Anthropologists are already embedded with six US military teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are deeply concerned that the 'war on terror' threatens to militarize anthropology in a way that undermines the integrity of the discipline and returns anthropology to its sad roots as a tool of colonial occupation, oppression, and violence," Roberto J. Gonzalez, an anthropology professor at San Jose State University and a campaigner, told IslamOnline.net in an email interview.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is recruiting anthropologists under the Human Terrain System (HTS) program to study social groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The program first started on a small scale in 2006 and now has six teams, each including at least one anthropologist, embedded in combat brigade units in both Muslim countries.

Each team member, who wears the uniform and receives mandatory weapons training, costs the Pentagon $400,000 a year, including the cost of kidnapping insurance.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has allocated $40 million dollars to expand the program, challenged by veteran anthropologists, to increase the number of teams to 28.

A group of 11 professors, including Gonzalez, launched the Network of Concerned Anthropologists last month to protest the exploitation of Anthropology, the science that studies peoples' origin, history and culture, in the war on terror.

"The US DoD has in recent months been particularly interested in linguistic and cultural anthropology for use in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other theaters in the 'war on terror,'" Gonzalez told IOL.

"Because anthropologists gain intimate knowledge of and familiarity with the people and culture of a particular place, the Pentagon is interested in recruiting them for counter-insurgency operations."

The campaigners are currently circulating a petition among colleagues from universities, government agencies, and other institutions to pledge "non-participation in the Pentagon's counter-insurgency efforts."

"Over the past several weeks, we have been involved in educating our colleagues and the general public about the issues at stake," said Gonzalez.

They plan to send the signed petition to all government, military and academic bodies concerned. 

Unethical

The academics believe that the controversial Pentagon program is unethically "weaponizing" anthropology for political and military gains.

"We felt compelled to draft the Pledge to say that there are certain kinds of work—for example, covert work, work contributing to the harm and death of other human beings, work that breaches trust with our research participants, and work that calls other anthropologists into suspicion—that anthropologists should not undertake," Gonzalez said.

"Many anthropologists are concerned about the potential ethical dilemma posed by such work," he elaborated.

The campaigners fear that anthropologists on the HTS teams might "unwittingly" harm the Afghans and Iraqis with whom they are speaking by sharing their intelligence information with combat brigade commanders.

"If anthropologists on HTS teams interview Afghans or Iraqis about the intimate details of their lives, what is to prevent combat teams from using the same data to one day 'neutralize' (assassinate) suspected insurgents?" Gonzalez asked.

"What safeguards exist to impede the transfer of data collected by anthropologists to commanders planning offensive military campaigns?"

Another concern is that the HTS anthropologists wear military uniforms and some of them are armed.

"How are the anthropologists able to obtaining the voluntary informed consent of those Afghans and Iraqis with whom they are speaking if the anthropologist is carrying a weapon?"

The American professor is unaware of other countries recruiting anthropologists to serve in the war on terror, launched by the US following the 9/11 attacks and later joined by most of Washington's allies.

Anthropology has a fraught history of aiding the US military during conflicts, stretching back past Vietnam and the cold war to World War II.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies have long recruited anthropologists and social scientists to their agencies.

Anti-war  

Dr. AbdAllah Talib Donald Cole, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo (AUC), believes the campaign reflects a deepening public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war in particular.

"My educated guess is that a wide majority of American anthropologists do not support the war in and on Iraq," he told IOL.

"Several American anthropologists have also been making critical field-based research on the US military (including research among American soldiers in Iraq)."

Last year, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) set up a national commission to call for an end to the Iraq war.

The latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that opposition to the war reached a record high, with 60 percent of Americans in favor of setting a pullout timetable.

Without UN authorization, the US invaded Iraq on claims of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, a claim that later turned out to be false.

Four years since the invasion, the country is gripped by a bloody cycle of violence that claims the lives of both Iraqis and Americans.

Dr. Cole believes Arabs and Muslims should be wary of western anthropologists.

"But we should be wary of everything that is written about us, whether by local people or by foreigners. To be wary does not mean to reject. We need to read what anthropologists say about people in the developing world and what they say about Islam and Muslims," he explained.

"We can expect to trust the reliability of professional academic anthropologists who are subject to peer review and evaluation. But for others who are not fully professional, we need to be more careful."