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Today's Stories March 18, 2008 David Price Paul Craig
Roberts March 17, 2008 Pam Martens Sasan Fayazmanesh Nelson P. Valdés Peter Morici Wajahat Ali Ronnie Cummins Shaun Harkin Ali Khan Robert Jensen P. Sainath Greg Moses Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
March 15 / 16, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Robert Pollin Diane Christian Wajahat Ali Tom Wright
/ Alan Farago Greg Moses Michael Hudson Martha Rosenberg John Goekler Uzma Aslam
Khan Oren Ben-Dor David Underhill Fred Gardner David Michael
Green Rev. William E. Alberts Gail Dines David Yearsley Chris Clarke Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
March 14, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Don Santina
Patrick Cockburn
Tim Rinne Robert Fantina
Saul Landau
David Macaray
Franklin Lamb
Michael Neumann
March 13, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Whitney
Assaf Kfoury
Andy Worthington Adam Federman
March 12, 2008 Dave Lindorff
R.F. Blader
Yonatan Mendel
Jonathan Cook
Bill and Kathy
Christison James J. Brittain
Ron Jacobs
March 11, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Ed O'Loughlin
Ramzy Baroud Kathy Christison
China Hand John Joslin
Mike Averko
Ben Rosenfeld
Thierry Paquot
March 10, 2008 Uri Avnery
Col. Dan Smith
R.F. Blader
Michael Neumann
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman James J. Brittain
Missy Comley
Beattie March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition JoAnn Wypijewski
Mike Whitney
Peter Morici
Ralph Nader
Jonathan Cook
Steve Niva
Bill and Kathy
Christison Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau Eric Walberg
Scott Johnson
Mark Scaramella
Bill Clinton Poet's Basement
Website of
the Weekend March 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn
Robin Blackburn
Saul Landau
Binoy Kampmark
Chris Floyd
Andy Worthington Will Potter March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008 Vincent Navarro Forrest Hylton Peter Morici George Ciccariello-Maher John Ross Jacob Hornberger Paul Watson Dan Bacher Website of the Day
March 5, 2008 Cockburn /
St. Clair Joanne Mariner Fidel Castro Christopher
Brauchli Steven Sherman Dave Lindorff James Murren Adam Engel Website of Day
March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali William Blum Bill Quigley Ralph Nader Patrick Irelan James J. Brittain
/ Norman Solomon Jacob Hornberger Andy Worthington Mike Averko Website of the Day
March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Alan Farago Richard Gott Wajahat Ali Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Uri Avnery Martha Rosenberg Eva Liddell Michael Donnelly Website of the Day
March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Kathleen and Bill Christison Nelson P. Valdés Christopher Brauchli Ron Jacobs John Ross Robert Fantina Robert Weissman Mohammed Omer Remi Kanazi Bob Jackson Richard Rhames Franklin Lamb Rannie Amiri David Michael
Green Conn Hallinan Faheem Hussain Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez Jonathan Cook Joshua Frank Anthony DiMaggio Linn Washington, Jr. Binoy Kampmark Robert Bryce Sonja Karkar Dave Lindorff Website of
the Day
February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Fred Gardner Michael Levitin William S.
Lind David Macaray Stephen Fleischman George Wuerthner Laura Carlsen Carl Finamore Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 27, 2008 David Rosen Vijay Prashad Harvey Wasserman Andy Worthington Wajahat Ali Peter Morici Stephen Philion Michael Donnelly Erica Rosenberg / Website of
the Day
February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Alan Dershowitz
Harvey Wasserman Michael Colby Gary Leupp David Orchard Martha Rosenberg Fran Shor Serge Halimi Global Balkans Website of
the Day
February 25, 2008 Roger Morris Anthony DiMaggio Ralph Nader Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Peter Morici Dave Lindorff Saul Landau
/ Heather Gray Robert Weitzel John Halle Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Wajahat Ali Ralph Nader Jürgen
Vsych Fidel Castro Andy Worthington David Macaray Jeremy Scahill David Krieger Ron Jacobs Michael Garrity Brian McKenna Missy Beattie Fred Gardner Boris Kagarlitsky Mike Ferner Dan Bacher Christopher
Ketcham Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney Jason Hribal Liaquat Ali Khan Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Liliana Segura Robert Fantina Yifat Susskind Norm Kent Website of
the Day February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Elizabeth Schulte Helen Redmond Benjamin Dangl Michael Levitin Liam Leonard Patrick Irelan Linn Cohen-Cole Michael Simmons CounterPunch
News Service Website of the Day
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March 18, 2008 The Newly Available 2004 Stryker Report Evaluating Iraqi FailuresThe Military "Leveraging" of Cultural KnowledgeBy DAVID PRICE Wikileaks just released the December 2004 "Army Stryker Brigade Initial Impressions Report on Operations in Mosul, Iraq." This document was produced by the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Ft. Leavenworth, and provides an internal view on the Army's late-2004 self-perception of how the occupation was going and outlines perceived military shortcomings in Mosul. Given David Petraeus' role in the occupation and management of Mosul, some elements of the document prefigure Petraeus' push for increased reliance on cultural knowledge for counterinsurgency. The report's six chapters cover the topics of: Command and Control, Digital Systems, Non-Lethal Operations, Stryker Vehicle Performance and Survivability, Intelligence, and Operations. Much of the report evaluates how specific hardware is performing in Iraq; other discussions focus on the lack of theatre specific training, or evaluate the merits of building new interrogation centers instead of using preexisting structures. While the shortcomings of specific military gear can be dealt with by replacements, retrofits and redesigns, the cultural shortcomings of the occupation present more serious obstacles. The report's residual image is of a pelagic military only beginning to become aware of the depths of their own ignorance of the complex environment they are attempting to occupy and dominate. Even at this early stage the Army had reasons to know it was in over its head. The report remarks on the military's
weak understanding of the culture they are occupying, but it
also documents that the military understood how to use members
of the media, and it praises the compliance of embedded media
for not reporting on the failures of American occupiers. The
report recounts that, The most anthropologically interesting section of the report is chapter five's Topic M: Cultural Differences' discussion of the management of tactical information. This section's chief observation is that "cultural differences have created a challenging environment for the Stryker brigade." It was this sort of "cultural differences" and "challenging environments" that would later provide the impetus for establishing Human Terrain Teams now deploying anthropologists and other social scientists to assist in the military's occupation of Iraq. The "Cultural Differences" section discussion states that:
This section observes that the military's occupation is weakened by the sort of lack of cultural knowledge that Gen. Petraeus would later focus upon. It recognizes that the Stryker brigade's cultural ignorance weakened their day to day effectiveness and the interfered with the collection and interpretation of intelligence. The recommended solution for these shortcomings is increased training with "real-world experience" and the development of "reach-back capabilities aided analysis." This "reach-back" analysis refers to the development of remote high-tech databases located off the battlefield (on a stateside base such as Ft. Leavenworth) that can be consulted and supplemented from the battlefield. This call for a U.S. based cultural database with information on tribes and regional information describes the sort of reach-back databases now being compiled and used by Human Terrain Teams in Iraq. The "lessons learned" component of this section provides a clear view of the military's expectations of how anthropological or cultural knowledge is to be used to meet military needs. In observing that "cultural understanding is an endless endeavor that must be overcome leveraging whatever assets are available," the military's choice of "leveraging," beautifully clarifies how the military conceptualizes anthropologists and others providing occupying troops in Iraq with cultural information: they are seen as priers of knowledge; tools to be used for the extraction and use of knowledge ("assets") in ways that military commanders see fit. It was concerns over this sort of "leveraging" (the functional use of anthropologists as pry-bars deployed to act upon human and cultural "assets" used by the military) that recently led the American Anthropological Association's Executive Board to declare its disapproval of the military's Human Terrain Systems as "an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise." Obviously, the limited scope of this 2004 Center for Army Lessons Learned report precludes addressing fundamental issues raised by the Bush administration's reliance on false pretenses to illegally invade Iraq. Such issues are not among those included with the designated "Lessons Learned"-because at this level, the army follows rather than sets policy. But the same cannot be said for the free-agent anthropologists and other social scientists who are not part of the military and are now working as contractors on Human Terrain Teams "leveraging" culture in service of the military occupation of Iraq. These individuals willfully choose to ignore the ethical alarms being sounded by their peers as they voluntarily surrender their disciplinary skills to better "leverage" cultural "assets" for whatever ends the military dictates. Given the problems identified in this 2004 report, it makes sense that the army would strive for a more culturally nuanced occupation; after all, it is the nature of occupying armies to seek to subjugate and occupy nations (legally, or illegally) with as little trouble as can be arranged. But anthropology's abetment of this cause slides it askew from any central ethical principles of the field, and it reveals something of the lesser demons of the field's nature. Granted, anthropology's past has plenty of shameful instances of anthropologists applying their skills to leverage occupied peoples in colonial and neocolonial settings, but the common contemporary understanding that such manipulative leverages are part of a shameful past does not influence those seeking their fortune outside the ethical standards of their discipline's mainstream. I do like the notion of a "Center for Army Lessons Learned," but the existence of such a center controlled by the army dooms any prospect that the learned lessons might ever be anything beyond minor tactical or technological adjustments. There is no hope of learning more important lessons about not becoming mired in imperial quagmires or unjust wars. I suppose if one were to conjure a Center for Anthropological Lessons Learned, its central findings might include admonitions to not betray or "leverage" the people one studies and lives amongst. Although those who directing the war appear to have discovered ways to use anthropology to more efficiently achieve their goals, they don't care that anthropology becomes what it is used for. As a member of my anthropological moiety, Kurt Vonnegut, once noted, "Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?" David Price is a member of the Network of Concerned
Anthropologists. He is the author of Anthropological
Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology
in the Second World War, will be published next month
by Duke University Press. He can be reached at dprice@stmartin.edu
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