia divide in Iraq would drive a new Iraq into the arms of Iran.
My argument was the 'divide' was virtually non-existent in Iraq and while it would be exploited -- since the western experts and media were trumpeting the division and folks in that area are not slow -- it would be in the vein of justifying the pay-back that was always going to occur. The only question being when that pay back occurred. Seems to be wearing itself out for the most part, though there'll always be some tension, I suspect that the major violence will dissipate.
I further posited that as one of the worst insults one could accord a Persian was to call him an Arab -- and the Arabs were very much aware of this and returned the favor -- that any significant rapprochement with Iran by the Iraqis was unlikely and if any did occur it would be for short term benefit only. All there are pragmatic and will put aside -- or actively foster -- differences as the situation seems to demand but a couple of thousand years of history are unlikely to be tossed aside.
Absorbing assorted slings and arrows over this, I was amused to see this Article yesterday. While one article does not a sea change make, I suspect that it is indicative of reality -- to include future reality. I particularly enjoyed the last paragraph...
I think all that means that those who wish to help will. For whatever reason others do not wish to help and they are, IMO, of little or no consequence.
Anthropologists in Iraq/Afghanistan
I was checking out the biographies of "Concerned Anthropologists" and the collective bloggers who run Savage Minds. A few things jump out at me:
(1) Many research esoteric issues like "transformations in anti-witchcraft practices" or "sex and sexuality in American culture." Interesting to some, but IMHO, academic junk written to sate egos and get tenure (which most will not anyway).
(2) Since their research/academic focus may be the U.S. or "exotic" places like Melanesia, field research can hardly be called dangerous (unless, maybe the research is in a NYC gay bar for a study of "sex and sexuality in American culture").
(3) Some biographies indicate a pre-existing bias anyway, i.e., liberal. Cannot expect them to be favorably disposed to the U.S. Many are "bloody furriners" anyway (Helsinki, Oslo, Manchester).
OK. My view of anthropologists in Iraq or Afghanistan is simple.
(A) the anthropologists are not there to show the Army how to kill people, they are there to facilitate, i.e., help understand the cultural environment in which the Army is operating, and minimize the use of kinetic force. The New York Times article of Oct. 5, 2007 that is giving some anthropologists the vapors notes a key point which they have missed: In the area where the anthropologists are deployed, combat ops are down 60%.
(B) The anthropologists with HTS are saving lives, conducting useful and publishable field research that no other anthropologists have access to. They are seeing first hand the changes in Arab and Afghan tribal and Islamic societies as they happen. In the case of Afghanistan, after 30 years of war, much has changed. The anthropologists with the Army are the only ones with access to this treasure trove of ethnographic material.
(C) The "concerned anthropologists" can hold onto their principles, since IMHO, most of their work is boring, and they are in no danger while conducting field research.
(D) Being in the thick of such changes in Iraq/Afghanistan is fun, despite the danger. Beats hanging about a library or interviewing people on the streets of Des Moines.
The "concerned anthropologists" can blather all they like, but no one ever reads their work, and they wind up stuck as assistant or associate faculty in some fifth tier university or community college in the Midwest, making little money and boring the daylights out of stoned u/grads.
Me? I'm off to Afghanistan, and I will write a book about my experiences that will actually be read and contribute the advancement of our knowledge of the people of that land. And I don't care if the liberal faculty hate my guts for it. In fact, so much the better.
Salaam,
SM
Savage minds collates their blogs
Hi Folks, Savage Minds has (finally) collected their blogs on Anthropology and war together. What bothers me most about this is the inclusion of spying, interrogation and torture in with "war".
The latest from Savage Minds...
Savage Minds has a number of recent blog entries...
An excellent article by Strong on the question of IRB (Institutional Review Board) oversight of HTS research. This is a core question for many who work in US universities and Strongs' blog lays out many of the structural conditions surrounding it.
A question from SM to SWJ/SWC - I'll leave it to Bill and Dave to answer :D.
In a blog entitled Efficacy Issues, Rex examines some of the claims in the current debate. While I, personally, disagree with some of what he says, he has done a very good job of laying some of these claims out in a straight forward manner.
Next, Jonathan Marks responds to both the Marshal Sahlins letter and the Diane Rehm show discussion. While more of a personal / textual analysis, e does raise some interesting points concerning what is being said in public about the HTS.
Finally, there is an interesting discussion (at least in some ways) about the US Army's international promotion of the HTS.
Just have to note that I pretty pleased with myself..
have turned a thread about Anthropologists into a beer thread (which is a change from the barbecuing Anthropologists thread subversion of few months ago...)