Comments on: Plagiarism and the Counter Insurgency Manual http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/ Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog Fri, 25 May 2012 15:24:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Hugh http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-138645 Hugh Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:17:48 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-138645 Jennifer says about the counterinsurgency manual "There are no references or footnotes, it is supposed to be as light as possible." But this is untrue. There are some footnotes and references and some passages in the manual are edged with quote marks and attributed to authors. It is just the plagiarized passages that are not attributed or footnoted. This is precisely what is so damning, and why this whole argument that manuals don't have footnotes is a red herring. I noted here a few days ago that Montgomery McFate had posted a message to the Mil_Ant_Net group saying she would respond in a few days to the allegations, and I said I was witholding judgment until I heard her side of the story. I note that McFate has now posted a number of messages about other matters to the Mil-Ant-Net group, but has not given her response to Price's allegations. I'm curious to know if anyone else knows of a place where she has publicly responded. There comes a point where, if you don't hear the other side of the story, you conclude that there is no other side of the story. Jennifer says about the counterinsurgency manual “There are no references or footnotes, it is supposed to be as light as possible.” But this is untrue. There are some footnotes and references and some passages in the manual are edged with quote marks and attributed to authors. It is just the plagiarized passages that are not attributed or footnoted. This is precisely what is so damning, and why this whole argument that manuals don’t have footnotes is a red herring.

I noted here a few days ago that Montgomery McFate had posted a message to the Mil_Ant_Net group saying she would respond in a few days to the allegations, and I said I was witholding judgment until I heard her side of the story. I note that McFate has now posted a number of messages about other matters to the Mil-Ant-Net group, but has not given her response to Price’s allegations. I’m curious to know if anyone else knows of a place where she has publicly responded. There comes a point where, if you don’t hear the other side of the story, you conclude that there is no other side of the story.

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]]> By: oneman http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-138475 oneman Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:57:01 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-138475 "until you talk to the soldiers who are actually out there with the anthropologist on a daily basis, you will never know what is really being done or not done." Of course, that's the problem. We don't know what's being done or not done, which is what makes the Army's claim to academic/intellectual legitimacy ring hollow. The anthropologists involved with HTS claim to be doing real applied anthropology, but are they? It's secret research, as far as anyone in the anthropological community outside of HTS is concerned. Nagl and Petraeus and McFate are making HTS and counter-insurgency out to be scientific knowledge, yet science is above everything else about evidence and facts, which the military nature of the project essentially precludes. So we have to ask, why bother? Why publish this, why go on the freaking <em>Daily Show</em> to talk up the manual, why sit down with the NY Times, why make such a big deal about all this? And if they're serious, if this is the real academically-informed program they're talking up in so many forums, why is it so damned out of date? Why are they going about this like it's 1953? They have the pick of the Library of Congress to draw on, why can't they come up with something better to tell our troops about the Ay-Rabs than the musings of TE Lawrence?! “until you talk to the soldiers who are actually out there with the anthropologist on a daily basis, you will never know what is really being done or not done.”

Of course, that’s the problem. We don’t know what’s being done or not done, which is what makes the Army’s claim to academic/intellectual legitimacy ring hollow. The anthropologists involved with HTS claim to be doing real applied anthropology, but are they? It’s secret research, as far as anyone in the anthropological community outside of HTS is concerned. Nagl and Petraeus and McFate are making HTS and counter-insurgency out to be scientific knowledge, yet science is above everything else about evidence and facts, which the military nature of the project essentially precludes.

So we have to ask, why bother? Why publish this, why go on the freaking Daily Show to talk up the manual, why sit down with the NY Times, why make such a big deal about all this? And if they’re serious, if this is the real academically-informed program they’re talking up in so many forums, why is it so damned out of date? Why are they going about this like it’s 1953? They have the pick of the Library of Congress to draw on, why can’t they come up with something better to tell our troops about the Ay-Rabs than the musings of TE Lawrence?!

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]]> By: Jennifer http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-138348 Jennifer Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:49:37 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-138348 I have watched this argument waged for some time now and resisted responding but I think now is as good a time as any. I will state my conflict of interest up front, I am both a veteran of the US Army and an Anthropology PhD student. First of all, a field manual is just that and yes, they do have a specific audience: soldiers in the field, soldiers who often have to throw it in their ruck with a million other things and carry it around with them. (Shame on those elitist allusions some of you made to a specific audience being a less intelligent one.) There are no references or footnotes, it is supposed to be as light as possible. I am surprised that the pentagon even allowed the verbose chapters written by these anthropologists to be published in that state. And yes, plagiarism happens all the time in field manuals and it will continue to happen. As far at the UC version of the manual, I can't even imagine what they were thinking when they decided to publish the manual. The military is far more complex than most of you seem to recognize. There is the admin level with the generals and pentagon officials etc, and then there are those on the ground doing the work. Those on the ground work hard and are very adept at taking the guidelines they are given and using them in such a way that is beneficial to them while at the same time creating the illusion they are following the protocol closely. Their number one job is to keep themselves and their soldiers alive. I personally feel that I do not have enough information to condemn or condone this military program or the anthropologists associated with it. The reason is this- no matter what you read in that manual, no matter what the pentagon or the generals or anyone doing PR on NPR tells you, until you talk to the soldiers who are actually out there with the anthropologist on a daily basis, you will never know what is really being done or not done. As far as this program goes that could be a very good thing or a very bad thing. I know from experience that the army used to train with a doctrine of hate under the belief that you have to hate the "other" in order to go and kill them without developing PTSD after. So no mater what else happens, knowing that form of viewing the enemy is on the way is out is a relief to me. I have watched this argument waged for some time now and resisted responding but I think now is as good a time as any. I will state my conflict of interest up front, I am both a veteran of the US Army and an Anthropology PhD student. First of all, a field manual is just that and yes, they do have a specific audience: soldiers in the field, soldiers who often have to throw it in their ruck with a million other things and carry it around with them. (Shame on those elitist allusions some of you made to a specific audience being a less intelligent one.) There are no references or footnotes, it is supposed to be as light as possible. I am surprised that the pentagon even allowed the verbose chapters written by these anthropologists to be published in that state. And yes, plagiarism happens all the time in field manuals and it will continue to happen. As far at the UC version of the manual, I can’t even imagine what they were thinking when they decided to publish the manual.
The military is far more complex than most of you seem to recognize. There is the admin level with the generals and pentagon officials etc, and then there are those on the ground doing the work. Those on the ground work hard and are very adept at taking the guidelines they are given and using them in such a way that is beneficial to them while at the same time creating the illusion they are following the protocol closely. Their number one job is to keep themselves and their soldiers alive.
I personally feel that I do not have enough information to condemn or condone this military program or the anthropologists associated with it. The reason is this- no matter what you read in that manual, no matter what the pentagon or the generals or anyone doing PR on NPR tells you, until you talk to the soldiers who are actually out there with the anthropologist on a daily basis, you will never know what is really being done or not done. As far as this program goes that could be a very good thing or a very bad thing.
I know from experience that the army used to train with a doctrine of hate under the belief that you have to hate the “other” in order to go and kill them without developing PTSD after. So no mater what else happens, knowing that form of viewing the enemy is on the way is out is a relief to me.

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]]> By: carmen http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137995 carmen Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:02:44 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137995 Is it your argument that only scholarship can be criticized for plagiarism? If so, I disagree. If not, we're talking past each other. Is it your argument that only scholarship can be criticized for plagiarism? If so, I disagree. If not, we’re talking past each other.

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]]> By: Seth L Sanders http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137979 Seth L Sanders Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:20:58 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137979 But of course you'd agree that not any text that distinguishes different voices should be treated as scholarship. The "authors" made significant choices about whom to _be seen_ quoting. Thus Price: "One measure of the Manual's status as an extrusion of political ideology rather than scholarly labor is that when quotes and attributions are used, they are frequently deployed in the context of quoting the apparently sacred words of generals and other military figures - thereby, denoting not only differential levels of respect but different treatment of who may and may not be quoted without attribution." If attribution is authorizing, and the book does indeed belong to the genre "Military manual," consider the book's authorities and audience that it is intended to persuade. Soldiers can be expected to consider generals more authoritative than anthropologists: in quoting, the preference is for sources that are good at killing people. Mao is extensively cited (though never footnoted) and characterized in the annotated bibliography as "the world's most successful insurgent." "The enemy" can also be authorized, and authorizing, as long as he has military authority. The Iraq war is one of the worst foreign policy moves in all of US history and I will cry no tears if the book is torn apart in the public arena--even if it is through a shift in genre designation. But of course you’d agree that not any text that distinguishes different voices should be treated as scholarship. The “authors” made significant choices about whom to _be seen_ quoting. Thus Price:

“One measure of the Manual’s status as an extrusion of political ideology rather than scholarly labor is that when quotes and attributions are used, they are frequently deployed in the context of quoting the apparently sacred words of generals and other military figures – thereby, denoting not only differential levels of respect but different treatment of who may and may not be quoted without attribution.”

If attribution is authorizing, and the book does indeed belong to the genre “Military manual,” consider the book’s authorities and audience that it is intended to persuade. Soldiers can be expected to consider generals more authoritative than anthropologists: in quoting, the preference is for sources that are good at killing people. Mao is extensively cited (though never footnoted) and characterized in the annotated bibliography as “the world’s most successful insurgent.” “The enemy” can also be authorized, and authorizing, as long as he has military authority.

The Iraq war is one of the worst foreign policy moves in all of US history and I will cry no tears if the book is torn apart in the public arena–even if it is through a shift in genre designation.

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]]> By: carmen http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137509 carmen Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:27:59 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137509 This "genre difference" argument seems problematic in light of the fact that the manual did make use of quotation marks, footnotes, and bibliographic referencing. By adopting these conventions, I think it's fair to suggest that the authors, anonymous or not, are making a claim that they distinguish between their words and the words of others. As Price points out in the article, there are varying levels of citation. The authors could have used a casual, journalistic style. Prefacing a sentence with "Anthropologist Victor Turner explains that ritual is '....'" would hardly have catapulted the document from manual to scholarly study, but it would have been consistent with the distinctions they make elsewhere in the text. This “genre difference” argument seems problematic in light of the fact that the manual did make use of quotation marks, footnotes, and bibliographic referencing. By adopting these conventions, I think it’s fair to suggest that the authors, anonymous or not, are making a claim that they distinguish between their words and the words of others. As Price points out in the article, there are varying levels of citation. The authors could have used a casual, journalistic style. Prefacing a sentence with “Anthropologist Victor Turner explains that ritual is ‘….’” would hardly have catapulted the document from manual to scholarly study, but it would have been consistent with the distinctions they make elsewhere in the text.

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]]> By: Seth L Sanders http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137433 Seth L Sanders Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:27:16 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137433 Hi Drake, Surely the manual already "is" an academic work--but it didn't begin that way, it only became that because of the way it was sold. You are surely not saying that at the level of genre the manual is not, in fact, a manual but actually a scholarly study? With massive footnotes, perhaps a complex cover design with a photo implicating multiple agencies, and a goofy/provocative title like "Counter/insurgencies" (at least if it had come out in 1987). Of course you're not saying that--you're showing how the text has been dressed up in genre drag. We all agree (I think) that the _genre_ organizing it, the body of the words of the text itself, is "manual." It transmits techniques and doctrine through brisk statements. It does not "problematize" or "further complicate" or give extensive fieldnotes in an appendix. What happened, with the PR Blitz, emphasis on PhD involvement, and publication by UChicago press, is that it got _re-genred_ as at once a rough-and-ready field manual _and_ a piece of enlightened intellectual discourse. And now that we are yanking on the genre drag in which the manual was hastily dressed, the academic tuxedo awkwardly pulled over the military floral dress is disintegrating, revealing the body of the text: a loose, work-by-committee common in business and government. This is exactly the type of thing that happened to another piece of collectively authored Government discourse: Bush I's tough-guy claim, "Read my lips: no new taxes." We know who was writing his speeches at the time, and Bush didn't come up with it. It started out as a piece of theater--a potent, 'ethnic'-sounding thing that would be good image voodoo for the wimpy New England president to grandstand with. And it was originally evaluated as such. As Judith Irvine points out in her article on the affair, after Bush raised taxes the speech was revisited, and this time he was assigned authorial responsibility for it: he didn't "mean it" and was thus not a reliable speaker. It was now evaluated according to a discourse of truth rather than a discourse of theater. His speech got regenred as a factual policy claim, rather than a piece of political rhetoric. Or is this a genre reassignment surgery? Will the piece now be "stuck" as an academic work, to be critiqued that way? Either way it's interesting and significant. Hi Drake,

Surely the manual already “is” an academic work–but it didn’t begin that way, it only became that because of the way it was sold. You are surely not saying that at the level of genre the manual is not, in fact, a manual but actually a scholarly study? With massive footnotes, perhaps a complex cover design with a photo implicating multiple agencies, and a goofy/provocative title like “Counter/insurgencies” (at least if it had come out in 1987).

Of course you’re not saying that–you’re showing how the text has been dressed up in genre drag. We all agree (I think) that the _genre_ organizing it, the body of the words of the text itself, is “manual.” It transmits techniques and doctrine through brisk statements. It does not “problematize” or “further complicate” or give extensive fieldnotes in an appendix. What happened, with the PR Blitz, emphasis on PhD involvement, and publication by UChicago press, is that it got _re-genred_ as at once a rough-and-ready field manual _and_ a piece of enlightened intellectual discourse.

And now that we are yanking on the genre drag in which the manual was hastily dressed, the academic tuxedo awkwardly pulled over the military floral dress is disintegrating, revealing the body of the text: a loose, work-by-committee common in business and government.

This is exactly the type of thing that happened to another piece of collectively authored Government discourse: Bush I’s tough-guy claim, “Read my lips: no new taxes.” We know who was writing his speeches at the time, and Bush didn’t come up with it. It started out as a piece of theater–a potent, ‘ethnic’-sounding thing that would be good image voodoo for the wimpy New England president to grandstand with. And it was originally evaluated as such. As Judith Irvine points out in her article on the affair, after Bush raised taxes the speech was revisited, and this time he was assigned authorial responsibility for it: he didn’t “mean it” and was thus not a reliable speaker. It was now evaluated according to a discourse of truth rather than a discourse of theater. His speech got regenred as a factual policy claim, rather than a piece of political rhetoric.

Or is this a genre reassignment surgery? Will the piece now be “stuck” as an academic work, to be critiqued that way? Either way it’s interesting and significant.

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]]> By: Gregory Starrett http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137378 Gregory Starrett Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:30:59 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137378 Strong, you're correct; there's no argument that it should be treated as "only" a field manual. My point is that neither should we lose sight of the fact that it is being so used in order to inform the conduct of a sick and pointless war. The identification of complex webs of influence and broader contexts is important, but we academics too often catch ourselves up in discussions of our own process and technique until we lose sight of events in what Laurie has so appetizingly labelled "meat space" (which has quite a different sense when applied to Iraq than when applied to the AAA meetings). We know little about efficacy, and what we do know is tainted by the undermining of trust caused by the field manual's composition, the question of profiteering, the anthropological tendency to suspect Power generally, and so on. Add to this the quick labelling of particular voices on this blog as "conservative," or Sahlins' statement about Shwedergate that "Whatever Rick’s tropic intent, then, the actual effect is simile: we should practice a culturally considerate mode of domination like the Ottomens [sic] did. This helps explain why anthropologists in the English-reading world from northern Europe to Australia are filling the ether with emails of disbelief and criticism of Rick’s politics," and we've got the perfect storm of mutual recrimination, self-loathing, and potential paralysis as we turn on each other. Does chatter in the ether define Shweder's politics in a meaningful way? Should it? If we can criticize anthropology for helping the US "practice a culturally considerate mode of domination," is this a bad thing because it is domination, or because it is "culturally considerate"? One might read from this critique that domination is made worse by the possibility of its local amelioration, which might prolong or deepen the violent asymmetry on the broader scale. But is the solution to withdraw cultural considerations from play? Is the solution to ensure that the domination is as transparently brutal as possible so that "we" will get even more sick of it and work harder to end it, or so that local forces will fight harder on their part to end it? Isn't this the strategy that Clinton pursued in Iraq through the 1990s, trying to ensure that Iraqis were so miserable as a result of sanctions that they might eventually overthrow Saddam on their own? (My own heart is warmed by considering Bill as a Maoist theoretician). All I'm saying is that our professional concerns with investigating and theorizing and working against scholarly prostitution should be balanced by a regular return to the work of the text in the meat space where working-class Americans in armor--for most of whom, in fact, the material in the field manual IS new and innovative--are confronting Afghans and Iraqis. Quite frankly, I'm not opposed to some attempt at cultural consideration in that very immediate relationship of domination, if the only other choice is to have even more heads blown off. Strong, you’re correct; there’s no argument that it should be treated as “only” a field manual. My point is that neither should we lose sight of the fact that it is being so used in order to inform the conduct of a sick and pointless war. The identification of complex webs of influence and broader contexts is important, but we academics too often catch ourselves up in discussions of our own process and technique until we lose sight of events in what Laurie has so appetizingly labelled “meat space” (which has quite a different sense when applied to Iraq than when applied to the AAA meetings).

We know little about efficacy, and what we do know is tainted by the undermining of trust caused by the field manual’s composition, the question of profiteering, the anthropological tendency to suspect Power generally, and so on.

Add to this the quick labelling of particular voices on this blog as “conservative,” or Sahlins’ statement about Shwedergate that “Whatever Rick’s tropic intent, then, the actual effect is simile: we should practice a culturally considerate mode of domination like the Ottomens [sic] did. This helps explain why anthropologists in the English-reading world from northern Europe to Australia are filling the ether with emails of disbelief and criticism of Rick’s politics,” and we’ve got the perfect storm of mutual recrimination, self-loathing, and potential paralysis as we turn on each other. Does chatter in the ether define Shweder’s politics in a meaningful way? Should it?

If we can criticize anthropology for helping the US “practice a culturally considerate mode of domination,” is this a bad thing because it is domination, or because it is “culturally considerate”? One might read from this critique that domination is made worse by the possibility of its local amelioration, which might prolong or deepen the violent asymmetry on the broader scale. But is the solution to withdraw cultural considerations from play? Is the solution to ensure that the domination is as transparently brutal as possible so that “we” will get even more sick of it and work harder to end it, or so that local forces will fight harder on their part to end it? Isn’t this the strategy that Clinton pursued in Iraq through the 1990s, trying to ensure that Iraqis were so miserable as a result of sanctions that they might eventually overthrow Saddam on their own? (My own heart is warmed by considering Bill as a Maoist theoretician).

All I’m saying is that our professional concerns with investigating and theorizing and working against scholarly prostitution should be balanced by a regular return to the work of the text in the meat space where working-class Americans in armor–for most of whom, in fact, the material in the field manual IS new and innovative–are confronting Afghans and Iraqis. Quite frankly, I’m not opposed to some attempt at cultural consideration in that very immediate relationship of domination, if the only other choice is to have even more heads blown off.

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]]> By: Drake Nelsen http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137333 Drake Nelsen Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:19:11 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137333 Seth: Price didn't "create" the manual as an academic work. Price opens with book reviews and article stressing that the manual is a work of great scholars and peer reviewed scrutiny. I buy his argument that, "To highlight the Manual's scholarly failures is not to hold it to some over-demanding, external standard of academic integrity. However, claims of academic integrity are the very foundation of the Manual's promotional strategy. Somewhere along the line, Petraeus' doctorate became more important than his general's stars, touted by Petraeus' claque in the media as tokening a shift from Bush's "bring 'em on" cowboy shoot-out to a nuanced thinking-man's war." Seth: Price didn’t “create” the manual as an academic work. Price opens with book reviews and article stressing that the manual is a work of great scholars and peer reviewed scrutiny. I buy his argument that, “To highlight the Manual’s scholarly failures is not to hold it to some over-demanding, external standard of academic integrity. However, claims of academic integrity are the very foundation of the Manual’s promotional strategy. Somewhere along the line, Petraeus’ doctorate became more important than his general’s stars, touted by Petraeus’ claque in the media as tokening a shift from Bush’s “bring ‘em on” cowboy shoot-out to a nuanced thinking-man’s war.”

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]]> By: oneman http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137307 oneman Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:48:38 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137307 Rex complains that people are seeing this work as a "failure"; I agree with him re:the field manual, though again, I wonder why if they were going to plagiarize they couldn't find anything more current than the early '70s. But I think the point is, i's a failure as an academic work, which wouldn't matter if the Army weren't touting the HTS as an academically-based program. And, I suppose, if an academic press hadn't published it. I don't think we can argue that it's a failure as a field manual, since we have no idea how or if it's being used on the ground -- if peace breaks out in Iraq and a brave new society of peace and sisterly love emerges, I uess we'll know the manual was a success, or at least an irrelevant failure. Meanwhile, I was in Barnes and Noble yesterday and saw the manual in the "Bargain Books" section for $7.99! I did not buy one. Rex complains that people are seeing this work as a “failure”; I agree with him re:the field manual, though again, I wonder why if they were going to plagiarize they couldn’t find anything more current than the early ’70s. But I think the point is, i’s a failure as an academic work, which wouldn’t matter if the Army weren’t touting the HTS as an academically-based program. And, I suppose, if an academic press hadn’t published it. I don’t think we can argue that it’s a failure as a field manual, since we have no idea how or if it’s being used on the ground — if peace breaks out in Iraq and a brave new society of peace and sisterly love emerges, I uess we’ll know the manual was a success, or at least an irrelevant failure.

Meanwhile, I was in Barnes and Noble yesterday and saw the manual in the “Bargain Books” section for $7.99!

I did not buy one.

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]]> By: Strong http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137260 Strong Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:16:19 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137260 To the contrary. Treating this only as a 'field manual' because it might be used in the field would be a mistake. It is part of how the war(s) are being sold to U.S. and global publics, and has been marketed to diverse audiences with different levels of interest and expertise. What it has become through that marketing says a lot about why this is not simply a 'military' question but also a political one. Anyone for keeping in mind the social, cultural, and political context of this use of anthropology? Some commentators in this thread and elsewhere, through the question of 'efficacy,' seem to want to bracket the political context in which this is all occurring and turn it into a technical problem to do with the applicability of anthropological knowledge. But anthropological knowledge includes accounts of culturally coded behaviors *and* critiques of power and conquest--Price does a nice job of pointing out that this manual occludes the later in favor of the former--and anthropologists are typically good at drawing connections between disparate institutional settings. Why do we have to choose? I think it is BOTH an interesting technical or practical question _and_ a political question about how the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are ideologically framed. Indeed, I actually think the reduction of this discussion to a technical problem is itself an ideological trick that masks politics. Can't we continue to discuss BOTH the issues of how this may or may not help folks on the ground AND how this may or may not assist U.S. powers-that-be in re-branding the war? I don't see Price disallowing such a discussion. Indeed, I see him contributing to a more refined understanding of the _limits_ of anthropological efficacy in particular institutional contexts (e.g., the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense), especially those institutional contexts that are recruited into misguided and culturally misinformed political projects, as for example the so-called global war on terror. To the contrary. Treating this only as a ‘field manual’ because it might be used in the field would be a mistake. It is part of how the war(s) are being sold to U.S. and global publics, and has been marketed to diverse audiences with different levels of interest and expertise. What it has become through that marketing says a lot about why this is not simply a ‘military’ question but also a political one. Anyone for keeping in mind the social, cultural, and political context of this use of anthropology?

Some commentators in this thread and elsewhere, through the question of ‘efficacy,’ seem to want to bracket the political context in which this is all occurring and turn it into a technical problem to do with the applicability of anthropological knowledge. But anthropological knowledge includes accounts of culturally coded behaviors *and* critiques of power and conquest–Price does a nice job of pointing out that this manual occludes the later in favor of the former–and anthropologists are typically good at drawing connections between disparate institutional settings. Why do we have to choose?

I think it is BOTH an interesting technical or practical question _and_ a political question about how the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are ideologically framed. Indeed, I actually think the reduction of this discussion to a technical problem is itself an ideological trick that masks politics. Can’t we continue to discuss BOTH the issues of how this may or may not help folks on the ground AND how this may or may not assist U.S. powers-that-be in re-branding the war? I don’t see Price disallowing such a discussion. Indeed, I see him contributing to a more refined understanding of the _limits_ of anthropological efficacy in particular institutional contexts (e.g., the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense), especially those institutional contexts that are recruited into misguided and culturally misinformed political projects, as for example the so-called global war on terror.

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]]> By: Gregory Starrett http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137217 Gregory Starrett Thu, 01 Nov 2007 09:50:58 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137217 Are we sure that previous field manuals--and it is a field manual, whatever else it might be--have not been "plagiarized," happily or otherwise? Are we upset at the thought that the military's doctrine, previously the culmination of generations of reflection on Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz, has now merely been ripped from the web? Treating this as only a PR exercise because of its publication by a "trusted" press, or only a work of scholarship because some of its authors have Ph.D.s from fancy places like Yale and get invited to squawk on the Diane Rehm show, would be a mistake. It's a field manual, too, and was written for a specific purpose, at a particular level of sophistication and generality, for a particular audience. What it has become since then says less about its origin or purpose than about the uses to which we and an increasingly desperate military have since decided to put it, for good or ill. Anyone for returning to the question of whether its "anthropological" content is likely to make anything very different on the ground for either Afghans and Iraqis or soldiers? Are we sure that previous field manuals–and it is a field manual, whatever else it might be–have not been “plagiarized,” happily or otherwise? Are we upset at the thought that the military’s doctrine, previously the culmination of generations of reflection on Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz, has now merely been ripped from the web? Treating this as only a PR exercise because of its publication by a “trusted” press, or only a work of scholarship because some of its authors have Ph.D.s from fancy places like Yale and get invited to squawk on the Diane Rehm show, would be a mistake. It’s a field manual, too, and was written for a specific purpose, at a particular level of sophistication and generality, for a particular audience. What it has become since then says less about its origin or purpose than about the uses to which we and an increasingly desperate military have since decided to put it, for good or ill. Anyone for returning to the question of whether its “anthropological” content is likely to make anything very different on the ground for either Afghans and Iraqis or soldiers?

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]]> By: Strong http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137174 Strong Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:16:55 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137174 Thanks Hugh for your many helpful remarks on this thread. Somewhere up there (in this thread), I asked about salaries. Sorry to be so, like, bourgeois or whatever it is that one is being when one worries about the money issue, but the reason I asked this question about salaries has to do with my sense that McFate & Co are _selling_ expertise. Following Peanut's sleuthing, that apparently pretty high priced expertise may simply involve knowing how to use a really cool thing called a search engine in conjunction with a cool feature of word processers called cut and paste. The arguments about plagiarism have to do with principles and some here have contrived a situation in which stealing others' work is not a bad thing or even suspicious, and in fact might be _happy_. I am not convinced yet that this is not a problem for reasons that many have already identified. But again, as before, I am wondering about the messy real world of practice. If I'm McFate's manager, would I be upset to know that she had simply ripped off, literally cut-and-pasted, her pithy little phrases and analyses of culture given how much I am paying her? Even if Rex and others do not think it is plagiarism, does he think it might perhaps be lazy? Thanks Hugh for your many helpful remarks on this thread. Somewhere up there (in this thread), I asked about salaries. Sorry to be so, like, bourgeois or whatever it is that one is being when one worries about the money issue, but the reason I asked this question about salaries has to do with my sense that McFate & Co are _selling_ expertise. Following Peanut’s sleuthing, that apparently pretty high priced expertise may simply involve knowing how to use a really cool thing called a search engine in conjunction with a cool feature of word processers called cut and paste.

The arguments about plagiarism have to do with principles and some here have contrived a situation in which stealing others’ work is not a bad thing or even suspicious, and in fact might be _happy_. I am not convinced yet that this is not a problem for reasons that many have already identified. But again, as before, I am wondering about the messy real world of practice. If I’m McFate’s manager, would I be upset to know that she had simply ripped off, literally cut-and-pasted, her pithy little phrases and analyses of culture given how much I am paying her? Even if Rex and others do not think it is plagiarism, does he think it might perhaps be lazy?

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]]> By: Hugh http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-137032 Hugh Thu, 01 Nov 2007 03:33:45 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-137032 I'm afraid to say that I think Rex has it exactly back-to-front here. 1) It does not matter that the counter-insurgency chapter was unsigned. Here in Washington DC the mayor's office recently released its new education plan. The document was not signed. An enterprising journalist soon noticed that parts of it were plagiarized from another school district's plan. The press did not say, who cares, this is an unsigned non-academic document. (Maybe journalists need to read more Barthes so that they can become indifferent to scandal?) They investigated until they found out who had committed the plagiarism and they made his life hell, day after day. 2) David Price did not exactly have to dig hard to trace the authorship to McFate since the authorship was ballyhooed in some circles -- until about when the Counterpunch article came out. 3) I've been reflecting on why the plagiarism in the chapter bothers me. Here are my thoughts. It seems to me that in academia we rely on trust in each other's basic honesty, even when we disagree with each other, in order to keep the whole enterprise going. When I read a colleague's work, I have no way of verifying that they did not make up things in their fieldnotes, so I have to trust them. I think we take plagiarism so seriously because it corrodes that trust. (Remember: Ward Churchill engaged in hate speech about the victims of 9/11, but did not get fired; his writings flourished conclusions that most colleagues saw as excessive or skewed, but he did not get fired; his classroom was a carnival of political correctness, but he did not get fired. But once he was caught plagiarizing, despite his tenure, he was fired. We censure or expel plagiarists from our community because we can no longer trust them). I am still reserving judgment about Montgomery McFate. She has posted a message on another listserv saying that she will give her side of the story about the Counterpunch allegations, and I'm waiting to see that before reaching a final conclusion, but this is what bothers me: last week (at my suggestion) my department invited McFate to speak in our department. I wanted to hear what she had to say because she has complained that the critics of Human Terrain Teams have mischaracterized the way they work -- in reference to informed consent, covert research etc. The problem is that I have no way of verifying the claims McFate made about the teams. I have to trust her. If (and I emphasise if) she has committed plagiarism, then she has forfeited her colleagues' trust. That is why this matters. It seems to me that some of the earlier postings here have come up with some very clever ways of missing the point. The point is that whoever wrote that chapter decided not to paraphrase other people's writings, not to put quotation marks around them (no footnotes needed, just quotation marks), but to claim others' words as their own. The fact that they also omitted the sources in an extensive bibliography is strongly suggestive of an attempt to hide what they had done. This is not "happy plagiarism." Victor Turner isn't a bureaucrat glad to have contributed his subordinate clause to a President's speech. He would be appalled to see his words stolen in the service of a cause he'd oppose. I’m afraid to say that I think Rex has it exactly back-to-front here.

1) It does not matter that the counter-insurgency chapter was unsigned. Here in Washington DC the mayor’s office recently released its new education plan. The document was not signed. An enterprising journalist soon noticed that parts of it were plagiarized from another school district’s plan. The press did not say, who cares, this is an unsigned non-academic document. (Maybe journalists need to read more Barthes so that they can become indifferent to scandal?) They investigated until they found out who had committed the plagiarism and they made his life hell, day after day.

2) David Price did not exactly have to dig hard to trace the authorship to McFate since the authorship was ballyhooed in some circles — until about when the Counterpunch article came out.

3) I’ve been reflecting on why the plagiarism in the chapter bothers me. Here are my thoughts. It seems to me that in academia we rely on trust in each other’s basic honesty, even when we disagree with each other, in order to keep the whole enterprise going. When I read a colleague’s work, I have no way of verifying that they did not make up things in their fieldnotes, so I have to trust them.

I think we take plagiarism so seriously because it corrodes that trust. (Remember: Ward Churchill engaged in hate speech about the victims of 9/11, but did not get fired; his writings flourished conclusions that most colleagues saw as excessive or skewed, but he did not get fired; his classroom was a carnival of political correctness, but he did not get fired. But once he was caught plagiarizing, despite his tenure, he was fired. We censure or expel plagiarists from our community because we can no longer trust them).

I am still reserving judgment about Montgomery McFate. She has posted a message on another listserv saying that she will give her side of the story about the Counterpunch allegations, and I’m waiting to see that before reaching a final conclusion, but this is what bothers me: last week (at my suggestion) my department invited McFate to speak in our department. I wanted to hear what she had to say because she has complained that the critics of Human Terrain Teams have mischaracterized the way they work — in reference to informed consent, covert research etc. The problem is that I have no way of verifying the claims McFate made about the teams. I have to trust her. If (and I emphasise if) she has committed plagiarism, then she has forfeited her colleagues’ trust. That is why this matters.

It seems to me that some of the earlier postings here have come up with some very clever ways of missing the point. The point is that whoever wrote that chapter decided not to paraphrase other people’s writings, not to put quotation marks around them (no footnotes needed, just quotation marks), but to claim others’ words as their own. The fact that they also omitted the sources in an extensive bibliography is strongly suggestive of an attempt to hide what they had done. This is not “happy plagiarism.” Victor Turner isn’t a bureaucrat glad to have contributed his subordinate clause to a President’s speech. He would be appalled to see his words stolen in the service of a cause he’d oppose.

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]]> By: Rex http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/comment-page-1/#comment-136967 Rex Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:02:41 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/10/30/plagiarism-and-the-counter-insurgency-manual/#comment-136967 Damn. Well said Seth! Damn. Well said Seth!

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