"Jim Petras told us last year, in this journal, that anthropologists should never work for the empire. However, some of these questions might be very fundable, as part of a national security agenda in any of the launcher countries. It is true that they might help the empire figure out what it is doing, why and how better to do it, but there is nothing ghoulish about studying the impact of capitalist brutality on everyday life and nothing untoward about studying new forms of “justice” and “governance” no matter how vicious and unfair they are. It is not like we are calling for anthropologists to go out there and unreflectively study the comparative efficacy of using targeted bombing (Libya, Serbia, and Gaza) to soften up a community’s support for its leaders versus carpet bombing (Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Germany, Iraq, etc.). It is our contention that such applied work might also, by taking these new policies seriously, help those who seek a better world to more fully understand what is really going on, what experiences, and concerns varied peoples across the planet share in relation to this new form of warfare, and how to dismantle this monster. Any takers out there?"
Very fundable? Really?
Wow. Score one for professionalism.
Joanna