Realism or Iconography? The Pentagon’s Implicit Theory of Visual Representation

The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good Intentions’,” published in Good Intentions: Norms and Practices of Imperial Humanitarianism (Montreal: Alert Press, 2014), pp. 185-279: US military documents make it quite clear that, for the military, a photograph is a straightforward, […]

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The US Military as Great Chief, Father, Doctor, and Babysitter

The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good Intentions’,” published in Good Intentions: Norms and Practices of Imperial Humanitarianism (Montreal: Alert Press, 2014), pp. 185-279: In 2009 the Department of the Army produced a field manual titled, “Visual Information Operations” (US […]

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Wikileaks’ Iraq War Logs: Obama Administration Handed Over Detainees Despite Reports of Torture

Republished from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism October 23rd, 2010  |  by Angus Stickler President Barack Obama’s government handed over thousands of detainees to the Iraqi authorities, despite knowing there were hundreds of reports of alleged torture in Iraqi government facilities. Washington was warned by the United Nations and many human rights organisations that torture was […]

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A Digital Face Lift for the Human Terrain System

Almost as if they were determined to totally ruin all of my theses about the resources poured into military propaganda, the Human Terrain System has just launched another Web 1.0 site–except this one is better, because it has an image slider. Having reviewed all of the images, all I can say is that HTS apparently […]

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The Nation Builders

Dahlia Wasfi (Physician and Iraqi antiwar activist who has traveled to Iraq twice since the invasion and spoken out around the U.S. about what she has seen): We have an obligation to every last victim of this illegal aggression, because all of this carnage has been done in our name. Since World War II, 90 […]

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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 […]

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Bibliography and Archive: The Military, Intelligence Agencies, and the Academy (with special reference to anthropology) – Documents, News, Reports

Over 470 reports have been published online concerning the relationships between anthropology, other parts of academia, and the military and intelligence agencies since 2001. The items covered here consist of online publications of the mainstream and alternative media, documents online referred to by journalists, statements and reports from professional associations, and journal publications by some […]

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