Sharon Weinberger at Wired.com's "Danger Room" has just posted a link excerpting an open letter by the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, responding to SECDEF's Minerva Consortium proposal.

Personally, I find most of the concerns reasonable, if a little breathlessly stated. I take exception to one, however, which fails to come to terms with its own philosophical underpinnings: "The University becomes an instrument rather than a critic of war-making, and spaces for critical discussion of militarism within the university shrink."

The apparent assumption being that the academy is ideally and inherently a might-is-never-right enterprise, rather than an environment in which the lessons of history (or any other discipline) may be fairly explored--and perhaps even applied.

In other words, the role of the university should be to apply criticism to all comers, rather than just "war-making," as the organization so inelegantly calls it. At least, thus sez this citizen-soldier-scholar-brewer-patriot ...

See "Pentagon's Project Minerva Sparks New Anthro Concerns" at:http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...erva.html#more