Disarming

This is an update to my post 'the Chrysanthemum and the Tulip'. More yet to come on the question of the proper role of anthropology in the military and the military in anthropology as the meeting of the American Anthropological Association (28 Nov-2 Dec) proceeds. The Chronicle article is maddeningly bland and 'even-handed', but it taken in parts it does offer some priceless gems. To wit:

Felix Moos, a 78-year-old professor of anthropology at Kansas who has trained several human-terrain participants, passionately supports the program. He has roughly a dozen different ways of saying "A better-educated military will kill fewer people, not more."

I expect I confess my naivete when I reveal that my overall impression had been that an unarmed civilian population has had better success with this objective.

'A dozen different ways of saying "a better-educated military will kill fewer people, not more"'. Any striking writers willing to take a guess? Not directly a propos, but I found some cynical alternative army slogans posted in 2001 on a site called 'Free Republic.com: A conservative news forum' that also deserve the broader audience we here at Punctum et Studium are proud to boast. Point being that if self-identified conservatives and (as it appears from the comments) members of the military are as clear sighted and unsentimental about their purpose and deployment as this-- then Moos and other apologists for the 'human terrain' initiative have even more--a great deal more-- for which to answer:

1. "Kill All That You Can Kill"
2. "Shower With Men"
3. "Knock Up Foreign Broads"
4. "All The Grits You Can Eat"
5. "Be A Flame Thrower, Not A Flame Broiler"
6. "Purple Hearts = Free Beers At Hooters"
7. "Whimsical And Human, Just Like M*A*S*H"
8. "Cubicles Are For Wusses"
9. "Napalm Means Serious BBQ"
10. "Over 1,000,000 Sheared, Beaten, And Worked Into A Sub-Human Fury!"
11. "Totally Beefcake and Proud of It"
12. "Beat Up Sailors"
13. "We Won't Screw Your Mind Up As Bad As The Marines Will"
14. "Kicking Nazi Tail Since 1942"
15. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Accessorize"
16. "Risk Your Life for Freedoms No One Appreciates!"
17. "Play Doom For Real"
18. "Sure Beats Lurnin'!"
19. "Because Terminators Are Real"
20. "Forget Nation-Building -- Let's Destroy One!"