Posted on 10/28/2007 1:17:07 AM PDT by neverdem
IS the Pentagon truly going to deploy an army of cultural relativists to Muslim nations in an effort to make the world a safer place?
A few weeks ago this newspaper reported on an experimental Pentagon “human terrain” program to embed anthropologists in combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. It featured two military anthropologists: Tracy (last name withheld), a cultural translator viewed by American paratroopers as “a crucial new weapon” in counterinsurgency; and Montgomery McFate, who has taken her Yale doctorate into active duty in a media blitz to convince skeptical colleagues that the occupying forces should know more about the local cultural scene.
How have members of the anthropological profession reacted to the Pentagon’s new inclusion agenda? A group calling itself the Network of Concerned Anthropologists has called for a boycott and asked faculty members and students around the country to pledge not to contribute to counterinsurgency efforts. Their logic is clear: America is engaged in a brutal war of occupation; if you don’t support the mission then you shouldn’t support the troops. Understandably these concerned scholars don’t want to make it easier for the American military to conquer or pacify people who once trusted anthropologists. Nevertheless, I believe the pledge campaign is a way of shooting oneself in the foot.
Part of my thinking stems from an interview with Ms. McFate on NPR’s “Diane Rehm Show” to which I tried to listen with an open mind. My first reaction was to feel let down. It turns out that the anthropologists are not really doing anthropology at all, but are basically hired as military tour guides to help counterinsurgency...
--snip--
The real issue for academic anthropologists is not whether the military should know more rather than less about other ways of life — of course it should know more...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The real issue for academic anthropologists is not whether the military should know more rather than less about other ways of life — of course it should know more.
The real issue is that we can't afford to lose, IMHO.
These mooslimbs are but a swarm of flies...and we are having so much trouble. Just wait for the dragon to start breathing fire...
We could expand this issue to those with Russian and Chinese relatives as well. How much are we to tolerate of external elements?
Me smells a demorat here amongst the troops, perhaps a liberal journalist who would oppose the mission to win the war with Islamic terrorism. At best. it is just one more bad idea that will destroy the military.
if you don’t support the mission then you shouldn’t support the troops.
I wish that would have been a quote...but we all know that is what they really think.
According to them we also should have had a magic wand that turns jeeps into APCs. If we went into Iraq with only up-armored HumVees the insurgents would have gone to bigger IEDs sooner. Some IEDs were big enough to flip a tank. We then would have been treated to endless stories about how we wasted all that money on up-armoring them, leading to rollover deaths, breakdowns and accelerated wear and tear, and our troops are still being killed.
The fundamental fallacy is that you can identify and eliminate all risks from war. The corollary is that if you can't, you don't go to war. It's emblematic of people who don't understand the notion of tradeoffs. They live in a dream world where there is a "right" answer and it's perfect - no downside. They also don't understand that an enemy adapts and we need to as well. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Or, as General Franks said: "The enemy gets a vote."
We're a nation that was spoiled by the 100-hour ground war in Desert Storm.
They shoud embed these libidot anthroapologists with the UN occupiers in say, the Sudan. Give them a dose of real occupation. (They want to go with the US forces because they will be safer and well fed.)
It's refreshing, in a way, for someone to frankly dislike this country and the people in the military, without trying to hide behind some phony "support the troops" rhetoric that everyone knows is bogus.
In this country, homosexual child rape is about the worst crime there is (at least in most neighborhoods). It can bring a long prison sentence.
But American troops overseas are supposed to shrug and not care. That's asking a lot.
She was way beyond “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I found it heartwarming.
The author thinks this anecdote about child rape is "heartwarming." That reveals a lot about him.
About the best you can say about that particular effort is that troops should not be involved in campaigns of moral uplift. But professionals can suppress their disgust for the sake of the success of the mission. There's no need for relativist indoctrination.
If any soldiers come back with the mindset of an Afghani pederast, we know who to blame.
I was just trying to make a point about how flippant the writer sounds about this kind of child rape -- he sounds almost upbeat. I think he's the one whose moral compass is badly bent.
His twisted morals may have something to do with his anti-American attitude, and I could speculate the same thing about the editors at the NY Times who decided to print this piece.
This brought to my increasingly skeptical mind the unfortunate image of an angelic anthropologist perched on the shoulder of a member of an American counterinsurgency unit who is kicking in the door of someone’s home in Iraq....
I began to imagine an occupying army of moral relativists....
And evidently, these imaginary visions are all that one needs to write an op-ed in the NY Times.
There are real people on the ground in real, dangerous places (like Michael Yon in Iraq). But the Times would rather not print their first-hand experiences, so they can keep space free for the imaginary visions of some intellectual who dislikes capitalism (and America), and who can joke about gay child molestation.
Not really . It is an attempt to make the American fighting man better able to tell sheep from goats ie the locals who want to raise their kids & live their life from the cut rate kamikazes wearing a suicide belt & a koran.
Also it helps prevent the former from turning into one of the later due to being repeatedly but unknowingly insulted by U.S. troops.
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