The "Old West" in the Middle East: U.S. Military Metaphors in Real and Imagined Indian Country

ABSTRACT  In this article, I examine the role of the "Indian Country" heritage metaphor in U.S. military activities in the Middle East from a critical anthropological perspective. Research has revealed the proliferation of such discourse among soldiers, military strategists, reporters, and World Wide Web users to refer to hostile, unsecured, and dangerous territory in Iraq and Afghanistan. The salience of this symbol in 21st-century U.S. armed conflicts attests to its staying power in national narratives of colonialism at home and abroad. Summoning the "Indian wars" of the 19th century in the U.S. West as malleable symbolic parallels to the current war in Iraq serves to offer combat lessons in guerilla warfare while reinscribing epic stories of U.S. military imperialism and renarrating uncritically the struggles and conflicts of Native Americans, past and present, through the lens of contemporary perspectives on terrorism.     

The U.S.-Led Proliferation Security Initiative and UNCLOS: Legality,Implementation, and an Assessment

This article examines the relationship between the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It attempts to answer the questions of whether the PSI is legal or illegal under UNCLOS and whether U.S. accession to UNCLOS would enhance or create difficulties for the implementation of the PSI. The author concludes that U.S. accession to the Convention would not affect adversely the implementation and effectiveness of the PSI. On the contrary, accession to UNCLOS could help increase U.S. credibility and leadership in dealing with the threat to international peace and security posed by weapons of mass destruction proliferation. It also suggests that all the relevant information needs to be gathered and examined carefully in order to answer the question of whether a PSI interdiction action is legal under UNCLOS or not.     

Wildlife trade products available to U.S. military personnel serving abroad

Military personnel and affiliates have significant buying power that can influence demand for wildlife products. Purchase and transport of certain wildlife products violates United States laws, military regulations, and national country laws where the items were purchased. We surveyed military bazaars (n = 4) in Kabul, Afghanistan from June 2007 to March 2009 to observe which species were available to soldiers. In June 2008, we conducted a pilot survey of U.S. Army personnel (n = 371) stationed at Fort Drum, New York, USA, who had been deployed or stationed overseas including in Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers reported skins of wild felids and gray wolf Canis lupus as most commonly observed wildlife products available for sale in Afghanistan. Forty percent of respondents said they had either purchased or seen other members of the military purchase or use wildlife products. The U.S. military was willing to assist in curtailing supply and demand for wildlife products in order to protect soldiers from unknowingly breaking the law and to conserve wildlife in the countries where they serve. Regular, focused training of military personnel should be considered an important step to reducing trade in wildlife products by addressing both demand and market supply.     

Research in the ranks: vulnerable subjects, coercible collaboration, and the hepatitis E vaccine trial in Nepal

Concern over the diminished autonomy of members of the armed forces has resulted in the classification of these groups as "vulnerable" in many international codes of research ethics, a designation that places the onus on researchers to provide special justification for the inclusion of these persons in research. This paper examines the application of these ethical requirements to a recent trial carried out by U.S. Army researchers among soldiers of the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) and concludes that the requirements to justify conducting research in this population were not met. Furthermore, noting the human rights abuses rampant in the RNA, it is appropriate to question the choice of this institution as both a partner and a subject pool for U.S. state-sponsored research. This case study raises another important ethical question about the vulnerability to coerced collaboration of groups or institutions. In response, I propose the idea of "institutional vulnerability" as an extension of the idea of individual "juridic vulnerability." The recent military and financial assistance that the RNA received from the U.S. Army, in light of their partnership in this biomedical research trial, constitutes an appropriate and revealing context in which to ground this discussion.     

Conflicting Notions on Violence and PTSD in the Military: Institutional and Personal Narratives of Combat-Related Illness

Research indicates that soldiers struggling with PTSD under-utilize mental health care. Quantitative studies of barriers to care point to the importance of soldiers’ beliefs about mental health and mental health interventions in their care-seeking behavior, yet these studies still struggle to understand the particular beliefs involved and the ways they impact care-seeking behavior. This preliminary study makes a start in examining these questions through qualitative literature analysis. It maps out dominant messages surrounding PTSD in military mental health interventions, and explores how they can both shape and conflict with soldiers’ personal notions. It does so by analyzing these messages and notions as institutional and personal (illness) narratives. Institutional military PTSD-narratives, which draw on mainstream scientific and clinical models, appear to communicate contradictory notions on the meanings of violence and its psychological consequences, often without acknowledging these contradictions. As such, these narratives seem to shape struggles of soldiers, both within themselves and with the military institution. The identified conflicts indicate, contrary to the individualizing and decontextualizing focus of dominant PTSD-understandings, that soldiers’ struggles also have social and moral dimensions. This has important implications for both research into PTSD-interventions and understandings of PTSD as such.     

The pollution of incontinence and the dirty work of caregiving in a U.S. nursing home

In U.S. nursing homes, it is the job of nursing assistants to tend to residents' basic bodily needs, including elimination and incontinence care. Given their frequent contact with pollutants, aides are very much at risk of becoming "polluted people." In this article, I investigate how nursing assistants' continual contact with contaminating substances impacts their status within the workplace, their relationships with others, and their attitudes toward their work and themselves as workers. I also explore how aides manage their encounters with pollutants and their stigmatized role as "dirty workers." In doing so, I hope to explicate the meaning of elimination and of incontinence caregiving in the United States.     

Health,Welfare Reform,and Narratives of Uncertainty Among Cambodian Refugees

Massive disruptions to a way of life, such as thosebrought on by widespread violence, terror, andgenocide, disorder the body as well as the socialorder. When they flee their homelands, refugees bringtheir experiences of violence and terror with them. Drawing on an ethnographic study of 40 Cambodianrefugees between the ages of 50 and 79 who sufferedfrom one or more chronic illnesses, we explore howrefugees who live with chronic illnesses and aredependent on government support were affected by thethreat of welfare reform. When welfare reformthreatened to cut Cambodian refugees' income, it poseda new crisis for those who were chronically in limboand placed further constraints on their lives. Through their narratives, Cambodian refugees enactedtheir bodily distress and resisted the threat ofwelfare reform. The story of threatened welfarereform in the U.S. and its possible consequences forrefugees is a story of quixotic U.S. politics,policies and antidotes for refugeeism gone awry.     

Ethnic minorities and brothers in arms: competition and homophily in the military

Although the solidarity of brothers in arms is an important feature of the military, when it comes to ethnic minorities there is a pivotal paradox. On the one hand the military aims at drawing boundaries between soldiers and civilians by blurring existing ethnic and racial divisions inside the military. On the other hand the military is a highly national institution which prides itself on conservative values. Can these contradictions work? And how soldiers understand them? This paper examines the construction of ethnic boundaries in inter-group relations by focusing on the tension between ethnic hierarchy and competition versus homophily – the preference for maintaining ties with persons who are similar. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews with Dutch soldiers before and during deployment in Bosnia and Kosovo I ask when each strategy is put into work and why.     

Viral Hepatitis: Problems of Incidence and Control in Military Personnel

(A) Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is now the major cause of infectious viral hepatitis in U.S. military personnel and probably also in the civilian population over 15 years of age. (B) The incidence of icteric, viral hepatitis is much higher in U.S. military personnel than in comparable age groups in the civilian population. The 17-to 20-year-old enlisted men show the highest rates. (C) In parts of the world (e.g., U.S.A., Germany) where most of the inapparent infection is caused by the adw subtype of HBV, most of the acute clinical disease is caused by the ayw subtype. In the U.S.A. and Germany, 95% or more of HB_s Ag isolates from U.S. military personnel with acute hepatitis is ayw. (D) It may be many years before one can expect to have sufficient data for a decision as to the possible availability of an effective HBV vaccine. Accordingly, a decision is urgently needed regarding either the immediate use of the best practically available hepatitis immune gamma globulin, that can be prepared by modern techniques, for the prevention of hepatitis in U.S. military personnel or postponement of such use until an adequate and properly controlled trial can be carried out in active duty military personnel in an area of high incidence.     

Nucleic acid approaches for detection and identification of biological warfare and infectious disease agents

Biological warfare agents are the most problematic of the weapons of mass destruction and terror. Both civilian and military sources predict that over the next decade the threat from proliferation of these agents will increase significantly. In this review we summarize the state of the art in detection and identification of biological threat agents based on PCR technology with emphasis on the new technology of microarrays. The advantages and limitations of real-time PCR technology and a review of the literature as it applies to pathogen and virus detection are presented. The paper covers a number of issues related to the challenges facing biological threat agent detection technologies and identifies critical components that must be overcome for the emergence of reliable PCR-based DNA technologies as bioterrorism countermeasures and for environmental applications. The review evaluates various system components developed for an integrated DNA microchip and the potential applications of the next generation of fully automated DNA analyzers with integrated sample preparation and biosensing elements. The article also reviews promising devices and technologies that are near to being, or have been, commercialized.     

Can a ‘Silent’ Person Be a ‘Business’ Person? The Concept Mãduã in Fijian Culture

The focus of the paper is an examination of the relevance of the traditional concept mãduã for an understanding of Fijian culture, particularly in the context of modern business enterprise. The concept represents a multitude of subtle as well as clearly displayed emotions and attitudes. Though mãduã is especially relevant in situations where Fijian values are centre stage, the view put forward here is that the associated expressions and bodily postures are also relevant in modern urban contexts, where perhaps one might otherwise expect them to be discarded or at least toned down. In public discourse in Fiji, where the theme of Fijian participation in both education and business is constantly commented on and discussed, a new notion is identified, namely ‘silence’. The author suggests that it may to some degree replace and encompass mãduã The prime concern of the article, however, is to bring to the fore reflections by Fijians themselves on existential dilemmas, one of which is about how to live with mãduã in the modern context.     

Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary U.S. Christianity

Contemporary U.S. religion is shaped by a new emphasis on bodily and trance experience. This article describes the learning process through which evangelical congregants come to use language and bodily experiences in particular ways, which I call here "metakinesis." Through this process, congregants build remarkably intimate relationships with God.     

The dual-use dilemma for the life sciences: perspectives, conundrums, and global solutions

The term "dual-use" traditionally has been used to describe technologies that could have both civilian and military usage, but this term has at least three different dimensions that pose a dilemma for modern biology and its possible misuse for hostile purposes: (1) ostensibly civilian facilities that are in fact intended for military or terrorist bioweapons development and production; (2) equipment and agents that could be misappropriated and misused for biological weapons development and production; and (3) the generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge that could be misapplied for biological weapons development and production. These three different aspects of the "dual-use dilemma" are frequently confused--each demands a distinct approach within a "web of prevention" in order to reduce the future risk of bioterrorism and biowarfare. This article discusses the nature of the different perspectives and divergent approaches as a contribution to finding a scientifically acceptable global solution to the problem posed by the dual-use dilemma. We propose that: (1) facilities that are intended for bioweapons development and production should be primarily prevented by a strengthened Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) effectively implemented in all nation states, one that includes provisions for adequate transparency to improve confidence and a mechanism for thorough inspections when there is sufficient cause, and enhanced law enforcement activities involving international cooperation and sharing of critical intelligence information; (2) potentially dual-use equipment and agents should be available to legitimate users for peaceful purposes, but strengthened national biosafety and physical and personnel biosecurity controls in all nations together with effective export controls should be implemented to limit the potential for the misappropriation of such equipment and materials; and (3) information should be openly accessible by the global scientific community, but a culture of responsible conduct involving the breadth of the international life sciences communities should be adopted to protect the ongoing revolution in the life sciences from being hijacked for hostile misuse of the knowledge generated and communicated by life scientists.     

"The Hands Know": Bodily Engagement and Medical Impasse in Highland Maya Bonesetting

In southern Middle America, highland Maya bonesetters are called on to treat many cases of bodily injury. While Guatemalan Maya bonesetters vary greatly in their techniques and specialties, they prioritize manual treatment modalities, using their hands to address problems in clients' bodies. For bonesetters, the hands achieve direct knowledge of the suffering body, enabling them to work and securing the trust of those they treat. Nonetheless, Maya bonesetters face opposition from physicians who argue that bonesetters are untrained in Western trauma techniques and can inflict irreparable harm on people. This article examines how Maya bonesetters work in an environment hostile to their craft and explores some important vectors of bodily and ideological engagement between Maya bonesetting and Guatemalan biomedicine. [Maya bonesetters, manual medicine, embodied knowledge]     

The role of the United States military in the development of vector control products,including insect repellents,insecticides, and bed nets

Arthropod‐borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, scrub typhus, and leishmaniasis continue to pose a significant threat to U.S. military forces deployed in support of operational and humanitarian missions. These diseases are transmitted by a variety of arthropods, including mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, sand flies, and biting midges. In addition to disease threats, biting arthropods can cause dermatitis, allergic reactions, and sleep loss; therefore, monitoring of vector impact and integrated use of personal protective measures (PPM) and methods to reduce the vector populations are needed to protect service members. The U.S. military has played a vital role in vector identification tools and the development and testing of many of the most effective PPM and vector control products available today, including the topical repellent DEET and the repellent/insecticide permethrin, which is applied to clothing and bed nets. Efforts to develop superior products are ongoing. Although the U.S. military often needs vector control products with rather specific properties (e.g., undetectable, long‐lasting in multiple climates) in order to protect its service members, many Department of Defense vector control products have had global impacts on endemic disease control.     

Selection on defensive traits in a sterile caste – caste evolution: a mechanism to overcome life‐history trade‐offs?

SUMMARY During development and evolution individuals generally face a trade-off between the development of weapons and gonads. In termites, characterized by reproductive division of labor, a caste evolved—the soldiers—which is completely sterile and which might be released from developmental trade-offs between weapons and testes. These soldiers are exclusively dedicated to defense. First, we investigated whether defensive traits are under selection in sterile termite soldiers using allometric analyses. In soldiers of the genus Cryptotermes phragmotic traits such as a sculptured and foreshortened head evolve rapidly but were also lost twice. Second, we compared the scaling relationships of these weapons with those in solitary insects facing a trade-off between weapons and gonads. Defensive traits consistently had lower slopes than nondefensive traits which supports the existence of stabilizing selection on soldier phragmotic traits in order to plug galleries. Moreover, soldier head widths were colony specific and correlated with the minimum gallery diameter of a colony. This can proximately be explained by soldiers developing from different instars. The scaling relationships of these termite soldiers contrast strikingly with those of weapons of solitary insects, which are generally exaggerated (i.e., overscaling) male traits. These differences may provide important insights into trait evolution. Trade-offs constraining the development of individuals may have been uncoupled in termites by evolving different castes, each specialized for one function. When individuals in social insect are "released" from developmental constraints through the evolution of castes, this certainly contributed to the ecological and evolutionary success of social insects.     

Pregnancy as a harm?

Michigan's Appellate Court ruled in 2004 that a pregnancy that resulted from a rape should be considered a bodily injury for sentencing purposes. Interestingly, all three possible outcomes of a pregnancy-abortion, miscarriage, or childbirth-are considered to bring with them significant and substantial physical, psychological, and emotional changes. While the immediate impact of the ruling in People v. Cathey affected only the guilty individual, there are larger implications for this ruling beyond just sentencing guidelines. The ruling can be considered a step forward in prosecuting rapists, but possibly at the expense of reimagining the female body. This article considers the Cathey ruling itself, the potential benefits and consequences of this understanding on feminist discourse, and, crucially, the impact of this decision on abortion discussions. The central question that emerges is, can we both consider pregnancy a harm and believe that this harm is not always wrong-making?     

Military Uses of Ocean Space and the Law of the Sea in the New Millennium

Military uses of ocean space consist of both movement rights and operational rights. Only movement rights, which include all rights associated with the mobility of seaborne forces, were codified in the LOS Convention. Operational rights, on the other hand, are primarily customary rights that are governed by the regime of freedom of the seas and defended by the naval power of the United States. This article begins by examining freedom of the seas as a principle of international law, as a bundle of user rights, and as a doctrine. It next examines the major challenges to freedom of the seas in terms of a construct called controlled access. After summarizing the major historical elements of controlled access, the article closes with a brief analysis of the threats to freedom of the seas for military purposes that are posed by multipolarity, the shift in U.S. naval strategy from the open seas to the coastal littorals, and in the withering away of U.S. naval superiority. The major arguments advanced throughout the article are that military uses of ocean space are hegemonic in nature, that their preservation depends on clear maritime superiority, and that they will come under increasing challenge and restriction as the balance of power at sea shifts from unipolarity to multipolarity by the middle of the new millennium.     

Female mate value at a glance: relationship of waist-to-hip ratio to health,fecundity and attractiveness

A fundamental assumption of adaptive explanations of female attractiveness is that bodily features that males judge as attractive reliably signal youthfulness, healthiness, and fertility or female mate value. One of the bodily features, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), is a reliable indicator of a female's reproductive age, sex hormone profile, parity and risk for various diseases. Systematic variation in the size of WHR also systematically affects the judgment of female attractiveness, healthiness, and youthfulness. This article summarizes recent findings about the relationship between female's WHR and various factors affecting reproductive capability and risk for diseases. Research on the relationship between attractiveness and WHR is discussed in light of some methodological objections to previous research. Finally, cross-cultural and historical data are presented that suggest that the relationship between WHR and female attractiveness is not culture-specific and not inculcated by modern Western fashion dictates or media.