What you are saying, buhogrunon, is fair. The point that I think should be stressed in Daniel's discussion, however, is that a system that only punishes and fails to reform is an effort in vain. Given that punishment usually takes place within a designated period of time, after which prisoners enter again into 'normal' society, should we not be aiming for something better with which they can approach life outside? What is the point of churning out people if not angrier than before, feeling no less persecuted by the institutions (for many who end up in prison have been victims of structural violence - institutions and policies that foster discriminatory preferences of gender, class, race, sexual orientation, and other classifications - and whether or not they know the root of the evil, persistent societal disdain can only hurt). Would it really be an excusing of immoral actions to permit the actor to truly feel the grief and remorse that is due? And to say, "There can be change, you don't have to do this again, you don't have to be chained by your experiences"?
Such a philosophy of reform would rest on the understanding that humans are capable of appropriating their own development. This is the one thing that distinguishes us as animals. It may be incredibly difficult to understand oneself and by extension human nature, but the research is out there. It is in our policies and our prejudices that are yet unwilling to give - not forgive. 'To forgive' is so common a mantra delivered to those wronged by, but it's misleading for many, ultimately serving to undermine their capacity for compassion. What we want is change, for nobody else to feel the hurt that we feel. In order for that to happen we must allow those who have wronged the time and space to learn.
One 1955 MKUltra document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort; this document refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:[27]
1.Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public. 2.Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception. 3.Materials which will cause the victim to age faster/slower in maturity. 4.Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol. 5.Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc. 6.Materials will cause temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory. 7.Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing". 8.Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use. 9.Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use. 10.Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc. 11.Substances which will produce a chemical that can cause blisters. 12.Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced. 13.A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning. 14.Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts. 15.Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects. 16.A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
In 1964, the project was renamed MKSEARCH. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control. Another MKUltra effort, Subproject 54, was the Navy's top secret "Perfect Concussion" program, which was supposed to use sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory. However, the program was never carried out.[21]
Because most MKUltra records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MKUltra and related CIA programs.[22]
The project began during a period of what Rupert Cornwell described as "paranoia" at the CIA, when America had lost its nuclear monopoly, and fear of Communism was at its height.[23] James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counter-intelligence, believed that the organization had been penetrated by a mole at the highest levels.[23]
[edit] GoalsThe Agency poured millions of dollars into studies examining methods of influencing and controlling the mind, and of enhancing their ability to extract information from resistant subjects during interrogation.[24][25]
Some historians have asserted that creating a "Manchurian Candidate" subject through "mind control" techniques was a goal of MKUltra and related CIA projects.[26] Alfred McCoy has claimed that the CIA attempted to focus media attention on these sorts of "ridiculous" programs, so that the public would not look at the primary goal of the research, which was developing effective methods of torture and interrogation. Such authors cite as one example that the CIA's KUBARK interrogation manual refers to "studies at McGill University", and that most of the techniques recommended in KUBARK are exactly those that researcher Donald Ewen Cameron used on his test subjects (sensory deprivation, drugs, isolation, etc.).[24]
topics. edit] MKUltraThe project's intentionally oblique CIA cryptonym is made up of the digraph MK, meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency's Technical Services Staff, followed by the word Ultra (which had previously been used to designate the most secret classification of World War II intelligence). Other related cryptonyms include Project MKNAOMI and Project MKDELTA.
Headed by Sidney Gottlieb, the MKUltra project was started on the order of CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles on April 13, 1953.[16] Its remit was to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the Soviet bloc, largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.[17] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques,[18] and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro. Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent.[19] In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.[20]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search "MKULTRA" redirects here. For other uses, see MKULTRA (disambiguation).
Declassified MKUltra documentsProject MKUltra was the code name of a U.S. government covert research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans (mind control) through the CIA's Scientific Intelligence Division. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and "officially halted" in 1973.[1] The program engaged in many illegal activities;[2][3][4][5] in particular it used unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy.[6][7][8][9] MKUltra involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.[10]
The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies.[11] The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.[12]
Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the U.S. Congress, and a Gerald Ford commission to investigate CIA activities within the United States. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms' destruction order.[13]
In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to project MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings later that same year.[7] In July 2001 some surviving information regarding MKUltra was officially declassified. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb approved of an MKUltra subproject on LSD in this June 9, 1953 letter.[edit] Precursor experimentsA precursor of the MKUltra program began in 1945 when the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. The program recruited former Nazi scientists, some of whom studied torture and brainwashing, and several who had been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.[14][15]
Several secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation Paperclip. These projects included Project CHATTER (established 1947), and Project BLUEBIRD (established 1950), which was renamed Project ARTICHOKE in 1951. Their purpose was to study mind control, interrogation, behavior modification and related
instead vying to represent the interests of indigenous peoples engaged in neocolonial struggles. In the words of Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, anthropologists would now speak for the "subaltern." Thus began a systematic interrogation of the contemporary state of the discipline as well as of the colonial circumstances from which it emerged. Armed with critical hermeneutics, frequently backed up by self-reflexive neo- Marxism, anthropology began a brutal process of self-flagellation, to a degree almost unimaginable to anyone outside the discipline.18
sorry i cant find document u refered too i got go back drumming now then wen class finish this centre shuts so i cant use internet again i will try go library 2mor or thurs order enveolopes for u i got letter of u today how i read about cia...Jah rastafari Bless u i love u comrade.
Even such DOD luminaries as Andrew Marshall, the mysterious director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, are now calling for "anthropologylevel knowledge of a wide range of cultures" because such knowledge will prove essential to conducting future operations. Although senior U.S. Government officials such as Skelton are calling for "personnel in our civilian ranks who have cultural knowledge and understanding to inform the policy process," there are few anthropologists either available or willing to play in the same sandbox with the military.15
The Current State of the Discipline
Although anthropology is the only academic discipline that explicitly seeks to understand foreign cultures and societies, it is a marginal contributor to U.S. national-security policy at best and a punch line at worst. Over the past 30 years, as a result of anthropologists' individual career choices and the tendency toward reflexive self-criticism contained within the discipline itself, the discipline has become hermetically sealed within its Ivory Tower.
Unlike political science or economics, anthropology is primarily an academic discipline. The majority of newly minted anthropologists brutally compete for a limited number of underpaid university faculty appointments, and although there is an increasing demand from industry for applied anthropologists to advise on product design, marketing, and organizational culture, anthropologists still prefer to study the "exotic and useless," in the words of A.L. Kroeber.16
The retreat to the Ivory Tower is also a product of the deep isolationist tendencies within the discipline. Following the Vietnam War, it was fashionable among anthropologists to reject the discipline's historic ties to colonialism. Anthropologists began to reinvent their discipline, as demonstrated by Kathleen Gough's 1968 article, Anthropology: Child of Imperialism, followed by Dell Hymes' 1972 anthology, Reinventing Anthropology, and culminating in editor Talal Asad's Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.17
Rejecting anthropology's status as the handmaiden of colonialism, anthropologists refused to "collaborate" with the powerful,
The alternative approach to fighting insurgency, such as the British eventually adopted through trial and error in Northern Ireland, involves the following: A comprehensive plan to alleviate the political conditions behind the insurgency; civil-military cooperation; the application of minimum force; deep intelligence; and an acceptance of the protracted nature of the conflict. Deep cultural knowledge of the adversary is inherent to the British approach.13
Although cultural knowledge of the adversary matters in counterinsurgency, it has little importance in major combat operations. Because the Powell- Weinberger doctrine meant conventional, large-scale war was the only acceptable type of conflict, no discernable present or future need existed to develop doctrine and expertise in unconventional war, including counterinsurgency. Thus, there was no need to incorporate cultural knowledge into doctrine, training, or warfighting. Until now, that is.
On 21 October 2003, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing to examine lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Scales' testimony at the hearing prompted U.S. Representative "Ike" Skelton to write a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in which he said: "In simple terms, if we had better understood the Iraqi culture and mindset, our war plans would have been even better than they were, the plan for the postwar period and all of its challenges would have been far better, and we [would have been] better prepared for the 'long slog' . . . to win the peace in Iraq."14
In 1994, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell (formerly a military assistant to Weinberger) rearticulated the Weinberger doctrine's fundamental elements, placing a strong emphasis on the idea that force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy. The Powell-Weinberger doctrine institutionalized a preference for "major combat operations"- big wars-as a matter of national preference. Although the Powell-Weinberger doctrine was eroded during the Clinton years; during operations other than war in Haiti, Somali, and Bosnia; and during the second Bush Administration's pre-emptive strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq, no alternative doctrine has emerged to take its place.10
We have no doctrine for "nationbuilding," which the military eschews as a responsibility because it is not covered by Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which outlines the responsibilities of the military as an element of national power. Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations and Support Operations, was not finalized until February 2003, despite the fact the U.S. military was already deeply engaged in such operations in Iraq. Field Manual 3-07.22-meant to be a temporary document-is still primarily geared toward fighting an enemy engaged in Maoist revolutionary warfare, a type of insurgency that has little application to the situation in Iraq where multiple organizations are competing for multiple, confusing objectives.11
Since 1923, the core tenet of U.S. warfighting strategy has been that overwhelming force deployed against an equally powerful state will result in military victory. Yet in a counterinsurgency situation such as the one the United States currently faces in Iraq, "winning" through overwhelming force is often inapplicable as a concept, if not problematic as a goal. While negotiating in Hanoi a few days before Saigon fell, U.S. Army Colonel Harry Summers, Jr., said to a North Vietnamese colonel, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." The Vietnamese colonel replied, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." 12 The same could be said of the conflict in Iraq.
Winning on the battlefield is irrelevant against an insurgent adversary because the struggle for power and legitimacy among competing factions has no purely military solution. Often, the application of overwhelming force has the negative, unintended effect of strengthening the insurgency by creating martyrs, increasing recruitment, and demonstrating the "brutality" of state forces.
The United States suffers from a lack of cultural knowledge in its national-security establishment for two primary, interrelated reasons. First, anthropology is largely and conspicuously absent as a discipline within our national-security enterprise, especially within the intelligence community and DOD. Anthropology is a social science discipline whose primary object of study has traditionally been non- Western, tribal societies. The methodologies of anthropology include participant observation, fieldwork, and historical research. One of the central epistemological tenets of anthropology is cultural relativism-understanding other societies from within their own framework.
The primary task of anthropology has historically been translating knowledge gained in the "field" back to the West. While it might seem self-evident that such a perspective would be beneficial to the nationalsecurity establishment, only one of the national defense universities (which provide master's degreelevel education to military personnel) currently has an anthropologist on its faculty. At West Point, which traditionally places a heavy emphasis on engineering, anthropology is disparagingly referred to by cadets as "nuts and huts." And, although political science is well represented as a discipline in senior policymaking circles, there has never been an anthropologist on the National Security Council.
The second and related reason for the current lack of cultural knowledge is the failure of the U.S. military to achieve anything resembling victory in Vietnam. Following the Vietnam War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff collectively put their heads in the sand and determined they would never fight an unconventional war again. From a purely military perspective, it was easier for them to focus on the threat of Soviet tanks rolling through the Fulda Gap, prompting a major European land war-a war they could easily fight using existing doctrine and technology and that would have a clear, unequivocal winner.8
The preference for the use of overwhelming force and clear campaign objectives was formalized in what has become known as the Weinberger doctrine. In a 1984 speech, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger articulated six principles designed to ensure the Nation would never become involved in another Vietnam. By the mid-1980s, there was cause for concern: deployment of troops to El Salvador seemed likely and the involvement in Lebanon had proved disastrous following the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Responding to these events, Weinberger believed troops should be committed only if U.S. national interests were at stake; only in support of clearly defined political and military objectives; and only "with the clear intention of winning."9
RSS
Such a philosophy of reform would rest on the understanding that humans are capable of appropriating their own development. This is the one thing that distinguishes us as animals. It may be incredibly difficult to understand oneself and by extension human nature, but the research is out there. It is in our policies and our prejudices that are yet unwilling to give - not forgive. 'To forgive' is so common a mantra delivered to those wronged by, but it's misleading for many, ultimately serving to undermine their capacity for compassion. What we want is change, for nobody else to feel the hurt that we feel. In order for that to happen we must allow those who have wronged the time and space to learn.
1.Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
2.Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
3.Materials which will cause the victim to age faster/slower in maturity.
4.Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
5.Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc.
6.Materials will cause temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory.
7.Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
8.Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
9.Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
10.Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
11.Substances which will produce a chemical that can cause blisters.
12.Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
13.A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
14.Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
15.Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
16.A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
Because most MKUltra records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MKUltra and related CIA programs.[22]
The project began during a period of what Rupert Cornwell described as "paranoia" at the CIA, when America had lost its nuclear monopoly, and fear of Communism was at its height.[23] James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counter-intelligence, believed that the organization had been penetrated by a mole at the highest levels.[23]
[edit] GoalsThe Agency poured millions of dollars into studies examining methods of influencing and controlling the mind, and of enhancing their ability to extract information from resistant subjects during interrogation.[24][25]
Some historians have asserted that creating a "Manchurian Candidate" subject through "mind control" techniques was a goal of MKUltra and related CIA projects.[26] Alfred McCoy has claimed that the CIA attempted to focus media attention on these sorts of "ridiculous" programs, so that the public would not look at the primary goal of the research, which was developing effective methods of torture and interrogation. Such authors cite as one example that the CIA's KUBARK interrogation manual refers to "studies at McGill University", and that most of the techniques recommended in KUBARK are exactly those that researcher Donald Ewen Cameron used on his test subjects (sensory deprivation, drugs, isolation, etc.).[24]
Headed by Sidney Gottlieb, the MKUltra project was started on the order of CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles on April 13, 1953.[16] Its remit was to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the Soviet bloc, largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.[17] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques,[18] and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro. Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent.[19] In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.[20]
Declassified MKUltra documentsProject MKUltra was the code name of a U.S. government covert research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans (mind control) through the CIA's Scientific Intelligence Division. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and "officially halted" in 1973.[1] The program engaged in many illegal activities;[2][3][4][5] in particular it used unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy.[6][7][8][9] MKUltra involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.[10]
The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies.[11] The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.[12]
Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the U.S. Congress, and a Gerald Ford commission to investigate CIA activities within the United States. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms' destruction order.[13]
In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to project MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings later that same year.[7] In July 2001 some surviving information regarding MKUltra was officially declassified.
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb approved of an MKUltra subproject on LSD in this June 9, 1953 letter.[edit] Precursor experimentsA precursor of the MKUltra program began in 1945 when the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. The program recruited former Nazi scientists, some of whom studied torture and brainwashing, and several who had been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.[14][15]
Several secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation Paperclip. These projects included Project CHATTER (established 1947), and Project BLUEBIRD (established 1950), which was renamed Project ARTICHOKE in 1951. Their purpose was to study mind control, interrogation, behavior modification and related
http://www.army.mil/professionalWriting/volumes/volume3/august_2005/7_05_2.html
sorry i cant find document u refered too i got go back drumming now then wen class finish this centre shuts so i cant use internet again i will try go library 2mor or thurs order enveolopes for u i got letter of u today how i read about cia...Jah rastafari Bless u i love u comrade.
The Current State of the Discipline
Although anthropology is the only academic discipline that explicitly seeks to understand foreign cultures and societies, it is a marginal contributor to U.S. national-security policy at best and a punch line at worst. Over the past 30 years, as a result of anthropologists' individual career choices and the tendency toward reflexive self-criticism contained within the discipline itself, the discipline has become hermetically sealed within its Ivory Tower.
Unlike political science or economics, anthropology is primarily an academic discipline. The majority of newly minted anthropologists brutally compete for a limited number of underpaid university faculty appointments, and although there is an increasing demand from industry for applied anthropologists to advise on product design, marketing, and organizational culture, anthropologists still prefer to study the "exotic and useless," in the words of A.L. Kroeber.16
The retreat to the Ivory Tower is also a product of the deep isolationist tendencies within the discipline. Following the Vietnam War, it was fashionable among anthropologists to reject the discipline's historic ties to colonialism. Anthropologists began to reinvent their discipline, as demonstrated by Kathleen Gough's 1968 article, Anthropology: Child of Imperialism, followed by Dell Hymes' 1972 anthology, Reinventing Anthropology, and culminating in editor Talal Asad's Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.17
Rejecting anthropology's status as the handmaiden of colonialism, anthropologists refused to "collaborate" with the powerful,
Although cultural knowledge of the adversary matters in counterinsurgency, it has little importance in major combat operations. Because the Powell- Weinberger doctrine meant conventional, large-scale war was the only acceptable type of conflict, no discernable present or future need existed to develop doctrine and expertise in unconventional war, including counterinsurgency. Thus, there was no need to incorporate cultural knowledge into doctrine, training, or warfighting. Until now, that is.
On 21 October 2003, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing to examine lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Scales' testimony at the hearing prompted U.S. Representative "Ike" Skelton to write a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in which he said: "In simple terms, if we had better understood the Iraqi culture and mindset, our war plans would have been even better than they were, the plan for the postwar period and all of its challenges would have been far better, and we [would have been] better prepared for the 'long slog' . . . to win the peace in Iraq."14
We have no doctrine for "nationbuilding," which the military eschews as a responsibility because it is not covered by Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which outlines the responsibilities of the military as an element of national power. Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations and Support Operations, was not finalized until February 2003, despite the fact the U.S. military was already deeply engaged in such operations in Iraq. Field Manual 3-07.22-meant to be a temporary document-is still primarily geared toward fighting an enemy engaged in Maoist revolutionary warfare, a type of insurgency that has little application to the situation in Iraq where multiple organizations are competing for multiple, confusing objectives.11
Since 1923, the core tenet of U.S. warfighting strategy has been that overwhelming force deployed against an equally powerful state will result in military victory. Yet in a counterinsurgency situation such as the one the United States currently faces in Iraq, "winning" through overwhelming force is often inapplicable as a concept, if not problematic as a goal. While negotiating in Hanoi a few days before Saigon fell, U.S. Army Colonel Harry Summers, Jr., said to a North Vietnamese colonel, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." The Vietnamese colonel replied, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." 12 The same could be said of the conflict in Iraq.
Winning on the battlefield is irrelevant against an insurgent adversary because the struggle for power and legitimacy among competing factions has no purely military solution. Often, the application of overwhelming force has the negative, unintended effect of strengthening the insurgency by creating martyrs, increasing recruitment, and demonstrating the "brutality" of state forces.
The primary task of anthropology has historically been translating knowledge gained in the "field" back to the West. While it might seem self-evident that such a perspective would be beneficial to the nationalsecurity establishment, only one of the national defense universities (which provide master's degreelevel education to military personnel) currently has an anthropologist on its faculty. At West Point, which traditionally places a heavy emphasis on engineering, anthropology is disparagingly referred to by cadets as "nuts and huts." And, although political science is well represented as a discipline in senior policymaking circles, there has never been an anthropologist on the National Security Council.
The second and related reason for the current lack of cultural knowledge is the failure of the U.S. military to achieve anything resembling victory in Vietnam. Following the Vietnam War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff collectively put their heads in the sand and determined they would never fight an unconventional war again. From a purely military perspective, it was easier for them to focus on the threat of Soviet tanks rolling through the Fulda Gap, prompting a major European land war-a war they could easily fight using existing doctrine and technology and that would have a clear, unequivocal winner.8
The preference for the use of overwhelming force and clear campaign objectives was formalized in what has become known as the Weinberger doctrine. In a 1984 speech, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger articulated six principles designed to ensure the Nation would never become involved in another Vietnam. By the mid-1980s, there was cause for concern: deployment of troops to El Salvador seemed likely and the involvement in Lebanon had proved disastrous following the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Responding to these events, Weinberger believed troops should be committed only if U.S. national interests were at stake; only in support of clearly defined political and military objectives; and only "with the clear intention of winning."9