scholarly journals Militær og mindfulness. Refleksioner over en uhellig alliance

2015 ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Sita Kotnis
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
English Abstract ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Empirical Context ◽  
The Military ◽  
American Civil Society

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In recent years, mindfulness has become a major resource in the US military. This has provoked substantial criticism in American civil society, not least within contemplative environments. Considered as an expression of underlying Western ideas of contemplation and spirituality, this criticism may offer crucial insights into mindfulness as a modern, secular phenomenon. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork this article presents the empirical context of current military uses and adaptations of contemplative practises. The article also seeks to open the field for a closer investigation of the various configurations of ’ethics’ and ’meaning’ that underlie the criticism of the military appropriation. Finally, the article points out that the study of the possible dark sides of mindfulness, i.e. the potential to enhance injurious and harmful practices, is an under-researched as well as under-theorized field.DANSK RESUME: I det amerikanske militær er mindfulness i de senere år blevet en central ressource. Dette har affødt en del kritik i det amerikanske civilsamfund, ikke mindst i kontemplative miljøer – en kritik, der anskuet som udtryk for underliggende, vestlige forestillinger om kontemplation og spiritualitet, måske kan fortælle os noget centralt om mindfulness som moderne, sekulært fænomen. Med afsæt i et længerevarende etnografisk feltarbejde redegør denne artikel for den empiriske kontekst bag den samtidige militære anvendelse af kontemplative praksisser. Artiklen søger også at åbne op for en nærmere udforskning af de konfigurationer af ’etik’ og ’mening’, der ligger til grund for kritikken af den militære appropriering. Endelig påpeges det, at studiet af mindfulness’ mulige skyggesider, i form af potentialet til at optimere skadevoldende praksisser, er et både under-researchet og under-teoretiseret felt.

scholarly journals Helminth infections in the US military: from strongyloidiasis to schistosomiasis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa R Lindrose ◽  
Indrani Mitra ◽  
Jamie Fraser ◽  
Edward Mitre ◽  
Patrick W Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Military Personnel ◽  
International Classification Of Diseases ◽  
Data Repository ◽  
Military Health ◽  
Intestinal Nematode ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Helminth Infections ◽  
The Us ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
The Military

Abstract Background Helminth infections caused by parasitic worms, including nematodes (roundworms), cestodes (tapeworms) and trematodes (flukes), can cause chronic symptoms and serious clinical outcomes if left untreated. The US military frequently conducts activities in helminth-endemic regions, particularly Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. However, the military does not currently screen for these infections, and to date, no comprehensive surveillance studies have been completed to assess the frequency of helminth diagnoses in the military personnel and their families. Methods To determine the burden of helminth infections in the US Military Health System (MHS), we conducted a retrospective analysis of International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9/10 diagnosis codes from all medical encounters in the MHS Data Repository (MDR) from fiscal years (FY) 2012 to 2018. Chart reviews were conducted to assign ICD diagnoses as incorrect, suspected, probable or confirmed based on the laboratory results and symptoms. Results Abstraction of MHS data revealed over 50 000 helminth diagnoses between FY 2012 and FY 2018. Of these, 38 445 of diagnoses were amongst unique subjects. After chart review, we found there were 34 425 validated helminth infections diagnosed amongst the unique subjects of US military personnel, retirees and dependents. Nearly 4000 of these cases represented infections other than enterobiasis. There were 351 validated strongyloidiasis diagnoses, 317 schistosomiasis diagnoses and 191 diagnoses of cysticercosis during the study period. Incidence of intestinal nematode infection diagnoses showed an upward trend, whilst the incidence of cestode infection diagnoses decreased. Conclusions The results of this study demonstrate that helminth infections capable of causing severe morbidity are often diagnosed in the US military. As helminth infections are often asymptomatic or go undiagnosed, the true burden of helminth infections in US military personnel and dependents may be higher than observed here. Prospective studies of US military personnel deployed to helminth-endemic areas may be indicated to determine if post-deployment screening and/or empirical treatment are warranted.

scholarly journals Militarization, slow violence, and the emerging threat of condemnation in Hawai‘i

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 3.1-3.12
Author(s):  
N. Mahina Tuteur
Keyword(s):  
Active Role ◽  
Kanaka Maoli ◽  
Public Purpose ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Military ◽  
Fair Market Value

This article examines the environmental impacts of the US military presence in Hawaii, looking specifically at the federal government’s power to condemn land for a ‘public purpose’ under the US Constitution. In 2018, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the State of Hawaii failed its duty to properly manage 23,000 acres of lands leased to the military at Pōhakuloa and must take an active role in preserving trust property. With the expiration of this lease (and several others) approaching in 2029, controversy is stirring as to whether the military will simply condemn these lands if the cost of clean-up is greater than the land’s fair-market value at the expiration of the lease. In other words, as long as it remains cheaper for the military to pollute and condemn than it is for it to restore, what options do we have for legal and political recourse? Considering grassroots movements’ strategic use of media and legal action through an environmental justice lens, this article provides a starting point to consider avenues for ensuring proper clean-up of these lands, and ultimately, negotiating for their return to Kānaka Maoli.

From Blockade to Aid

2019 ◽  
pp. 275-338
Author(s):  
Mary Elisabeth Cox
Keyword(s):  
International Aid ◽  
Institutional Level ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Save The Children ◽  
German Children ◽  
The Military ◽  
Different Sources

Once the blockade against Germany was fully lifted on 12 July 1919, food from different sources began entering the country. Excess food from the US military was parcelled out to American citizens resident in Germany. Though significant for the recipients who received it, the military surplus lasted only a few months and could only be shared with other Americans. A source of foreign food for German citizens were food drafts, which allowed family and friends in foreign lands to purchase foodstuffs for their loved ones in Germany without taking the risk of theft or spoilage associated with directly exporting the goods. Other institutions, private and public, focused on feeding German children. This chapter examines the efforts of some of the major international aid organizations, including the American Friend Service Committee, Save the Children, and other groups feeding German children. It examines the approaches and struggles of these groups at an institutional level.

John Useem and Governance Operations

2018 ◽  
pp. 199-238
Author(s):  
Montgomery McFate
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Successful Case ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Navy ◽  
Government Enterprise ◽  
The Military

This chapter concerns the wartime civil affairs experience of John Useem, a US Navy officer who became the military governor of a small island in Micronesia. While the post-World War II, military government established in Germany and Japan are often offered as examples of successful governance operations, the partially successful case of Micronesia better exemplifies the paradoxes at the heart of the military government enterprise. These issues which plagued the US military government in Micronesia, and which John Useem wrote about in the 1940s and 1950s, were the exact same issues that have plagued the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq more than a half century later. What happens when the policy of democratization is incompatible with the existing social order? What happens when American social norms conflict with the society they intend to govern? What happens when the core principle of military government non-interference cannot be implemented in practice and outright contradicts the imperatives of ‘nation building’?

Eyes in the Sky

The Drone Age ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 96-130
Author(s):  
Michael J. Boyle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military ◽  
Organizational Costs

Chapter 4 argues that drones accelerate the trend toward information-rich warfare and place enormous pressure on the military to learn ever more about the battlefields that it faces. Today, for the United States, war is increasingly a contest for information about any future battlespace. This has had an organizational effect as the ability for the United States to know more through drone imagery has turned into a necessity to know more. The US military is becoming so enamored of its ability to know more through drone surveillance that it is overlooking the operational and organizational costs of “collecting the whole haystack.” Using drones for a vast surveillance apparatus, as the United States and now other countries have been doing, has underappreciated implications for the workload, organizational structures, and culture of the military itself.

scholarly journals The Politics of Sex Abuse in Sacred Hierarchies: A Comparative Study of the Catholic Church and the Military in the United States

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Carolyn M. Warner
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sex Abuse ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Child Sex Abuse ◽  
The Military ◽  
Patterns Of Abuse ◽  
The Catholic Church

The paper explores similarities in patterns of abuse and in patterns of how the known abuse cases are handled by the Catholic church and the U.S. military and develops preliminary explanations of why. The paper considers how the two organizations deal with external efforts by civil authorities at oversight and prosecution, and the extent to which they invoke their sacred status authority to evade responsibility and civilian oversight. The paper finds that the handling of sex abuse in each organization has been affected partly by the institutions seeing themselves as sacred, as something apart from the secular state, beholden to alternative authorities. The paper highlights the fact that child sex abuse by religious officials and sexual assault of soldiers by fellow soldiers and officers constitute profound challenges for democracy in the US and elsewhere, as the institutions claim and may be accorded separate and privileged status, beyond the reach of democratic laws and procedures. It is a warning about the costs of public deference to other institutions. The study utilizes documentation of Catholic church clergy child sex abuse cases in the US, and documentation of sex abuse cases in the US military.

“Isahama Women Farmers” against Enclosure

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-574
Author(s):  
Wendy Matsumura
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Women Farmers ◽  
Favorable Outcome ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Okinawa Island ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Military

In July 1954, the US military notified residents of Isahama, Ginowan, in the central part of Okinawa Island, of their evictions from their lands. Despite immediate opposition by residents, the military rejected all appeals on the grounds that this and other evictions were necessary to make the world safe for democracy. Though Isahama’s residents were discouraged by their failure to extract a more favorable outcome from military authorities, their struggle to keep their lands from being requisitioned—and similar struggles that erupted in Iejima, Furujima, and Mawashi—are widely recognized as the sparks that ignited the “all-island struggle” of 1956. This article considers the roles that Isahama’s women farmers played in inspiring the mass mobilization of 1956. While scholars have characterized the power of their protests as stemming precisely from their apolitical character—from their desperation as mothers and wives simply trying to protect their families from certain death—it proposes a reconsideration of this assessment. A Marxist feminist perspective that centers on the concept of social reproduction enables a linking of their struggle to a broader genealogy of political struggle in Okinawa and beyond to one that women and feminists waged against capital, militarism, and patriarchy.

scholarly journals ‘Killing is our business and business is good’: The evolution of ‘war managerialism’ from body counts to counterinsurgency

Organization ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo McCann
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Military Organizations ◽  
Us Military ◽  
New Wars ◽  
The Us ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Military

Managerialism versus professionalism is a central axis of conflict across many occupations. ‘The profession of arms’ is no exception. This article explores the contested yet symbiotic relationship of management and the military via a discussion of the Vietnam conflict and contemporary debates over restructuring the US military to fight so-called ‘New Wars’. It portrays a complex picture of the organization and measurement of destruction, arguing that managerialism has long been an important ideological element of civilian and military practice. While management systems such as the infamous ‘measurements of progress’ in the Vietnam War were practically dysfunctional, they were effective up to a point in their managerialist goal of portraying civilian and military organizations as effective, evidence-based, progressive and ethical. This logic also pertains to contemporary debates over ‘progress’, and its measurement in the Iraq and Afghanistan counterinsurgencies and the campaign against Isil. Despite its practical limitations, managerialism is highly prevalent as ideology in warfare, fixating on tactical and operational levels, thereby excluding broader strategic, political or ethical discussions. ‘Progress’ and its mismeasurement in Vietnam and the New Wars are therefore best understood not simply as reasons for military and civilian failures in prolonged and inconclusive conflicts but as evidence of the success of managerialism in restricting public scrutiny and accountability of the business of war.

“Different than an infantry unit down in Georgia”: Narratives of queer liberation in the post-DADT military

Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 776-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Connell
Keyword(s):  
Officer Training ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Don't Ask Don't Tell ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rotc Cadets ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Unanimous Approval

More than five years out from its implementation, we still know relatively little about how members of the US military and its ancillary institutions are responding to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Contrary to what one might expect given the long history of LGBTQ antipathy in the military, I found in interviews with Boston area Reserve Officer Training Core (ROTC) cadets unanimous approval for the repeal of DADT. When pressed to explain why there was so much homogeneity of favorable opinion regarding the repeal, interviewees repeatedly offered the same explanation: that Boston, in particular, is such a progressive place that even more conservative institutions like the ROTC are spared anti-gay sentiment. They imagined the Southern and/or rural soldier they will soon encounter when they enter the US military, one who represents the traditionally homophobic attitudes of the old military in contrast to their more enlightened selves. This “metronormative” narrative has been critiqued elsewhere as inadequate for understanding the relationship between sexuality and place; this article contributes to that critique by taking a new approach. Rather than deconstruct narratives of queer rurality, as the majority of metronormativity scholarship has done, I deconstruct these narratives of urban queer liberation. I find that such narratives mask the murkier realities of LGBTQ attitudes in urban contexts and allow residents like the ROTC cadets in this study to displace blame about anti-gay prejudice to a distant Other, outside of their own ranks.

scholarly journals The Iranian-American competition in Iraq: the political defeat of the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Nikolay Bobkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Scientific Hypothesis ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Advantage ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

The article gives an assessment of Iran's policy in neighboring Iraq during the years of the American occupation. The author's scientific hypothesis is that after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran, and not America, became the real beneficiary of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The Iranian leadership, interested in changing the Baathist regime in Baghdad, having received such a strategic gift, did everything to use the US military presence to its advantage. The purpose of this study is to analyze the strategy of expanding Iran's influence in Iraq and its impact on US policy. The article shows that the nature of Iran's influence in Iraq included all the elements of state power: diplomatic, informational, military and economic. It is concluded that Tehran managed to take advantage of the democratic reforms in Iraq, which were carried out under the control of Washington. Iran used its Shiite henchmen, which gave it a political advantage over the United States, which did not have such influential allied forces in Iraq. Despite the disparate balance of military forces with America, Iran managed to avoid the risk of war with the United States and move on to achieving its long-term goals in Iraq. In the future, Tehran plans to achieve the rejection of Baghdad from constructive relations with Washington.

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