ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

ISSN 2562-9948

by Maximilian C. Forte

Shadow Anthropology

“The challenge for anthropologists is to discover without killing.” “With notebooks and pens we will end suicide bombings and gore. Sensitivity to backward culture will help us to control the horror. They’ll learn love for American freedom through stories they’ll come to adore.” “Anthropology will help to explain the people we wish to contain. We’ll […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

An Alternative Approach to Afghanistan

The military and civilian forces of the United States should leave Afghanistan. The American government has morally and politically disqualified itself from involvement in Afghanistan (and every other place in the world). This freaked out and dark minded killing machine has no business in the affairs of other people. During the past sixty years everything […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

American Educated Afghans and the Destruction of Afghanistan by the United States: The Case of Zal Khalizad

The occupation of Afghanistan by the United States is not only based on misguided policies, denials of truth and glaring political realities, it is also guided by ignorance and profoundly distorted understandings of the cultural and social complexities of this devastated country. A major source of these distortions and misrepresentations is a small number of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

In Afghanistan: Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

Come On, Show Me that Smile! One has to wonder if NATO military planners and officers in the field are just slightly insane with frustration, or simply have a perverse sense of humour. In this BBC story, British troops armed to the teeth enter a compound in darkness en masse, scaring the little children, and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The U.S. Cost of the War in Afghanistan

Images for the slideshow above were adapted from http://www.onlineschooling.net/afghanistan-war-cost. With the exception of one that could not be transcribed, these are the sources used by the creators of the images: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/afghan-war-costs-us-36-bi_n_321491.html http://costofwar.com/ http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/afghan-war-costs-5707760-minute http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/ww1/index.cfm http://www.cnbc.com/id/27717424/slide/14/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/27/gulf-oil-spill-cleanup-costs_n_592493.html http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats http://www.theroadtothehorizon.org/2006/03/news-round-up-war-in-iraq-happy.html http://www.one.org/c/us/issue/187/ http://aidspolicyproject.org/documents/The%20Cure%20Final.pdf http://thewaterproject.org/ Additional sources that take some of these elements further, such as pricing the current […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

The ‘Dirty Secrets’ that Purify a Dirty War: A Colonial Tale of Dancing Boys, a Journalist, and the Human Terrain System in Afghanistan

By M. Jamil Hanifi & Maximilian C. Forte The Telling of a Tale There is no “scoop” in Joel Brinkley’s article, “Afghanistan’s dirty little secret” (29 August 2010, San Francisco Chronicle)—just an ugly sensationalist title on a story already abundantly covered by PBS Frontline months ago (see: “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan”). What is more […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Withdrawing from Afghanistan: Three Movies on the Soviet Occupation

Imperial Brains Blown Out When you’re wounded an’ left on Afghanistan’s plains An’ the women come out to cut up your remains Jus’ roll to your rifle an’ blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.–Rudyard Kipling Last night Senator John McCain tweeted, “I believe the President’s artificial date for withdrawal […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

The Loaded Goat: Revisiting Pine Cone Anthropology in Afghanistan

The diary of Ted the Tongue reveals more about the poverty of the academic thinking and conduct that provisions the “Comparative Cultural Competence” (or is it “Cross-Cultural Competence”?) component of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS) than the colorful background and confused imaginings of a young American adventurer in the guise of anthropologist and […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Is TIME’s Afghan “cover girl” really a victim of mutilation by the Taleban?

TIME: What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan (story) BOING BOING: What Still Happened Despite 10 Years of Occupying Afghanistan (story) ZERO ANTHRO: What Happens When We Don’t Fix Problems at Home (story) The August 9th TIME magazine cover story is about a young Afghan woman whose nose and ears have been allegedly “mutilated” by the Taleban. […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Visual Intelligence: IED Attacks from Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary

This is probably my favourite YouTube video for the year–an astonishing application of the raw data from the Afghanistan war logs released by Wikileaks. It is deceptively simple, but as an amateur video editor I can only begin to imagine the formidable knowledge and skills required to animate this data, and to send a message […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Taleban–Not Taliban

In Western discourse, the neo-fundamentalist Taleban movement and the noun from which it is derived are awkwardly, often incorrectly, represented. In Paxtu (Pakhtu, Pashto, Pushtu, etc.) the movement is rendered da talebano ghorzang, and in Dari (Afghan Farsi), jonbesh-e taleban. In Paxtu and Dari usage, the noun taleb (student, seeker of knowledge) is gendered, and […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

The Killing Fields of Marja

Updated with an addendum (see below) The HTS (Human Terrain System) and the U. S. Marine operations in Marja had nothing to do with the presence of the Taleban resistance forces, “winning the hearts and minds of Afghans”, “winning the cooperation of Afghan civilians”, or “uprising against the insurgency”. The representation of Marja as a […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Whose Hearts and Minds?

Notes from: Big strategy founders on corruption and tribalism Hearts, minds and the same old warlords Go up close to what’s happening in Afghanistan – for example, in the city of Kandahar – and you find crime, corruption, tribal conflict and ordinary people powerless to resist the armed might of the militias. No happy ending […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Marjeh, Afghanistan: X-ray of McChrystal’s Bleeding Ulcer

Updated: 28 June 2010 Operation Urban Inflation One objective I cannot accomplish here is a comprehensive recap of counterinsurgency doctrine, the development and execution of Operation Moshtarak in Helmand province, Afghanistan, starting in February, and a comprehensive analysis of all of the apparent outcomes. Instead, this a selective series of vignettes. The first vignette: on […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Afghan Vignette 7: How to Buy Peace in Afghanistan

In the course of what is now called a counterinsurgency campaign by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, we have been told a lot about using aid, latching onto civilian non-governmental organizations (“civil military fusion“), “mixing fighting and food,” building clinics, undertaking development efforts to ensure jobs and “bring progress” to Afghan villagers in order […]