Human Terrain Systems - brainchild of anthropologist Montgomery McFate

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/price12122008.html


First Read of a Leaked Handbook
The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems


Human Terrain Systems, one of the U.S. military’s key counterinsurgency efforts to stabilize the occupation of Iraq, appears to suddenly be under serious attack by groups that once offered it support.

-snip-

The Human Terrain program is the brainchild of anthropologist Montgomery McFate, whose longtime interest in supporting the suppression of insurgent groups through the adoption of counterinsurgency tactics led to the formation of Human Terrain Systems based at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas and run through BAE Systems contractors. Human Terrain Teams (HTT) are designed to supplant or complement roles that Civil Affairs units have traditionally played in assessing the needs and conditions of occupied populations. As the recently leaked Handbook states, “Human Terrain Teams bring another aspect of the population: the average persons’ perspective, when the HTT incorporates the “grass-roots” perspective with government and tribal perspectives.” These Human Terrain Teams are designed to incorporate military-embedded anthropologists and other social sciences who interview members of local populations in war zones, often with armed Team members, sometimes wearing uniforms.

-snip-

Nothing seems to be working right at Human Terrain. During the past year two Human Terrain social scientists have been killed and last month saw an attack on, and severe burning of, a third Human Terrain social scientist. Murder charges were recently filed against Human Terrain Team member Don Ayala. Ayala is accused of executing a detained man believed to have attacked and burnt his Human Terrain Team colleague). Many have tried to dismiss John Stanton and his work because it appears in alternative press sources but bastions of mainstream journalism have been giving the Human Terrain program a free ride since its inception, so I would not look to these sources to publish critical reports. That Nature has turned against Human Terrain is big news.
-long snip-
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wasn't this one of crazy Rummy's pet projects?

anthropologist Montgomery McFate is a con man who sold his idea to con man Rummy. money was made.

[patrice]

1. Let me see if I understand this: They were interviewing (with at least implied threat) Grassroots

Iraqis and then (and here I speculate) they would have selected certain ones for certain kinds of programs, which could have been anything from elimination to extortion and blackmail to (at minimum implied violence in) supporting some of them in their local dealings with other Iraqis?

[Mari333]

2. a kinder gentler imperialistic quagmire

'“HTTs will use the Map-HT Toolkit of developmental hardware and software to capture, consolidate, tag, and ingest human terrain data. HTTs use this human terrain information gathered to assist commanders in understanding the operational relevance of the information as it applies to the unit’s planning processes. The expectation is that the resulting courses of actions developed by the staff and selected by the commander will consistently be more culturally harmonized with the local population, which in Counter-Insurgency Operations should lead to greater success. It is the trust of the indigenous population that is at the heart of the struggle between coalition forces and the insurgents.”'

and if all else fails, we will give you money to trust us.
what a load of horseshite.