Small Wars Journal

The AAA's Alternate Universe

Thu, 11/08/2007 - 6:17am
The American Anthropological Association's full-court press against the Pentagon's Human Terrain System in general - and anthropologists' Human Terrain Team participation in particular continues.

On October 31, 2007, the American Anthropological Association's Executive Board passed a statement concerning ethical aspects of the U.S. Military's Human Terrain System (HTS) project. The project, which has received widespread national and international media coverage, embeds anthropologists and other social scientists in military teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ethical and procedural concerns regarding anthropologists working with U.S. Military and Intelligence agencies have been under investigation by an ad hoc commission of the AAA. The Commission will submit their final report on this subject—which extends beyond the particulars of the HTS project—during the AAA's Annual Meeting in Washington DC.

Hmm, under investigation -- I wonder what their findings might reveal? Something along the lines of: ... anthropologists embedded in HTTs facilitates cultural awareness of local populations by US Forces thus enabling cross-cultural dialogues and informed actions that directly contribute to mitigating misunderstandings thereby reducing the potential of lethal encounters?

Don't hold your breath. Most likely the "ad hoc commission" will simply serve as the mouthpiece of its parent organization, the AAA's Executive Board, which has already issued the following "assessment":

1. As military contractors working in settings of war, HTS anthropologists work in situations where it will not always be possible for them to distinguish themselves from military personnel and identify themselves as anthropologists. This places a significant constraint on their ability to fulfill their ethical responsibility as anthropologists to disclose who they are and what they are doing.

2. HTS anthropologists are charged with responsibility for negotiating relations among a number of groups, including both local populations and the U.S. military units that employ them and in which they are embedded. Consequently, HTS anthropologists may have responsibilities to their U.S. military units in war zones that conflict with their obligations to the persons they study or consult, specifically the obligation, stipulated in the AAA Code of Ethics, to do no harm to those they study (section III, A, 1).

3. HTS anthropologists work in a war zone under conditions that make it difficult for those they communicate with to give "informed consent" without coercion, or for this consent to be taken at face value or freely refused. As a result, "voluntary informed consent" (as stipulated by the AAA Code of Ethics, section III, A, 4) is compromised.

4. As members of HTS teams, anthropologists provide information and counsel to U.S. military field commanders. This poses a risk that information provided by HTS anthropologists could be used to make decisions about identifying and selecting specific populations as targets of U.S. military operations either in the short or long term. Any such use of fieldwork-derived information would violate the stipulations in the AAA Code of Ethics that those studied not be harmed (section III A, 1).

5. Because HTS identifies anthropology and anthropologists with U.S. military operations, this identification—given the existing range of globally dispersed understandings of U.S. militarism—may create serious difficulties for, including grave risks to the personal safety of, many non-HTS anthropologists and the people they study.

Related

Anthropology Ass'n Blasts Army's "Human Terrain" - Danger Room

Anthro vs. the Army: The Saga Continues - Abu Muqawama

The Repulsive Immorality of the American Anthropological Association - Strategy and National Security

Ivory Tower? Or Glass? - Small Wars Journal

Discuss at Small Wars Council

"Desperate People with Limited Skills"

Anthropologists and a True Culture War

Comments

kehenry1

Fri, 11/09/2007 - 1:57pm

I wrote an article on the question of <a href="http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2007/11/first_do_no_har.html">"first do no harm"</a>:

It seems pretty transparent that this is about the war in Iraq. Are there any anthropologists involved directly in Afghanistan? And, what if Iraq is truly pacified and we shift gears, employing the COIN manual and advisers that include anthropologists? Will that be an issue for the Anthropologists or will they consider Afghanistan an attempt to save a culture rather than destroy it?

I would put that question to this panel if I had an opportunity.

Finally, someone posted an excellent comment:

<blockquote>In my view our scientific development is well ahead of our philosophical development. Oh i know ppl like to talk philosophy between chardonnay swills but how much real advance has actually been made? Which is to say I'm thinking our power to change is outstripping our wisdom of change.</blockquote>

andrewdb (not verified)

Thu, 11/08/2007 - 5:00pm

Sounds time for another Solomon Amendment.