ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

ISSN 2562-9948

by John Allison

John’s Final Epistle to The Anthropologists, Part I: The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at the Climax of the Neolithic

Peeping through a Keyhole, Down upon My Knees We are virtually here to discuss with you something that I would call InTRADOCtrination: Intelligent Design for Retraining the Masses The Mission?: We suggest that it is The Locking-In: The Prison-Industrial Complex, well-documented and contextualized by Angela Davis. In fact, she traces my essay’s central themes. You Say You Want […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The End of Debates About the Human Terrain System?

The End of Debates? Having been asked (and declined) to write commentaries, or respond to one or another essay on the Human Terrain System (HTS) over the past 18 months, I realized that I had enough, and had said enough that it did not warrant repetition. However, unlike others who said their piece, I might […]

by John Allison

The Ant Problem and Zoosemiotics

I’ve got ants in my kitchen. Now, one cannot allow ants in one’s kitchen. It’s similar to the idea of “national security”: one has to control and keep safe all that is within one’s purview. The kitchen belongs to me; I need it for my “lifestyle”. The ants do too; just like Libyans need Libya, […]

by John Allison

The Fire This Time: COIN Operations, Carquinez Strait, Niger Delta

Imperial violet, the flames licked skyward out of the boiling black smoke engulfing workers and nearby residences, cringing in fear, hearing loud explosions. The giant crude oil refinery and storage tank fire that began on August 6, 2012 was a culmination of a century of social and environmental injustices committed by Chevron against the people […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Human Terrain System: Global Counterinsurgency, Global Espionage, Global Occupation

Max Forte: The article that follows was written by John Allison, a former member of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System. It was posted earlier as a comment on a report (Revealing the Human Terrain System in Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary) that the media actively chose to ignore (specifically, Joanne Kimberlin of The Virginian Pilot). […]

by John Stanton

Cyber Warlords Push Counterinsurgency, Social Science: Human Terrain System as a Cautionary Tale

Anyone familiar with the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System knew that it wouldn’t be long until the same principles upon which the HTS program were built would be used by the U.S. national security machinery to justify a cyber-surge of the Internet. A similar attempt was made beginning in the mid/late-1990’s by President Bill Clinton […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #3, 18-23 September 2010

EE: Report #3, 18—23 September 2010 Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #2, 11-18 September 2010

EE: Report #2, 11—18 September 2010 Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period, which can usually be glimpsed in raw form at zero.collected. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Revealing the Human Terrain System in Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary

This is the fourth and final item in my mini-series on Human Terrain Teams as recorded in Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary. The other articles were: Human Terrain Teams in Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary: Raw Data Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary: Problems to Note, More to Come on Human Terrain Teams Human Terrain System in Wikileaks’ Afghan […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Human Terrain Teams in Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary: Raw Data

The following items were extracted from Wikileaks’ newly released Afghan War Diary. The files were downloaded from the raw HTML dump, and then searched using “HTT” –there were no results when using HTS or HTAT as search words. While we reserve commentary and analysis for an upcoming post, we welcome readers to not only copy […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Counterinsurgency: It’s Bloody Horrible

COUNTER-COUNTERINSURGENCY: You’ve heard the criticisms. You’ve read the book. Now see the movie. These are some of my favourite lines: counterinsurgency: it’s like a wild horse, only you bet on it; counterinsurgency involves a thousand small healing steps; the manual can never be wrong, only the practice; cultural knowledge for the military: it’s so basic […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

More European Press Coverage of the Human Terrain System

Continuing from the last item on this topic, the following are more examples of recent European press coverage of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System and its embedding of civilian social scientists in counterinsurgency missions. One thing that immediately stands out from most of these articles is the emphasis not on “civilian social scientists,” but […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Saving Lives, or Ending Them? Martin Schweitzer on Special Operations and the Human Terrain System

Previously we read here of the testimony by a Col. Martin Schweitzer, Commander, 4 / 82 Airborne Brigade Combat Team, United States Army, before the House Armed Services Committee, Terrorism & Unconventional Threats Sub-Committee and the Research & Education Sub-Committee of the Science & Technology Committee , on 24 April 2008. He repeats statements there that have […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Grace McFate: Anthropology, Avatar, and the Human Terrain System in the Italian Press

In some overdue posts, including this and the next one or two, I draw your attention to how the mass mediated propaganda for the Human Terrain System has spread to elements of the European press. Back on 05 March 2010, one of Italy’s oldest and most prominent–not to mention right wing–dailies, Corriere della Sera, carried […]

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 […]