Anthropologists Help Military in Afghanistan, Iraq

The Pentagon has deployed some very different kinds of soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Military officers say that anthropologists and other social scientists are making their jobs easier. Today's New York Times reports on what it calls "a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations" in Afghanistan: "a soft spoken civilian anthropologist named Tracy. Pulitzer Prize-winner David Rohde, who wrote the story, explains how it all works as well as the controversy in academic circles over what some denounce as "mercenary anthropology."