人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
人类学家和其他一些社会科学家参与美军在阿富汗和伊拉克的军事占领。《纽约时报》的这篇文章在美国人类学界引起了有关其学科伦理界限的巨大争议。Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones
By DAVID ROHDE
Published: October 5, 2007， New York times
SHABAK VALLEY, Afghanistan — In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a soft-spoken civilian anthropologist named Tracy.
Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used for security reasons, is a member of the first Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists and other social scientists to American combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her team’s ability to understand subtle points of tribal relations — in one case spotting a land dispute that allowed the Taliban to bully parts of a major tribe — has won the praise of officers who say they are seeing concrete results.
Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit working with the anthropologists here, said that the unit’s combat operations had been reduced by 60 percent since the scientists arrived in February, and that the soldiers were now able to focus more on improving security, health care and education for the population.
“We’re looking at this from a human perspective, from a social scientist’s perspective,” he said. “We’re not focused on the enemy. We’re focused on bringing governance down to the people.”
In September, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates authorized a $40 million expansion of the program, which will assign teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 American combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since early September, five new teams have been deployed in the Baghdad area, bringing the total to six.
Yet criticism is emerging in academia. Citing the past misuse of social sciences in counterinsurgency campaigns, including in Vietnam and Latin America, some denounce the program as “mercenary anthropology” that exploits social science for political gain. Opponents fear that, whatever their intention, the scholars who work with the military could inadvertently cause all anthropologists to be viewed as intelligence gatherers for the American military.
Hugh Gusterson, an anthropology professor at George Mason University, and 10 other anthropologists are circulating an online pledge calling for anthropologists to boycott the teams, particularly in Iraq.
“While often presented by its proponents as work that builds a more secure world,” the pledge says, “at base, it contributes instead to a brutal war of occupation which has entailed massive casualties.”
In Afghanistan, the anthropologists arrived along with 6,000 troops, which doubled the American military’s strength in the area it patrols, the country’s east.
A smaller version of the Bush administration’s troop increase in Iraq, the buildup in Afghanistan has allowed American units to carry out the counterinsurgency strategy here, where American forces generally face less resistance and are better able to take risks.
A New Mantra
Since Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the overall American commander in Iraq, oversaw the drafting of the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual last year, the strategy has become the new mantra of the military. A recent American military operation here offered a window into how efforts to apply the new approach are playing out on the ground in counterintuitive ways.
In interviews, American officers lavishly praised the anthropology program, saying that the scientists’ advice has proved to be “brilliant,” helping them see the situation from an Afghan perspective and allowing them to cut back on combat operations.
The aim, they say, is to improve the performance of local government officials, persuade tribesmen to join the police, ease poverty and protect villagers from the Taliban and criminals.
Afghans and Western civilian officials, too, praised the anthropologists and the new American military approach but were cautious about predicting long-term success. Many of the economic and political problems fueling instability can be solved only by large numbers of Afghan and American civilian experts.
“My feeling is that the military are going through an enormous change right now where they recognize they won’t succeed militarily,” said Tom Gregg, the chief United Nations official in southeastern Afghanistan. “But they don’t yet have the skill sets to implement” a coherent nonmilitary strategy, he added.
Deploying small groups of soldiers into remote areas, Colonel Schweitzer’s paratroopers organized jirgas, or local councils, to resolve tribal disputes that have simmered for decades. Officers shrugged off questions about whether the military was comfortable with what David Kilcullen, an Australian anthropologist and an architect of the new strategy, calls “armed social work.”
“Who else is going to do it?“ asked Lt. Col. David Woods, commander of the Fourth Squadron, 73rd Cavalry. “You have to evolve. Otherwise you’re useless.”
The anthropology team here also played a major role in what the military called Operation Khyber. That was a 15-day drive late this summer in which 500 Afghan and 500 American soldiers tried to clear an estimated 200 to 250 Taliban insurgents out of much of Paktia Province, secure southeastern Afghanistan’s most important road and halt a string of suicide attacks on American troops and local governors.
In one of the first districts the team entered, Tracy identified an unusually high concentration of widows in one village, Colonel Woods said. Their lack of income created financial pressure on their sons to provide for their families, she determined, a burden that could drive the young men to join well-paid insurgents. Citing Tracy’s advice, American officers developed a job training program for the widows.
In another district, the anthropologist interpreted the beheading of a local tribal elder as more than a random act of intimidation: the Taliban’s goal, she said, was to divide and weaken the Zadran, one of southeastern Afghanistan’s most powerful tribes. If Afghan and American officials could unite the Zadran, she said, the tribe could block the Taliban from operating in the area.
“Call it what you want, it works,” said Colonel Woods, a native of Denbo, Pa. “It works in helping you define the problems, not just the symptoms.”
Embedding Scholars
The process that led to the creation of the teams began in late 2003, when American officers in Iraq complained that they had little to no information about the local population. Pentagon officials contacted Montgomery McFate, a Yale-educated cultural anthropologist working for the Navy who advocated using social science to improve military operations and strategy.
Ms. McFate helped develop a database in 2005 that provided officers with detailed information on the local population. The next year, Steve Fondacaro, a retired Special Operations colonel, joined the program and advocated embedding social scientists with American combat units.
Ms. McFate, the program’s senior social science adviser and an author of the new counterinsurgency manual, dismissed criticism of scholars working with the military. “I’m frequently accused of militarizing anthropology,” she said. “But we’re really anthropologizing the military.”
Roberto J. González, an anthropology professor at San Jose State University, called participants in the program naïve and unethical. He said that the military and the Central Intelligence Agency had consistently misused anthropology in counterinsurgency and propaganda campaigns and that military contractors were now hiring anthropologists for their local expertise as well.
“Those serving the short-term interests of military and intelligence agencies and contractors,” he wrote in the June issue of Anthropology Today, an academic journal, “will end up harming the entire discipline in the long run.”
Arguing that her critics misunderstand the program and the military, Ms. McFate said other anthropologists were joining the teams. She said their goal was to help the military decrease conflict instead of provoking it, and she vehemently denied that the anthropologists collected intelligence for the military.
In eastern Afghanistan, Tracy said wanted to reduce the use of heavy-handed military operations focused solely on killing insurgents, which she said alienated the population and created more insurgents. “I can go back and enhance the military’s understanding,” she said, “so that we don’t make the same mistakes we did in Iraq.”
Along with offering advice to commanders, she said, the five-member team creates a database of local leaders and tribes, as well as social problems, economic issues and political disputes.
Clinics and Mediation
During the recent operation, as soldiers watched for suicide bombers, Tracy and Army medics held a free medical clinic. They said they hoped that providing medical care would show villagers that the Afghan government was improving their lives.
Civil affairs soldiers then tried to mediate between factions of the Zadran tribe about where to build a school. The Americans said they hoped that the school, which would serve children from both groups, might end a 70-year dispute between the groups over control of a mountain covered with lucrative timber.
Though they praised the new program, Afghan and Western officials said it remained to be seen whether the weak Afghan government could maintain the gains. “That’s going to be the challenge, to fill the vacuum,” said Mr. Gregg, the United Nations official. “There’s a question mark over whether the government has the ability to take advantage of the gains.”
Others also question whether the overstretched American military and its NATO allies can keep up the pace of operations.
American officers expressed optimism. Many of those who had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq said they had more hope for Afghanistan. One officer said that the Iraqis had the tools to stabilize their country, like a potentially strong economy, but that they lacked the will. He said Afghans had the will, but lacked the tools.
After six years of American promises, Afghans, too, appear to be waiting to see whether the Americans or the Taliban will win a protracted test of wills here. They said this summer was just one chapter in a potentially lengthy struggle.
At a “super jirga” set up by Afghan and American commanders here, a member of the Afghan Parliament, Nader Khan Katawazai, laid out the challenge ahead to dozens of tribal elders.
“Operation Khyber was just for a few days,” he said. “The Taliban will emerge again.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[ 本帖由 木兰 于 2007-10-14 03:16 最后编辑 ]
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
著名人类学家萨林斯就此发表公开信Marshall Sahlins on anthropologists in Iraq
Posted by Rex under Anthropology at war
(an open letter to the New York Times)
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/
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
在名为“野蛮人的心智”（ Savage Minds）的博客中， 可以找到许多与此相关的讨论。http://savageminds.org/
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
美国国家公共广播电台（NPR)的一个专题采访：人类学家与战争。http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/10/10.php#13756
点击右侧的real audio, 可以下载收听广播的实况录音。
10:00Anthropologists and War
Guest host: Susan Page
The U.S. military is now sending teams of anthropologists and social scientists out to assist all combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. The effort has reportedly helped troops improve relations with local populations and avert casualties, while raising a hearty debate among anthropologists over the ethical boundaries of their profession. A look at the so-called Human Terrain Teams and larger questions of how the military is adapting to new expectations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond.
Guests
Montgomery McFate, senior social science adviser with the U.S. Army's Human Terrain System
David Price, associate professor of anthropology and sociology at St. Martin's University; author of the forthcoming book, "Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War."
Col. John Agoglia, director, U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute
Lt. Col. Edward Villacres, military leader of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Human Terrain Team
David Rohde, reporter, New York Times
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
木兰 于 2007-10-14 03:15 写道：美国国家公共广播电台（NPR)的一个专题采访：人类学家与战争。
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/07/10/10.php#13756
点击右侧的real audio, 可以下载收听广播的实况录音。
10:00Anthropologists and War ......
[ 本帖由 五院女婿 于 2007-10-15 00:20 最后编辑 ]
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
录音文件已经上传到贴图版了。https://www.folkculture.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=8785
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
这并没有什么令人吃惊的，如果人类学家不参与美军行动，倒奇怪了。撇开意识形态的影响不说，白花花的银子摆在那里，没有几个人会抵得住诱惑，尤其是人类学家，原本就需要大笔的资金支持。科学自身不存在避免自己被权力滥用的机制，科学一开始就跟权力同根所生。西哲不云乎：知识就是权力。
能够避免科学被权力滥用的，只有学者自己为知识而知识的良知。人能弘道，非道能弘人，
区分好学者与坏学者的一个鲜明标准，从来就是出世还是入世。古之人学为己，今之人学为人。
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
不过既然意识形态的影响与权力无所不在，密不透风，就不可能有完全出世的学术与知识。我想好学者的良知就在于选择一种入世的立场，而不是幻想有一天可以到月亮上去，呵呵。[ 本帖由 木兰 于 2007-10-15 07:21 最后编辑 ]
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
嘿嘿，事在人为，俺觉得，出世总不会比入世更难吧？再说了，到月亮去，早已经不是幻想了，米国人不是早就上去了吗？再过两天，俺们中国人也快上去了。
不过，与其上月亮，俺宁愿去米国，米国人用政府经费资助人类学，用人类学攻打伊拉克，毕竟强如中国人用科研经费资助伪学术，伪学术反过来祸害自己的同胞。
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
啊哦呃[ 本帖由 马王爷 于 2007-10-16 23:31 最后编辑 ]
RE:人类学家参与美军占领阿富汗与伊拉克
戈兰 于 2007-10-15 22:26 写道：嘿嘿，事在人为，俺觉得，出世总不会比入世更难吧？
再说了，到月亮去，早已经不是幻想了，米国人不是早就上去了吗？再过两天，俺们中国人也快上去了。
不过，与其上月亮，俺宁愿去米国，米国人用政府经费资助人类 ......
不见戈兰久矣。
只见一群匪兵在论坛晃悠。
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