Pakistan – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Drones and the Production of Terror in Afghanistan

In his “Drone Strikes” (Anthropology News, March/April 2013) Daniel Varisco softly counsels the raging and confused American warfare machine about the futility of its bloody military operations in the lands of the Others in pursuit of its sadomasochistic “war on terror”. I partially agree with Daniel Varisco; yes, the acts of terror committed by the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #7, 16-21 October 2010

EE: Report #7, 16—21 October 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

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM): Commemorating Columbus Day 2010

Readers will appreciate that a tremendous amount of historical research, and interviews with participants, went into this project to present the true history of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to Afghanistan, a history that thus far has been replete with misconceptions, unsubstantiated rumour, and popular myths. Clearly, Columbus and his brothers are to be celebrated […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #5, 01-08 October 2010

EE: Report #5, 01—08 October 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 John Stanton

Second Decade of the New American Century: A Clockwork Orange Meets American Psycho

“The United States will protect its people and advance our prosperity irrespective of the actions of any other nation…” President Barak Obama in National Security Strategy of the United States, 2010 The American Empire is not in decline. It is rebooting for a new era of dominance. The American Empire’s success depends on successfully converting […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #1, 03-11 September 2010

EE: Report #1, 03—11 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 M. Jamil Hanifi

Anthropology and the Representation of Migrations from Afghanistan

[This is a paper that was originally published under the title of “Anthropology and the Representation of Recent Migrations from Afghanistan,” as it appeared in Rethinking Refuge and Displacement: Selected Papers on Refugees and Immigrants, Volume VIII, 2000. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association. Eds. E. M. Godziak and D. J. Shandy. Pp. 291-321. Given the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Punishing Publication, Banishing Ideas: YouTube Censors Your World for the CIA

This post, while actually written on 20 April 2011, is backdated to the time that the video in question below was uploaded to YouTube. The video, “Humam al-Balawi: Slayer of CIA Terrorists in Afghanistan,” was an unacceptable challenge to some, starting with the very title. Let’s put this in some perspective first. The video was […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Embedded With the Taliban

From CounterPunch, 03 Sept 2009: Ron Jacobs: Embedded With the Taliban Anand Gopal is a reporter based in Kabul who has reported from all parts of Afghanistan (the following are his statements in an interview with Ron Jacobs): I have some well-placed Taliban contacts and I was offered a chance to come out and see […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Afghanistan and the Emergence of the Taliban: Reviewed Works

A previous article on this site quoted sections of Ahmed Rashid’s TALIBAN: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), a partial copy of which is available here. The following is a review by M. Jamil Hanifi published in The Middle East Journal, with details of the history of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Glimpses of What the Mainstream Media Might Have Told Us About Afghanistan

Recently a debate broke out across blogs, think tanks, counterinsurgency advocates, and academics, concerning what is apparently the near total absence of any debate, any questioning, any discussion about why the U.S. (and by implication the rest of us in NATO) should remain in Afghanistan, even less so about why Afghanistan should have been invaded […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Patricia Omidian, Applied Anthropologist in Afghanistan, on the Human Terrain System

Dr. Patricia A. Omidian started her work in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1997. She traveled to and conducted research in Afghanistan from 1998 to 2001, before moving to Kabul in March 2002 where she was based until January 2007 — she has been on the ground from before 9/11 until well after the US invasion and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The War Criminals’ Roundup: Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Israel

Following up on some of the links to stories I posted on twitter, this is a selection of notes and extracts from articles that each deal in some way with the issue of war crimes. ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• “Round Up the Usual War Criminals!” — Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch, (May 8-10, 2009, pertaining to […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Sex Beats Money, Hitler Beats Gandhi: More Google Insights

Unlike my previous post on Google Insight statistics for anthropology searches, this time I am not making the mistake of closing the pages without preserving a link so that others can investigate the searches. Having conducted a number of queries using Google Insights, I realize that I risk becoming addicted to this service, with the […]