The US military is frequently criticized for not doing enough to reduce civilian casualties or to stabilize the places it is fighting to protect. Yet what happens when the outside experts who can offer such advice are condemned for doing exactly that?
Questions about collaboration between soldiers and academics have been around at least since World War II, but they have arisen with particular urgency in recent months at professional meetings, in journals, on campuses and on the Internet over programs related to Afghanistan and Iraq.
At Harvard, some faculty members have been troubled that the university's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy helped revise the counterinsurgency field manual, even though the center's objective was to reduce civilian casualties.
Members of the American Psychological Association have had fervid exchanges over what role, if any, its members should have in military interrogations. And anthropologists have passionately argued over a Pentagon program that uses these social scientists in war zones.
These sorts of controversies have appeared "in various permutations at different times," said David Wippman, a professor at Cornell Law School who worked on humanitarian affairs for the Bill Clinton administration, mentioning similar debates over participation in humanitarian assistance, the Iraqi war crimes tribunal and the proceedings at Guantanamo's detention camp.
In the Harvard dust-up, the worry is that the essential secretiveness of the military will transform the long-cherished openness and transparency of the university, bringing the campus green a bit too close to the parade ground.
"How could Harvard sit there and put the imprimatur of a human rights center on counterinsurgency?" said Tom Hayden, the Vietnam War-era activist, who has complained about the collaboration in The Nation and on the Huffington Post. "It lends an Ivy League cloak of legitimacy to counterinsurgency, which is inherently secret."
For Hayden and Richard Parker, who now teaches at the Kennedy School at Harvard, the Vietnam War is a touchstone in these debates.
"I'm of a generation that is skeptical about this," Parker said. "Universities aren't innocents."
"In the era of Abu Ghraib," he said, such cooperation "does damage to the university's credibility and autonomy."
Participants may think they are immune to being compromised, Cox said, but human nature being what it is, "I'm not confident that a lot of people who think they can humanize the system can prevent themselves from getting carried away," said Harvey Cox Jr, a faculty member of the Harvard Divinity School for more than 40 years.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese