I supposed Dr. Anderson is also a devotee of phrenology as well and could probably tell a terrorists’ skull at 10 paces. Idiot.

I am truly amazed that such an article could exist and yet attract so little attention. The Holocaust was, in my opinion, one of the worst travesties ever committed by mankind and yet this article, which seems to be suggesting a Muslim Holocaust, went unnoticed. This was not from a crazy man outside of the government but rather someone who worked for the government, in Guantanamo no less. This could be offering a disturbing insight as to how some people in power view followers of Islam and is just one more thing that illuminates how the water boarding at Guantanamo and the abuses in Abu Ghraib could ever have been allowed to occur.

First Jews, then Arabs … what the heck did the Middle East ever do to us, except provide the first stirrings of our civilization? It’s amazing that the entire Middle East hasn’t found a way to get together peacably, because they are evidently a lot less dangerous to each other, contrary to their apparent beliefs, then we are to them.

Why don’t we just call this article a (renewed) proposal for a campaign of eugenics and be done with it? Why does this sick, sick idea keep coming back, century after century?

Yes, it’s a frightening article, I think. Even more frightening is the acceptance it appeared to get, even if by failure to criticize, by military psychologists confronted with it, and by the AFIO editor.

What’s the photo at top?

Yes, his pseudo-science could have been well-dissected by someone like Stephen Jay Gould, author of Mismeasure of Man (a great book), were he alive today.

well… The C-streeters claim to have infiltrated 20,000+ of their fanatical zealot followers into our military… not to mention all the zealots they court inside of Congress, the shrub Justice Dept and goodness know how many other US Federal agencies. I bet these malignant tumors on the face of democracy add up to a hundred thousand. And I’m also quite sure that they’re wired differently than the rest of us. What would Dr. Anderson say about that?

I think they are spy trenchcoats.

I’ll go way out on a limb here and predict that Dr. [sic] Anderson did not provide any examples of the “robust” literature supporting his hypothesis.

Great work, Jeff. I hope this gets a lot of attention.

Oh, okay. They looked like choir robes to me. Thanks for your interpretation.

Exactly, especially the quote “What sounds politically incorrect today, might be the very thing that ensures our survival, tomorrow.” That level of acceptance signals something that is very, very wrong.

Demi,,,,hey. Are you well? Job news? Haven’t seen you in awhile.

I hate to say…when I first saw the post, I thought do we have to read about all these crazies? Well, in this case yes….the same “they’re not human” that was talk about African-Americans for years…God Awful…as in they can’t swim. I usually think we have come along way, until…May this guy be seriously censored by his “peers” (word does not quite fit)

All ya gotta do is…get a bead on them 100,000, kill em , and all our worries are over and there’s bright days ahead for us non malignant humans. Yeehaw ! that is one smart psyhco feller. Harvard must be proud, proud.

And I wonder where we might have seen this strategy before? They say that they have something to support their ideas, but all it is is one piece of information re-stated a hundred times or data that all comes from the same source…

The racist article and the position it takes is deplorable. Suicide bombers are too. Let’s not forget that.

While the leaders aren’t usually willing to martyr themselves, many of the lower ranking “zealots” as they’re called have already alleviated the need for someone to kill them, as they’ve blown them selves up (killing many innocent bystanders in the process.).

I didn’t note it in the story, but Anderson teaches a Harvard extension course on “Conspiracy” (wouldn’t you know it?).

So I guess if zealots are “cancer cells” that must be removed we’ve just gotten the go-ahead to look at folks like Fred Phelps? I think he’s a cancer…

And your point is?

Wonder what Prof Gates may say?

Hey, Bev.
I was on a camping trip to the beach. And, yes, it was re-creating. Then, came home to 100+ temps and fires all around. But, I am fine.
I got the gym job, so now I’m working two part time gigs. Whoo hoo. Guess I can afford the Mother of the Bride dress and the three nights and the fancy schmancy hotel in Santa Barbara. Money does come in handy from time to time.
It is no surprise to me that there are zealots who want to kill other zealots. Just sick. But, considering where our civilization is, intellectually and consciously, I’m not surprised. Not happy about it, but there you have it.

TO re-state the obvious, does he only mean brown zealots? Or are red/white/blue ones in need of extermination/herd thinning, too?

I’m not willing to be judgmental on earth. It’s not my place. But when God/Allah lines up the Christians, Jews, non-religious and the suicide bombers , etc. and makes a call, I hope I’m on the correct side. I’d hate to think that all I had to do is kill you to get to heaven.

When is the wedding? Mother of the Bride is fun…enjoy.

My hypothesis is that they, or some of them, at least have brains that are structurally and functionally different than ours. Their single-minded purpose is made possible by an underlying dysregulation of the brain.

And a physician supposedly wrote this? What evidence does he have? MRI scans? EEGs? STRUCTURALLY is a key word here. That implies something that should show up on imaging… I’m beyond appalled.

The point is that the doctor is a quack. The theory is bunk, yet it carries weight within our political establishment. The brains of these individuals are not different from “normal” brains. The extreme anti-social behavior is a result of religious and political indoctrination.

Muslims who are inspired to commit murder by suicide are not unlike radical Christians who kill abortion doctors. They are each motivated by a belief system. They may often have a low intellect, but there is nothing inherently wrong with their brains.

This doctor and his theory are indeed Nazi-like.

one must bear in mind that this is the same institution that gave us Hernnstein (co-author of the racist manifesto, The Bell Curve, with AEI fellow Charles Murray), who argued for the generic superiority of Caucasians. Oh, and there was Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations – which provided much of the intellectual foundation of the PNAC and the neocons – that Anglo-American/Caucasian “civilization” is involved in a messianic battle-royal against the alien other. Harvard merely reflects the wider bigotries and insecurities that beset the rest of our floundering empire.

Of course it’s only brown zealots that this refers to. Fred Phelps and Randall Terry, being of a paler persuasion, would not qualify. I think I’m going to go and vomit now…

Never mind…I just didn’t quite get it…your initial post seemed to set out a sort of quid pro quo….I didn’t understand what that gets us. If you are saying both positions are clearly dehumanizing, then I agree. There just seemed to be a point that I was probably missing.

he’s probably wondering whether Anderson counts him among the 100,000.

October 3rd. Fun? I’m hoping so. There’s a lot of pressure. She’s been planning this for a while and she wants it to be Perfect. I’m actually wondering if I can find a source for some valu*m. Just for those 3 days, mind you. Pressure is on.
Why do you think I’ve been going to the gym so religiously? Ha!

So. If we take Anderson’s report at face value, how many of our own zealots — Birthers, Kill Gramma-ers and all the other proud Right Wing Terrorists do we need to murder? Is that okay with Dr. Anderson?

Somehow I doubt that anyone has fMRI imagery or PET scanning of Muslim ‘zealots.’ Considering the etymology of that word, it’s at least doubly inappropriate here.

I’ll hold your hand and rub your back. It is disgusting, isn’t it? Whatever, or whichever deity they worship isn’t listening to them. They create their own SIN. Sin = without. Not. Far away from Gawd.

You know, if the zealots would just go off to some free-fire zone where they can kill one another to their twisted little heart’s content it would be okay with me.

I hate it when those jerks take out people who are minding their own business and not interested in their fanaticisms.

Silly… Only BROWN zealots count….

There are instances in your bible that call for the killing of those who would attempt to influence your beliefs. Deuteronomy 13 6

What are you drinking, Mommybrain?

But if we kill the 100,000, all their pissed-off friends and families will contribute even MORE terrorists to the active duty pool.

How silly of me. BTW, EEG’s wouldn’t show much at all about this sort of thing. The onliest things that would work are functional MRI and PET scanning.

It’s okay with me too. Just keep the innocents out of the line of fire. Right?

Thanks! Enjoy being Mom Of Bride — if your daughter is anywhere near as wise and kind as you are even if a few small things to awry the day will still be perfect. Don’t let her sweat the small stuff! (I know, I know, she’s so single minded right now she won’t hear that, but say it anyway…!)

This is OT…it all has the feel of a drama…when folks start to gather (for us it was maybe the Bridesmaid luncheon) it all has a life of its own…so yes, enjoy. My daughter had a consultant who told her/us all it takes is “you and the groom”. That seemed to take alot of pressure off…be sure your dress is comfortable. I enjoyed mine for years….You will be lovely…

Oh, Jim, you lose the (implied) bet. Anderson did cite two works in his reply (though none in his original article). He cites no quotes, chapters or pages. But he names the following as scientific literature “which supports and renders plausible the conjectures and hypotheses of my article. He mentions two “textbooks”. One is Principles of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology, 2nd ed., 2000, M.M. Mesulam ed. The other is not a textbook at all — The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, 2002, M. Konner.

I am not familiar with Mesulam’s work, but have read The Tangled Wing. It offers zero support to Anderson’s thesis.

Just to check myself (even though I am a clinical psychologist), I ran Anderson’s article by a nationally respected neuropsychologist. He found the article to reek of Nazi science, and to be full of bunk.

It was the functional MRIs that I couldn’t get my brain to access… I knew that there was a test that I was missing. Thanks!

Yes, just look at how many terrorists have been recruited since we invaded Iraq…Afganistan, etc….truly counterproductive. Depending on what the real goal is.

Benzo’s are pretty easily available in Mexican pharmacias, but I can’t recommmend crossing the border for any purpose right now.

Getting your daughter to accept that something (or even somethingS) are not going to go as planned is important. Tell it’s all going to be beautiful however it ends up. Which is true.

Precisely.

Demi, stay safe.

AS far as the Val*um goes, try Valerian root, available at any good pharmacy and the herbal version of val*um.

Is there any way that you could get the full text of this out for the world to see? Or were you only allowed to look at but not touch the text?

It seems to me that Anderson is a zealot since one of the definitions is “fanatic.” His brain is clearly disfunctional and he is a racist – no doubt about that. This whole thing is repulsive.

Dr. Anderson is a member of the Club. Harvard. Doctor. Staff at Mass. Gen. Top aide to the Pentagon. And a racist zealot who seems to project his own pathology onto zealots who live in the Middle East.

He reminds me of the “scientists” who abused intelligence theories in the 1920’s in order to influence census data and to close the immigration door to South and East European Catholics and Slavs and most of all to Jews. Perverted science has a pedigree as long as science itself.

Yeah, you have to give up perfect,but also part of the fun is being around folks glad to be together…even if not always the case…for a happy occasion.

Bev and Marion (Each and Both)
Thank you. It’s coming soon. Hard not to feel the excitement, which sometimes is a cousin to anxiety. Oh, we’ll be fine. It helps that she and I love each other in a way where we really get a long. That said, it’s kind of nice right now that she lives so far away. I can say on the phone, Oh, honey. It just feels like that now. Let’s both sleep on it and talk tomorrow. Blessings.

Textbooks are bullshit in this sort of context.

This is the kind of thing that requires citations into the primary literature. Textbooks are barely tertiary literature. Textbooks are 3-5 years out of date when they’re published.

Guava juice. Why, what did I say?

You certainly catch the immediate logical fallacy of Anderson’s “argument.” Who defines zealotry? But I suppose if you have to ask, then you are already one of Anderson’s “credulous enablers”, or maybe a “useful idiot,” I forget which.

Btw, I want to note here, as I have often been critical of how some psychologists have enabled the torture done by this government, that it was uniquely a psychologist at AFIO that stood up among her peers and called Anderson out. Psychologists have also been in the forefront of the fight against torture. This fact has preyed on my mind, because it has never been my intent to tear down the profession of psychology or psychiatry. But the sad truth is that psychologists, doctors, psychiatrists have crossed over to the side of criminality or in Anderson’s case racist or fascistic thought, and when that happens, I’m going to call it out.

Sort of like the Yoo of doctors, I guess. I wonder how long he will be tolerated.

I knows it well. I can’t stand the flavor, so I avoid the tea, although I love tea, so I have the herbal capsules. And, you are so right. It’s the same. Kind of. In a hippie kind of way. :)

Thanks, BT. You are correct. I’ll stick with the herbals and, oh, gosh, everything will be fine. She’s a good girl. It’s my mother I’m worried about being around. I’m just kidding. Kind of.

Jeff, thanks for this enlightening but disturbing post. This subject needs lots of publicity. I keep thinking that at my age nothing will surprise me but things like this certainly do.

Three generations? How very special. I wish either of my grandmothers had been alive to be at my wedding…

Oh they won’t move against him. Academic freedom. Harvard never moved against Hernnstein, who contended that those he considered to be genetic inferiors (like Blacks and Latinos) should be offered menial, vocational training in lieu of being forced, unfairly he argued, to compete with white people. Huntington, up to his death earlier this year, was hailed as an academic lion at Harvard despite doing perhaps the most harm of any serious academic in the last generation – as the intellectual father of neocon thought, who first warned about what he believed was the inevitability of a global war on Islam.

Yeah, if you can’t at least pretend to be nice, you ought not go to the wedding.

Oh, my best friend, fairy godmother, will be there too! She’s mid-90’s. The only thing that would make it better would be if my daddy was there. But, his love for her will be.

See my 31, your 21 and Marion’s 27. I owe her one, too.

Yes, ‘em. You’re right.

intellectual father of neocon thought

Isn’t that an oxymoron?

They went after Churchill at Colorado.

Given that this bozo is a lecturer rather than a tenured member of faculty, he may find himself without that academic cachet next term.

Holy shit. I’ve taken a class from this guy. He teaches in the Extension School (Harvard’s night classes). He teaches two classes, one on “The Madness of Crowds” and the other on conspiracy theories. He’s really old, started teaching when he retired and has been teaching at extension for 25 years. His stint at Guantanamo was in the 50s, as far as I recall.

I took the conspiracy class and got a lot out of it. It was the first time he was teaching it and it wandered a bit, but the course was based on searching through historical events and asking – actual conspiracy or “conspiracy theory.” Got the feeling that his personal sympathies were to the right, but the class was dealing with historical cases, not current events (except Schiavo)and he seemed even handed with the students.

He did say towards the end that it was difficult having spent his life in a field that he loved, where the technology to study the brain biologically came along too late for him to take advantage of.

I finf the article sad.

Bingo…who needs it. And most of the folks have a link/bond, something.

Night all..it’s my bedtime…sweet dreams.

Speaking of weddings..news that Jane Fonda to wed again…The courage that takes….

re keeping the innocents out of the line of fire, did I include this in the article (I think not). Anderson makes another analogy, to using surgery or chemotherapy on cancer. He says his analogy re killing the “zealots” would be tantamount to using “munitions” on them:

The analogy here is, of course, to the use of munitions, which, we hope will be reasonably selective in discriminating between healthy and malignant cells. But even at its best, this strategy annot fail to have some counterproductive side effects.

You see, there’s a lot more in the article I did not use, for space reasons.

Sweet and peaceful dreams to you. And, good on Jane. Why not be happy and have company at the same time.

Sounds alot like “collateral damage” doesn’t it? I hate that phrase.

Of course they went after Churchill. He was “other,” and also had the uncomfortable history of having actually served his country in the military.

There is so much information and knowledge, it is hard sometimes to select which exact stuff to talk about. It’s All Connected, isn’t it?

People like Cheney, Addington, Yoo, and Anderson are plain and simply fascists. In our political discourse, we aren’t supposed to call anyone a fascist however. One of the myths, and it is a very pernicious one, is that Americans are somehow exempt from fascism. As if we got the vaccination for it when we were young along with mumps. But this is just silly. Corporatism at home, militarism abroad, and a corrupted political discourse on all subjects are the hallmarks of fascism, and not coincidentally of much of our political elites, both Democratic and Republican. In this kind of climate, pseudoscience and pseudoscientists abound. Want to kill brown people? We can find you a crackpot neuropsychiatrist (seriously who made up that term?) who can prove what you already knew: brown people aren’t human like you and me, so blowing them away is not only not an ethical issue it is practiacally a sanitary requirement. Want to punish them first? Again no problem, we can hook you up with some for profit psychologists who can prove to you that torture works, at least for their bottomline anyway. Starting a war your thing? We can give you wholesale rates on gen-u-wine pollisy experts who will demonstrate that you don’t need to know anything about a country to invade it as long as you know there are brown people in it. Subvert laws, your Constitution? If a judge says it’s OK then it must be so, right? And we can provide you with lots of judges who will do just that. How do we know? Because we put them there. But fascists? No, this is America. No fascists here.

I find the article more than sad, however I appreciate your comments. I’m especially glad that you could provide a timeline for Anderson at Guantanamo. In a private setting, a respected member of a joint project asked more than one military psychologist about when Anderson was at Gitmo, and they deflected the inquiry. Seems racism is a dirty secret one sweeps under the rug, if you’re in the military. Always protect the service.

I prefer Collateral Karma. But, I’m kind of weird.

Thank you, Jeffrey. Good post!

I’m sure that was the reference.

It’s interesting to hear that Anderson’s heyday may have been forty years ago, because racist killing of non-caucasian peoples has gotten to be a habit for the U.S. government. In the 50s it was Chinese, Koreans, Guatemalans and Vietnamese. In the 60s, a welter of Asian nationalities, ditto the 1970s, which also included campaigns against Latin America, which escalated in the 1980s. Now it’s “Muslims” of various ethnic stipes.

Given the adamancy of anderson’s certitude that Islamic zealots would show such a brain pattern…despite the lack of evidence…and his desire to kill off l00,000 of them (again no basis in statistics that there that many “zealots”) then one would think that he, himself, would show this dangerous pathological pattern.

OBL rejoiced at 2800 deaths…Anderson would be disappointed at anything under l00K.

The fact that none of his colleagues even seemed to react at his ravings suggest that they, too, share this anomaly.

Now…since going out and giving MRI’s to individuals in remote Pakistan and Afghani mountains would be next to impossible I suggest that these psychologists be given the CT-scans to detect just what the common pathology actually is that ‘zealots’ exhibit. I find it intriguing they have gravitated to the field of military psychology. Could this suggest that they have some subconcious awareness of their mental illness? That they are seeking help and understanding…while at the same time desiring to vent their aggressions on soldiers and others under their supervision?

Of course this is just a theory…and rather than eliminating nderson and his ilk, might I suggest treatment? Seems that they have found KSM remrkably cooperative and docile after his stint on the water board. Perhaps there is a similar cure for these military psychotics psychologists. I wonder who will volunteer first, for the good of scientific knowledge?

Good comment, Hugh. “Fascist” is a term I rarely use to describe current political figures (check my posts). In Anderson’s case, I could not forebear using it, without being untruthful. That’s my criteria: if not calling someone fascist means you are covering up something essential about them or the situation they are in, then one should say it.

So if this guy is old enough to have been at Guantanamo in the 50s as mracine says, he must be what? 90? And in the 50s Guantanamo would have been part of Fulgencio Batista’s Cuba, because Castro’s revolution was in 1959. Just saying…

I think these people are all part of a pseudo-intellectual movement or meme within contemporary rethug thought that focuses on identity politics over all else. They believe that their tribal/racial identity forms the basis of “white civilization” – something that they, as a holy mission, believe that only they can defend…. and, in doing so restore the luster to the tarnished legacy of empire which they believe to be their racial birthright. These beliefs permeate rethug thinking all levels, from academics like Yoo and Anderson, down to the level of illiterate teabaggers, deathers and birthers. It isn’t fascism – more like nativist tribalism – but there are some similarities. Like German fascism was, it is an ideology of insecurity and resentment.. and it’s tearing this nation apart.

watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: Craven and Bigoted is No Way to Go Through Life, Son.

The U.S. has had a leased base at Guantanamo since the early 20th century. While formally (as leased land) it may have “Cuban” in the 50s, it was by all realistic criteria a U.S. naval base at that time. I will await confirmation re where Anderson was and when. The info I gave came from the AFIO Intelligencer article, as there is very, very little about Anderson online, itself a kind of suspicious thing, for someone with a long career.

There has been much ballyhoo on the promise of imaging to diagnose psychological neuro-pathology.It really seems premature.

And even if it is ever discovered, it’s likely to be a statistically identified pttern…there will be many people with the pattern who don’t manifest the “symptoms”. As well, there will be lots of “zealots” that don’t show the pattern.

In addition, we are increasingly learning that the brain is a “plastic” organ. Neural pathways develop early in life that are stabilized through repetition and “habit”. But intense, or repeated experiences can refashion those networks again…and again. It’s harder, but “old dogs can learn new tricks”. In addition one can take the individual out of situations which trigger pathological responses.

Totally agree. Way over-hyped.

Interestingly, my theory is that from a torture-theoretical standpoint (a satanic controversy), the torture world shift from psychological-Kubark torture, which was heavily interested by psychoanalysis and personality theory, to physical torture (waterboarding) was in line with the shift in the psychological fields to biopsychiatry, with its emphasis on physiology.

Then we just kill them too and just keep going til everything’s ok. Took a Harvard boy to show us how easy it will be.

Beautifully said, Hugh. And very important to hear. Thanks.

I wonder what the structural implications are for Obama’s brain, eh? This somehow segues into that weird preacher nut and his followers toting guns at Obama events…scary. Really, really scary!

No wonder Rumsfeld’s relatives disowned him. I wonder if any of Dr. Andersons relatives have disowned the ‘good Doctor’ as well…

They just kidnapped anyone who looked like a brown zealot terrorist and took them to illegal detention facilities to torture them and find out what would make someone a terrorist. The question really is…did Dr. Anderson and any of his fellow travelers actually dissect human beings looking for these “structural anomalies” that he was so keen on finding and weeding out of the brown population.

“SUGGESTING a Muslim holocaust” ?!!?

I refer you to Iraq from 1991 to present: about 2 million killed and 5 million displaced.