Thomas B. Farquhar -

"All education is religious education."

In 1926, when Alfred North Whitehead wrote these words in his essay "On Education," the ideas that would shape U.S. education in the 20th century were just beginning to gather momentum. They were not religious ideas, however. They were drawn from extravagantly successful developments in the management of industrial production and from the metaphors of military organization.

2008-09-17

Maximilian Forte -

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 “on terror”. For those of us who have advocated for open access publishing in anthropology, these realizations ought to be sobering at least, and should compel us to rethink our role in possibly supporting U.S. imperialism, specifically its military and intelligence arms, now that this is war has gone well beyond the confines of targeting one single organization. When placing material out in the open,  we should not be “dumb” (Hayden’s word below), and train ourselves to “see like a state.” In the passages that follow, key sections appear in bold:

From Noah Schachtman
DANGER ROOM, Wired Blogs, Sept. 17, 2008

The material is out in the public sphere, for anyone to see: newspapers, television shows, Internet postings. The methods for obtaining the material are straight-ahead: watch the tube, click on a mouse, and translate accordingly. The end product is almost always unclassified. And the whole thing is paid for by U.S. taxpayers. But the head of the CIA says that average Americans shouldn’t be able to see so-called “open source intelligence” products. It’s too sensitive for public eyes.

Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference late last week. (Click here for the audio.) “One irony of working the open source side of the intelligence business… is that the better we do, the less we can talk about it.”

Just a few years ago, open source intelligence was a backwater in a community where wiretaps and surveillance satellites and clandestine agents were prized. But that’s changed, of late. The head of the Open Source Center, where public information is collected, now reports directly to Hayden – just like the Directorate of Intelligence and National Clandestine Services chiefs. Open source material is included regularly in the President’s Daily Brief – the intelligence summary, delivered right to the Oval Office.

These days, “secret information isn’t always the brass ring in our profession,” Hayden said. “In fact, there’s a real satisfaction in solving a problem or answering a tough question with information that someone was dumb enough to leave out in the open.”

He added, “The questions our customers ask – whether it’s a policy maker or a military commander or a law enforcement official — demand answers, many of which are only available through open source research.”

Open source material not only fills in blanks often-elusive adversaries. It can also give a broader sense of the mood in a particular country, or the feeling in a particular group. Hayden himself found this out recently in Key West, Florida. At a CIA listening station, he watched a Cuban soap opera, where they joked constantly about the Castro regime Keystone Kops approach to domestic surveillance. “It gave me a new appreciation for life and thought on the island,” Hayden said.

But, by the end of his talk, it still wasn’t clear is why the rest of us couldn’t enjoy that same appreciation.

Source: http://zeroanthropology.net/2008/09/17/more-on-us-militarization-of-open-access/

Jose Palafox -

Until lions have their own historians, histories of the hunt will glorify the hunter. -- African proverb

Introduction: The Border Patrol's "Battle Plan" en la Frontera ¹

ON MAY 20, 1997, CLEMENTE BANUELOS, A U.S. MARINE ON AN ANTIDRUG operation, shot and killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez, Jr., in Redford, Texas. Banuelos was a member of Joint Task Force-6 (JTF-6), a federal agency that coordinates antinarcotics operations between the Border Patrol and the military. Although Border Patrol and Marine officials claimed that Hernandez shot at the Marine surveillance team, an autopsy report suggests that Hernandez could not have done so. Banuelos' attorney stated that while Hernandez had no previous criminal history, he fit the profile of a drug trafficker that was given to the marines in their training for missions on the border (Los Angeles Times, 1997). Meanwhile, government officials described the killing as an unfortunate, but justified act of self-defense. "This was in strict compliance with the rules of engagement," said Marine Col. Thomas R. Kelly, deputy commander of the military's anti-drug task force (Katz, 1997: A19).

MILITARY PERSONNEL BEING USED TO SPY ON PROTESTERS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL [IMC]

March 1996 / Sam Smith / Progressive Review -The nomination of General Barry McCaffrey as drug czar symbolizes the nation's dramatic retreat from the principle of separation of military and civilian power. It further demonstrates the degree to which the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 -- which outlaws military involvement in civilian law enforcement -- is being ignored and undermined by both the drug warriors and the Clinton administration.

Disturbing as the McCaffrey appointment may be, however, it is only an unusually visible sign of something that has been going on quietly for a long time -- the military's steady intrusion upon, and interference with, civilian America.

In order to avoid violation of the law, General McCaffrey has retired from the military, but he will not retire from his military contacts, philosophy, loyalty and access. He is, after all, a man some thought in line to become the next chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

General McCaffrey headed the US Southern Command, which provides military backup for American policy in Latin America -- a policy long linked with support of dictatorships, suppression of dissidents, human rights abuses, death squads as well as chronically ineffective and corrupt management of drug smuggling. The price of this policy has been heavy: for example, over 100,000 people have been killed since 1960 in Guatemala, many of them by armed forces and police trained and supported by the US.

One former US ambassador to a Central American country says of Southcom, "I wouldn't even let them in the country" because Southcom would "inexorably militarize political problems." Today, he added, "very few countries outside of Central America welcome visits" from the commander of Southcom.

A Pentagon official describes Southcom's role as "military to military diplomacy." Rather then functioning like an old-fashion colonial army -- "they're not like the Bengal Lancers" -- they go in and work quietly with the local military to make sure the right elements are in charge and show them how to put down dissidents and how to interrogate.