Magical Realism and Information Operations

[marct]

- are hard to come by these days and I use the term rogue because the current tone and tenure of Academia is decidedly ant-military, anti-Bush and at best, overtly hostile to the GWOT. I've come across some conservative Blogs by Academics who do so anonymously for fear of scorn and even retribution by colleagues. I did follow one professional Anthro blog for a while and the topic of Anthropology per se assisting the American Administration in its foreign policy was brought up and the vitriol expressed was harsh to say the least. On-the-side, hefty consult fees are another matter though.....

Take a look at my article in the latest (Vol 7) of SWJ - believe me, as an Anthropologist, I definately agree with you on the anti-military sentiment!

Exploitation of the spiritual is a hard sell at best and the Military is not known for fast adaptation - recall the hoopla over SF troops in Afghanistan being told to shave the beards off and get back in uniform. Nope, I don't look for any Shamans sporting fetishes and ju-jus to be leading any patrols to psych out the indigs any time soon nor to be on any operational/policy planning teams either. It's odd if you think about it, not wanting to exploit spirituality when there are tactical advantages to it.

Honestly, I wouldn't call it "exploitation of the spiritual" at all . I would call it "using all of our allies", and if the djinn want to ally against AQ...

Marc