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Dr. Shweder says that many Westerners trying to impose a “zero tolerance” policy don’t realize that these initiation rites are generally controlled not by men but by women who believe it is a cosmetic procedure with aesthetic benefits. He criticizes Americans and Europeans for outlawing it at the same they endorse their own forms of genital modification, like the circumcision of boys or the cosmetic surgery for women called “vaginal rejuvenation.”

The involvement of anthropologists in the preparation of the counterinsurgency manual is according to González the latest development in a trend that has become increasingly evident since 2001: the use of ‘cultural knowledge’ to wage the ‘war on terror’.

Journals such as Military Review (published by the US Army’s Combined Arms Center) and the online Small Wars Journal have featured articles explicitly advocating a more ‘anthropological’ approach to war fighting, and some retired generals have even called for ‘culture-centric warfare’:

Testifying before the US House Armed Services Committee in 2004, Major General Robert Scales argued that ‘during the present “cultural” phase of the war… intimate knowledge of the enemy’s motivation, intent, will, tactical method and cultural environment has proven to be far more important for success than the deployment of smart bombs, unmanned aircraft and expansive bandwidth’ (Scales 2004: 2).

What are the consequences of anthropologists engaging in counterinsurgency work? It's obvious that it both undermines and endangers the work of anthropologists and the life of their families and informants: It is plausible, Gonzales argues, that ‘once Thai peasants or Somali clansmen learn that some anthropologists are secretly working for the US government, they begin to suspect all other anthropologists. Fieldwork will be a lot more dangerous.

American anthropologists have been surprisingly reluctant to learn their lesson from the past, David Price reminds us in another article in Anthropology Today June 2007. Though largely unexamined, he writes, the extent of covert CIA funding of American-funded social science research during the 1950s and 1960s was extraordinary:

In the mid-1970s the US Senate discovered that a surprisingly large proportion of research grants issued during the escalation of the Vietnam War and other military Cold War incursions were either directly or indirectly funded by the CIA. Without having to account for their actions, these agencies were left free to set covert research agendas, to influence the direction in which scholars took their research, and to appropriate research for covert ends. (...)

Unwitting participation by reputable scholars channelled what appeared as innocuous academic research into covert unethical programmes. Through this practice the CIA helped build up the careers of some academics, influenced social science and behavioural research, and generally attempted to create informal networks they could tap for information to provide input into their covert goals. By their own admission, CIA money-laundering was at its most effective when funds flowed through seemingly innocent private foundations like the Human Ecology Fund.

(...)

Given that the ‘war on terror’ once again finds intelligence agencies seeking help from academia, we need to consider and evaluate these past interactions and be mindful that intelligence agencies have at times been silent consumers of our research.

He concludes:

If we do not want to go into history as collaborators with such coercive covert agencies, who may use our research to dominate and exploit the peoples we work with, then we must take decisive action now, identify and expose such programmes wherever we can, and advise our professional associations to recommend our colleagues not touch them.