The first social scientist to die in a controversial Pentagon experiment

[bigtree]

MEDWAY, Mass. (AP) —

Every trip had come with risks, but this one was the toughest to explain. No one questioned Bhatia's commitment to Afghanistan, but many disagreed sharply with the way he'd chosen to pursue it. "I am already preparing for both the real and ethical minefields," he e-mailed friends, hours before boarding.

Bhatia was joining the Human Terrain System, a Pentagon experiment to reengineer the battle against Afghan and Iraqi insurgents by teaming soldiers and scholars. Human Terrain set off a war of its own in the academic world: Critics, particularly anthropologists, argued that Human Terrain researchers could not serve two masters — that they risked betraying the people they studied by feeding information to the military.

Bhatia disagreed. But the only way to know, he told friends, was to see for himself.

Even skeptical colleagues looked forward to the conclusion of his journey: If anybody could thread the ethical minefield, it was Mike.

Now, after months of waiting, Bhatia had brought colleagues from campus and the combat zone together in the same room.

They filed slowly from the oak pews of St. Joseph Church, out into the midday chill . . .


story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29568613/



Shooting Afghanistan: Beyond the Conflict (photo essay)
By Michael Bhatia | Monday, May 12, 2008
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=6416

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Michael Bhatia was the first Human Terrain academic killed in the line of duty, but not the last.

Seven weeks later, on June 24, political scientist Nicole Suveges, 38, of Wauconda, Ill., was killed when a bomb exploded in a district council office in Baghdad where she was attending a meeting.

On Jan. 7 of this year, Paula Loyd, an anthropologist assigned to a Human Terrain team in Afghanistan, died two months after an Afghan man she was interviewing in a village near Kandahar doused her with a pitcher of fuel and set her on fire. The attack on Loyd, a 36-year-old native of San Antonio, allegedly prompted a civilian Human Terrain colleague to shoot her assailant in the head after he was apprehended. The colleague has been charged with second-degree murder.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/08/america/Human-Terrain-Dead.php

[Lost in CT]

1. Sad story... great man and a great loss... a true hero. nt

[bigtree]

2. definitely an interesting story

he was a good writer too

[Mika]

3. I guess the Afghanis don't want the pentagon to streamline imperialism.

:shrug:

I'm sorry for the loss of these people. I'm sorry for the way they died.

[anonymous171]

4. The Afghanis just want to be left alone to fight their usual tribal wars.

Which is fine by me. We should withdraw and let them do whatever they want.