Anthropology Goes to War, Part 3

Anthropology and counterinsurgency in Thailand


Water torture (or water boarding) as directed by US military personnel in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand

This is the third part in a three part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Petition for anthropologist's non-participation in counterinsurgency

The secondary thrust of the United States’ containment policy in South East Asia (the primary being direct invasion) was to undermine communist influence through “development.” Walt Whitman Rostow, esteemed Kennedy/Johnson liberal and influential policy advisor, wrote in his Stages of Economic Growth,

“We must demonstrate that the underdeveloped nations---now the main focus of Communist hopes---can move successfully through the preconditions into a well established take-off within the orbit of the democratic world, resisting the blandishments and temptations of Communism. This is, I believe, the most important single item on the Western agenda.” 29

The importance of anthropology’s role in this regard was emphasized in the official Counterinsurgency in Thailand report.

“The social scientist can make significant contributions to . . . designing programs to win or strengthen public support [for the Thai government]. . . What kinds of economic, social, and political action are most effective in building national unity and in reducing vulnerability to insurgent appeal?” 30

To that end the Thailand effort involved “157 anthropologists, engineers, ordnance specialists and other researchers [as] part of Project Agile, the Pentagon’s worldwide counterinsurgency research program.”31 The Thailand project was largely assembled and funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the primary multilateral investment institutions, under the auspices of the Department of Defense. 32 There was never any doubt about the project’s intentions. USAID, in their letter to University of California Regents about their need for social scientists, stated that the project was geared towards “dealing with development and counterinsurgency problems, issues and activities, including research, relating to AID activity in Thailand.” 33

One of those involved in this development program, anthropologist Michael Moerman, remembered the project was

“initially described to me as devoted to developing techniques by which the Thai government could evaluate the success of its own programs. By the second meeting it became clear that some leading members . . . were seriously attempting a counterinsurgency justification for their work.” 34

This was acknowledged by USAID before a Congressional hearing in 1969.

“Except for a modest amount of technical assistance projects, most of which we are gradually phasing out, our assistance in Thailand is concentrated on counterinsurgency activities; approximately 75% of our total effort is in this field.” 35

Most anthropologists joined the counterinsurgency project out of both professional interest and a desire to help the Thai villagers. In Moerman’s case, “It seemed clear that the US and Thai government would harm villagers less if they knew more about them.” 36 For Cornell anthropologist Lauriston Sharp, career motives played a role as well, stating, “It [was] also important to keep the growth of the discipline moving.” 37 Anthropologist Herbert Phillips (who participated in the development of a paramilitary “village defense corps” 38 in violation of the Geneva Conventions 39) had overlapping interests. “In my own case curiosity, both professional and personal, about how the U.S. Government actually functioned in Thailand was at first as strong a motive as the possibility that I might be of assistance to Thai villagers” 40 and “I [wanted] to work on some problems if I could get an unclassified paper out of it.” 41

Those being researched, however, had different concerns:

“What is your purpose in coming here, and what kinds of questions are you going to ask us? . . . You are not going to take the names of villagers and tell the police that we are communists, are you? We would die if you did . . . If they come to take us away, in that manner, it will surely kill us, because we are opposed to communists here.” 42

In a detailed account of one counterinsurgency effort, migrating Hmong villagers were viewed to be “potential” insurgents (using USAID research techniques) and were forced to resettle to less fertile farmlands. The Hmong “were forced to steal food rather than starve,” which then developed into a “full-scale rebellion” once the Thai Border Patrol Police “responded.” The Thai government “deployed troops and helicopters and finally resorted to heavy bombing and napalm” to battle these “communists.” 43

When the Thailand activities became public knowledge (after student anti-war activists secretly copied Moerman’s files) any justifications anthropologists had for their activities were shrouded in the dubious nature of the entire project. In the language of the AAA Mead Committee report investigating this controversy:

“It is clear that anthropologists now have to face the possibility that a publication of routine socio-cultural data about identified village communities . . . might be used for the annihilation by bombing or other forms of warfare of whole communities . .” 44

Others understood, correctly, that this was not a new development.

“The Thailand episode is only the latest violation of the conscience of anthropology; in retrospect we see that anthropological projects calculated to interfere in the affairs of others have a long, and not entirely visible, genealogy.” 45

In the end, the AAA censored only two anthropologists: Eric Wolf and Joseph Jorgensen of the AAA Committee on Ethics, for blowing the whistle. 46

“[T]heir public denunciations, thus involving the Association . . . their use of unethically procured documents without public denunciation of the sources of such materials [and the] accusations of colleagues . . . has endangered research access for all anthropologists in Thailand and probably elsewhere as well.” 47

Years later, anthropologist George Foster, who was a member of the AAA Board during the controversy, stated,

“after the 1971 bloodletting, the whole thing disappeared as an issue. I don’t believe that three-quarters of the anthropologists practicing today know about it . . . There are more anthropologists working for the government---ten times more---than before.” 48

In light of this history I believe two conclusions can be made. First, the current use of anthropologists for counterinsurgency operations is by no means a new development, but this fact should give us pause rather than justify our existing policy. Second, anthropologists have been complicit in the domination and expropriation of non-Western societies for more than a century.

This history can be altered if we have the collective will to do so. It will not be easy and the stakes are high. As anthropologists Eric Wolf and Joseph Jorgensen alerted us in 1970:

“It is reasonable to anticipate an accelerating effort to centralize power and control resources on a global scale by the US government, and by the multi-national corporations based in the US. Accordingly, we can expect that as people in the poorest and most dependent areas multiply, and as their living conditions worsen, the men at the center of power will demand to know ever more about the deprived, "under-developed," and oppressed, as groups and as individuals. As the Thailand papers show, the government is less interested in the economic, social, or political causes of discontent than in techniques of neutralizing individual or collective protest.” 49

We are currently in a military adventure that Alan Greenspan has admitted is “largely about oil” 50, a fact that was obvious all along but was too “politically inconvenient” to mention in polite company. The discipline of anthropology has made progress over the years and there is a great deal that we can be proud of. However, if we believe in the integrity of our discipline and the pursuit of freedom for all peoples then the price is eternal vigilance. The choice, as always, is our own.

References:

[29] Walt Whitman Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 134
[30] AIR, Counterinsurgency in Thailand, p. 1; cited in Wakin, p. 96
[31] Peter Braestrup, “Researchers aid Thai rebel fight: US defense unit develops anti-guerrilla device,” The New York Times, March 20, 1967
[32] Wakin, pp. 119-20
[33] Agency for International Development, “Amendment No. 3 to the Contract Between the United States of America and the Regents of the University of California,” 1 September 1968, 4.; cited in Wakin, p. 6 & 128
[34] Michael Moerman, letter to the editor, AAA Newsletter, 12:1, Jan., 1971, 9-11; cited in Wakin, p. 105
[35] Testimony of Robert H. Nooter, Acting Assistant AID Administrator for East Asia, and Frederick Simmons, Director, Office of Southeast Asia Affairs, Southeast Asia Bureau (U.S. Congress. Committee on Government Operations. Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee, Hearing on Thailand and the Philippines, June 16, 1969, p. 3; cited in Wakin, p. 119
[36] Moerman; cited in Wakin, p. 136
[37] IDA, “Thailand Study Group,” 4 July, 1967, 6; cited in Wakin, p. 59
[38] Excusing it because he was involved in already existing policy; Wakin, p. 121
[39] United Nations, Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Article 11:7 & Article 51:1
[40] Herbert Phillips, Between the Tiger and the Crocodile, p. 38 (note 13); cited in Wakin, p. 122
[41] IDA, “Thailand Study Group,” 5 July, 1967, 3; cited in Wakin, p. 62
[42] USOM/Thailand, Research Division, Village Changes and Problems: Meeting with Village Leaders and Residents of Ban Don-Du, Tambon Khwao, Amphur Muang, Mahasarakam Province, February 10, 1967 (Bangkok: USOM/Thailand, Research Division, July 1967); cited in Wakin, p. 139
[43] Alfred W. McCoy, “Subcontracting Counterinsurgency,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (Special Issue: Vietnam Center at S.I.U., December 1970), pp. 56-70; from Wakin, p. 141
[44] Davenport, et. al., “Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Evaluate the Controversy Concerning Anthropological Activities in Thailand,” 27 September 1971, p. 4; published in full from Wakin, p. 290
[45] Eric R. Wolf and Joseph G. Jorgensen, “A Special Supplement: Anthropology on the Warpath in Thailand,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 15, No. 9, 1970, p. 11
[46] Margaret Mead would later show her personal anger by spitting on Jorgensen at a Chicago meeting.
[47] Davenport, et. al., p. 4; cited in Wakin, p. 206
[48] Interview, May 30, 1991; cited in Wakin, p. 234
[49] Wolf and Jorgensen, p. 15
[50] Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters, "Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m", The Guardian, September 16, 2007

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Anthropology Goes to War, Part 2

Anthropology, colonialism and covert operations


Recent march to remember the "disappeared," tortured and murdered after the
US-supported coup in Guatemala in 1954

This is the second part in a three part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Petition for anthropologist's non-participation in counterinsurgency


If Thomas Jefferson was indeed "a friend to the Indian" then the indigenous peoples certainly didn't need any more enemies.

However, later liberals were somewhat more conciliatory. According to Francis Edgar Williams, Oxford-trained Rhodes scholar and 17-year government anthropologist for Papua New Guinea, the role of applied anthropology in 1933 was one of “tidying-up, purging, reconciling, blending, and developing” those primitive cultures that were “more backward [and] more restricted than others.” 11 While, he says, anthropologists might be tempted to allow indigenous societies the freedom to manage their own affairs, this was simply not possible.

“His [the indigenous person’s] way of life must somehow enter into relation with the affairs of the world. It is hoped that we may leave him his fair share of freedom; but to leave him entirely to himself would be to funk the issue and neglect our duty.” 12

This duty that anthropologists had towards indigenous societies was emphasized at a 1936 conference, praised by anthropologist Felix Keesing, concerning the cultural education of Pacific colonial dependencies.

“[I]t is the responsibility of the governing people, through schools and other means, to make available to the native an adequate understanding of non-native systems of life.”13

This “understanding” would then allow the native groups to make an informed choice about the kind of society they wanted to live in. The fallacy of course is that, time and again, indigenous peoples would make their choice obvious by avoiding the colonizers, running away when captured, or resorting to violence when pushed too far.

This is easily seen in Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro’s 14 statement that “in order to pacify these groups the Indian Protection Service has had to face trials of every sort,” 15 such as having “more than a dozen IPS workers fell pierced by arrows as they went about their work of pacification.” 16 However, the indigenous Brazilians eventually came to understand, “descending to conditions of utter destitution and losing their happiness with their independence.” 17 Unfortunately, despite their high ideals, the

“heroic effort to bring peace to further tribal groups, [was] a source of frustration to its very authors . . . for the Indians have not even been assured possession of the land and peaceful co-existence has brought them hunger, disease and disappointment.” 18

World War II and the resulting Cold War (although frequently hot, being referred to as World War III by such divergent political figures as Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army 19 and Clinton CIA Director James Woolsey 20) changed the form of Western colonial policy but not the substance. American anthropologists were acutely eager to participate in these policies directed towards the defeat of fascism and, what was called, communism. During the war this participation was so great that

“Over one half of the professional anthropologists in this country [were] directly concerned in the war effort, and most of the rest [were] doing part-time war work.” 21

At least twenty anthropologists were also involved in clandestine activities for the OSS. 22 This level of commitment continued after the war with the American Anthropological Association (AAA) making a secret arrangement with the CIA in 1951, in which a cross-listed directory of AAA members was created demonstrating geographic and linguistic expertise. 23 Presumably, this database was desired in order to quickly locate a researcher with the appropriate skills. AAA President William Howells wrote,

“The CIA proposal is ideal. We should go along with it. . . If a reasonable questionnaire, suitable to both parties, can be worked out, we will both get what we want.” 24

The deal went through. Three years later, when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala 25, it was an anthropologist who contacted the State Department concerning the political affiliations of prisoners taken during the coup. 26

In fact, the Church Hearings of the early 1960s found that

“CIA funding was involved in nearly half the grants [excluding the “Big Three” Rockefeller, Ford & Carnegie foundations] during this period in the field of international activities [and] more than one-third of the grants awarded by non-“Big Three” in the physical, life and social sciences.” 27

It is unknown how many anthropologists knew where their funding had come from or that their research had caught the interest of the State Department. However, anthropologists were also directly involved in covert operations in the Korean War, the Vietnam War and in counterinsurgency across the globe. 28 This set the stage for the largest controversy and best documented account of anthropologists involved in clandestine research as a "crucial new weapon": counterinsurgency in Thailand between 1964 and 1970.

Click here for Part 3

References:

[11] Francis Edgar Williams, “The Vailala Madness” and Other Essays, University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1977, pp. 409-10
[12] Ibid., p. 417
[13] Felix M. Keesing, The South Seas in the Modern World. Institute of Pacific Relations International Research Series, John Day, New York, 1941, p. 84
[14] Ribeiro would later sign the Declaration of Barbados in 1971, proclaiming support for Indian self-determination
[15] Darcy Ribeiro, “The Social Integration of Indigenous Populations in Brazil,” International Labour Review, 85, 1962; cited in Bodley, Tribal Peoples & Development Issues; p. 53
[16] Ibid., p. 57
[17] Ibid., p. 58
[18] Ibid.
[19] Subcomandante Marcos, "The Fourth World War Has Begun", in Tom Hayden, ed., The Zapatista Reader, Avalon Publishing, 2000, p. 270.
[20] CNN.com, 04/03/03
[21] Fred Eggan, The American Anthropological Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science Bulletin 2(5), 1943, p. 38; cited in David Price, “Lessons From Second World War Anthropology,” Anthropology Today, 18:3, 2002, p. 16;
[22] E. Wyllys Andrews IV, William Bascom, Gregory Bateson, Lloyd Cabot Briggs, Carleton Coon, Cora Dubois, Anne Fuller, Nelson Glueck, Gordon Hewes, Frederick Hulse, Felix Keesing, Alexander Lesser, Edwin Loeb, Alfred Metraux, George Murdock, David Rodrick, Morris Siegel, Richard Starr, David Stout and Morris Swadesh; Ibid., p. 17
[23] David Price, “Anthropologists as Spies,” The Nation, Nov. 2, 2000b, p. 2;
[24] David Price, "A Private Face of Anthropology: The CIA, The AAA & The Comprehensive Roster of 1952", paper presented at a special Presidential Panel of the Annual Business Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco on November 16, 2000a;
[25] Gerald K. Haines, "CIA and Guatemala Assassination Proposals 1952-1954", CIA History Staff Analysis, 1995, National Security Archive;
[26] Price, 2000b, p. 2
[27] Church Committee Reports, Book 1.X. The Domestic Impact of Foreign Clandestine Operations: The CIA and Academic Institutions, The Media, And Religious Institutions, p. 182
[28] Chris Bunting, “I Spy with My Science Eye,” Times Higher Education Supplement, April 12, 2002

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Anthropology Goes to War, Part 1

Anthropologists in the war effort from "savages" to "terrorists"



This is the first part in a three part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Petition for anthropologist's non-participation in counterinsurgency

The New York Times reported yesterday on the military's use of cultural anthropologists in the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq in what they refer to as a "crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations."

As the Times reports:

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.

Before turning to evolutionary research I was a burgeoning cultural anthropologist myself (and even did preliminary work with the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico) so I'm familiar with both the history of anthropology and the ethical problems involved when anthropologists use their training to aid military maneuvers. It's a complex issue that, on one hand, helps to minimize misunderstandings between soldiers and the local population. However, if anthropologists are using their cultural knowledge to allow the military to better manipulate or exploit local people in an illegal military occupation then there are significant concerns.

So I disagree with my friends at Anthropology.net who state that

anthropology can help the war effort. I’m glad the head honchos have considered experimenting with social science to deal with problems that would never be solved by gunfights and military might.

This uncritical enthusiasm is troubling since it shouldn't be forgotten that anthropology has long had a connection with militaristic expansion. As Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss notes:

“It is the outcome of an historical process, which has made the larger part of mankind subservient to the other, and during which millions of innocent human beings have had their resources plundered, their institutions and beliefs destroyed while they themselves were ruthlessly killed, thrown into bondage, and contaminated by diseases they were unable to resist. Anthropology is the daughter to this era of violence.” 1

The history of anthropology is usually taught with the more enlightened emphasis of cultural theory, however anthropology’s primary role throughout history has been the observation and administration of colonial policies in Western imperialism. 2

Throughout most of the nineteenth century government policy had little need of attaining specific knowledge of the societies that were being transformed or eradicated. Gradually, however, it became clear that the task of administration would be easier and more efficient if means were found to “pacify” the indigenous populations. 3 Training programs in anthropology were an integral component of colonial administration from the discipline’s inception until World War II, and were taught by such notable theorists as Raymond Firth, Meyer Fortes, Lucy Mair, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and Bronislaw Malinowski. 4 This was justified, according to the latter, because:

“The Native still needs help . . . Shall we therefore mix politics with science? In one way, decidedly, ‘yes,’ because if knowledge gives foresight and foresight means power, it is a universal stultification of scientific results to insist that they can never be useful or used by those who have influence. . . The truth is that science begins with applications.” 5

If one goes back far enough even the liberal view is indistinguishable from that of the racist imperialist. President Thomas Jefferson, father of American anthropology and "friend to the Indian," came to support and continue the genocidal policies begun by George “Town Destroyer”6 Washington who famously ordered

"the immediate objectives are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more." 7

According to Jefferson,

“[t]his unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate.” 8

Furthermore, in a letter to his Secretary of War, Jefferson ordered

“if we are ever constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi.” 9

Jefferson later explained that this was “necessary to secure ourselves against the future effects of their savage and ruthless warfare” since all “benevolent” efforts at development had failed. 10

Click here for Part 2

References:

[1] Claude Lévi-Strauss, "Anthropology: Its Achievement and Future," Current Anthropology, vol. 7, 1966, p. 126
[2] Eric Wakin, Anthropology Goes to War, University of Wisconsin Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph Number 7, 1992, p. 20
[3] John H. Bodley, Victims of Progress, 2nd ed., Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co., California, 1982, p. 80
[4] Wakin, p. 21
[5] Bronislaw Malinowski, Dynamics of Culture Change, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945, pp. 4-5
[6] As the Iroquois came to know him.
[7] David E. Stannard, American Holocaust, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. 118-121
[8] Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee, New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 308
[9] Andrew Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, ed, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Definitive Edition, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, Washington, 1905, Vol. 11, p. 345: August 28, 1807; see also: Jefferson’s letter to John Adams
[10] Ibid. p. 24: Jefferson’s December 6, 1813, letter to Baron von Humboldt

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