ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

ISSN 2562-9948

by John Allison

The Goat Caught in Bushkazi: Personal Effects of One’s Role in the Great Game

The beginning of this story, for me, was in the spring of 1969. I had applied for funding to do a cutting edge project combining methods and techniques of visual anthropology that I had learned from John Collier, Jr, my own version of cognitive anthropology arising out of the works of Edward Sapir and the […]

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 Maximilian C. Forte

Wikileaks: Intelligence Needs Counter-Intelligence

Click on the images to download Wikileaks posters:

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

Andrew Garfield’s Commercial Plea for War Research, and the Reality of Ethics in Human Terrain Teams

Two very different, but related, items have been published online this past week, related to the Human Terrain System and embedding anthropologists/social scientists in counterinsurgency. The first one I mention–unsurprisingly published by the Small Wars “Journal” –is written by Andrew Garfield of Glevum Associates, a private defense contractor that we have encountered here many times […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

A Major Report of a Minor Exception, or a Minor Report of a Major Problem? The American Anthropological Association’s CEAUSSIC vis-à-vis the Human Terrain System–Part 2

…CONTINUED FROM PART 1 We continue the discussion of the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) which released its “Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program,” in early December of 2009. Though not a comprehensive summary, nor a thorough […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

A Major Report of a Minor Exception, or a Minor Report of a Major Problem? The American Anthropological Association’s CEAUSSIC vis-à-vis the Human Terrain System–Part 1

When the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) released its “Final Report on the Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program,” in early December of 2009, there was a fair bit of media coverage that zeroed in on one paragraph in particular: When […]

by John Stanton

HTS’ MAP HT Failure: People Not Being Paid, MAP HT Cost Overrruns

“It would seem that the U.S. Army TRADOC Command has entered a time warp. They have dusted off the files on CORDS and the old FAO program. The new COIN manual and doctrine are the Holy Grail! The message being sent is this: Use COIN or else!” The HTS Program Manager was scheduled to make […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Imperial Instruction: The Human Terrain System’s Academic Trainers, Part 2

…continued from Part 1 HTS’ Other Handlers There are those trainers who are not attached to either UNO or the University of Kansas as faculty. One of these, someone who for a while was a student in my department (before I arrived), is Dr. Liam D. Murphy, an anthropologist at California State University-Sacramento, who by […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Imperial Instruction: The Human Terrain System’s Academic Trainers, Part 1

As part of the series designed to “map the terrain” of war corporatism, beginning with charting the private corporations contracted by the Human Terrain System (HTS), corporations with military, intelligence, and other specializations, then examining the various other human terrain efforts outside of HTS, and then generally considering how anthropologists and other social scientists have […]

by John Stanton

Human Terrain Teams Feared More than CIA: John Stanton

Human Terrain Teams Feared more than CIA: Cureton Blinded for Life, Laurie Adler Returns by John Stanton 12 May 2010 …You have no sense about the intriguing world of intelligence gathering! I am dead scared of a Peace Corps…Team wanting to help a strategically important country affected by a natural disaster [rather] than a CIA […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

David Price: On the Costs of Serving Empire

David Price has an interesting exposé in: Price, David H. (2008). Payback time: The student who decided not to be a spook. Counterpunch, 15 (15), 1-15 September: 6-8. It involves the case of Nicolas Flattes, an anthropology student at the University of Hawai’i, who was awarded a Boren Scholarship from the National Security Education Program […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

More on U.S. Militarization of Open Access

As if to continue a previous post here titled, “Imperializing Open Access and Militarizing Open Source: “What’s yours is ours. What’s ours is ours” (1.3),” we can see that others, including Noah Schachtman below, are beginning to realize the situation that open access publishing has to face in this “era” of a U.S. “global” war […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Imperializing Open Access and Militarizing Open Source: “What’s yours is ours. What’s ours is ours” (1.4)

“Intelligence does not have to be secret to be valuable!” — University of Military Intelligence, Open Source Resources ••••••• Stemming from a discussion initiated at Owen Wiltshire’s Another Anthro Blog, regarding a post by Owen titled, “Open Access and Anthropology — a free and easy interview,” I decided to develop my comments into a full […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Reviewing the AAA’s Report on Anthropology and the Military

About four months ago I promised to produce an essay/notes reviewing and summarizing the 04 November, 2007, release of the report by the AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities, whose term of work began in November of 2005. The report is titled “AAA Commission on the Engagement […]