Ivan Illich on the challenges of thinkering

"Learned and leisurely hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge. I remain certain that the quest for truth cannot thrive outside the nourishment of mutual trust flowering into a commitment to friendship. Therefore I have tried to identify the climate that fosters and the "conditioned" air that hinders the growth of friendship. ...

"My early suspicion that a certain atmosphere was necessary for the kind of studium to which I had dedicated myself became a conviction through my contact with post-Sputnik American universities. After just one year as vice-chancellor of a university in Puerto Rico, I and a few others wanted to question the development ideology to which Kennedy no less than Castro subscribed. I put all the money I had ... into the purchase of a one-room wooden shack in the mountains that overlook the Caribbean. With three friends I wanted a place of study in which every use of the personal pronoun, nos-otros, would [236] truthfully refer back to the four of us, and be accessible to our guests as well; I wanted to practice the rigor that would keep us far from the "we" that invokes the security found in the shadow of an academic discipline: we as sociologists, economists, and so forth. As one of us, Charlie Rosario, put it: "All departments smell - of disinfectants, at their best ... and poisons sterilize aura." The casita on the road to Adjuntas soon became so obnoxious that I had to leave the island.

"This freed me to start a "thinkery" in Mexico, which five years later turned into the Centro Intercultural de Documentación or CIDOC. ... [Bundestag deputy Freimut Duve] told you about the spirit prevailing in that place: a climate of mutually tempered forbearance. It was this aura, this quality of air, through which this ephemeral venture could become a world crossroads, a meeting place for those who, long before it had become fashionable, questioned the innocence of "development." ...

"CIDOC was closed by common accord on April first, ten years to the day after its foundation. With Mexican music and dancing we celebrated its closing. Duve told you about Valentina Borremans, who had organised and directed CIDOC from its inception. He then spoke about his admiration for the style in which she ended its work with the mutual consent of its sixty three collaborators. She realized that the soul of this free, independent, and powerless thinkery would have been squashed soon by its rising influence.

"CIDOC shut its doors in the face of criticism by its most serious friends, people too earnest to grasp the paradox of atmosphere. These were mainly persons for whom the hospitable climate of CIDOC had provided a unique forum. They thrived in the aura of CIDOC, and wholly rejected our certainty that atmosphere invites the institutionalization that will corrupt it. You never know what will nurture the spirit of philia, while you can be certain what will smother it. Spirit emerges by surprise, and it's a miracle when it abides; it is stifled by every attempt to secure it; it's debauched when you try to use it."

Ivan Illich, "The Cultivation of Conspiracy," in The Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, 2002, pp. 235-236.

Rachel Corrie, in remembrance

"This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not what they are asking for now. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me." (Rachel Corrie, email to her parents, c. 2003)

Rachel Corrie Memorial Website:
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Jim Page's song for Rachel Corrie, "I'd rather be dancing", filmed by Dale Blindheim at the Antique Sandwich Co, in Tacoma WA, October 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLgksOCyyj0

11 Things We Can Learn from the Rest of the World

http://www.alternet.org/story/65847/?page=entire

"Here are 11 lessons the West can learn that would improve Western life and create a better future for all humanity."

Livestock as a leading source of greenhouse gases (LA Times, 10/15/07)

From the Los Angeles Times: Killer cow emissions

Livestock are a leading source of greenhouse gases. Why isn't anyone raising a stink?
October 15, 2007

It's a silent but deadly source of greenhouse gases that contributes more to global warming than the entire world transportation sector, yet politicians almost never discuss it, and environmental lobbyists and other green activist groups seem unaware of its existence.

That may be because it's tough to take cow flatulence seriously. But livestock emissions are no joke.

Most of the national debate about global warming centers on carbon dioxide, the world's most abundant greenhouse gas, and its major sources -- fossil fuels. Seldom mentioned is that cows and other ruminants, such as sheep and goats, are walking gas factories that take in fodder and put out methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases that are far more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane, with 21 times the warming potential of CO2, comes from both ends of a cow, but mostly the front. Frat boys have nothing on bovines, as it's estimated that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 to 130 gallons of methane a day.

It isn't just the gas they pass that makes livestock troublesome. A report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization identified livestock as one of the two or three top contributors to the world's most serious environmental problems, including water pollution and species loss.

In terms of climate change, livestock are a threat not only because of the gases coming from their stomachs and manure but because of deforestation, as land is cleared to make way for pastures, and the amount of energy needed to produce the crops that feed the animals.

All told, livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, according to the U.N. -- more than all the planes, trains and automobiles on the planet. And it's going to get a lot worse. As living standards rise in the developing world, so does its fondness for meat and dairy. Annual per-capita meat consumption in developing countries doubled from 31 pounds in 1980 to 62 pounds in 2002, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, which expects global meat production to more than double by 2050. That means the environmental damage of ranching would haveto be cut in half just to keep emissions at their current, dangerous level.

It isn't enough to improve mileage standards or crack down on diesel truck emissions, as politicians at both the state and national levels are working to do. Eventually, the United States and other countries are going to haveto clean up their agricultural practices, while consumers can do their part by cutting back on red meat.

For the rest of the story, go to:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-ed-methane15oct15,1,8488859.story

How to Ungoogle Yourself

In passing, if you ever find yourself in a situation where all the google searchs on you bring up stuff that you would rather they didn't, there are a few things you can do ...

http://www.wikihow.com/Ungoogle-Yourself

Also, from http://blog.seeminglee.com/2007/09/how-to-ungoogle-yourself.html:

"- The best way to for you to remove your unwanted data from appearing into the public mainstream is to create more data for Google to index.
- The best way to be most invisible to prowling eyes is to have the most visibility in the most public places."

Evolutionary Race Theory makes the news ...

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece

Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer

Fury at James Watson's theory: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"

By Cahal Milmo
Published: 17 October 2007

One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.

The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks "in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of "scientific racism".

Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific racism.

Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices.

"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exist at the highest professional levels."

The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.

But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that "stupidity" could one day be cured.

He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."

The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could not be contacted to comment on his remarks.

Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: "This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."

Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black humanrights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."

Books and their covers

So I've (more or less) bought a house. Nothing sorted till it's signed, sealed, and delivered (as I know all too well), but encountering the house for the first time was something of a lesson for me.

I haven't really brought this up much here before, but I was brought up as a Catholic in Northern Ireland. Not for all of my childhood (much of it was spent in New Zealand), but enough of it to sample that particularly intense line in religious identity politics that seeps into your skin whether you like it or not as a child in norn iron.

I remember the first time I went to England. I was in my mid-twenties. On a visit to York I suddenly found myself surrounded by Union Jacks. Now, of course, they were all very innocent, there for the tourists, but I found it hard, emotionally difficult, to just be there in the presence of so many Union Jacks. Looking back it's so far from where I am now that it feels almost like I am talking about a different person, but there can be something primally powerful about identity symbols.

I think I've have bought a house in Artigarvan, County Tyrone. I was led by the price to begin with, very cheap, even given that there has been a lull in the market. But as I entered the housing estate I became very aware that the curbstones were red, white, and blue (clearly 'the French Quarter', as a friend put it recently). For anyone not from Northern Ireland, the colour of the curbstones tends to reflect the political or religious inclinations of the residents (or at least of the nearest enthusiastic youngsters). There was a UVF flag on the lamp posts (the UVF being a paramilitary organisation that was active during the troubled times of the last 40 years), and 5 loyalist murals on the wall, fifty feet from the front door of the house I was viewing. A few doors down there was a Union Jack billowing proudly in the breeze.

The child in me was thinking 'get out, quick', but I remembered that not only had I grown up, but I had also changed quite a few of my religious convictions along the way, to the point where I'd be hard-pushed to describe any of my convictions as religious at all. Flags gain most of their emotional power from us as we view them. Yes, the convictions behind flags can have real consequences, but something told me it made sense to actually bother to ask some of the locals what it is like to live in the area before making a snap decision to cut and run.

So I asked. A quiet cul de sac, they said, a nice wee community where everyone looks out for everyone else. No trouble in years, they said. And it's a mixed estate (Catholics and Protestants), despite the colours, although the town as a whole is a protestant community (95%). And as for the murals, they've been there for thirty years. Just that nobody has bothered to paint over them.

The people I asked had gentle eyes. That sealed the deal.

I made an offer on the house, and the offer was accepted. I'm waiting now for the mortgage decision to come through.

I was thinking afterwards that the colours and the flags are possibly helpful for the residents (which may now include me) as they tend to keep random wanderers out of the estate, making it that little bit quieter. I never thought I'd be seeing the benefit in loyalist flags! :)

Turns out there is a community association in the estate too. If everything goes to plan I look forward to getting involved in the local goings on. For the first time, all being well, I may be able to start thinking about getting involved in local community activities without feeling like I'll be moving on before I really get emotionally invested?

So I suppose I understand flags a little differently now. All very interesting :)

Disappearing Peoples? Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia

New From Left Coast Press, Inc. A 15% discount on web orders at www.LCoastPress.com.

Disappearing Peoples? Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia
Barbara Brower and Barbara Rose Johnston, editors
Published May 2007, 288 pages, $29.95 paperback

“Disappearing Peoples? is a groundbreaking book that describes how economic globalization, imperialism, war, and climate change in the twenty-first century threaten various Asian people’s cultural heritage and how they are striving to maintain their traditions and identity under such extreme pressures. This volume uses twelve chapters on specific peoples—the Raika of India, Tibetans in China and India, Hazara in Afghanistan, Mangghuer in China—to illustrate the strong Introduction, which explains the import of dwindling diversity on humankind. The book provides a good overview that should whet the reader’s appetite for more knowledge about Asian peoples, the causes and consequences of cultural homogenization.”
- Paula L.W. Sabloff, University of Pennsylvania


To order, visit the website at
http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=87
ISBN: 978-1-59874-120-9 (c), 978-1-59874-121-6 (p)

PRICE:
$29.95 ( U.S. ), $36.95 (Canadian), £17.99 (Paperback)
$65.00 ( U.S. ), $79.00 (Canadian), £40.00 (Cloth)
For more information, contact Caryn Berg at archaeology@LCoastPress.com

Strange goings on (again)

For the second time in a month a particular person's name and phone number has come up randomly on the screen of my mobile phone, from my address book, not as a missed call. Normally it would take at least 10 negotiations of the phone display process to get to their name. And this time the phone keypad was locked. What's going on ...??? I have been staying out of contact with this person at the moment, and the last time this happened I contacted them, but got no reply.

Scrapbooking

I came across a lovely website this morning while randomly surfing ...

http://kellicrowe.typepad.com/kellicrowe/random/index.html

Hindu group wins Harry Potter row

Lawyers for Harry Potter producers lose a law suit brought against an Indian group building a model Hogwart's school.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7041863.stm

The true stories of television betrayal

Phil Collins: the return of the real

"From the fixed phone-in quiz to the manipulated reality show, from Richard and Judy to A Year with the Queen, it has been a turbulent year for television. Indeed, Jeremy Paxman chose to devote this year's MacTaggart lecture to a controversial "plea for the soul of television." Many believe this crisis of trust has at last opened the door on the smoke and mirrors world of TV production, which has always relied on an element of artifice and cunning to engineer a sense of reality. In his new and timely exhibition - the return of the real - Phil Collins investigates the postdocumentary culture which reality television has come to epitomise, and the accompanying issues of authenticity and illusion, intimacy and inaccuracy, expectation and betrayal."

Who: Phil Collins
What: The Return of the Real
Where: Victoria Miro Gallery,16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
By tube: Old Street and Angel
When: Continues until Sat 10 Nov 2007, open Tue to Sat, 10am to 6pm, admission free

http://www.criticalnetwork.co.uk/whats_on/phil_collins/phil_collins.html

human origins research

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-10/plos-nfs100907.php

Los Angeles, California

"An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergence of the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically, the study confirms preliminary evidence that many early hominoid apes were most likely upright bipedal walkers sharing the basic body form of modern humans."

The foundation for psychocultural research

A non-profit corporation (501.C-3), founded in December 1999, for the purpose of supporting and advancing interdisciplinary research projects and scholarship at the intersection of psychology, culture, neuroscience and psychiatry.

http://www.thefpr.org/index.html

Out of Control: The tragedy of Tasmania’s forests

http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/node/512
Out of Control: The tragedy of Tasmania’s forests
Richard Flanagan

"This story begins with a Tasmanian man fern (Dicksonia antarctica) for sale in a London nursery. Along with the healthy price tag, some £160, is a note: "This tree fern has been salvage harvested in accordance with a management plan approved by the Governments of Tasmania and the Commonwealth of Australia." If you were to believe both governments, that plan ensures that Tasmania has a sustainable logging industry - one which, according to the federal minister responsible for forests, Eric Abetz, is "the best managed in the world".

"The truth is otherwise. The man fern - possibly several centuries old - comes from native forests destroyed by a logging industry that was recently found to be illegal by the Federal Court of Australia. It comes either from primeval rainforest that has been evolving for millennia or from wet eucalypt forests, some of which contain the mighty Eucalyptus regnans. These aptly named kings of trees are the tallest hardwood trees and flowering plants on Earth; some are more than 20 metres in girth and 90 metres in height. The forests are being destroyed in Tasmania, in spite of widespread community opposition and increasing international concern ..."

Native Way of Life Vanishing into the Clear-Cut

Tuesday, October 09, 2007 17:22 GMT

http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=39576

CANADA:
Native Way of Life Vanishing into the Clear-Cut
Am Johal

VANCOUVER, Oct 9 (IPS) - As the Ontario election draws to a close on Wednesday, a long-running land rights battle continues in the east-central Canadian province between First Nations groups and mining and logging interests that have been granted concessions to exploit the resources in a vast boreal forest known as Grassy Narrows.

Asubpeeschoseewagong, the indigenous or Ojibway name for Grassy Narrows, is situated 80 kilometres north of Kenora, Ontario. The band membership is approximately 1,000, and their traditional land use area spans some 4,000 kilometres. About half of the community still follows a subsistence way of life that relies on hunting, trapping, and gathering berries and medicines from the land.

The community says that 50 percent of their traditional lands have already been clear-cut by multinational logging companies, and the current licenses issued by Ontario authorities will permit continued clear-cutting for more than 25 more years.

"Mining issues continue and permits are handed out despite the Supreme Court decision around native land rights," John Cutfeet of the nearby Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations near Grassy Narrows told IPS.

The Grassy Narrows First Nation is within an 1873 treaty that recognises the right of the Anishnaabe peoples "to pursue their avocations of hunting and fishing throughout the tract." Recent Supreme Court decisions have upheld the government's duty to conduct meaningful discussions with native groups before carrying out projects that impact their lands.

In early September, the Ontario government appointed former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci to facilitate a negotiated process and make recommendations to solve the impasse. Talks are expected to begin in November."

Companies are drilling without following the rule of law," Cutfeet said. "There has been virtually no consultation or accommodation of our people. Treaty land was a fulfillment of the land claims process. The government and the companies have an illegal presence in our territories."

The Grassy Narrows community has suffered many traumas over the years, including forced attendance in Canada's notorious and now-defunct boarding schools, forced relocation away from their traditional living areas, flooding of sacred grounds and burial sites by hydroelectric dam projects, and clear-cut logging of their forests. Mercury waste from a paper mill constructed in the 1970s contaminated local rivers and created devastating long-term health problems.

Compared to other racial and cultural groups in Canada, indigenous people have the lowest life expectancies, highest infant mortality rates, most substandard and overcrowded housing, lower education and employment levels, and the highest incarceration rates. Native people lead in the statistics of suicide, alcoholism, and family abuse.

Brant Olson of the Rainforest Action Project told IPS, "Amnesty International and many groups have verified the problems at Grassy Narrows. The historical and political context is dire due to the logging industry. Since the mid-1960s, large portions of the community have been uninhabitable and there have been enduring health problems and 25 percent unemployment. That led to the Grassy Narrows group to call for a moratorium on development [in January]. We want to ensure that buyers of the wood honour the moratorium.""The community doesn't trust the intentions of companies like Abitibi Consolidated and Weyerhauser," said Olson.

Jim Loney, a member of the Christian Peacemakers Team, which had a delegation in the region, told IPS that the traditional land use area where they hunt, trap and fish has been logged by the forestry company Abitibi-Consolidated. According to Loney, trap lines have disappeared into the clear-cuts, some of which are a kilometre long.

In December 2002, a group of people from the community, including high school students, formed a blockade to stop clear-cutting. Human rights organisations such as the Christian Peacemakers Team and Amnesty International came to Ontario at the invitation of Grassy Narrows Environmental Committee to be present at the site of the blockade.

International civil society organisations have since helped to build political support for the objectives of the blockade and have alerted U.N. authorities. "There has been a lot of reaching out, educating the public, building allies and alliances, and building solidarity in support of the Grassy Narrows community," said Loney.

Last month, environmental and aboriginal groups unfurled a 75-metre-long arrow-shaped banner on the lawn of the Ontario legislature that demanded "Native Land Rights Now." The public demonstration was organised by Rainforest Action Network and Christian Peacemaker Teams. Rainforest Action Network is organising a campaign to try to stop lumber giant Weyerhauser from obtaining wood from clear-cutting.

Loney added that provincial and federal governments should honour their commitments and responsibilities with First Nations people and consult on matters related to the use of native land. As mining and forestry companies are moving ahead with development, there are concerns about creating a high-profile and credible process to mediate the land rights dispute.

First Nation representatives at the Sep. 21 event described how such projects degrade the land, disrupt traditional cultural practices, and reverse economic rights guaranteed to them under the Canadian Constitution."We, the grassroots people of the Anishnabeg, have an obligation to protect the land and the culture and our way of life for the future of our children and grandchildren," Judy Da Silva of the Grassy Narrows First Nations said in a statement.

(END/2007)

There is benefit for you in every situation

"There is benefit for you in every situation. If, that is, you know how to look for it.

"The idea behind steady spiritual progress is to see every circumstance and situation (particularly those that challenge you) as a tailor-made lesson in your personal plan for self-development.

"For example, in a situation where hurtful or angry words were exchanged, why not see it as a chance either to perceive things about your own character which need changing or to rehearse some virtue or quality that you need to put into practice more often? Actually, we should be grateful for the opportunity to evaluate ourselves.

"In this way you can transform anything into a constructive lesson. Never think that you've learned enough and now can stop. You should love it when people try to correct you or give you advice. It keeps you alert and gives you plenty of opportunity to put your truth into practice. It's a sign of great danger to be unable to accept criticism and instead use your understanding to criticise others. Realise deeply the significance of every moment, and your spiritual progress will be assured."

Dadi Janki, Companion of God, 1996

U.S. Army enlists anthropology in war zones

International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/05/asia/05afghan.php?WT.mc_id=rssasia

Published: October 4, 2007
By David Rohde

Shabak Valley Afghanistan: In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a soft-spoken civilian anthropologist named Tracy.

Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used for security reasons, is a member of the first Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists and other social scientists to American combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her team's ability to understand subtle points of tribal relations — in one case spotting a land dispute that allowed the Taliban to bully parts of a major tribe — has won the praise of officers who say they are seeing concrete results.

Colonel Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit working with the anthropologists here, said that the unit's combat operations had been reduced by 60 percent since the scientists arrived in February, and that the soldiers were now able to focus more on improving security, health care and education for the population.

"We're looking at this from a human perspective, from a social scientist's perspective," he said.

"We're not focused on the enemy. We're focused on bringing governance down to the people."

In September, Defense Secretary Robert Gates authorized a $40 million expansion of the program, which will assign teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 American combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since early September, five new teams have been deployed in the Baghdad area, bringing the total to six.
Multimedia

Yet criticism is emerging in academia. Citing the past misuse of social sciences in counterinsurgency campaigns, including in Vietnam and Latin America, some denounce the program as "mercenary anthropology" that exploits social science for political gain. Opponents fear that, whatever their intention, the scholars who work with the military could inadvertently cause all anthropologists to be viewed as intelligence gatherers for the American military.

Hugh Gusterson, an anthropology professor at George Mason University, and 10 other anthropologists are circulating an online pledge calling for anthropologists to boycott the teams, particularly in Iraq.

"While often presented by its proponents as work that builds a more secure world," the pledge says, "at base, it contributes instead to a brutal war of occupation which has entailed massive casualties."

In Afghanistan, the anthropologists arrived along with 6,000 troops, which doubled the American military's strength in the area it patrols, the country's east.

A smaller version of the Bush administration's troop increase in Iraq, the buildup in Afghanistan has allowed American units to carry out the counterinsurgency strategy here, where American forces generally face less resistance and are better able to take risks.

A New Mantra

Since General David Petraeus, now the overall American commander in Iraq, oversaw the drafting of the army's new counterinsurgency manual last year, the strategy has become the new mantra of the military. A recent American military operation here offered a window into how efforts to apply the new approach are playing out on the ground in counterintuitive ways.
In interviews, American officers lavishly praised the anthropology program, saying that the scientists' advice has proved to be "brilliant," helping them see the situation from an Afghan perspective and allowing them to cut back on combat operations.

The aim, they say, is to improve the performance of local government officials, persuade tribesmen to join the police, ease poverty and protect villagers from the Taliban and criminals.
Afghans and Western civilian officials, too, praised the anthropologists and the new American military approach but were cautious about predicting long-term success. Many of the economic and political problems fueling instability can be solved only by large numbers of Afghan and American civilian experts.

"My feeling is that the military are going through an enormous change right now where they recognize they won't succeed militarily," said Tom Gregg, the chief United Nations official in southeastern Afghanistan. "But they don't yet have the skill sets to implement" a coherent nonmilitary strategy, he added.

Deploying small groups of soldiers into remote areas, Schweitzer's paratroopers organized jirgas, or local councils, to resolve tribal disputes that have simmered for decades. Officers shrugged off questions about whether the military was comfortable with what David Kilcullen, an Australian anthropologist and an architect of the new strategy, calls "armed social work."

"Who else is going to do it?" asked Lieutenant Colonel David Woods, commander of the Fourth Squadron, 73rd Cavalry. "You have to evolve. Otherwise you're useless."


Two more pages of the article on the IHT website:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/05/asia/05afghan.php?WT.mc_id=rssasia

A Swiftly Melting Planet

NY Times
October 4, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

A Swiftly Melting Planet

By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
Toronto

THE Arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearingat a far higher rate than predicted by even the most pessimistic experts in global warming. But we shouldn't be shocked, because scientists have long known that major features of earth's interlinked climate system of air and water can change abruptly.

A big reason such change happens is feedback --- not the feedback that you'd like to give your boss, but the feedback that creates a vicious circle. This type of feedback in our global climate could determine humankind's future prosperity and even survival.

The vast expanse of ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean always recedes in the summer, reaching its lowest point sometime inSeptember. Every winter it expands again, as the long Arctic night descends and temperatures plummet. Each summer over the past six years, global warming has trimmed this ice's total area a little more, and each winter the ice's recovery has been a little less robust. These trends alarmed climate scientists, but most thought that sea ice wouldn't disappear completely in the Arctic summer before 2040 at the earliest.

But this past summer sent scientists scrambling to redo their estimates. Week by week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., reported the trend: from 2.23 million square miles of ice remaining on Aug. 8 to 1.6 million square miles on Sept. 16, an astonishing drop from the previous low of 2.05 million square miles, reached in 2005.

The loss of Arctic sea ice won't be the last abrupt change in earth's climate, because of feedbacks. One of the climate's most important destabilizing feedbacks involves Arctic ice. It works like this: our release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases around the planet causes some initial warming that melts some ice. Melting ice leaves behind open ocean water that has a much lower reflectivity (or albedo) than that of ice. Open ocean water absorbs about 80 percent more solar radiation than sea ice does. And so as the sun warms the ocean, even more ice melts, in a vicious circle. This ice-albedo feedback is one ofthe main reasons warming is happening far faster in the high north, where there are vast stretches of sea ice, than anywhere else on Earth.

There are other destabilizing feedbacks in the carbon cycle that involvethe oceans. Each year, the oceans absorb about half the carbon dioxide that humans emit into the atmosphere. But as oceans warm, they will absorb less carbon dioxide, partly because the gas dissolves less readily in warmer water, and partly because warming will reduce the mixing between deep and surface waters that provides nutrients to plankton that absorb carbon dioxide. And when oceans take up less carbon dioxide, warming worsens.

Scientists have done a good job incorporating some feedbacks into their climate models, especially those, like the ice-albedo feedback, that operate directly on the temperature of air or water. But they haven't incorporated as well feedbacks that operate on the atmosphere's concentrations of greenhouse gases or that affect the cycle of carbon among air, land, oceans and organisms. Yet these may be the most important feedbacks of all.

Global warming is melting large areas of permafrost in Alaska, Canada and Siberia. As it melts, the organic matter in the permafrost starts to rot, releasing carbon dioxide and methane (molecule for molecule, methane traps far more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide).

Warming is also affecting wetlands and forests around the world, helping to desiccate immense peat bogs in Indonesia, contributing to more frequent drought in the Amazon basin, and propelling a widening beetle infestation that's killing enormous tracts of pine forest in Alaska and British Columbia. (This infestation is on the brink of crossing theCanadian Rockies into the boreal forest that extends east toNewfoundland.) Dried peat and dead and dying forests are vulnerable to wildfires that would emit huge quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.

This summer's loss of Arctic sea ice indicates that at least one major destabilizing feedback is gaining force quickly. Scientists have also recently learned that the Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica, appears to be absorbing less carbon, while Greenland's ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate.

When warming becomes its own cause, we might not be able to stop extremely harmful climate change no matter how much we cut our greenhouse gas emissions. We need a far more aggressive global responseto climate change. In the 1960s, mothers learned that the milk they were feeding their children was laced with radioactive material from atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons and that this contamination could increase the risk of childhood leukemia. Soon women organized themselves in the tens of thousands to demand that nuclear powers ban atmospheric testing. Their campaign largely succeeded.

In response to the new dangers of climate change, we need a similar mobilization --- of mothers, of students and of everyone with a stake in the future --- now.

Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Toronto, is the author of "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization."