Response to "Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the case of Iraq"

Abstract

“In this short paper I want to consider the controversial question of whether archaeologists should work with the military, principally in Iraq.” The author obviously implies that whilst this question has been raised in particular by the Iraq war, it is more generally controversial for archaeologists dealing with conflict and post-conflict situations. John Curtis sees some involvement by archaeologists with the military as inevitable and in post-conflict situations, as desirable. Any earlier engagement with the military, he argues, should be avoided on ethical grounds – in particular giving information or advice could appear as collusion and taking the political stance of encouraging the war preparations. The ethical questions raised are whether to have relationships with the military (on the perhaps benign assumption that whatever their motives to destroy an enemy, somehow ‘culture’ will escape their attention if sufficient information or warnings are given) or, not appearing to collude with the destruction of human life and property that must inevitably ensue from conflict. If the latter, then it is the best of a bad job not to provide the advice and information needed to avoid accidental destruction and to focus instead on post-conflict recovery and cleaning up.