Militant Iraqi group releases American hostage

Sunday, March 28, 2010; A10

BAGHDAD — An American contractor held hostage by a Shiite militant group in Iraq was returned to U.S. custody this week, the Defense Department said in a statement Saturday.

The Pentagon said the circumstances surrounding the disappearance in January of Issa T. Salomi, 60, of El Cajon, Calif., were under investigation. But the militant group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous, suggested on a Web site the group uses that Salomi was released in exchange for four detainees in U.S. custody.

The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Salomi’s kidnapping followed the breakdown of talks between the Iraqi government and the group that U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped would lead to reconciliation. The U.S. military has released hundreds of the group’s members in a failed attempt to neutralize it.

Last month, Salomi appeared in a video posted on the Web site used by the militant group demanding the release of detainees in U.S. custody and calling for the punishment of the guards employed by Blackwater Worldwide — now known as Xe Services — who were involved in a 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad in which 14 Iraqis died.

– Leila Fadel

No, and all of the other institutions and engagements concern me just as much, if not more. However, in this instance, we are speaking about supporting militarization and the national security state, during a particularly violent and particularly expansionist phase of American imperialism. Thus, focusing on the one does not obviate a concern with the others.

“Second, is this a bone of contention specifically for anthropologists and if so why?”

Interestingly, it is not just a bone of contention with anthropologists, and certainly not with all anthropologists, but of the few identifiable sectors in academia that have spoken out anthropology has become prominent. One can take the approach that this needs explaining, but the attitude of other areas of academia is in no less need of explanation. Some anthropologists are acutely aware of the discipline’s history as a tool of imperialism and colonialism (and no, not just in Africa, or 1960s southeast Asia, but in Native North America as well). That anthropology has been used as a tool of counterinsurgency is already established, so it was not as much of a leap for anthropologists (both old and new) to tackle this once again.

“I am just looking at what might be transferable and translatable across disciplinary boundaries”

Good question. One way we can look at this is whether other disciplines contain enough critical elements within them to challenge both imperialism and the recruitment of academics to support the national security state — and this comes down to both ethics and politics. Another is whether they have sufficient engagements abroad, or contacts with communities at home, that they should worry about jeopardizing the lives or reputations of colleagues. Some disciplines are not publicly immersed at all, especially when at most they advise government on policy (don’t conflate state with civil society).

“So why not broaden the scope to include development work, foreign aid, humanitarian missions, NGOs, or is it just the guns and uniforms that exercise your imaginations the most?”

In part I answered this already. If one were to critique developmentalism, and we do on this blog, then someone else might say “yeah but what about HTS?” So no, it is not just “guns and uniforms” that aggravate us the most, but I must say, the proponents of guns and uniforms have been some of the most nefarious, unthinking, morally bankrupt and intellectually cowardly individuals with whom I have personally ever had the displeasure of interacting.

With reference to the “peace keeping” issue: I was pretty disappointed to see Mike take what was a conversation that lasted almost two hours, and reduce it to one sentence. When it comes to complex topics, that kind of reduction is not acceptable even in Twitter. I raised a series of critical questions, and numerous doubts, skeptical about both his hypothetical scenarios, the looseness of the concepts, and the actual cases to which he referred. While I prefer Canadian involvement in past peace keeping efforts to the current counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, the concept itself has become abundantly polluted now with R2P notions that I reject in their entirety. Simply put, I don’t write blank cheques with my sympathies.

And Mike, nice of you to mention “Tibet” — as you know, like “Darfur”, these two are trigger words on this blog and it’s better to never mention them lest I feel the urge to shout HEY KOOL-AID !!!

BTE, feel free to ask your questions here for now, until this page starts getting spammed too.

I am with Max on a lot of issues here, except when it comes to peacekeeping since it seems that Max is even against that in the conversation we had in Montreal. I agree that these are great questions:
“By the same token, if we subtracted from the term “American imperialism” the value-added adjective “American,” we would be left with “imperialism.” Let
us think about imperialism for a moment without the American “spin” on it. What is an imperialist? One man’s imperialist is another man’s interventionist. Is intervention good or bad? Again, it depends on the situation.”

Yes and no. Yes, “imperialism” is to be attacked if you are anti-imperialist, and that includes Chinese imperialism, Russian imperialism,
European imperialism, imperialism anywhere by anyone. I don’t think Chinese imperialism is “better” than American imperialism, especially if you
are Burmese or Tibetan, just different. And no: imperialism is about a lot more than just interventionism, I think, even if I’m not clear on how you distinguish the two. Most don’t.

Max does point out that I wrote “as if” insurgency were a bad thing. That is a good point. I did use a disease metaphor in talking about insurgency. And, diseases are bad, right? I think why I did that was that I remembered an effort by a group of epidemiologists in the early 1990s who applied a disease spread model to incidents of fissioning violence over some geographic area populated by humans. I did not mean to give the impression that I thought insurgency was either a good or bad thing. I think it depends on the situation. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Max points that out very well in throwing the American Founding Fathers back at me. I think French Guy is trying to say the same thing in his list of social actions that he asked me about.

By the same token, if we subtracted from the term “American imperialism” the value-added adjective “American,” we would be left with “imperialism.” Let us think about imperialism for a moment without the American “spin” on it. What is an imperialist? One man’s imperialist is another man’s interventionist. Is intervention good or bad? Again, it depends on the situation.

I think what I hear Max saying is that American intervention in Afghanistan is bad. And, clearly who can dispute this when one reads Major General Michael Flynn’s assessment that counterinsurgency is not being done in Afghanistan, but rather an “anti-insurgency” strategy of hunting down and killing Taliban leaders? Who can dispute this when one reads how General McChrystal has seized authority over most special forces units operating in Afghanistan? When civilian and mistaken identity deaths were investigated, it always seemed to tie back to relatively autonomous groups of special forces units barking up different stove pipes roaming the countryside in hunter-killer mode (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/world/asia/16afghan.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print). Poor strategies and atrocities can suck all the goodness out of a good-intentioned intervention. But, say, what was the purpose of intervening on Afghanistan in the first place? Didn’t that have something to do with capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and unstringing his support network?

On one hand, I find it very difficult to believe that bin Laden’s address is still unknown. As MG Flynn pointed out, the United States (and its allies) have very good operatives and analysts. On the other hand, when those of us with the smarts are taken off the case from being put to work on the wrong things, by fending off criminal distractions, and even by getting fired and stripped of our clearances on cover-up excuses — well I can well see how it is that bin Laden and his network have not been neutralized and how they continue to flourish. Is this poor result a consequence of the force multiplication in missteps, personal empire building, and bullshit artistry among those in the military-industrial complex of the United States and its allies from the lowest individual on the totem pole to the topmost – everybody in Klondike Goldrush mode? Or, is it by design to craft a “Long War” to replace the Cold War? An Osama bin Laden still at large makes for a very effective boogeyman.

All that being said, is intervention good for Afghanistan? Yes, if it raises the Afghan standard of living, if it stops the wholesale abuse and slavery of girls and women, if jobs can be created for its citizens, if ethnic and factional warfare can be stopped, if Afghanistan can contribute positively to the world system of societies. Is intervention in Afghanistan good for the United States, its allies, and global security in general? Not if that intervention does not result in the capture of Osama bin Laden and the unstringing of his network, not if Afghans are worse off for a failed intervention, not if collateral problems of the region are exacerbated, and not if new problems are created. At this juncture, permit me to interrupt myself and answer Max’s rhetorical comment regarding if the United States got out of Afghanistan, then the Taliban and other militant groups would obviously not be fighting Americans. That is true. If that were to occur before intervention had a positive outcome, then the Taliban and other militant groups would likely soon fall to fighting amongst themselves. What is the value of their insurgencies then? Good because they exhausted the American will to stay in Afghanistan? Bad because the insurgents reverted to a typical pattern of infighting?

In manipulating social fabrics, it is a fact that when one intends to pull a thread expecting a certain result, that unintended consequences can occur and the whole bolt of cloth unravels. In confronting insurgency on the world stage, the United States has created insurgencies where none existed before. I am not merely talking about examples in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latest version of the military-industrial complex of the United States and its allies includes in its ranks a host of military contractor companies that previously did not exist. They have been founded by former high-level military officers as well as retired special forces NCOs who might have been running businesses like paintball ranges if not for the “Goldrush” created by the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. What happens when the Goldrush is over? It may be that we can expect a good deal of discontent when companies like Xi (the company formerly known as Blackwater) have nothing to do.

Here is where I am reminded of the fall of the Fourth French republic. A critical mass of French Resistance fighters from World War II, French Foreign Legionnaires, and the Black Feet French colonists of Algeria became discontented. Why? Well, the French Resistance fighters didn’t much like subjecting themselves to anyone’s authority. And, the Legionnaires and the Black Feet were unhappy with France having granted Algeria independence. And, so, DeGaulle had to be called forth and the Fifth Republic began. I have to ask myself, “Are we Americans creating an insurgency among Americans — those Americans who lived high on the hog, who enjoyed the permeability of boundaries between former and current military service men and women, and who wrote their own tickets working for and running these “Goldrush” companies? Who will be the American De Gaulle — if this scenario comes to pass?

Max and French Guy, is such a potential insurgency good or bad? Max will likely say it is a good thing because it may serve to curb American imperialism if the United States is wrapped up with putting down a homegrown insurgency. On the other hand, how good will it be if these Goldrushers attempt to ensure that the Goldrush never ends? Wouldn’t that be an insurgency that was a problem? You would be looking at American imperialism on a scale not yet seen.

Without loading the term insurgency with good or bad values, I do view it as a global security problem. Let us use the term “challenge” if “problem” implies a value. And, it most assuredly can be lumped together with other phenomena. Let us look at French Guy’s example of the French Revolution. I think that archaeologist Brian Fagan has argued quite convincingly that an attendant player on the scene back then was climate change. The grievances that mount and evolve into insurgency may be driven or exacerbated by a host of other phenomena. Social action does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs within a human ecology. I think the term “human terrain” attempts to put a face on that concept, though, in practice to date, the human terrain system likely has not examined in the field regarding any issue all the diagnostic variables on the human terrain that it preaches about in training.

As to Max’s comment about the dichotomy of science and ideology, I, too, have read Wallerstein and others, as well as the comments that touch on the dichotomy elsewhere in these pages. Yes, the dichotomy is Eurocentric. And, yes, your particular ideology vs. my looking at any issue as a scientist may put you onto solutions that I might not see. I personally try to get around the either-or of the matter by having skilled up as both a quantitative and qualitative methodologist and having become conversant in a wide variety of perspectives. I also know that I can look at any issue from the theoretical pole or the empirical one and switch back and forth as needed. You may not defend such an order (the dichotomy), Max, but you are part and parcel of the thing, embedded in it being a university professor in a highly industrialized society. Perhaps you are the insurgent anthropologist who will lead the way to a new order. For, after all, the dichotomy had an evolution and I don’t think it is quite done playing out. I think you can take advantage of that.

I would like to turn to French Guy’s great questions about certain social actions (i.e., demonstrations, strikes, riots, etc.). Those who study insurgency would argue that for an insurgency to be an insurgency that various evolutionary phases or stages have to play out, or at least show some signs of playing out. They would also argue that there are different types of insurgencies. Also, successful insurgent leaders have written about how various stages of their insurgencies played out. Key to a successful insurgency is gaining legitimacy through popular support and being able to carry off successful operations against opposing forces. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Israeli war for independence were insurgencies. I don’t know enough about these other examples that French Guy has named to place these events in a staging scheme for insurgency. Perhaps we can talk about that as we go.

French Guy has essentially asked how would global counterinsurgency strategists decide which insurgencies should be crushed and which should be allowed to proceed? If it were truly a “global” strategy, then there would be strategist-authors from the bulk of the world system of societies. It would ideally be all-inclusive. They would have to set down the conditions by which they would advocate crushing an insurgency or letting one proceed. In a globally warming world on the decline side of oil with an increasing number of societies leapfrogging to advanced industrialization, we can use our imaginations to get a grip on which insurgencies would be opposed or allowed to run their course. Opposed: those which impede the resources to fuel and feed advanced industrial societies; those which jeopardize air and sea traffic; those which threaten to destabilize a society that has several key partners in the world system of societies, etc. Supported (if just by a blind eye): those which address the grievances of millions of refugees from areas impacted by sea level rise and its various order of effects who are blocked by neighboring societies from entering their territories; those which liberate or produce resources to fuel and feed advanced industrial societies; those which enhance air and sea traffic; and those that would hold the promise of stabilizing a society with several key and/or “wannabe” partners in the world system of societies, etc.

All that being said, despite how “legitimate” our imagined global counterinsurgency strategists think an insurgency is or isn’t, an insurgency holds the capacity of establishing its own legitimacy. In fact, insurgent leaders have the responsibility of doing their level best to establish the legitimacy of their insurgency. It is not enough to tote a gun and shoot well. Such a leader has to be able to communicate his/her views and move in the right circles. Counterinsurgents have the same responsibility. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has not worked very well yet because those MG Flynn labeled “anti-insurgents” have mostly been toting guns and shooting. And, as General McChrystal would tell you, they have been killing the wrong people on top of that. Largely absent has been a synchronization of effort to move in the right circles and communicate in word and deed the party line that certain militant groups are illegitimate and do not have the best interests of the people at heart.

http://zeroanthropology.net/2010/02/15/hts-hostage-issa-salomi-lived-off-base-john-stanton/#comment-9727