Stanton’s got a call a few days ago from a long-time customer who teaches at an inner city school.  She has been teaching for almost forty years, and her students, despite being from an underprivileged area always win top honors at festivals and adjudications.  One of the reasons for their success is her choice of music.  She scours Stanton’s mailed promotions of Top Choices and e-mails and calls our staff to get recommendations and opinions on the music that she chooses.  She has a limited budget, so she wants to get the absolute best music that will be useable for years to come so that she doesn’t waste her valuable funds.  She works hard at finding just the right music and her efforts pay off: her ensembles are the shining stars of their urban environment and students clamor for the chance to play in her groups!

The reason for her recent phone call was to vent her frustration with her fellow teachers.  Her city’s school system doles out about the same amount of money to every school – and it’s not a lot.  The local music store in her area was recently taken over by a larger store from Chicago and for their “Grand Re-Opening” they were offering a large selection of music at a 75% discount.  Out of curiosity (since she had already spent her budget at Stanton’s) she went to see what they had to offer.  It was clear to her that the hugely discounted music was all the dregs from the Chicago store that hadn’t sold because it wasn’t that great to begin with.  She noticed that all the great titles that she had purchased based on Stanton’s recommendations were not among the big sale items.  She realized that the store was just trying to get rid of their junk by offering it at a huge discount.
Her dismay came with the realization that her fellow teachers were thrilled with the chance to get so much music with their meager budget.  They could get $1600.00 worth of music for their $400.00 purchase order.  They were leaving the store loaded with boxes of music that they would probably be disappointed with – but boy, they had a lot of it!  They had done no research on any of it, didn’t see if a place like Stanton’s had recommended it – it was just cheap and they were going to get as much of it as they could.  She couldn’t have been more disappointed in her fellow teachers. They were interested only in quantity not quality.
Acheiving success as a music teacher means putting extra effort into choosing your repertoire. Stanton’s has understood this from their inception in August of 1960.  Mr. and Mrs. Stanton were both school music teachers who were frustrated with trying to find quality music for their students.  They decided to start a music store that would review the music that was published each year and pick the absolute cream-of-the-crop to recommend to teachers so that their customers would have top quality choir, band and orchestra music that could be relied on for a successful school year.
When Jim Strouse took over the business in the late 70’s he kept the same philosophy, and when he passed on the reins to his son, Eric, the vision remained the same.  Stanton’s has prospered because of this approach and has grown into a national leader in retail sheet music.  Our customers can always count on getting A-1 recommendations from the Stanton’s staff, which can only help their music programs improve. As you reflect on the first half of your school year and get ready for 2010, we hope you’ll consider working with Stanton’s.  For almost fifty years, Stanton’s has lived by the credo: “By helping our customers to be successful, we will be successful.”  Thanks to our customers for proving that to be true!

Dedicated to my colleague and comrade, John Stanton, and to myself. “Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair?”

This comes from David H. Price, “Anthropologists as Spies,” The Nation, November 2, 2000:

Archeologist Joe Watkins, chairman of the ethics committee, believes that if an anthropologist were caught spying today,

“the AAA would not do anything to investigate the activity or to reprimand the individual, even if the individual had not been candid [about the true purpose of the research]. I’m not sure that there is anything the association would do as an association, but perhaps public awareness would work to keep such practitioners in line, like the Pueblo clowns’ work to control the societal miscreants.”

Watkins is referring to Pueblo cultures’ use of clowns to ridicule miscreants. Although it is debatable whether anthropologist intelligence operatives would fear sanctions imposed by the AAA, it is incongruous to argue that they would fear public ridicule more. Enforcing a ban on covert research would be difficult, but to give up on even the possibility of investigating such wrongdoing sends the wrong message to the world and to the intelligence agencies bent on recruiting anthropologists.

More on the Pueblo clowns comes from a synthesis of Elsie Clews Parsons, Ralph Beals, and Conrad Hyers, via Google Books and Wikipedia:

often their behavior is comic, lewd, scatological, eccentric and alarming. Among the Zuni, to enter the Ne’wekwe order, one is initiated “by a ritual of filth-eating”; “mud and excrement are smeared on the body for the clown performance, and parts of the performance may consist of sporting with excreta, smearing and daubing it, or drinking urine and pouring it [on] one another.”

Consider the value of “sporting with excreta” — especially in the absence of a professional association that, if one reads Price above, did so much to collaborate with the CIA and to help create the situation of political and ethical turpitude that made room for multiple McFates. This was without penalty or injunction, except in the case of Franz Boas, for declaring himself against anthropology as espionage — so many ironies there, given his paramount role in leading American anthropology, and the fact that he was right and yet continued to be censured until 2005. Shameful.

“Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought you’d want what I want…
Sorry, my dear.”

John Stanton was quite correct when he wrote in a recent comment:

“Mrs. McFate-Sapone has broadcast herself around the world via the Net telling us all about her personal life.
http://montgomerymcfate.com/photos.html#
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/06/do-pentagon-stu/

She is the senior social scientist on a program that is central to COIN as defined by Obama/Petraeus. Fondacaro recently stated that HTS is right in line with the President’s objectives in Afghanistan, etc. She has a measure of responsibility for the personnel deployed.

She has also been the subject of many positive stories and some negative. For example:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/07/theres-something-about-mary-unmasking-gun-lobby-mole
http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/6240

She qualifies as a public figure.”

Indeed, but to be more clear, she qualifies as a public figure who has misrepresented the rest of us, who has realigned the public image of anthropology with American imperialism, and who has done so without any censure. Shameful. What is not shameful is the work of a few dedicated clowns who made sport of a societal miscreant’s excreta.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

“But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns…
Well, maybe next year.”

Introduction

On 26 February 2009, a report by John Stanton was published on this blog (Some Breaking News on the Human Terrain System: Death Threats Against Female Colleagues). At the time it caused some uproar, was discussed on several other blogs, and perhaps no other story on this blog received so many comments as that one (200 comments to be exact). The story was followed up with this one: US Army 101st Airborne Investigative Report on Human Terrain System. In the midst of the furious commentary, many allegations were made about the person at the center of the story, Dr. Marilyn Dudley-Flores. Now, for the first time, Dr. Dudley-Flores presents her own story to the public. The text that follows was first sent to me by Dr. Dudley-Flores as an e-mail message earlier this week, and it is of course reproduced here with her permission and approval.

One last point before we proceed: as we know, the U.S. Congress is conducting an assessment of the Human Terrain System (see: John Stanton: U.S. Congress to Assess Human Terrain System [29 September 2009]; U.S. Congress and the Human Terrain System [04 October 2009]; and, John Stanton: US Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harm’s Way [10 October 2009]). It may be useful for all parties to send as much information and analysis as possible to the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees, in order to assist them in their review.

It may be for naught, as the same U.S. Congress has supported HTS generously. Indeed, one HTS blogger, “Caleb” (who of course blocked access to his blog, Always Under Way, as soon as it started to get attention) was already celebrating the Congressional review in his post for Wednesday, 30 September, 2009, “H.R. 2647“:

“This will be an opportunity for this amazing program to gain even greater buy-in by Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Obama Administration – all of whom have expressed their support for the program….That’s right, support the expansion of the HTT concept, including to other combatant command areas of responsibility!! We’re worldwide!” [his emphasis]

Well, Caleb was totally wrong about the play, “Anthropology–Or How to Win Friends and Influence Afghans,” thinking it was a prestige-making event that would applaud HTS, rather than criticize and mock it. He is very cheerful, and while his gushing optimism may be correct when it comes to Congress supporting HTS further (I think it will), the idea would be to make it as difficult as possible for them to accept a positive assessment without producing a tortuous, labored explanation.

From Marilyn Dudley-Flores:

[originally directed primarily to Christian Caryl at Foreign Policy]

I have just seen your piece entitled “Reality Check: Human Terrain Teams” over the Foreign Policy website dated 8 Sep 2009 ( http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/08/reality_check_human_terrain_teams ).

I have no major argument with your piece, but I do feel you unfairly cast me in a “feuding” role with soldiers in the field in Afghanistan. You wrote that writer John Stanton “included excerpts from an internal investigation by the 101st Airborne Division that harshly criticized failings in training and administration that contributed to a disastrous feud between one of the HTT scientists, Marilyn Dudley-Flores, and regular Army troops in the field in Afghanistan involving allegations of sexual harassment and death threats against the professor.”  Who were these regular Army troops?

I wanted to let you know that at no time was I locked in a feud with anyone at all in Afghanistan. There is a clear difference between a feud and a systematic running assault. One implies something along the lines of a more or less equal conflict that proceeds over time; the other has one or more perpetrators attacking a victim or victims.

FYI. I was sent out from Stateside to Afghanistan, spending 7-8 days in transit. Upon my leaving Fort Benning, Georgia was the only prior “heads-up” that was given to my team that I was being sent to them to co-lead and to provide counterinsurgency research services for the division-level Human Terrain Analysis Team (HTAT) on Bagram air base. The HTAT was then wired up to the 101st Army Airborne, although how we were wired up was not clear, because none of the women were allowed by the HTAT team leader to make briefings to or go to meetings with the senior staff officers of the 101st Army Airborne, as we were supposed to do. On Bagram, I almost immediately found my SECRET clearance only “pending,” although official documents on me do not reflect that, indicating that by 1 Sep 2008 I had an unfettered SECRET clearance. Having only a “pending” SECRET meant that I could not be badged to work in my own office on Bagram. This was a mystery (and still is in some respects) until HTS management “worked the issue” and got me badged somehow.

After about two weeks waiting to be badged, when I was able to get into my office in the day-to-day, after some time, I saw the female complement of the HTAT (three women) working in the office under such a regime, as if they were POWs, hectored around by, evidently what turned out to be two phony PhDs, a former Special Forces man with an apparent learning disorder and a lot of muscle, and an immature 30-year-old 1LT in the Puerto Rican National Guard. The “muscleman,” our HTAT’s deputy team leader, had formerly worked for the subcontractor company that had recruited and hired me for the HTS through an American Sociological Association ad. Present on our team was a decent young man with good credentials, a military veteran, and a criminal justice background, but he was due to rotate back Stateside soon after I arrived. With him gone, we were at the entire mercy of the others as I would go on to experience with the other women.

In the meantime, my subcontractor company, stopped paying me. About a month on the scene, in early December, the day after they began to catch my pay up, they inexplicably fired me from my position as a key asset to the Army Human Terrain System in the war zone. This is a little like a soldier in the foxhole saying to his mates, “Sorry, guys, I’m off the clock, my pink slip has been handed to me.” HTS managers apparently didn’t know anything about it.

HTS managers scrambled to turn this new fiasco around. That is when the managers discovered some sort of communication between Bagram and the little hiring company exuding false information about the fit of my body armor and my ability to get in and out of humvees. Even after this was laid to rest, a company spokesperson was talking to authorities on Bagram about my having been fired. HTS managers had to go to extraordinary steps to make it clear that the 101st was supposed to be communicating about HTAT personnel with them and no one else.

This situation might not have existed except that the phonies had been “empire building” and covering their lack of ability to perform our mission with one or more Reserve Information Operations officers on the 101st’s senior staff who were jones’ing to hook up with the HTS program and make the large amount of money that HTS’ers did. That element covered for their inadequate performance, as well as contributed to the information ops that was devised against me while I was in transit to Bagram. (Read: a weapon of war was used against me before I set foot on Bagram.) I was not a welcome addition to the team because the baddies already figured out that I had a substantial background from Googling on me. (They did not previously know me from training, although one of the women recalled seeing me around Fort Leavenworth. Several hundreds or thousands of hits will come up if you Google on “Dudley,” “Dudley-Rowley,” or “Dudley-Flores.”) They evidently feared exposure as posers and they found a lot of fodder with which to propagandize me.

Not able to zing me back Stateside within a few days, the real slagging began. While sexual harassment was present, and had been before I had arrived, that was the least of our problem. All of us women were in fear of physical intimidation, as had been used on us. And, a major biggy: the “Rev. Dr.” Sturgis, the team leader, was ramping up the immature 1LT to view us as traitors. Outside the wire, in the field in Ghazni Province, in December 2008, he had the 1LT trying to maneuver us into specific villages where we knew specific Taliban military commanders had re-infiltrated. We already had enough data we needed about those villages to know they were red hot and no purpose was served by going there for more interviews, us women unarmed. We would, in fact, have been going off mission as previously briefed if we would have gone to those areas. The three of us women on that mission knew what the story was on that note. The 1LT was following directions from Sturgis to position us to get attacked and killed. (At no time was anyone “just trying to scare us.”) And, the 1LT was so vapidly enamored with Sturgis with his promises of Dubai vacations, good officer evaluation reports, cherry postings, etc. that he would have been dumb enough to drive us over an IED-strewn road if Sturgis had told him to do it. None of the HTS managers back Stateside changed words with me when I turned to them for advice and told them that I was not taking the women into those places. The 1LT was crestfallen when he heard from higher-ups on the FOB where we lived on-mission that those places were too hot. But, he really was fit to be tied when he saw John Stanton’s story in December that tagged on a paragraph about us women’s difficulties in the field (that did not disclose any information from the scene that could not be found over Wikipedia). And, in any case, I was not the one to leak that news to Mr. Stanton.

But, Sturgis and his buddies likely thought that I was the leaker since they were obsessed with targeting me. So, next thing we knew, we were being hustled away from FOB Ghazni back to Bagram. Come to find out, Sturgis, himself and/or through the 1LT, communicated to the CO of the FOB that we were in violation of operational security and needed to come back to Bagram to be called to account. We were greeted to a sign in the office about being traitors (as seen over http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/02/26/some-breaking-news-on-the-human-terrain-system-death-threats/). No one ever debriefed us about any OPSEC violation. The 1LT’s behavior worsened.

On the 31st of December 2008, Sturgis and the 1LT tried to get me off alone on a part of the Joint Operations Compound on Bagram that we never used, but we women foiled that attempt. In the meantime, while the 1LT had a pistol and a rifle, the civilian men (except one of the posers who had gone on vacation) were buying long guns in the bazaar and trying to get them operational. One of the women, a civilian who was a Army Reserve captain, but not in uniform on this tour of duty, was hard over to obtain a weapon. Her husband from Stateside was demanding that she buy a gun if push came to shove. When military women in my sleeping hooch on Bagram found out what was happening to me, they lent me a rifle to keep in my sleeping cubicle in case they had to step out and would not be able to defend me. (One of the women’s superiors had previously barred the 1LT from their workplace on Bagram because of his inappropriate behaviors.)

I began carrying my combat knife at all times. On the 2nd of January 2009, we discovered the death threat written in Spanish on a dry erase board in the office. After five days’ trying to get advice from a silent HTS management back Stateside, at the behest of friends, family, and the other women, I asked my Member of Congress to get a message to the Commanding General about what was happening to us. A few hours’ later, HTS Deputy Program Manager, retired Army Colonel Steve Rotkoff phoned and told me to come back Stateside to report on what had been going on.

I did so and fully expected to re-deploy from the verbal and gestural responses I was getting from HTS managers who heard my three-and a-half-hour report. But, instead, afterwards, I was left for about four weeks in a Kansas City hotel room until I received a firing notice in the e-mail from the subcontractor that recruited me and hired me for the HTS. They claimed that BAE and the government authorized them to fire me for inadequate performance. Pinging HTS managers to confirm that this was, indeed, a genuine firing this second time around, met with silence. Two days later, John Stanton had the first of his stories up online about what happened to me and the other women.

It is interesting to note that in the timeframe that we women were trying to get help, and as subsequent events played out, HTS salesmen were selling the program to President Obama for the cornerstone of the civilian surge in Afghanistan: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/03/27/afghan_plan_adds_4000_us_troops?mode=PF

How we were treated suggests that our concerns were covered up so as not to blemish the sales pitch to the President. For, in the case of the only Afghanistan HTAT, it demonstrated that the HTS was easily sabotaged from its internal “bugs” contradictory to its mission as a warfighting system.

In the meantime, Sturgis was recalled around the same time as myself and fired or forced to resign. However, he almost immediately found work with some facet of Glevum Associates and I would not be surprised if he found his way back to Afghanistan: Kabul or back on Bagram — by June 2009. (Glevum was a subcontractor in service to MPRI-L3 that was on contract with the government to provide various media assessment support services in the region to HTS, the 101st Army Airborne [now to the 82nd Army Airborne], and another client.)

I was fired before the 101st was able to complete their “window dressing” investigation that involved no Criminal Investigation Division authorities. Two-thirds or more of the report given to my Member of Congress is a tissue of lies. The pictorial evidence meant they had to cop to the fact that sexual harassment was going on. Some parts of the report are actually revealing, however. Like, how the 1LT acted in ways to make his death threat credible. Like, (and I learned this later from more information sent my Member of Congress) how the Special Forces “muscleman” had his Joint Ops Compound badge revoked for his failure to lead as “deputy team leader.” Like how the “Rev. Dr.” and the muscleman were blacklisted for contract hire in connection to any 101st capacity ever again.

When I FOIPA’d for the background materials that went into the 101st’s “investigation,” I obtained Sworn Statements from three Army lieutenant colonels on the senior staff of the 101st and an Army Reserve LTC working for an HTS unit near ours. The 101st’s investigation lasted from about mid-January to late March. In the last week of their investigation, they pulled these Sworn Statements out of these LTCs. All of them would be viewed as “false official statements” under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Recall that by this time I had already been fired. In that final week of the investigation, statements were sought from these men to the tune that I told incredible stories about famous people I knew, about my prior military and other background, about poor alleged production that came from me (Sturgis blocked all of us women from briefing any senior officers about the operationally relevant data that we had uncovered in our counterinsurgent activities as we were supposed to do). Additionally, these Army field-grade officers made whopper statements about my being so fat that I had to come through doors at an angle and could barely walk and stand upright on a level floor or fit into a tactical vehicle. One of these men claimed that I was in the central Joint Ops Compound building all the time complaining about living conditions, etc. The fact is, the whole time I was in Afghanistan, I was only in the office part of that closely neighboring building for a grand total of two hours, about one and a half hours spent with an Army Inspector General LTC explaining what was happening to me and the other women just prior to being sent outside the wire to FOB Ghazni. A FOIPA procedure revealed that the man didn’t even file a report on my visit.

As I have said elsewhere, I think the whole debacle started out small with the posers and their buddies not wanting to be found out to be posing and/or inadequate to the mission, along with such facts that they had probably, in toto, been paid about one million federal dollars for not doing the work of the HTAT and instead spending a good portion of their time abusing the HTAT women. Yet to be discovered is what, if any role, Sturgis and one of the Info Ops officers played in diverting or causing to be misused (if indeed the case) a federal money train of perhaps as much as five million dollars from federal contractor MPRI-L3 to Glevum Associates where the HTS and the 101st Airborne and another party were clients. It will also be revealing to find out who all among the 101st senior staff were in on the active perpetration in the overall affair, who were passive perpetrators, and just how widespread was any sort of “social contagion” from Sturgis et al.’s mythmaking among the 101st senior staff officers. Whomever all were in uniform who participated in these events should be held to account just for giving the 101st a black eye on the “Duty, Honor, Country” front. So far, my FOIPA’d information suggests that almost all the 101st’s senior staff officers were ultimately involved in some way. If that is so, where is the 101st’s Army Airborne’s honor?

After I was fired…. When John’s 26 February 2009 article made the international online media, I began to be “counterblogged” over the Open Anthropology website (now Zero Anthropology). The blogger was an Army lieutenant colonel I did not know, LTC Robert Bateman. He was found to be counterblogging on me from his Pentagon computer during duty hours from his work in a DoD think tank close to the SECDEF. Besides Dr. Max Forte’s publicized data, I also FOIPA’d the proof right out of Bateman’s machine. In his blogs, he made crazy statements to make it sound like I never worked with Dr. Louis Dupree on the rescue and relocation of Afghans (a theme that the Bagram HTT LTC would hype in his Sworn Statement riddled with falsehoods). Bateman went on that I might be a fake veteran, and that “Mata la vaca” means “The Cow Kills.” I and my supporters’ analysis later found out that one of his associates is close to the HTS and has a history in opposition research. That person was Sean McFate, Dr. Montgomery McFate’s husband. I had to be separated from Dr. Dupree, now seen by a wider audience as the stellar Afghanistan scholar that he always was, because how crazy would it be seen in the media if a Dupree associate on a substantial project involving Afghans was removed from Afghanistan and the HTS (amid public accusations that very few scholars with any Afghanistan credentials are in the country with HTS)?

I did not engage in a disastrous feud with soldiers in the field, but I most assuredly am doing my best to let Congress and federal executives know what happened to me and the other HTAT women in Afghanistan in detail. Because, it is our story that is the “poster child” of what has gone wrong with the Army’s Human Terrain System. There are many stories like ours from among our “big tent” teammates from former and currently serving HTS’ers. Ours was just more egregious in many ways. However, in the aggregate, there is a clear signal in the noise, a pattern that reveals the raging flaws in the HTS program and who all are/have been those who create and/or duplicate those flaws. In many respects I have been making a human terrain analysis of the Human Terrain System. My abilities are not so much from my intermittent 30-year background as a professor, as from the other things I have done to put food on the table during that same time span, like having been a soldier, having been an investigative news reporter, having done criminal justice research for real live drug and human trafficking cases, and having sought grants and contracts for scientific studies outside of Academe in which I partnered. It is, in fact, this background in addition to my academic PhD that made me a logical asset for the HTS.

What has not been widely mentioned in the media thus far has been my prior background at the forefront of “human terrain analysis” in the organization of social structural concepts and analytical techniques for a victimization and property damages assessment for Kuwait toward the end of the Gulf War. This effort that created a body of methodology and some other features, like a hybrid team for insertion into a war-torn area and a reachback-like cell preceded Mitzy Cybele Carlough’s (aka Montgomery McFate’s) 1994 dissertation by at least three years, her bar napkin epiphany by 10 years, and the 2006 Army and Marine Field Manual on counterinsurgency by 15 years. (By the way, the other HTAT women did not even know this until I told them at supper in the chow hall the night before I was flown off of Bagram in January. So much for my bragging on myself and talking about “famous people.”) I only mention it now to show how dysfunctional the HTS was/is.

It is the height of craziness that I was not re-deployed with the HTS. What is more, though I have been in demand for other programs requiring a SECRET clearance, I can’t be hired for the jobs because Sturgis and collaborators screwed my clearance up. I call them collaborators in every sense of the word because they not only sabotaged me, but the functioning of a warfighting system in Afghanistan. At the end of the day, what was done was sabotage and not merely “grab assing” among bored field-grade officers and sophomoric pranksterism with civilian “good ol’ boy” buddies. And, it is a national shame that HTS higher-ups thanked me for my role in bringing it to their attention, my life on the line, by firing me to cover up the facts. We Viet Nam Era vets call such treatment the “f**k you very much for your service” phenomenon. The more things change the more they stay the same.

To date, I have pulled together 600+ pages of evidence, analyses, and narrative. This packet is in the hands of members of both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees and other interested parties. I can forward a copy to you, Mr. Cary, if you are interested.

In the meantime, please know that I was not a party to a “disastrous feud.” I and my female teammate were victimized by “snakes in our foxhole” while attempting to perform our duties. We tried to get help as best we could, and at other times, we kept our heads down to survive. Other than that note, thank you for writing about the HTS. It is important to keep it in the media eye and to discuss its issues.

Many Kind Regards,

Marilyn “Stryker” Dudley-Flores, PhD

This is John Stanton’s 20th article on the Human Terrain System, with his previous ones available here at: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19.

John sent this article a few days ago, my apologies for being late. It is reproduced here with his permission, and has already been published in CounterPunch, which is also featuring an extended article by David Price in its print edition (a summary is coming next on this blog).

John has also published a book of his work on the Human Terrain System: General David Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom.

*******************************************************************************************

Human Terrain System 2009-2010: US Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harm’s Way

by John Stanton

• “They are writing hours down that they do not work.”
• “If the Department of Defense does not take a close look with a microscope at the program, then millions or perhaps billions of dollars will be wasted by the federal government and taxpayers.  The biggest and most grotesque problem that this program faces is the fear of calling it what it really is — Intelligence.”
• “I believe there are some serious power struggles and back stabbing within the HTS Program. The students are paying the price. Too many in HTS seem to be on a power kick or need their egos boosted. They say things to students or in front of students that are wrong or against US Army regulations.”
• “The social science personnel need serious screening to keep the psycho ones out. There seems to be an over abundance of them in the program. They all seem to be on some type of crusade.”
  
• “It may be the commander’s battle space but it is your research.”
• “Many HTT personnel would be willing to avoid the US Army Unit of Assignment mission to protect their research, and stand idly by while US /Coalition Forces and Local Nationals suffered casualties. This is not US Army policy and is completely contradictory to the HTS manual.”
• “Forget the money speech. Drill it into the heads of everyone your work belongs to the US Army, not you.”
• “HTS personnel do not recognize that the security element is in charge of the HTT’s safety when outside the wire — not the Social Scientist or the Team Leader. If the security element commander says it is time to go, then it does not matter if it is a Sergeant or a Captain giving the order — we leave, period. The Security Team Commander is responsible for the safety of an HTT. No Social Scientist has the tactical training or experience to make a critical decision.”
• “A Social Scientist, who remains in the program, should be investigated for placing a classified brief from theater on the shared drive when not everyone in the class had a final clearance. He can spin it any way he wants but the fact is the brief is classified.”
• “He was trying to pimp his book and see how many names he could drop. He dropped F-bombs and dipped tobacco during class. He was totally unprofessional.”
• “There are no written reports on anything the unit wants that are worth a damn.”
  

Doctor Max Forte over at Open Anthropology highlights some interesting language contained in the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009.

“HTTs [Human Terrain Teams] are currently proving their value in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the committee believes that capability would prove equally valuable in other combatant command areas of responsibility. The committee recommends $90.6 million in Operation and Maintenance for the purpose of fielding additional HTTs to meet the current Central Command requirement of 26 teams. The committee encourages the Department to begin training, equipping, deploying, and sustaining human terrain teams with other regional combatant commands to include at least one each for Pacific Command, Southern Command, and Africa Command.”

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are supporting an HTS program that is still in its infancy and whose concept — as of October 2009 — has not yet been proven. It can hardly qualify as a success story even though it was glowingly  portrayed as such by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense,  Advanced Systems and Concepts in 2008 (acq.osd.mil/jctd/success.html). None other than the SECDEF, a Brigade Commander and “Sheiks of Al Tajy North, Iraq” weighed in by intimating that the US Army Human Terrain System was the best war fighting tool since the clenched fist. Wow! Not!

It is unfortunate that the proponents of using the US Army TRADOC HTS to divine the Human Terrain remain blind to program weaknesses and dubious data collection and reporting methodology. They are content to charge the American Anthropological Association as the primary opponent of HTS though it is those internal to the program — that have gone or are going through the HTS experience — that are its most vocal critics and, at the same time, strong supporters of the concept.

So here we are in October 2009 and reports continue to come in describing persistent problems with recruitment, training, deployment, and in-country performance. Sources indicate that little has changed to address these issues. Fraud in the form of over billing has now been alleged.

Social Scientists Do Not Understand the Mission: Screening Needed

“The academics in the program understand the world of quantitative and qualitative research and have typically worked alone,” said a source.  “They simply do not understand the team concept. This creates friction with other team members.  Further, the academics associated with the program only understand counterinsurgency from reading articles, books, and/or policy statements. This, they feel, makes them matter experts in the field.  Very few, if any, have ever been actively involved (on the ground) and experienced counterinsurgency in a direct fashion.  Just because someone (an academic) has read Galula, Kilcullen, Sepp, Nagl,  Schoomaker, Army FM 3-24, 3-24.2, or 3-0 does not mean that they have become experts in the field. Academics find it insulting to their intelligence that someone without a PhD could possibly know more [about counterinsurgency] than they do.” [Max Forte: one wonders if they are referring here to Karl Slaikeu, who took leave from his allegedly lucrative conflict resolution business to reinvent himself as a counterinsurgency theorist.]

Sources report that training needs improvement and that training should use real down range scenarios to teach the students.  For example, Counterinsurgency Training does not touch on platoon, company or battalion levels. These are the levels at which HTTs interact with the most. Training should include Patrolling, Reaction to Snipers, IED, Weapons Safety and Handling at a minimum.

“Students need to understand how training ties in with a combat unit’s downrange mission.  This point is the most important and is not explained or stressed during coursework. HTT personnel must understand that they are there to support the commander’s mission. This is not clearly understood by the students,” said one source. According to a source, HTT personnel can pick and choose research items and present what they want to the unit.

Some social scientists within HTS believe that their mission is to make the US Army a kinder-gentler fighting force when dealing with non-combatants, while at the same time warring with insurgents and other unfriendly elements.

Training rarely follows the HTS Handbook or is completely contradictory to it, according to sources. “Instructor’s put their personal spin during classes discussing politics, ethical beliefs, religious beliefs, and war stories. This is not conducive to a training environment and is very unprofessional. The instructors do not present the training well and it is obvious they are not trained in how to instruct. When the participation method of instruction is used the instructors often lose the class or lose control of the class.  There is too much training geared toward the Social Scientists and very little for Research Managers and Analysts.”

Peer evaluations should be modeled after the US Army evaluations. This leaves students no opportunity to evaluate someone’s personality and only allows for the review of someone’s performance and behavior.  In a program loaded with super-egos, this is very important.

According to sources, new social scientists to the HTS program were extended an invitation by the HTS lead social scientist. “Too many times I have heard that there was a personal invitation extended to them,” said one source. “Nearly all of the social scientists that I have had interaction with are in the program solely for the purpose of getting published at the conclusion of their deployment and return home.” According to sources, the social scientists guard their information as if it were Military Top Secret.  A local Unit Commander has continually been denied research data by social scientists who claim their work is proprietary, they say.

Sarcastic Know-it-Alls

Some HTS personnel are abrasive, sources indicate. One was rude and arrogant and would belittle the students during class. In one instance, sources say, a briefing by one instructor turned sour as she informed students that “the Social Scientist runs the teams and no one else has a say in anything.”  Clearly, according to sources, the instructor did not know the difference between an aggressive operation and a non- aggressive operation.  “For example, students are instructed that they will not be involved in a kinetic operation, such as a cordon and search. But any mission can go kinetic at anytime. “

The anthropology instructors have no practical experience with the HTS mission and attempt to relate their personal experiences in places like Africa studying AIDs/HIV to the students, sources report. The mission of the HTS is being lost in translation.  Sources say they can’t stress enough that “it is being presented to students that all the HTT will be doing is research on culture and people in the area. It is not understood that the HTT works for the unit of assignment, researching the items the unit wants and the HTT can lawfully perform. The primary focus is on the commanders.”

According to sources, a good example of this is an Ethics Class given by one instructor.  “Through the entire presentation he was adamant about how to handle research data. He made clear that HTT members should not write down any names of interviewees because this information should not be given to the military to be used for kinetic purposes. When the question was asked, What if the information gathered would directly impact the safety of the unit the HTT is assigned?  The instructor responded that the information was the property of the researcher and did not have to be given to the US Army Unit of Assignment.  He also stated that HTT personnel should avoid writing any information down so it could not be forced from the researcher. That being the case, many HTT personnel would be willing to avoid the US Army Unit of Assignment mission to protect their research, and stand idly by while US and Coalition Forces and Local Nationals took casualties. This is not US Army policy and is completely contradictory to the HTS manual.

Bright Spots

“There are numerous people in the HTS program who have an overabundance of knowledge related to counterinsurgency and the human terrain.  But these people are ignored because they do not have a PhD in Anthropology, Psychology, Political Science, etc.  It is my opinion that people who are in positions such as HTA’s, RM’s, and TL’s are just as important, if not more important, than the social scientists in that they are the ‘link’ between the military and social science,”  said one source.

According to sources, there are a number of training personnel who are top-notch. “The Immersion Training for Afghanistan is great.  The Language Training by one instructor is excellent. He takes a lot of time with us and is very patient.  The Geological Training conducted by another instructor was very educational. The History of Islam class is excellent.” According to one source, “I now have a better understanding of how Islam functions and why the attitudes of Islamic people seem so different from our own. It was very enlightening to see that Islam believes many of the same things as Christians do.”

Still, sources say, training should focus on the tribal problems, and areas of external tribal disputes. If HTT personnel had a general understanding of the differences between the Pashtu, Uzbek, and others, as well as why for example the Taliban was able to take over the country and it people when others in history could not do both, they say.

The Introduction to Anthropology Class and the Open Source Research Class received good marks.

“Language Training is the best,” said one source. “I would recommend staying away from the writing Arabic, three weeks is not enough time. Concentrating on conversational language would be more helpful. “

Sources had high praise for one instructor and some of the films made available to them for viewing in class. “The documentaries that another instructor has shown us are informative and provide a different view of how people used to live in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion. The instructor has, as is his normal operational procedure, taken extra time with us to ensure we understand the language and proper usage. He is a very fine instructor.  The documentaries we have watched from the library are very good and informative in their own respect. But students who come here in future classes must understand that some of the issues portrayed in these films are blamed on the US and NATO. These documentaries are also very much based on Women’s Rights and how the women of Afghanistan are being mistreated and how this is the fault of the USA. It must be understood that some of the things said maybe offensive to some students and could cause serious differences between students of different genders, political persuasions, rank and religious background.”

Dark Spots: Fraud, Waste Abuse Again: Regulations and Policy Are Just Guidelines

Logistical nightmares remain the norm for HTS personnel during deployment. One source believes that the entire operational side of HTS needs to be overhauled. Transportation miscues, identification badge errors, delayed clearances, HTT arrival in-country not expected by military personnel, and billeting issues have yet to be smoothed out.

Worse, according to sources, is that some HTT personnel are inflating hours on time sheets charging the US government for activity never undertaken. Research reports have little value. “They have no product that can be given to the US Army Units of Assignment.  Army personnel have been asking for a product but have been given just enough verbal information by HTT personnel to keep them off their back.”

“This needs to be reported to someone,” said one source.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. His book, General David Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom—Inside the US Army Human Terrain System—is available here http://www.wisemanpublishing.com/page11.php. Contact John at cioran123@yahoo.com.

To supplement the report by John Stanton, “US Congress Requests Assessment of Army‘s Human Terrain System: Independent Assessment Due from SECDEF by March 2010,” one should note the following background documents to which the request for the assessment refers.

The NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 points out that,

In the committee report (H. Rept. 110-652) accompanying the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, the committee expressed support for expansion of the HTT concept, including to other combatant command areas of responsibility.

The committee is aware of anecdotal evidence indicating the benefits of the program supporting operations in the Republic of Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The committee also notes that a number of press accounts provide anecdotal evidence indicating problems with management and resourcing. The committee finds it difficult to evaluate either set of information in the absence of reliable, empirical data.

Let us turn then to the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, specifically Title XV of H. Rept. 110-652. (if you have trouble accessing the document, you can obtain it here: 9.3 Mb PDF). Quoting directly from pages 271-272 (underlining added):

Human, social, and cultural behavioral modeling advanced development

The budget request contained $9.4 million in PE 63670D8Z and $6.0 million in PE 64670D8Z for human, social, cultural, and behavior (HSCB) modeling advanced development.

The committee notes that today’s military forces are involved in a growing number of complex missions from counterinsurgency to security and stability operations. These missions are best served by a security force that understands and appreciates the individual, tribal, cultural, ethnic, religious, social, economic, and other aspects of the human terrain. The committee supports the Department’s effort to reshape their approach to research, training, and doctrine to adapt to the current irregular warfare environment. The Department’s creation and deployment of Human Terrain Teams (HTT) that employ cultural awareness and analysis practices notes one approach toward adapting to complex military operations.

In title XV of this Act, the committee notes the contributions of the prototype HTTs currently supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and believes that sound research and resulting tools are key technology enablers for success of these teams now and in the future.

The committee recommends $13.4 million, an increase of $4.0 million, in PE 63670D8Z and $8.0 million, an increase of $2.0 million, in PE 64670D8Z for the continued development, demonstration and rapid transition of key technologies supporting human terrain understanding and forecasting to include, Mapping the Human Terrain Joint Capability Technology Demonstration and the Conflict Modeling, Planning and Outcome Experimentation Program.

On page 279:

Social science research within the Department of Defense

As noted elsewhere in this title, the committee is encouraged by the effort within office of the Director for Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) to place an increasing focus on the human, social, and cultural behavior (HSCB) elements of research. The committee is further encouraged by a corresponding emphasis within the science and technology (S&T) programs of the respective services.

The committee has also been encouraged by the success of integrating social science expertise into Department of Defense operations via the Human Terrain Teams (HTT), which provide culturally relevant advice to military decision makers. As has been pointed out in recent testimony before the committee, these teams provide value added to traditional military operational planning and have been instrumental in saving lives in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. The committee believes that more programs in the future should be informed by social science research.

Despite this recent emphasis on efforts such as HSCB and the deployment of HTTs, the committee is concerned about the dearth of social scientists within the Department’s S&T community and especially within program management leadership positions. The committee believes the Department should take steps to leverage social scientist expertise existing within other parts of the federal government, such as the National Science Foundation.

And on page 475:

Human Terrain Team Support

The committee supports the concept for the prototype Human Terrain Teams (HTT) currently supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. HTTs have been instrumental in saving the lives of coalition troops by reducing casualties among Afghani and Iraqi civilians. HTTs provide our warfighters with non-kinetic options in planning and carrying out their missions. The committee is aware that the first prototype HTT is credited with reducing kinetic operations by more than 60 percent during its first 6 months of deployment in Operation Enduring Freedom. HTTs are critical enablers to shaping military planning in pre-conflict environments, and are supportive of reconstruction and stabilization efforts. HTTs are currently proving their value in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the committee believes that capability would prove equally valuable in other combatant command areas of responsibility.

The committee recommends $90.6 million in Operation and Maintenance for the purpose of fielding additional HTTs to meet the current Central Command requirement of 26 teams. The committee encourages the Department to begin training, equipping, deploying, and sustaining human terrain teams with other regional combatant commands to include at least one each for Pacific Command, Southern Command, and Africa Command.

by John Stanton, for Evan Carmichael.

The case is a reminder that employers may be prosecuted for risks to the occupational health and safety of their employees, even where one of their staff introduces unsafe work practices contrary to existing safe work practices and without the knowledge and approval of management. Employers need to develop robust corporate governance regimes to manage this risk.

This article outlines the case and then considers appropriate OHS risk management steps, as part of robust corporate governance regimes, to uncover and prevent the development of unofficial work practices.

Inspector Barber v Viscount Rotational Mouldings Pty Ltd

The recent Industrial Court of New South Wales case of Inspector Barber v Viscount Rotational Mouldings Pty Ltd emphasised that employers can still be responsible for the unsafe work practices of their employees, even where the employer did not create, authorise or endorse those practices.

Two employees at Viscount Rotational Mouldings (VRM), a plastic mouldings manufacturer, were killed when they attempted to release a plastic water tank from its metal mould by inserting compressed air through a breather hole in the tank, causing it to eject and strike them. The work practice was one that the production supervisor had used at a previous employer and introduced to VRM after he joined it. The production supervisor subsequently trained the staff in the work practice, which he had been using without incident since 1995. The method was not one which VRM had authorised. In fact, VRM had in place a number of steps to deal with a plastic mould which had become stuck in a metal mould. These steps were to: allow extra time for cooling; rotate the arm until the mould releases; wriggle the product using hand force; hit around the perimeter of the tank using a nylon mallet; cool the product by having cool air circulate around it using compressed air; and use a saw to cut out the plastic product from the mould. However, while VRM had these processes in place, none of them was written down, and each was conveyed verbally from a supervisor to the other workers. On the day of the fatal accident, the employees concerned used none of these procedures in the removal of the water tank from its mould.

VRM was prosecuted for failing to ensure the health and safety of its employees. It pleaded guilty and was convicted and fined $162,500. The Court stated that it was “difficult to comprehend” how the technique of using the air pressure hose to de-mould product, utilised openly in the workplace on many occasions prior to the incident, was able to escape scrutiny and remedial action. That is, VRM should have taken greater care to inform itself of the real practices its employees used to perform the work…(continue reading)

This is John Stanton’s 19th article on the Human Terrain System, with his previous ones available here at: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.

Once again, this article was sent in by John and is gratefully reproduced here with his permission.

I am also happy to advertise the fact that John has published a book of his work on the Human Terrain System: General David Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

US Congress Requests Assessment of Army‘s Human Terrain System: Independent Assessment Due from SECDEF by March 2010

by John Stanton

“I shall never use the degrading term, human terrain. It is a scandalous tribute to the dumbing-down of America that earth science could be confused with human culture. These people are a laughable embarrassment to this Republic.”

“Sticking it to those bastards is an important task indeed!”

“I don’t see how they can sustain the HTS given all the problems and especially if there are reduced numbers of troops going to AFG.”.

In Los Angeles, a play has been written and is to be read (October-December timeframe). The title of the production is titled Anthropology–Or How to Win Friends and Influence Afghans. That story is based, in part, on the US Army’s Human Terrain System. To date, the HTS has been a study in tragedy and comedy. One can only hope that there has been some sort of improvement.

In Washington, DC, at long last, the House Armed Services Committee has included in the National Defense Authorization Act, FY2010 (H.R. 2647) a requirement that the US Secretary of Defense conduct an independent evaluation of the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS). HASC is currently in committee with its counterpart in the US Senate, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC).

This is a positive development; that is, if the “assessment” is conducted by personnel truly “independent” of US Army G-2, TRADOC, FMSO and the powerful CENTCOM Commanding General, David Petraeus, who is the program’s biggest supporter.

The specific language for the analysis of HTS is located in Title II—Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Overview and is titled “Independent Assessment of the Human Terrain System.”

Quoting directly from HR 2647,

“The committee continues to support the concept behind the Human Terrain Teams (HTT) and the overall Human Terrain System (HTS). In the committee report (H. Rept. 110–652) accompanying the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, the committee expressed support for expansion of the HTT concept, including to other combatant command areas of responsibility.

“The committee is aware of anecdotal evidence indicating the benefits of the program supporting operations in the Republic of Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The committee also notes that a number of press accounts provide anecdotal evidence indicating problems with management and resourcing.”

Seven Areas of Interest

The committee finds it difficult to evaluate either set of information in the absence of reliable, empirical data:

“Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of Defense to conduct an independent assessment of the Human Terrain System, and submit to the congressional defense committees a report detailing that assessment by March 1, 2010. The independent assessment should consider the following elements:

(1)  An overview of all of the components of HTS, including related technology development efforts;

(2)  The adequacy of the management structure for HTS;

(3)  The metrics used to evaluate each of the components of HTS;

(4)  The adequacy of human resourcing and recruiting efforts, including the implications of converting some contractor positions to government positions;

(5)  An identification of skills that are not resident in government or military positions, and how the Army can leverage academic networks or contracting opportunities to fill those gaps;

(6)  An identification of policy or regulatory issues hindering program execution; and

(7)  The potential to integrate HTS capabilities into existing exercises.”

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com. His new book on the US Army Human Terrain System –General David Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom is available here: http://wisemanpublishing.com/page1.php

The following article by David Price appeared in the 07 April 2009 issue of CounterPunch, reproduced here since it very much bears on the following post for today:

Like a mad scientist’s slime monster that will not die in a 1950s B Movie, the Human Terrain System’s counterinsurgency teams not only somehow remains alive in the face of extensive devastating criticism, but the program’s existence remains firmly publicly boosted by a seemingly endless series of uncritical mainstream news and features stories that frame the program as America’s last best hope to win the hearts and minds of the occupied peoples of Iraq and increasingly Afghanistan.  If this were a B monster movie, such prolonged survival would be due to remarkable adaptive abilities, but Human Terrain has no such extraordinary power; its success has been guaranteed by the support it receives from the corporate media as it fawns over HTS in a flurry of glowing formulaic profiles ignoring the program’s fatal flaws.  If this were a 1950’s B monster movie, this situation would like finding those we depend on to open fire on the monster shooting blanks (and feeding it table scraps) while abundant cases of live ammo lay at their feet.

The Human Terrain program embeds social scientists, such as anthropologists, with troops operating in battle theatre settings as members of Human Terrain Teams.  These teams are part of counterinsurgency operations designed provide military personnel with cultural information that will help inform troop activities in areas of occupation.  Since the first public acknowledgment of HTS two and a half years ago, it has been criticized by anthropologists for betraying fundamental principles of anthropological ethics, as being politically aligned with neo-colonialism, and as being ineffective in meeting its claimed outcomes.  For the most part, the mainstream media has acted as cheerleaders for the program by producing a seemingly endless series of uncritical features highlighting what they frame as kind hearted individuals trying to use their knowledge of culture to save lives; while misrepresenting the reasons and extent of criticism of the Human Terrain program.

A few early boosters of Human Terrain Systems (HTS) have now called for its closure (most notable, the British journal Nature), and some journalistic coverage has shifted from uncritical fawning to more reserved critical writing (e.g. Noah Schachtman‘s writings on Wired’s military Danger Room blog).  But most media coverage remains uncritical in its thinly veiled support for a program that has never had to answer to the fundamental critiques of its critics, and Human terrain continues on its trajectory of counterinsurgency domination.

The press has moved beyond its initial scandal-instincts feeding off the human interest generated by the controversy and disciplinary outrage over anthropologists assisting military occupations and in its refusal to hold Human Terrain Systems answerable for the questions and critiques launched by its critics, the media has become a key supportive enabler of HTS.  In the last two years I have probably spent twenty to thirty hours speaking with journalists from NPR, Elle, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, AP, New York Times, Wired, Harpers, Washington Post, etc. patiently explaining what the critical issues for anthropologists are when a program like Human Terrain Systems embeds anthropologists with troop engaged in counterinsurgency operations in occupied battle settings in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Sometimes portions of these critiques show up along the way in the final stories, but in most cases, the arguments and critiques against the efficacy, ethical, neocolonial politics as well as the practical impossibility of HTS working as advertised are ignored, or worse yet, they are presented as absurd caricatures.

Alternative press journalists like Amy Goodman at Democracy Now or Lindsay Beyerstein at In These Times or foreign journalists in Holland, Finland, Germany, Spain or the UK have had no problems describing the fundamental problems for their readers, but the mainstream American press seems committed to keeping the story one-sidedly simple and manifestly jingoistic.

Over the years, Human Terrain’s saleswoman, anthropologist Montgomery McFate, has a adopted a policy of not answering the academic critiques of her many critics regardless of the documentation upon which these critics base their work.  This policy has allowed Dr. McFate to avoid answering some pretty serious questions; questions about her reported involvement in the surveillance of an American gun control group; questions about the unattributed writings of other anthropologists appearing in the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual; Questions about why, rather than acknowledging that Human Terrain Teams raise complex ethical issues to be negotiated, she has instead moved forward without even trying to publicly address these issues.  And while this approach works well in the political environment of Washington, D.C., where accountability and memories are short, this is the most non-academic approach imaginable—academics engage with each other when disputes arise, they answer critiques with data and arguments rather than rely on silence and professionals to spin stories in the press.  Dr. McFate’s position of leaving critiques unanswered appears to have become that of HTS, and a compliant corporate media has followed this lead as it increasingly refuses to report on the problems, corruptions, and complexities of HTS, instead only providing the public with narratives that would have them believe that HTS anthropologists are good caring people trying to lesson harm, while critics are either invisible or portrayed as ivory tower America-hating kooks.

The real bad news for American foreign policy is that given President Obama’s commitment to “soft power” and his open endorsements of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, we can only expect more of this uncritical coverage on HTS as a crucial tool needed for America’s occupations in foreign lands.  I am left to wonder how Barak Obama’s mother, anthropologist Ann Dunham would have reacted to her son’s reliance on such clearly unethical anthropological means to achieve political ends so aligned with neocolonialist goals of occupation and subjugation?

Because the media’s lack of critical coverage of Human Terrain Systems has become such a key element of its continued existence, I’ve produced below a simple list of ten fundamental issues I’d like to see reporters cover in the next media barrage supporting Human Terrain Teams.  Any reporter working these beat can have a real news story if they just pick up and run with a few of these points.  Reporters covering HTS need to stop telling one side of the story; and here is my list of ten points reporters should address if they are ever going to move beyond functioning as an advertising vehicle for Human Terrain and American counterinsurgency:

1. Please find and identify even a half-dozen anthropologists working for the CIA, Army, Air Force, Marine Corp or any other branch of the military (not current or former HTS employees) who are willing to go on the record supporting Human Terrain as an ethical or even productive use of anthropology in the military.  Good luck.  I’ve spoken with dozens of anthropologists working in these agencies, and they have privately become some of HTS’s worst critics, and raise many of the same concerns that I and other outsiders in the Network of Concerned Anthropologists raise about HTS.   If journalists bother to look for military anthropologists supporting HTS, what they will find are HTS critics—though these are critics who remain publicly silent for institutional reasons, but that doesn’t mean they won’t express their deep misgivings to reporters off the record

This first point is so important that any journalist exploring this would find a real story simply in reporting the deep disdain HTS has generated among most anthropologists working in military and intelligence agencies.  That’s news.  Those of us who are radical or liberal critics of HTS have pretty much laid-out and documented the problems, but our voices can’t carry the weight that these insider critics can.  It is time for them to be heard—after all, they have loudly been claiming that their primary reason for working in military and intelligence settings is to inject new ideas and to help steer these agencies away from flawed practices.  Now is their chance to show skeptics like myself that the structural conditions of their workplace will allow the sort of institutional criticism that they have longed claimed is their institutional raison d’être.

There may well be some military anthropologists who despise HTS for reasons related to interagency rivalries or turf wars, but most of these anthropologists despise it because the carelessness of the design and unethical core of Human Terrain Systems casts shadows of dispersion upon them and the work they do in their agencies.  These anthropologists are tired of having to explain to colleagues and others that the work they do is in no way related to Human Terrain—they don’t want to be polluted by HTS’s misdeeds, but internal structural workplace conditions prevent them for vocalizing their critiques in public; but this doesn’t mean that reporters can’t find them and talk to them off the record.  My colleague, anthropologist Robert Rubenstein, recently critiqued opponents of military anthropology as being worried about symbolic pollution by colleagues working for the military; I see this critique as being one that can be extended to analyze mainstream military anthropologists’ dislike of Human Terrain.  This past year I heard another colleague, himself an anthropologist employed by the Pentagon described the professional stigma of being incorrectly identified as having anything to do Human Terrain as being “like having to go to a high school dance with your ugly cousin.”  Any journalist wishing to find out what lies beneath this surface of silence won’t have to look very long to figure out how despised HTS is amongst non-HTS military anthropologists.

2. Most journalists find it easy to dismissively look down upon the outlets where journalist John Stanton’s investigative reports on HTS has been published (e.g., Pravda, various online news outlets), but it is not so easy to discount his findings regarding allegations of: systemic HTS sexual harassment, illegal financial practices, fiscal irresponsibility, nonfunctioning reach-back software programs, problems with contractor profiteering, poorly trained personnel working in dangerous settings, incompetence in HTS’ leadership, spy charges against a HTS member, and the circumstances leading up to charges of murder against a human terrain team member.  The level of mismanagement reported by Stanton warrants congressional investigations, but so far his coverage has not really grown legs.  The elements of my own work that overlap with Stanton’s work find his reporting to be credible.  It strikes me as odd that other journalists are not pursuing, or even trying to disprove the scandals that his work has unearthed.  Mainstream media should follow-up on Stanton’s work, if they can find information contradicting his sources, so be it; but ignoring the damning evidence Stanton reports while continuing to pump out the same old fluff HTS profile pieces goes beyond just poor journalism, and begins to function as domestic propaganda.

3. Please accurately explain to your readers why the American Anthropological Association’s Executive Board condemned Human Terrain Systems in its 2007 statement.  It was not because they categorically believed anthropologists should not work for the military (they don’t believe this), it was not because the invasion of Iraq is a shameful neocolonial disaster (it is, but that isn’t why they condemned HTS): it was because the poor way that HTS was designed ignores basic anthropological principles of ethics (including trying to address issues of voluntary informed consent, issues of secrecy, doing no harm, etc.).  Please ask HTS directors why the cultural educational features of HTS could not occur outside of battle theatre settings; thereby ignoring the fundamental ethical problems raised by embedding anthropologists with troops.  If journalists don’t think ignoring professional ethics is a big deal, then I recommend they publicly denounce journalistic principles of ethics; or publish a flattering story on medical doctors who state that they aren’t interested in medical ethics because they’re doing important work that they claim “saves lives.”

4. Please report that claims that Human Terrain Teams engage in targeting the enemy or that HTS provides intelligence are not something made up by HTS’s critics, these claims come from HTS anthropologists themselves.  In a March 8, 2009 story, the Dallas Morning News, (that otherwise followed the HTS cheerleading format) reported that:  “[HTS anthropologist Audrey] Roberts does not worry about what the military does with her information, even if it is fed into the intelligence used by U.S. Special Forces for killing or capturing insurgent leaders.  ‘If it’s going to inform how targeting is done – whether that targeting is bad guys, development or governance – how our information is used is how it’s going to be used,’ she said. ‘All I’m concerned about is pushing our information to as many soldiers as possible. ‘The reality is there are people out there who are looking for bad guys to kill,’ Roberts said. ‘I’d rather they did not operate in a vacuum.’”  As U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Gian Gentile, put it: “Don’t fool yourself. These Human Terrain Teams whether they want to acknowledge it or not, in a generalized and subtle way, do at some point contribute to the collective knowledge of a commander which allows him to target and kill the enemy in the Civil War in Iraq.”  HTS’s stance on this issue is an outrageous perversion of anthropology’s commitments to protect the interests of studied populations and should be reported as such.  Audrey Robert’s stance is in keeping with Dr. McFate’s vision for Human Terrain, but it has nothing to do with anthropology.

5. Please ask Human Terrain Team members to name an historic instance of a successful counterinsurgency campaign waged by foreign occupiers?  When they are unable to name one historical example (beyond possibly Malaya, which took over a dozen years to accomplish, or if one believes the British won in Ireland, 30 years), please ask them why they believe that a group of social scientists without cultural expertise in the theatre of operation will be able to accomplish this.  The United States tried and failed to accomplish this in Vietnam, and President Obama seems positioned to repeat this folly today.

6. Please ask HTS managers why they are unable to get qualified regionally trained anthropologists to work for HTS.  When you don’t hear the phrase “ethical train wreck” in the answer, you will know you are being lied to.

7. The recently leaked Human Terrain Handbook does not even identify the obvious ethical issues raised by embedding anthropologists with military personnel, but instead claims that HTS “research is performed in the same manner in which academic social scientists conduct their research and is similarly rooted in theory and complete with ethical review boards.” HTS’s greatest failure has been to ignore the complex ethical issues raised by embedding anthropologists with troops—rather than trying to address these issues, it simply ignores them.  This is unacceptable.  Please, ask Human Terrain managers and employees what they believe allows HTS to operate outside of federal legislation mandating Institutional Review Board’s clearance of their studies involving human subjects?  Again, such practices warrant coverage in the press as well as congressional investigations.

8. Please inform your readers that there has been no independent assessment of data on the impact of HTS actually reducing “kinetic engagements” with occupied people in Iraq and Afghanistan.  While this claim has been a central feature of friendly HTS media coverage it is entirely without basis.  This claim has been recycled since Army Colonel Martin Schweitzer’s first made it in the New York Times in the Fall of 2007, but my efforts under the Freedom of Information Act to get any reports verifying these outrageous claims led Col. Schweitzer to write me (2/11/08) admitting that no such studies verifying these often repeated claims exist (and even if they did, they would be complicated by confounds of changes in other conditions) and that this claimed reduction is a loose estimate made by Col. Schweitzer.

9. Frequently, the anthropologists interviewed by reporters do not have their identities revealed and are instead only identified by pseudonyms.  Anthropologists routinely use pseudonyms to protect identities of studied populations, but cloaking the identities of anthropologists distorts anthropological power relations and is revealing of just how un-anthropological HTS’s mission is.   Please ask HTS anthropologists if they can come up with any other historical instance of anthropologists hiding their identity for the public or those they study.

10. Please discuss the extent of criticisms originating from within the Pentagon arguing that HTS cannot work as designed and that it is making things worse in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Again, as with my first point, I assume that if HTS is to be stopped, it will be because people with internal legitimacy (and in this case: people with real internal power) attack it.  Lt. Colonel Gian Gentile argues that Dr. McFate and others pitching the HTS radically overstate what counterinsurgency can accomplish, and HTS and other COIN projects simply cannot work as claimed.  In an article entitled, “All Our Eggs in a Broke Basket: How The Human Terrain System is Undermining Sustainable Military Cultural Competence” published in the current issue of Military Review, Major Ben Connable, USMC, argues that HTS undermines existing, functioning means for cultural education (that while still linked to the neocolonial missions that HTS supports, do not create the ethical problems for anthropologists that HTS inevitably does).  While some of these critiques differ from my own, the silence surrounding the existence of these internal critiques in the press’s stock HTS profiles is one measure of just how HTS friendly these pieces are.

The many problems with Human Terrain Systems have been well documented and discussed by its critics in the alternative press, within professional associations, and in academic sources, it is not difficult to find or identify these critiques.  But public rebuttals from the military or from Human Terrain itself have not been forthcoming largely because the press has allowed them to ignore these criticisms.  The uncritical approach played by the press has become an important part of the story and the press needs to start asking basic questions of HTS and not allowing the silence to continue.

Reporters who want to cover any of these ten points can have them as their own.  But I have to believe that the continued production of the same uncritical formulaic HTS profiles that have been rewritten dozens of times stands as a measure of just how much the Fifth Estate has abandoned its critical obligations and become nothing more than a tool of militarized forces that have taken over American society.  It’s time to hold Human Terrain Systems accountable, and the mainstream media can start by ending HTS’ free ride on the PR machine by holding them to account for these ten basic points—and the dozens of other points that others can generate.

David Price is a member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.  He is the author of Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War, published by Duke University Press, and a contributor to the Network of Concerned Anthropologists’ forthcoming Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual published later this month by Prickly Paradigm Press. He can be reached at dprice@stmartin.edu

This is sure to bother those most closely associated with the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System: some statistics on what web users find when they do searches for “human terrain system.” What is revealed is:

• the news arena is heavily dominated by our good friend, John Stanton, far beyond any other writing on the human terrain system;
• that four of the top ten blog posts of all time on the human terrain system have either featured John Stanton’s articles or have been closely related, and that is why this blog also appears in those results;
• interest in the human terrain system peaked at an all time high in the January-February period, the period in which military anthropologist Paula Loyd died — not the best way to advertise a program;
• that for all of Google’s search results for the “human terrain system,” this blog and John Stanton’s writing produce three of the top ten results.

As it turns out, it was extremely unwise for people such as Montgomery McFate (“Senior Social Scientist”) and Steve Fondacaro (Program Manager), to consistently let John Stanton’s articles go without any kind of public response, never contradicting, correcting, nor denying the content of his articles. As a result, he dominates the information terrain and his work is now a key factor in the “definition of the situation.” The work of all the milbloggers, war bloggers, and those who generally suck up to U.S. power under thin academic guises has been, it appears, largely for naught when it comes to the “information terrain” of public opinion, and the visibility of critical perspectives.

Let us now turn to some of the substantiation for the conclusions presented above.

Using Google Insights for Search, we find that not only did attention for the “human terrain system” peak in February, when the program suffered from some of the most serious criticisms and reversals of endorsements (such as that of the editors of Nature — a reversal that is now one of the top 10 Google search results for “human terrain system”), but that most of the peaks prominently feature John Stanton’s articles, as marked by the boxed letters below:

Popularity of searches for "human terrain system"

Dominant news stories for the peaks of interest in the "human terrain system"

Here are the clickable links:

A: US Army report on Human Terrain System: toxic at headquarters and in Bagram
B: Human Terrain System meets the Bowman expeditions
C: Human Terrain System: Murder Charges, Paranoia, General Sacked
D: US Army’s Human Terrain System: Madness, Mayhem and Troughs of Cash
E: US Army’s Human Terrain System: From Super Concept to Absolute Farce
F: Former Human Terrain System Participant Describes Program in Disarray
G: Is the Human Terrain System Worth Its Spit?

Still, in terms of global interest in “human terrain system” the relatively more popular searches emanate from, in order: 1. the United States, 2. Iraq, 3. the United Kingdom, 4. Germany, 5. Canada, 6. Australia, and, 7. Afghanistan.

Geographic distribution of most popular searches for "human terrain system"

The above results can be confirmed by clicking here.

If we use some of Google’s other services, we find that the search results for all web pages on the “human terrain system” show John Stanton’s articles, and this blog, in the top ten results.

If we look at Google news search results, for all dates, we find that five of the top ten results are articles that are critical of the Human Terrain System, with most others incorporating the critical opinions of anthropologists as part of their stories. None of the top results are from the media that wrote supporting articles for HTS.

If we look at the Google blog search results, for all dates, the only anthropology blog that is represented is Open Anthropology, in second place, and once again John Stanton’s writing is also present in the top results, in fact, in four of the top ten results.

Besides congratulations, our warm thanks to you John.

ADDENDUM:

This post also serves to tell the Pentagon’s Information Operations Task Force, that its effort to “control the message” and to plant fake news, has been met with the successful resistance of private citizens. (Thanks to John for that link.)

This is the newest article from John Stanton (reproduced with his permission), following up on the article for 26 February that was posted here and generated such intense discussion, with 182 comments: “Some Breaking News on the Human Terrain System: Death Threats Against Female Colleagues.”

John Stanton’s earlier articles on the Human Terrain System are also available here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

This one confirms some parts of the earlier report, and corrects other parts. What it reconfirms is the Human Terrain System’s state of woeful disrepair, to put it gently. All emphases added are mine.

••••••• ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• •••••••

US Army 101^st Airborne Investigative Report on Human Terrain System:

Toxic at Headquarters and in Bagram

by John Stanton

02 April 2009

The US Army’s 101^st Airborne has concluded its investigation into allegations by Dr. Marilyn Dudley Flores concerning sexual harassment and a death threat at Bagram, Air Base, Afghanistan. Dr. Flores recently received a letter from Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey dated 30 March 2009 detailing the results of the 101^st Airborne’s investigation (101AI):

“The Department of Defense directed rigorous investigation of the allegations. The investigation established you were employed as a member of the Human Terrain Analysis Team (HTAT), you and the other female members of the HTAT were subjected to a hostile work environment (which AR 600-20 defines as a type of sexual harassment). Dr. Milan Sturgis and 1 Lt Jose Perez were the primary creators of the hostile work environment. Dr. Milan Sturgis’ behavior clearly justifies the HTS’s decision to remove him as the team leader of the Combined/Joint Task Force (CJTF)-101 HTAT. Additionally, the DOD recommended that HTS relieve Mr. Lynch as Deputy Team Leader of the CJTF-101 HTAT. Lastly, they [101^st] recommended to the Commanding General that adverse action be taken against 1 Lt. Perez to address his misconduct.”

The 101AI-Woolsey letter notes, however, that the 101^st investigation found no evidence of multiple conspiracies, particularly those involving bribes by Dr. Sturgis. The 101^st found no evidence that 1 Lt Perez “attempted to maneuver female members of the HTAT into especially dangerous situations…“

The 101AI-Woolsey letter also notes concern by CJTF-101 about HTAT performance.:

“Concerning the removal of both Dr. Sturgis and you from Bagram Airfield, CJTF-101 leadership did not request the removal of either. CJTF leadership raised concerns with HTS about personality conflicts, dysfunctional atmosphere, lack of performance and unprofessional behavior of HTAT personnel. CJTF Leadership and concerned congressional staffers also raised concerns that your [Dr. Flores] life might be in danger. CJTF did not dictate a solution for these issues. HTS and the pertinent employers/subcontractors acted of their own volition.”

The 101AI-Woolsey’s letter also notes that Dr. Flores was not combative or especially difficult to work with and, although “officers familiar with HTAT” questioned Dr. Flores physical conditioning for outside the wire activities but that she did, in fact, properly fit and wear her Personal Protective Equipment.

The investigation found that Dr. Flores systematically exaggerated her civilian and military experiences, connections to “famous people” and overdramatized events that took place while she was stationed at Bagram. This, according to the investigation, diminished her credibility as a military advisor.

Fix Management, Recruitment and Training

The 101AI-Woolsey letter has hit on troubles that have plagued HTS from the start. According to the 101AI-Woolsey letter, DOD has recommended that HTS management improve physical fitness requirements ensuring that academics have the ability to move quickly outside the wire.  DOD suggests that,

“HTS should also establish or improve procedures for a rigorous review of applicant credentials and claims of pertinent experience prior to hiring team members. In this case [Bagram], poor and unverified credentials and exaggerations of pertinent experience on the part of team members contributed to a toxic environment where HTAT, rather than being an enabler, actually became a distraction to the CJTF-101 mission. Lastly, the DOD will recommend that HTS clarify the Chain of Command within its teams and clarify its relationship between its teams and supported unit. They [HTS] should implement or improve Prevention of Sexual Harassment training and establish a means of enforcing professional conduct in an environment by people of diverse backgrounds from multiple civilian employers”

Meanwhile, according to sources, HTS is undergoing change. In late March 2009, program manager Steve Fondacaro held a conference call with the main staff at HQ Building #48 in Kansas and advised them he would be moving operations from building #48 to Oyster Point, Virginia. “He advised folks they could move (at own expense) or find other work.”

Another source had this comment about the toxic environment at the HQ Building #48:

“[HTS is a] wonderful concept and a real opportunity to save American and other’s lives…The issues are NOT about Steve Fondacaro or Montgomery McFate. Though Steve is the face of HTS he is only the primary salesman of the program, and a good one. He is now out-gunned in the program. The danger and problems for HTS are at HQ Bldg. 48 in Kansas with Deputy Program Manager Steve Rotkoff and Mark French in Operations [OPS]. Training is just as bad, in fact, it is pathetic and virtually non-existent under Jeff Bowden. Bowden has created a 5-6 month training program that should be no more than 8 weeks. However, since Rotkoff and French control OPS or deployments they are responsible for putting people in positions O-CONUS to get killed as they lack virtually any training…the civilians are so vulnerable that it is scary. Look into [Rotkoff, French] qualifications to be in the positions they hold with HTS. They have NONE. Fondacaro is viewed as an enemy by them…”

And this is the program that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believe should be used as part of a civilian surge in Afghanistan? Leaving HTS to operate in its current form is disaster. Adopting the 101^st Airborne’s recommendations will help improve the effort, but radical change in HTS is necessary.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in political and national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.

_______

]]> http://azheritage.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/fight-to-reopen-arizonas-tonto-natural-bridge-state-park-continues/ Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:37:50 +0000 azheritage http://azheritage.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/fight-to-reopen-arizonas-tonto-natural-bridge-state-park-continues/ http://azheritage.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/rim-chamber-rallies-support-for-arizonas-tonto-state-park/ Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:13:01 +0000 azheritage http://azheritage.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/rim-chamber-rallies-support-for-arizonas-tonto-state-park/ http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/02/26/some-breaking-news-on-the-human-terrain-system-death-threats/ Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:42:11 +0000 Maximilian Forte http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/02/26/some-breaking-news-on-the-human-terrain-system-death-threats/

Thanks to John Stanton for forwarding an advance copy of his latest article moments ago. This is very alarming news about how the lives of female Human Terrain team members are put at risk by those who are putatively on the same side as them. It makes for very grim reading.

John Stanton’s earlier articles on the Human Terrain System are also available here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

••••••• ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• ••••••• •••••••

Death Threat Tarnishes US Army Human Terrain System

Mata La Vaca: Kill the Cow

.
by John Stanton

Thursday, 26 February, 2009

Dr. Marilyn Dudley-Flores

Sources indicate that Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey of (D‐California) awaits the results of an investigative report by the US Army 101st Airborne Command, stationed at Bagram AB in Afghanistan, into allegations of a death threat made against Dr. [Marilyn] Dudley‐Flores — a former senior female Human Terrain Team (HTT) member deployed to Bagram — by an active duty lieutenant in collusion with the HTT leader. The death threat was written on a white board and was included in a “to do” list. It read, according to sources, “Mata La Vaca” which translates into “Kill The Cow.” Immediately after that incident, other female members of the HTT began to arm themselves apparently because they feared that male members of the HTT, along with a few in the 101st Airborne, were out to get them.

Photo of the whiteboard, courtesy http://www.ops-alaska.com/humanterrain

The death threat was the culmination of an effort, say sources, to malign Dudley‐Flores’ credibility with fellow HTT members and the 101st Airborne, and put the women in their place. Sources allege that through the months of November and December 2008, Flores‐Dudley and other HTT female members were deliberately put in harm’s way by Milan Sturgis [see photo below] — a former HTT leader ‐‐ who sent Flores‐Dudley and female HTT members in known hot areas (like Qarabagh) where the Taliban was active, and, in one instance, knowingly had them wait for seven hours on a remote airstrip for a airlift back to Bagram, AB. Sturgis was nearly terminated for, copying wholesale, and changing the facts in a report authored by another HTS member. And, according to sources, Sturgis had mental health issues.

Rev. Milan Sturgis

Further, the active duty lieutenant charged with protecting Dudley‐Flores and female teammates acted with discredit by fleeing and not covering Dudley‐Flores when she was fired upon (fire incident) and; in another incident, leaving his sidearm and other arms in a Humvee while a female HTT member was inside a structure interviewing Afghans who, it was later found out, were Taliban seeking intelligence.

Rat Fucking Campaign

Sturgis and the first lieutenant sought to falsify the after action report (AAR) on the fire incident and, it is alleged — according to sources — that Sturgis and the first lieutenant instructed Dudley‐Flores to meet them alone in an isolated part of a building, apparently, to convince her to change her mind about what the AAR should look like. According to sources, fearing for her safety, Dudley‐Flores went up the chain of command at Bagram in an attempt to avoid the meeting. It was at this point in late December 2008 that the females — some on the advice of spouses and partners — started to arm themselves.

Dudley‐Flores and fellow HTT female members were also subjected to sexual harassment and abuse by Milan Sturgis and his cohorts. Sources say that Sturgis, in collusion with other HTT members (male) and individuals in the 101st Airborne led a “rat fucking campaign” against Dudley-Flores. That campaign played on the fact that, according to sources, Dudley-Flores was overweight. The “rat fuckers” according to sources claimed that Dudley‐Flores was unable to buckle her body armor or even get in and out of a Humvee. Further, because of her weight, Dudley‐Flores was nicknamed by male HTT members and some in the 101st Airborne as “The Cow”. In one instance, a picture of a 500 pound stripper on four knees with a midget on top was placed on her desk.

Dudley‐Flores was called the Chief Cow by male HTT teammates and, according to sources, phrases like, “The HTT needs more cow bells,” appeared on homemade posters around the HTT office. Dudley‐Flores was also accused, falsely according to sources, of telling 101st Airborne officers (up to 20) that she was “the first infantry woman in the US Army.” In late December 2008/early January 2009, Dudley‐Flores was terminated for non‐performance.

Human Terrain analysts referred to as cows, photo courtesy of http://www.ops-alaska.com/humanterrain

Photo of the "stripper" image, courtesy http://www.ops-alaska.com/humanterrain

Former US Army National Guard Lieutenant Dudley‐Flores was the first certified woman combat mountaineer in the Alaska’s US Army National Guard and has hundreds of hours of smal arms training. She also worked in Pakistan during the USSR’s occupation of Afghanistan helping refugees.

While she was at the University of South Carolina, she and her colleagues developed a rudimentary social networking/human terrain mapping‐type program to assist victims of the war in Kuwait. That program, the Victim Assessment Database, was to be used in Kuwait after the first Gulf War but the US government showed no interest.

Sources claim that HTS management knew of many of these activities targeted at Dudley‐Flores and did not act. In July 2007, in a briefing designed for LTG John Kimmons (http://www.dami.army.pentagon.mil/), HTS management knew it had personnel and organizational problems. Those apparently were ignored in favor of marketing the “concept”. Once again, oversight of HTS program has been negligent resulting in the many problems already documented in past articles. [For a copy of the briefing to LTG Kimmons, contact cioran123@yahoo.com.]

In the end, Congresswomen Woolsey’s staff had her pulled out of Afghanistan because they feared for her life.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in political and national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.

_______

External Links:

• Dr. Marilyn Dudley-Flores: Who I Am
• Profile of Milan Sturgis (“Priest leads a full life,” The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, 14 May 2007): “the priest with Serbian roots finds himself leading a Greek Orthodox church in Spotsylvania County, teaching in Boston and running an energy consulting company in Alexandria….Sturgis began his priesthood in Morgantown, Pa., in the 1980s….then he decided to become a chaplain, joining the Navy, which meant he could be assigned to any of the sea services. He ministered to the Marine Corps….Sturgis went to work for a State Department office devoted to religious freedom in the late ’90s, when the Balkans erupted in conflict….He runs Blue Oceans Strategies LLC, an energy consulting group that works with international natural gas and oil companies.”
• Rev. Dr. Milan Sturgis (News from the National Council of Churches): “A Serbian Orthodox priest and former U.S. foreign service officer in the Balkans, Dr. Milan Sturgis….related many of his experiences in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo including the loss of cousins, aunts and uncles “who were slaughtered.”
• Milan Sturgis: “Political Advisor, OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe], Belgrade, US Department of State” (2004)
• Milan Sturgis: State Department special advisor on democracy issues in post-conflict states

Update #1: Also, see “addenda” below.

Update #2: photos added, thanks to http://www.ops-alaska.com/humanterrain

See also this intimidation on base, against speaking to John Stanton:

We know who you are...traitor. Photo courtesy of http://www.ops-alaska.com/humanterrain

_______

(1) From Grassroots International via InfoShop News:

“The Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) – a longtime partner of Grassroots International based in Mexico – denounced a recently conducted study in the Zapotec region by U.S. geography scholar Peter Herlihy. Prof. Herlihy failed to mention that he received funding from the Foreign Military Studies Office of the U.S. Armed Forces. The failure to obtain full, free and prior informed consent is a violation of the rights of indigenous communities as codified in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations in 2007. In addition, UNOSJO fears that this in-depth geographical mapping of indigenous communities may be used in some harmful manner by the military.”

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

(2) From UNOSOJO, on the Human Terrain System and the Bowman Expeditions:

…UNOSJO, S.C. began looking into the México Indígena Project. Investigation revealed that México Indígena forms part of the Bowman Expeditions, a more extensive geographic research project backed and financed by the FMSO, [US Foreign Military Studies Office] among other institutions. The FMSO inputs information into a global database that forms an integral part of the Human Terrain System (HTS), a United States Army counterinsurgency strategy designed by FMSO and applied within indigenous communities, among others.

Since 2006 the Human Terrain System HTS has, since 2006, been employed with military purposes in both Afghanistan and Iraq and according to what we have been able to determine Bowman Expeditions are underway in Mexico, the Antilles, Colombia and Jordan….

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

(3) From El Enemigo Común, via KU Watch:

$500,000 in Department of Defense Funding to Kansas University for Mapping of Communally Held Indigenous Lands in La Huasteca and Oaxaca, Mexico

November 26th, 2007 – Simon Sedillo writes: The funding is being made available to the Department of Geography by the Foreign Military Services Office (FMSO), based out of Fort Leavenworth in Lawrence, Kansas. Geography professors Jerome Dobson and Peter Herlihy, explicitly acknowledge the security and intelligence ramifications of their project, the Bowman Expeditions, citing the geo-political and cultural effects of the “neo-liberal property regime.” The home of the FMSO, Fort Leavenworth, was the command center of the western front during US expansionism into native lands in the early 1800s as well as the epicenter of the War Departments “control” over native populations after the civil war. Today, the FMSO focuses on emerging and asymmetric threats to the national security of the United States of America, which is a red flag as to their intentions in funding the Bowman Expeditions. US military intervention in Mexico has seen a steady increase in the last decade, and now is set on a fast track through Plan Mexico, which like Plan Colombia justifies further military funding for the “war on drugs.” The racist history of colonial rule and territorial occupation continues with a whole new set of conspirators seeking economic gain and academic notoriety. The maps produced by this project are not just of the physical landscape, but rather more intentionally of the cultural resistance to displacement. Through the rhetoric of unbiased science, and geographic exploration, the Bowman expeditions are actively paving in Mexico, the road to hell.

Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

(4) The AGS Bowman Expeditions now plans to expand to the Caribbean as well, with funding from the U.S. Federal Government, and support from Fort Leavenworth:

AGS BOWMAN EXPEDITIONS
Jerome E. Dobson
AGS President

picture of Isiah Bowman In the last issue of Ubique I wrote about our Bowman Expedition to Mexico in 2005 and 2006. This time I’ll write about our new Bowman Expedition to the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
As you may recall, the existing Mexico Indigena Project was established as the prototype for a much larger concept whose ultimate purpose is to combat geographic ignorance in all sectors of society. At full funding, AGS would send a geography professor and two or three graduate students to every country in the world for a full semester each year, with teams rotating on a five-year cycle so that each country is understood by five separate teams. Each team would collect open source GIS data and conduct one research project of the investigator’s choice. Allies at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, marketed the concept and funded the prototype. Now, a major step has been taken toward implementing the concept beyond its initial prototype….(more)

See also two powerpoint presentations on the México Indígena Project.

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

US Army/TRADOC Embroiled in Another Controversy

by John Stanton

Pravda, 29 January 2009

“We call upon indigenous peoples in this country and around the world not to be fooled by these types of research projects, which usurp traditional knowledge without prior consent. Although researchers may initially claim to be conducting the projects in ‘good faith’, said knowledge could be used against the indigenous peoples in the future. UNOSJO is against this kind of project being carried out in the Sierra Juárez and distances itself completely from the work compiled by the México Indígena research team. ”

On January 14, 2009 the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) issued a press release accusing the principal researchers/managers of the Mexican Indigena — a program in the larger Bowman Expeditions — of unethical conduct for not fully disclosing that the US Army is a sponsor of the Bowman Expeditions. They also accuse the principals of geopiracy. According to a member of the anthropology community, “This is a nasty little story.”

“UNOSJO began looking into the México Indígena Project. The investigation revealed that México Indígena forms a part of the Bowman Expeditions, a more extensive geographic research project backed and financed by the FMSO [US Army's Foreign Military Studies Organization], among other institutions. The FMSO inputs information into a global database that forms an integral part of the Human Terrain System (HTS), a United States Army counterinsurgency strategy designed by FMSO and applied within indigenous communities, among others. Since 2006 the Human Terrain System (HTS} has been employed with military purposes in both Afghanistan and Iraq and according to what we have been able to determine Bowman Expeditions are underway in Mexico, the Antilles, Colombia and Jordan.

“In November 2008, the México Indígena Project completed the maps corresponding to Zapotec communities San Miguel Tiltepec and San Juan Yagila. Contrary to the often-mentioned promise of transparency, México Indígena created an English-only web page, a language that the participating communities do not understand. Before the communities received the work, said maps had already been published on the Internet. Furthermore, the communities were never informed that reports detailing the project would be handed over to the FMSO. In addition to publishing the maps, the México Indígena team created a database into which pertinent information was entered: community member names and the associated geographic location of their plot(s) of land, formal and informal use of the land, and other data that cannot be accessed via the Internet.

“According to statements made by those heading the México Indígena research team, this type of map can be used in multiple ways. They did not specify, however, whether they would be employed for commercial, military or other purposes. Furthermore, as the maps are compatible with Google Earth, practically anyone can gain access to the information. Yet only community members can decipher information expressed in Zapotec (toponyms), unless, of course, one has the capacity to translate them, as in the case of FMSO linguistic specialists.”

What’s in a Name: Stone Cold Racist Isaiah Bowman

While UNOSJO’s claim of direct linkages between the Bowman Expeditions/Mexican Indigena (BEMI) and the HTS remain unsubstantiated at this time and may, indeed, be incorrect (a call to Lt. George Mace, PAO, of the HTS program could not returned in time for release), the fact is that US Army TRADOC owns the troubled HTS and a $500,000 chunk of the controversial BEMI — and the data that goes with both. As reported in prior pieces on the HTS, sources state that data from Human Terrain Mapping (HTM) for HTS does not remain compartmentalized but is shared with other US Army intelligence related databases. There is no reason to expect the BEMI data has been treated any differently. Furthermore, the BEMI appears to have accomplished what the HTS program promised but could not produce: a useful deliverable in the form of a user friendly geographic information system (GIS).

As one source put it, “Where HTS really dropped the ball was in successfully integrating the MAP-HT, which includes ArcGIS. HTT trainees are not even learning MAP-HT any more. It’s a total free-for-all in the field for HTS social scientists working on their dissertations or post doctoral research. AFRICOM teams will include geo-spacial analysts. Someone, or a software company is really pushing for geospacial intelligence. This is what the Mexico project is about. It all makes sense now.”

According to an October 2006 article by Sophia Maines of the Lawrence Kansas Journal, The Bowman Expeditions are the brainchild of Jerome Dobson. Dobson believes that the BEMI and related efforts are good for national security, K-16 geography education, and business in Kansas (visit website).

“Dobson, a geography professor and president of the American Geographical Society, believes the United States needs to use another way to understand the world. And, for $125 million, the United States can get started on a new track. Dobson’s idea — called the Bowman Expeditions — would have geographers and graduate students canvass the globe, gathering intelligence that can inform the government and the public about the world. In the process, the Expeditions also would help revive the stature of the oft-marginalized academic discipline of geography. The Kansas City nonprofit SmartPort Inc [www.kcsmartport.com] is pressing ahead with plans to turn Kansas City into an inland port for shipments from Mexico, allowing goods to pass over the Mexican border freely and to go through customs in Kansas City…the research in Mexico also can benefit SmartPort planners by offering information about the areas along the Mexican railway.”

The Bowman of the Bowman Expeditions is the notable Isaiah Bowman. Christian Parenti, reviewing Neil Smith’s book on Isaiah Bowman, American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization, for a 2003 edition of These Times, notes this about Bowman:

“He helped draw up the modern border of Europe, helped shape America’s non-committal policy toward Jewish refugees from Nazism, and ran Johns Hopkins University and the Council of Foreign Relations. In all these capacities, he sought to harness ideas to the larger project of American commercial and political power on a global scale. But what strikes one most is Bowman’s opportunism: He was to the right of Roosevelt but subtly changed positions so as to always be in favor. He spent his life in the cloistered comfort of Ivy League universities and the inner sanctums of the executive branch. He was a stone-cold racist and anti-Semite who let Jews burn and talked of brown people in the global south as ’smaller peoples’ in need of control and guidance. One of his last acts of accommodation just before his retirement and early death was to passively allow a Hopkins colleague and social acquaintance, Owen Lattimore, to be red-baited by McCarthy and driven out of a job. It was the perfect, politely brutal end to Bowman’s career, which is to say his life.”

What is US Army TRADOC Thinking?

Programs like the Human Terrain System and the Bowman Expeditions are typical examples of human terrain harvesting necessary for effective, non-kinetic, counterinsurgency (COIN) operations and to the national security strategy/tactics of the United States. On that front, a flurry of COIN manuals and COIN OpEds appearing in the New York Times has been compiled by Wikileaks. Reading through the US military manuals and between the lines, one discovers that cultural awareness/mapping is key to COIN which is key to defeating the “network of extremists”, as President Barak Obama puts it. And a key part of all that is the American people. At the US Government’s Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative, Americans viewing the logo might be a bit perplexed. It reads “Whole of Government, Whole of Society.”

It has been determined by the grand brains of the USA, that Americans need to understand more about other people, like the Mexicans. Dobson claims that one of the Bowman Expeditions’ great by-products is that the human terrain data collected on another nation’s soil will be helpful in schooling Americans on the where and why of other people on the planet. Will Americans also be taught about Bowman the “stone cold racist”? The US Army TRADOC/FMSO paid $500K for an affiliation with Bowman without checking what’s behind the name. Perhaps human terrain mapping ought to start with the US education system both public and private, student and teacher, from K to civilian PhD, and Colonel on up. Further, virtually all human terrain programs are destined to fail until evolutionary theory, evolutionary psychology and evolutionary cognitive neuroscience are included as baselines. Then again, 50 percent of the American people do not believe in evolutionary theory. And they are supposed to identify countries on a map and understand the human terrain there?

And Over at HTS

According to sources, nothing has changed and, perhaps has gotten worse. “The contract stated that when we reached Afghanistan that we would be paid on a 120 hour work week. Halfway through training that was changed to 90 then 80, and in January we were told that Steve Fondacaro (PM) has requested our contracting firm to cut our hours to 60. That is a 25% pay cut from what we had agreed on because of budget shortfall and mismanagement of funds. I will tell you that people are leaving the program in droves and those already in Afghanistan are furious. There are several who have quit also. We have sent memo after memo to Fondacaro and Steve Rotkoff (DPM) getting no response. Something is going on and it’s easy for management to cut off funds for those who are doing the work and sticking their necks out.”

The following statement sums up the feeling of the many of the thirty sources behind this HTS series. It is shameful that the US Army TRADOC has allowed the current HTS state of affairs to persist. “As a former active duty officer I am utterly disgusted at the information I have received from various sources regarding the HTS program. This is certainly not the military that I once knew and I intend to do something about it. In the future, some of these people may be enjoying an extended stay in the Leavenworth area in government accommodations.”

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com

••••••• ••••••• •••••••

More on Research Ethics and Indigenous Communities:

“Whose Blood Is It?” by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 01 December 2008.
“Blood, especially the blood of Native people, has some not just scientific value, but possible financial value…”

In the meantime, some complained that my suggested ethical code against  exploitation by foreign scholars “criminalized research” – I agree, especially where researchers behave as criminals, and crimes are committed. See:

How to Protect Yourself from an Anthropologist: A Code of Ethics from the Bottom Up (2.0)

and

Como protegerse contra un antropólogo: Un código de ética desde la base

_______

Below, following my comments, you will find the latest article from John Stanton, the tenth in a series on the Human Terrain System, this time focusing on the information technology aspect of the Human Terrain System. Stanton noticed that while Hamas is able to almost immediately launch a memorial page for each of the fighters it loses, the Human Terrain System is unable to even edit a web page in order to post a notice in memory of Paula Loyd, the third HTS employee who died, succumbing to her injuries last week. Early on, HTS had also informed the press that a report on the attack on Loyd would be released, and that too has not yet been produced. An anonymous writer posted a message on this blog, explaining why and noting the shortcomings of the program’s administration. This came in response to questions from other commenters who wondered if there would be an attempt by HTS to minimize the number of its dead as they began to mount.

Cynical Imperial Prose that Only Begs Questions

However, HTS seems to have just released a new page dedicated to Paula Loyd. Unfortunately, in an extremely cynical move, HTS uses the opportunity to transform the meaning of the attack into one over gender rights, with the implicit characterization of all Pakistanis (Loyd was in Afghanistan) as performing similar acts of violence against all professional women. Why the dislocated reference? The result is to remove from the picture the fact that Loyd was not just a professional, but a professional employed as part of a foreign occupying military force, accompanied by both soldiers and at least one mercenary on the day of the attack. Again the suggestion is: it’s not our imperialism that is the problem, it’s their backward culture. It goes further, Loyd’s attacker is portrayed as insane (a suggestion repeatedly made on this blog by one HTS supporter who suddenly appeared the day before Loyd’s death, and on the day itself): Salam is described as warmly thanking HTS members and then suddenly, without warning, attacking Loyd. A madman from an inferior culture, that hates women, blindly.

If this is the kind of sensitive anthropology that gathers cultural information, it not only discredits HTS, it does a disservice to the professional abilities of Loyd and her reputed love for Afghanistan, its peoples and its cultures.

Since the Taliban took official credit for the attack, the suggestion is one of premeditation, not insanity, and since Loyd was chosen as the target, another viable and plausible question that no one is thinking of asking is whether the Taliban knows about HTS and is seeking to target its employees whenever it can.  HTS members and Loyd’s well wishers have often made the point about how well known and well liked Loyd was — which would also suggest that it would be very easy for the Taliban to have known about her. That discussion would have a chilling effect on recruitment, and no wonder then that it is a discussion that HTS and its supporters do not wish to entertain.

In an outrageous and bizarre rendition of events, HTS’ “report” also has Loyd up and talking, chatting and joking after her attack, with the flames immediately doused. She looks at her burnt hands (she still has eyesight, they imply), and wonders aloud if she will be able to finish her report — no trauma, no shock, all bravado. She is told she will need some plastic surgery, and she allegedly jokes that she always wanted to have some things done.  This account — to abuse the word “account” — is also problematic since it begs the question as to why she would need two months of intensive treatment,  what qualified her condition as “critical,” with the injuries so severe that eventually they overpowered her after more than two full months of constant care. Instead, HTS has Loyd virtually ready to join Cirque du Soleil moments after the attack. One might reasonably suspect that HTS is taking the opportunity to create a “hero” story from this incident, accompanied with a suitable golden girl photo, a story line that was anticipated on this blog. In fact, their report almost seems to follow the main lines of criticism produced on this blog regarding the reinterpretation and media projection of the Loyd incident.

I also have reason to be very suspicious of the account of Loyd being immediately immersed in water. I do not believe it happened so quickly. As any of us who have witnessed people pouring lighter fluid on their skin and setting it alight, no harm  is done, as the layer of fuel burns itself off, the performer smothers the flame before it reaches actual skin and starts to burn it. If Loyd had been immediately submerged in water, little harm would have been done, and she might really have been in a position to joke about it. Instead, she sustained third degree burns over 60% of her body, and died from the injuries, two months later, even with constant care.  The fact that a local blood drive in San Antonio was being conducted for Loyd, and raised 47 pints of blood, even weeks after she was admitted to hospital, suggests constant blood loss and very extreme injuries. Moreover, in the same tale told by HTS, when in hospital, Loyd was merely “sometimes responsive” (responsive being a word normally used in such circumstances when someone gives a sign of reacting to a stimulus, not usually talking back). It’s almost as if Loyd had suffered her worst injuries not from the attack, but after the attack, while under constant care — which either makes no sense, or implies something quite perverse.

That someone is fabricating a tale is certain; what is open to speculation is the reason for the story-telling.

There is also the question of why Don Ayala, the mercenary who executed Loyd’s detained attacker, was so enraged (as alleged or implied by reports thus far), that he felt the need to kill Salam — if Loyd was so lightly affected by her attack, as HTS suggests. And did Loyd, then on her feet and joking, according to the HTS account, not have any say in the matter of Salam’s fate? Or is HTS suggesting that she knew and agreed with the execution? This could even have legal implications in the case against Don Ayala. This is the kind of mess this amateurish piece of HTS propaganda is creating.

Lastly, HTS admits: “For the duration of her hospitalization, HTS provided a uniformed military staff member to support Paula’s family and ensure that she received adequate care.” Then this also helps us to make sense of a fact that transpired on this blog. By “curious coincidence” on January 6 I started to receive comments about Loyd, on an old post. At the same time, an anonymous message appeared on another blog announcing that Loyd had died — on January 6. The next day, someone who claimed to be a relative of Loyd’s, corrected that, and said the she instead died on January 7. So what? It suggests that someone from HTS was present at the hospital, as admitted above, and was told by, or overheard, a doctor suggesting the possibility that Loyd’s condition was worsening dramatically and that she might not last another 24 hours. Again, so what? It also suggests that someone else further along the chain misunderstood what was reported from inside the hospital, and took her death as final, and then decided to attack the blogs. At that time, starting prematurely on January 6, people who are likely in HTS, or affiliated with it, started appearing on this blog to try to rally some argument since I have been clearly identified, in international media, as a vocal critic of HTS — they were using her death in a vulgar attempt to shame me into silence, and several such messages were posted here, and not approved. This act of cynicism, if true (I challenge anyone to come up with a more plausible explanation of the facts), would fall in line with the kind of outrageous cynicism produced in HTS’ “report” on the death of Loyd.

As a result, what HTS produces is a botched piece that certainly does no service to the memory of Loyd, nor to the feelings of her family, while further discrediting themselves.  One gets the impression that HTS managers sought to use every ounce of Loyd to fabricate one more propaganda attack, even trying to convert her death into points scored, which tells us more of what all  of us should already know about this atrocity called HTS.

And, it is not the first time that HTS, or those employed by it, have sought to exploitatively ventriloquize one of their dead (see Tom Garcia’s obituary to Michael Bhatia). One would think that, if not for Afghans, they would have more respect for their own dead and allow them to rest in peace.

Final revision: 19 January 2009

•••••••

John Stanton’s nine earlier articles are available here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. His latest article, also published in Pravda, is reproduced here with the writer’s permission.

•••••••

Hamas IT Tops Human Terrain System IT in Internet Capability, Savvy

14 January 2009

by John Stanton

“I’ve experienced the loss of close comrades before but it never gets easier. Paula Loyd is now free from pain caused by the doing the job we believed in.”

“My mind boggles, especially at the apparent lack of official interest by ‘Big Army’ in addressing and rectifying this situation.”

“Everyone with half a brain knows that this thing is totally in disarray. No one knows their asses from holes in the ground!”

“The end result is clear and quite simple to see: A group of inept, incompetent, self-serving contractors whose only desire is to promote their personal agenda. This single fact is the reason that the HTS program, no matter how noble, will ultimately fail.”

“The management of the Human Terrain System (HTS) program hiring practice is based on not what you know, but who you know, or who you’re related to. Qualifications are secondary.”

It seems that the information technology (IT) department of Hamas is far more qualified than its counterparts in the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS). And Hamas management apparently is more sensitive to its fallen combatants, plus its presence in the Internet, than Steve Fondacaro, the program manager of the HTS program, and Montgomery McFate, the Senior Social Scientist. The Hamas website (http://www.alqassam.ps/english/) is vivid, updated, and displays dozens of the obituaries, with pictures, of many of its KIA’s-some very recent. It appears standard operating procedure for the Hamas IT staff and management to get that information online ASAP.

In contrast Paula Loyd’s obituary finally appeared on the HTS website on 13 January 2009 (http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/paula.html) only after a very loud outcry from current and former HTS staff, academia, and other interested parties. Moreover, at this writing, the HTS website has not been overhauled since October 2008. The simple task of maintaining a website is just one more in a long list of troubles that the HTS program has. Yet hand it to Fondacaro and McFate, they keep the money rolling in (for a copy of the Fondacaro-McFate road-show/status briefing titled HTS Information Briefing for Army G3, 16 October 2008, contact cioran123@yahoo.com). This should raise questions about the caliber of US military leaders who buy a program that has no hard audit of its measures-of-effectiveness (MOE) and has a documented history of troubles dating back to its days in JIEDDO.

Outsource to Hamas IT?

According to sources, the delay in memorializing Loyd’s death was because the former HTS IT department lacked the expertise/military accreditation to edit the site since it resides on a military domain. Montgomery McFate requested that the website be updated when Loyd was first injured but that did not happen because the webmaster, a former S6 in the US Army, had just completed his mobilization tour at Fort Leavenworth. According to sources, the remaining IT staff at Fort Leavenworth (mainly contractors) did not possess the skills required to edit the website. They also did not have the required military credentials to maintain a US Department of Defense web site.

“The website is technically broken. The menu bar at the top of the page is supposed to contain white text that displays a blue text drop down menu when the user places the curser over the word. But it’s all blue now, aesthetically very unappealing and difficult to read. It has not been fixed/updated, due to the shortcomings of the HTS IT department,” said sources.

Unqualified HTS IT staff may also explain why the nonfunctioning MAP-HT software package has been completely outsourced to Overwatch Tactical, a subsidiary of Textron.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Fondacaro and McFate were recently pitching the HTS program to AFRICOM and, according to Wired’s Danger Room, were successful. According to sources, “They have been very successful in wasting the government’s money. The HTS concept was sound at one point but management lost sight of the purpose of the program and is responsible for trying to grow the HTS Empire so quickly that it cuts corners in critical areas like training. Instead of trying to fix identified program problems, Fondacaro and Steve Rotkoff (Deputy Program Manger) fire those that ask questions and refuse to resign, and then hire and train staff who quickly learn not to ask questions about inadequate training.”

Another source wondered how AFRCIOM could buy the “‘capabilities’ and services of HTS even if there are no units deployed to AFRICOM. Why would they have any need for HTTs?”

According to sources, HTS management employs people that do not have directly relevant experience nor should they be allowed the privilege of holding a US security clearance. Two recent cases have come to light. In one case, there is a social scientist that spent most of her time in Southeast Asia and has resided in Jakarta. One source had this to say: “What does she expect in Afghanistan! This is war! These people do not have the foggiest idea of what they are getting involved in.

In the other somewhat disturbing instance, if true, there is an HTS staff member who allegedly “has a known drug problem that has been brought up to the higher-ups but nothing has been done. There are people who are refusing to go to Afghanistan with him or to be on his team. He also has a severe gambling problem and before joining the program was living out of his car. He got the job because he knows McFate. Everyone with half a brain knows that this thing is totally in disarray. No one knows their asses from holes in the ground! There are those who started this program thinking it would be a good thing and that it would help the soldiers. You really see now that it is about Greed. The leadership is incestuous.”

According to other sources, competent staff who tried their best to make things work have been punished. “Another HTT Team Leader, Timothy W. Johnson (Retired Special Forces Major) and one of his Social Scientists (Retired Special Forces), both assigned to the USMC in Anbar, Iraq, were ordered home by Steve Rotkoff, per Steve Fondacaro. Reason: repeatedly asking for support from HQ Building 48. Social Scientist, Wayne Blye (Retired Navy Captain), is still waiting for a meeting with Rotkoff and Fondacaro. He was ordered to return from Iraq more than six weeks ago for a meeting. Until then he waits in a hotel.”

With the approval of HTS management, sources say, University of California Irvine English Professor Carol Burke, a noted folklorist, was “observing” HTT’s in action. Burke is scheduled to present a paper on Combat Ethnography on 5 March 2009 at the University’s International Studies section. It may well be that her travels and observations were in preparation for that event. She has been contacted for further details on her effort.

Or, maybe the HTS program will be reborn as the Combat Ethnography Program.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com

This is John Stanton’s ninth article on the Human Terrain System, coming on a day when already one prominent endorsement of the program has been withdrawn (see today’s earlier post here). As usual, a copy (see below) is being posted for this blog, with the author’s kind permission.

Of critical importance is the fact revealed in the article that HTS data generated by social scientists is made available for targeting during lethal operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Certainly some of us never had this doubt, but the shroud of supportive naivete, insufficient skepticism, and inadequate critical skills exhibited by wishy-washy academics and journalists gave HTS one more generous pass.

John Stanton’s earlier articles are available on this blog: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. They are also available here:

hts-petraeus.htm General Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom: Army HTS December 4, 2008
hts-murder.htm Human Terrain System Murder, Paranoia, Sacking November 26, 2008
hts-gitmode.htm Civilian Human Terrain Team Member Gitmode November 17, 2008
hts-fraud.htm US Army Human Terrain System Fraud Implosion November 12, 2008
hts-cleanup.htm Clean Up US Army TRADOC’s Human Terrain System November 6, 2008
hts-madness.htm US Army Human Terrain System Madness Mayhem Cash October 6, 2008
hts-farce.htm US Army Human Terrain System an Absolute Farce August 14, 2008
hts-joke.htm US Army Human Terrain System in Disarray July 22, 2008

•••••••

11 December 2008

US Army Promotes Waste, Fraud and Abuse in TRADOC Human Terrain Program

by John Stanton

“One day, I was standing in one of Saddam’s old offices looking out the window. I was watching some of our kids/soldiers. You know we’ve got the best kids/soldiers in the world and they deserve better than this. The HTS owes them quality products to help them do their job more effectively and I do not feel we have the cultural expertise to provide those products.”

“This is the clearest example of fraud, waste and abuse I have seen. For the life of me, I do not know why the US Army keeps the Human Terrain System.”

“I have been here for several months and we have not produced a single product that a few hard-working NCO’s could not have come up with on their own.”

“Look at the quality of academic personnel we received. So many of them must have been rejects from academia. There were some strange birds — independent and not team players.”

“As a taxpayer I am upset with the amount of money that is truly being wasted in this program. As long as the money is flowing, this embarrassment of a program will continue to drain money from the federal government. I know the Army is not getting its money’s worth.”

Glevum Associates, a private subcontractor in the Human Terrain System (HTS), is run by Andrew Garfield (formerly with Lincoln Group) and Alicia Boyd (formerly with Lincoln Group and JIEDDO). Glevum is reportedly scheduled to receive over $20 million (USD) from the HTS money trough to conduct polling/research in Iraq over the next year. Sources say that Glevum used Iraqis to collect data for them. Alicia Boyd (now in Afghanistan) and John Bornemann were sent to Iraq to conduct/oversee the research for Glevum/HTS without a contract. According to sources, there was no contract vehicle or authority that covered that action. Further, sources say they have never seen a Statement of Work (SOW), standard for government contracts,

“The prime [contractor] is STI (Sensory Technology International) and the sub is Glevum. Actually, a third company is conducting the actual polling and focus groups. We were advised that the plan was to provide a total of 24 surveys to the HTS in Iraq. … 12 to HTRAC and 12 to the HTATS. By the time we learned that we had this asset, 2 of the 24 surveys were already being conducted. The HTRAC nor HTATs had NO input into the research objectives, and we were told that the ‘rear’ had decided to use these two themselves. The estimated cost of this little adventure is close to $2 million and, to my knowledge the surveys are not focused on any actual identified Corps/Division/Brigade issues of which there are plenty!”

When Glevum’s Garfield was asked for details about what contract device was used to allow Boyd and Bornemann to deploy to Iraq and allow Gelvum to charge $1 million (USD) per poll, he had this to say: “I am the COO of Glevum Associates and I am replying formally on behalf of Glevum Associates. In the first instance, I must inform you, that as a sub contractor of the HTS program, I am not at liberty to discuss the HTS program or our work in support of the program and you should therefore refer any questions you might have to Mr. Steve Fondacaro the HTS Program Manager.”

Perhaps HTS management should strike this question and answer from the HTS website: “Is HTS is carrying out secret or covert work? HTS was designed as an open-source, non-classified program. The willingness of team members and staff to talk to the press, write blogs from the field, and to answer emails and phone calls is proof positive of the fact that the program is neither secret nor covert.”

Kinetic Information, Big Egos, Arab Street

The US academic community does not realize that the Human Terrain System MAP HT software/database is a tiny part of a much larger system of US Army databases, according to sources. The information from HTTs in the field that finds its way into MAP HT eventually finds its way into US Army G2 databases and can easily be retrieved for kinetic use. “If they knew that, they’d be surprised,” said sources.

The nonfunctioning MAP HT remains controversial, according to sources, for a number of reasons. First, because there are plenty of robust US Army computing software/networks that perform the same or similar functions as MAP HT. Better still, these systems have already been bought and paid for. Second, US Army regulations, in many instances, also mandate that existing software/networks be utilized. For example, CENTCOM’s secure Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE), plus already extant software/networks that the US Army has in place, was used by enterprising HTS personnel as a substitute for the nonperforming MAP HT.

The HTRAC in Iraq successfully established a data repository utilizing the Army’s existing CIDNE asset. Although a significant accomplishment, the success was not well received by HTS management. Fondacaro’s friend, Dan Wolfe, had been contracted to develop a similar system which did not meet the Army’s mandate, and Wolfe was not happy about the success.

There is so much wrong with the HTS program, according to sources. At one point certain key Staffers of the US Army’s 4th Infantry became so frustrated with the assigned HTS team and its personnel drama, that discussions regarding team dismissal were conducted. Originally HTT Team Leaders were going to be uniformed military personnel but somewhere along the way, Fondacaro changed that which has caused increasing tension between military and civilian personnel. Hardened US troops with multiple tours, and lots of cultural knowledge, are derided by HTS civilian social scientists that have never been in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“I have been here for several months and we have not produced a single product that a few hard working NCOs could not have come up with on their own. As a matter of fact, when we do make it to the Company level, our social scientist often enters the room with a giant ego about educating the Army folks only to leave bewildered that the Company Commanders and Platoon leaders know far more about the local people and sheikhs than the social scientist does. Meanwhile, the US government pays 200K for a social scientist and pays the soldiers and officers less than 60K. I am embarrassed. However, because HTS is so desperate to fill slots over here, there is nothing that can be done.

There is a vast chasm between the military and civilian people involved in the program. The uniformed folks are not treated as they should be. Being a civilian who used to be a soldier, it bothers me when I see an Army-funded program leave these soldiers and officers out to dry. The HTS leadership is annoyed that they have to involve themselves with military people and military standards. Firearms training, equipment accountability, basic combat survival training, are all non-existent. From talking with military people in the program they feel unwanted. When there are squad leaders who have spent 3 tours in Iraq interacting with the people, why is HTS not trying to get them involved? Why pay someone with a degree from no-name state school that has never set foot in the Middle East? The Army and Marine Corps are full of subject matter experts. HTS would rather waste money to have social scientists recite all the wonderful knowledge they learned in books to soldiers who have spent the last 11 months and 5 years dealing with the Arab Street.”

Losing Good People: Resignation Letters Roll In

“I, Timothy A. Vandersommen, submit my resignation as a Team Leader of the Human Terrain Analysis Team, (HTAT) in Iraq, as part of the Human Terrain System (HTS). I returned to the continental United States (CONUS) on 20 November 2008, per HTS directive. I was told the purpose of the trip was to attend a meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to discuss problems with the program and that I would be returning to my Team. I have been in CONUS 13 days and there is still no date for a meeting. I have repeatedly advised the Human Terrain System (HTS), via weekly situation reports and phone calls, of support needed to successfully complete the mission of the HTAT with the Multi-National Division Baghdad (MND-B). My e-mails and phone calls to Building 48 HTS, went unanswered until I was requested to return to Fort Leavenworth, except for acknowledgment that my weekly reports had been received. During a phone call with Steve Fondacaro, HTS Program Manager, on or about 7 November 2008, Steve told me that my HTAT and I were doing an outstanding job and that Division (MND-B) was very pleased with the HTAT’s performance. Steve asked me to commit to remaining as the Team Leader for the HTAT, which I did. Unfortunately, since Steve’s and my conversation something has changed, which I am at a loss to explain. I believe it stems from my request for a letter from HTS, via phone conversation with Mike Spight, HTS Area Specialty Officer. The letter was to state that as Team Leader, I was in charge of the Team, regardless of Team member’s military rank. Approximately 36 hours after this conversation I read an e-mail requesting I return to Fort Leavenworth.”

The HTS program is being controlled by managers (Steve Fondacaro, Steve Rotkoff- the deputy program manager; Mrs. Montgomery McFate-Sapone the senior social scientist, and Mark French) located in the safe confines of Building 48 in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They have provided friends and family with lucrative employment and have enriched themselves at taxpayer’s expense. At the same time, the freakish controlling pathological personalities that HTS managers possess allow them to blithely put the lives of soldiers and civilians at risk and make command decisions that should be left to those in the field.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, more trouble is brewing. “We have been sent here with a premeditated plan so that the individual in question can get his cigar-smoking buddies in the US Army 101st Airborne to call Building 48 with glowing performance reports. 1LT Jose Perez has been in constant contact with Dr. Milan Sturgis (team leader) and, on Sturgis’ instructions, has been trying to lengthen our stay here as much as possible — even though there are no official missions during the Eid Holiday (anything of importance is closed). This was overheard by one of us here at FOB Ghazni. It was Sturgis’ original idea to send us to Qarabagh which is infested with Taliban and hot. We resisted since, as civilians, we would not be issued weapons.”

And yet, sources indicate that just recently additional funding for HTS was approved by CENTCOM.

__________

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Contact him at cioran123[at]yahoo.com.

As promised, whenever a new article on the Human Terrain System is released, I am advertising it and copying it for this blog. This latest article is John Stanton’s eighth on the Human Terrain System, and has been republished by Pravda and, as usual, will appear on several other sites as well. The previous seven articles by John can also be found on this blog (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). It is great to read John on the question of sources, which is what makes his reporting unique in comparison with all other articles published thus far by other media outlets, from the mainstream to the aspiring-to-mainstream. In addition, John’s reporting is clearly independent of HTS, which itself reproduces on its site the photographs supplied to it by another journalist, whose independence can only be alleged.

Also in this article are some interesting points related to “community policing” in Canada — the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) does indeed do community intelligence, not that its actions have been any less severe (killings, not in self-defense), notorious abuse of Aboriginals, and paying for research by academics that supports predetermined RCMP views, while ignoring or trying to discredit those that contradict them (source, source). I previously worked at a university where the RCMP tried to recruit academics, actively encouraged by a university president who, like others, was always hungry for more cash regardless of source or consequences.

This article also corrects the previously reported news that a General associated with HTS had been fired. In fact, it seems he resigned in order to not have his name associated with the program any further.

As mentioned recently, most of what I have wanted to say about HTS I have already said and does not require repetition. I am glad to reproduce the critical pieces of investigation provided by John in the meantime, while my concerns about the imperialization of the academy return to the broader scope that shaped this blog and this project at the outset.

•••••••

Copied from http://cryptome.info/0001/hts-petraeus.htm, with the author’s kind permission.

General Petraeus’ Favorite Mushroom: The US Army’s Human Terrain System

by John Stanton

“The HTS program is a ridiculous waste of tax payer money, and in the midst of a recession. Millions have been wasted. And the moronic management of the HTS program seems to have absolutely no problem placing poorly trained individuals in harm’s way, going so far as to falsifying training documents.”

“The amount of cash flying around the HTS program with very little oversight or accountability is disgusting. I continue to work for the HTS program out of obligation because I finish what I start, but trust me, I am counting down the days.”

“I feel for the people whose careers are being ground up in this HTS program mess.”

“It never ceases to amaze me how many egotistical individuals are involved with this HTS program.”

Thus far there are 24 sources (four quoted above) for this series on the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS). Of those 24, only a few have been adversarial in their correspondences. Adversarial though some were, they provided information that was useful for vetting and cross-checking. The number of sources behind this effort is significant because it puts paid the notion that the articles are based on the rumblings of just a few individuals. Sources are located in the USA, Iraq and Afghanistan. All are intimately familiar with the HTS program which is, in the Pentagon’s world-a comparatively minuscule project.

There are severe structural problems with the US Army’s HTS program that appear to be beyond repair. Since most of the planet is familiar with Wall Street’s troubles these days, an appropriate analogy is that the US Army’s HTS program is bankrupt and it either needs to fail or be drastically reorganized. Some feel, including many of the sources, that the HTS program is worth salvaging and that the concept underscoring it is sound.

Others side with this view:

I am really distressed to hear about all these problems. I am sure that HTS started out with somebody’s good intentions, but it was never properly thought through. One thing I learned about 25 years ago when working on an intelligence problem surrounding a presidential assassination attempt is that human psychology is the same for all peoples, everywhere. And, you can pick up a lot of it by studying history and military tactics.

It isn’t really necessary to bring in academics to try to understand psychology, except perhaps for rare pathologies that are not likely to be encountered in everyday life [evolutionary psychology can speak to that]. Where HTS could have helped a lot is in understanding cultural norms and they did try to do that. But it seems to me that HTS over-promised when they claimed that they could help front-line tactical troops with specific situational awareness problems. The key thing to remember is that the differences between any two humans’ behaviors will be greater than the differences in behaviors between cultures.

US Law Enforcement Community/Intelligence Policing & Where’s State Department

There is another approach that the military could arguably have adopted to explore the human terrain and it has been tested and used in every major city in the USA. Community Policing and, post-911, Homeland Intelligence Policing practices have been successful in helping US law enforcement adapt to changing economic and cultural dynamics (for example working in dual language communities with Muslim, Albanian, Russian, Latino sectors) and combat gang warfare, drug trade, white collar crime, and theft. US law enforcement’s procedures, lessons-learned, information collection techniques, cultural awareness practices, and standardized interaction methodologies for diverse urban populations are far more nuanced and robust than anything that anything that HTS program entrepreneurs — and one has to assume CENTCOM CG General David Petraeus and SECDEF Robert Gates — could hope to design.

Up north in Canada, for example, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) authored a nice briefing titled National Security Community Outreach Program. The Canadians have been years ahead of the USA in formalizing diversity/cultural practices into their national security practices. The Outreach Program brief is chock full of statistics showing everything from national immigrant trends in large cities to a discussion of sources and the need for enhanced Cultural Awareness Training. Down south, the New Jersey State Police have an exceptionally detailed manual on Intelligence-Led Policing that includes a description of a database not unlike the one envisioned by HTS program management (MAPHT). Even the US National Crime Prevention Council promotes the need for law enforcement to gain the trust of local leaders, groups/individuals to minimize violence (these documents are available via any Net search engine). In short, the formula for success, maybe, was not to be found in the recycled “hearts & minds” literature of the 1960’s produced by the HTS program’s founders, but was right here in the USA in the form of Community/Intelligence Policing as developed and practiced by US law enforcement.

The US Army’s HTS is a woeful attempt to be a Community Intelligence/Policing program for the US military. It was supposed to help US military commanders/frontline warfighters divine the why’s and wherefore’s of an alien culture (why do they hate us/want to blow us up?). Not unlike the Community Intelligence/Policing programs here in the USA, one assumes that the HTS program goal was violence prevention and some sort of mutual rapport with local groups. Non-inflated metrics for the HTS program would undoubtedly show minimal success in these areas. Further, the information the HTT’s provided to command elements was always going to find its way into the intelligence and kill-chain. To think otherwise was always folly. Organizations like the New Jersey State Police have designed procedures and practices to deal with those issues (arrest chain) from a US law enforcement perspective.

The concept of the HTS program highlights a greater problem. Most Americans are culturally and geographically illiterate. That speaks to a public and private US education system that is failing to teach its children that other nations exist with peoples that tend to view the world a bit differently Moreover, the entire program ignores recent findings courtesy of Evolutionary Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience that explain in large measure how and why humans act in situations/environments (for these matters the author’s brief Framework for Strategic Cultural Analysis presented in the UK is available upon request).

And for those who believe that the combat zone/are of operations is in no way compatible to what US law enforcement faces in major cities — and that there is nothing to be learned from them — consider that in 2007 at least 16,000 Americans were brutally murdered. In November 2008, an FBI Agent — a former Baltimore, Maryland Police Officer, Teacher and father of two — was serving a warrant in Pittsburgh and for his troubles was shot and killed. Was his service any less important or noble than that of those who are uniformed US military?

Finally, where is the US Department of State? Shouldn’t their in-country teams in embassies and consulates be providing the type of information that US military commanders seek from HTT’s? Perhaps President-Elect Barack Obama and US SECSTATE-designate Hillary Clinton can de-militarize US diplomacy and adequately fund/staff the US State Department. That or at least balance the scales.

Structural Problems: Chain of Command (COC) & General Sacks HTS

New information received indicates, definitively, that the Georgia National Guard retired general referred to in the last HTS article, though not by name, did not get sacked as was reported. Major General Robert Hughes (Ret.) resigned because of problematic issues with the HTS program. Many of those problems have been broached over these last eight articles on the HTS program. Sources indicate that confusion over the details arose, in part, due to COC matters. The way the HTS command structure was designed by Program Manager Steve Fondacaro — or not designed as the case may be — led to confusion over who reported to whom, or what and when.

“Hughes voluntarily submitted his resignation because he did not want his name associated with the program; same for Troy Watson (HTRAC Executive Officer), and William McCallister (HTRAC Social Scientist). They were in positions to lead with no one to follow. HTRAC is at Corps level, HTAT at Division, and HTT at Brigade; however, there is no command relationship…”

More troubles in Building 48 are described thus: “HTTs are not responsible to HTAT or HTRAC so there is no oversight in what is being accomplished — if anything. Those Teams that submit their weekly reports to Building 48, Fort Leavenworth, receive no response or support. The on-going joke was that you could submit old reports with a different date and no one at Building 48 would notice because the reports were never reviewed.”

Petraeus’ HTS Mushroom: Location Baghdad

Internal conflicts continue to abound within the HTT’s themselves. Here is a description of the ongoing HTT soap opera located in Baghdad:

HTAT IZ B ran into problems immediately after arriving because the resident G-7, a Lieutenant Colonel, and his staff had no idea how to use the HTAT. The G-7 did not like Fondacaro for, maybe, personal reasons. The G-7 would not let the HTT depart Camp Liberty to meet locals or the five other HTTs. This makes it very difficult to collect raw socio, economic, or cultural data, and perform analysis and prepare recommendations for the Division Commander. The G-7 uses the HTAT as office-help to update Power Point slides for Staff Officers. Five of the six HTT members apparently work very well together.

However, the sixth member, Major E, allegedly transferred from the US Air Force to the US Army because of her discipline and security problems in the US Air Force. She almost did not deploy to Iraq because she was allegedly unable to get a security clearance until the week prior to deployment. As a research manager, she was known for taking credit for other HTT member’s findings or for not being honest. She went out of her way to be part of the Green Machine and alienate her HTT by spreading false stories about HTT members. The joke became: Do you know how to tell if Major E is lying? Answer: She’s talking. The Deputy G-7, another Lieutenant Colonel, cautioned the HTT leader to watch out for Major E stating, ‘I think she wants to be Team Leader and has a problem working for a civilian contractor.’

Petraeus’ HTS Mushroom: Location HQ at Fort Leavenworth

According to sources, the Leadership of the HTS program at Fort Leavenworth,

consists of retired O6’s or friends of the retired O6’s. The current leadership consisting of Steve Rotkoff, Mark French, Karen Clark and Angela Edwards (the information technology manager), have had ongoing friendships in excess of a decade. Rotkoff was a cadet classmate with the previous HTS deputy program manager, Jim Greer, at West Point. Edwards’ husband, a recently retired O6, will be coming onboard the HTS program in December 2008 as a Seminar Leader. There is a great divide amongst the leadership and the military staff.

Sources also state that the contracted leadership views the military as a necessary evil. The contractors,

display a total lack of respect for even the most senior military members within the HTS program. The separation is also true with regard to operational planning. The uniformed/active duty military is seldom, if ever, included in any senior level planning within the program. However, they are expected to act, and act quickly, whenever a directive is put out.

For example, according to sources, Rotkoff’s management style is summed up in this statement attributed to him: “if you get in my way, you’ll piss me off!”

Sources say Rotkoff has absolutely no problem dressing down colleagues in public. To date at least three uniformed/active duty military members, including a Lieutenant Colonel, have received a public tongue lashing from the civilian contractor Rotkoff.

People that have questioned the program and pointed out problems have been returned to the USA. Some have been sitting in hotels in Kansas City for three weeks or more, waiting for meetings to be scheduled. It’s as though HTS program management is saying there is nothing wrong with the program if they do not meet with them. It also keeps the numbers inflated on personnel status.

__________

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters. Reach him at cioran123[at]yahoo.com.

Sphere Related Content

It’s a pity that the month that Culture Matters won the Savage Minds blog award, we’ve been really slow. It’s the end of the semester right before everyone disappears for the summer, and I assume that everyone is either swamped with marking or making exciting travel plans. I have a huge backlog of work and e-mails to answer so I probably shouldn’t be taking the time to post something, but I couldn’t resist because I keep getting distracted from grading by a couple of Wired articles on the Human Terrain System.

We already reported on news coverage of the attack on a Human Terrain Team member, Paula Lloyd, who was set on fire in Afghanistan by a man she was interviewing. Another Human Terrain Team member, Dan Ayala, then reportedly shot her attacker in the head after the attacker was disarmed and fully restrained. Ayala has since been charged with second degree murder and subsequently released on bail and is back in the U.S. (Open Anthropology has a list of links covering the story.)

Of course the attack and the revenge killing raise to a whole new level the debate about the ethics of putting social scientists in the middle of a war, and though I didn’t attend the AAA meetings this year in San Francisco, my sources tell me that this was hotly debated (see Inside Higher Ed for coverage). But all of this has been amply reported on elsewhere, so I didn’t think we needed to write more about it, until a friend and colleague based at SOAS in London sent me to have a look at the comments that have been posted to the Wired articles.

The first is an article by Noah Shachtman reporting on the charges against Ayala. What’s been distracting me from work is the comments that readers posted following the article. If you don’t get sick reading them, it’s actually fascinating to observe how misogyny and homophobia blend seamlessly with the ostensibly “anthropological” statements about local culture.

Misogyny:

“You invade and occupy a country, you better not send girlies with a psych degree to chat with locals”

and

“Afgan is an Islam [sic] country. The dumb-asses let a woman walk around like she owns the f***ing place and interrogate locals. There is no wonder the locals got so pissed off and set her on fire. She shouldn’t have been there in the 1st place. Stupid anthropologist [sic] got what is deserved.”

Homophobia: Shachtman and John Stanton, who has been writing a series of articles critical of HTS, are described as “blow buddies” by one commenter.

Cultural awareness: Many commentators express the view that Ayala’s reaction was culturally appropriate because

“Violence is the only thing people in that region understand.”

My favorite “cultural awareness” genre of comment, though (because I’m writing about stereotypes about Middle Easterners and camels), are the ones that suggest that this isn’t a matter of Geneva Conventions at all — it can just be reconciled by paying the dead man’s family some camels:

“But seriously, local customs would dictate he [Ayala] give the guy’s family some camels or cows and it’s done. So if the point of his team was to work within the local cultural framework, that is the appropriate response. Not an arrest and trial for murder. So lets embrace the local customs, raise some money, and buy some livestock.”

There are actually several comments that more thoughtfully reflect on legal codes that authorize or forbid different kinds of killing during war, but the overwhelming tenor of the articles is one of celebration that the Afghani who set Lloyd on fire was killed. It makes me wonder about the blood-thirstiness of Americans. It’s one thing to understand how a distraught man might kill after seeing his colleague set on fire, and it’s quite another to heroize that.

In other HTS news (they haven’t been getting much good press lately), Wired is also reporting that a Human Terrain contractor has been indicted as a Saddam-era spy.  There’s another series of comments ranging from the thoughtful to the bizarre, and one of the choicest in the “bizarre” category is this one:

“I blame the American Anthropology Association for all the dead and wounded HTS employees, for Ayala’s Human Terrain Murder, and for Montgomery McFate’s hiring of a one of Saddam Husein’s spies. Damn these anthropologists, if they would rise to the call of their patriotic duty and join this program like McFate wanted them to, there wouldn’t be a need to hire people like Issam Hamama or that woman who got set on fire after not realizing the problems with a woman approaching a man on the street (with a gas can) for an interview; anthropologists also wouldn’t have gotten into situations with the IEDs that killed those other HTS members because they’d have a clue about what’s what. Instead, now that the AAA has forbid its members to join McFate’s HTS, they have to hire people with no real experience in the area or whose experience includes spying for Saddam.”

I suppose it’s flattering that “Dr Darpa” (as s/he signs off) thinks that we anthropologists know everything, but it also seems rather cruel to suggest that intelligent social scientists and military personnel are getting killed because they’re not anthropologists so they don’t “have a clue about what’s what”!!

–L.L. Wynn

The National (United Arab Emirates) published an article on November 29, 3008, by Hamida Ghafour on the U.S. military’s Human Terrain System, titled “Use of social scientists in war sparks controversy.” You can access the article either by clicking on the image, or here for an HTML version, or here for a PDF version. The article attempts to introduce the newspaper’s readership to debates about HTS while bringing them up to date on some recent events. It does not push any one conclusion and strives to obtain a variety of perspectives, ranging from Gen. Petraeus and McFate, to David Price, John Stanton and myself.

While I was happy to provide some input when interviewed earlier this week, I believe the points I have had to make about HTS are conveyed with greater clarity on this blog. As with an earlier interview with The Washington Post, only a fraction of what I was able to say was reported, as is normally the case (which is also why I wonder why colleagues would prefer to wait to be interviewed by the media before, or more commonly, instead of blogging their points of view directly). I am happy to do both, and seeings one’s words refracted by the writing of a journalist can sometimes help to clarify and focus what one ought to say based on how one apparently “sounds” to others (such as journalists). In some cases the comments needed to be recontextualized since they do not stand alone very well, but I think the author, Hamida Ghafour, did a very good job.

Also interesting was the photo of anthropologist David Matsuda, who was mentioned in an earlier post on this blog, as well as mention of the note written by Tom Garcia that was the subject of discussion between Seth Resler and myself on this blog.

I should clarify some of the comments in the article attributed to me. I do not believe that the U.S. should be doing anything in Iraq or Afghanistan, other than getting out immediately. What I wanted to suggest is that if it was “cultural expertise” that was needed, then who better to provide it than actual Iraqis or Afghans, rather than uninformed foreigners without knowledge of the regions involved or the key languages. The reason for that, as could have been mentioned, is that in practice even the local allies of the U.S. are largely bystanders in their own neo-colonial rehabilitation and “reconstruction.”

Like David Price in the article I also believe that HTS should be terminated. I will also retain that as ill conceived and mismanaged as HTS is, as brought to light in all of John Stanton’s articles, the “threat” of HTS is actualized more at home than abroad. I argued this previously here. However, given the concessions and news that HTS members have been expected to fight in at least one known case (see the reference to Tom Garcia above), and have now committed their first documented murder, I may be forced to amend that opinion.

Indeed, some of the official advertising statements of HTS (such as the claim that the program is meant to save lives) might now be more quickly subverted by adding “yeah, like Don Ayala who murdered that civilian prisoner.” I say might, because it is clear that the program was more concerned with American lives, certainly on an ideological and cultural level. In addition, given that the U.S. Air Force has been dramatically increasing its deadly and indiscriminate air strikes in Afghanistan, one has to wonder why HTS is housed with the U.S. Army. Clearly the practice of hammering villages from high-altitude is deliberate, not an accidental result of a “cultural misunderstanding.”

In the meantime, given the new Status of Forces Agreement approved by the Iraqi parliament, HTS members will not be able to venture with combat units into Iraqi cities, town, and villages, after this coming June. Also, they will be under the legal jurisdiction of the Iraqi state, and their identities known to the Iraqi state. In Afghanistan, the only other currently available option for HTS recruits, HTS will eventually be terminated by events on the ground, and by that I mean continued resistance from insurgents. I am forced to concede the point that seriously violent resistance is the strategy that has the greatest impact — as evidenced, many would argue, by the history of slave rebellions in the Caribbean that led to the demise of slavery. I worry about writing this since in many ways it puts me in a state of contradiction with much of what forms part of my perspective on social transformation and the nature of activism.

Much more important than the observations above is the fact that discussion of HTS is spreading internationally in the media, and reaching the Middle East where the discussion especially belongs. It will be extremely interesting to hear perspectives coming from the region itself, which would be a very welcome change. In the meantime, I am not planning to write anything else on HTS for the foreseeable future on this blog, apart from reporting any other articles published by others.

***

PS: It was a pleasure to see Hamida Ghafour choose to describe this blog as “a platform for critics” of HTS. Many of us already know that, but none of us (myself included) have said so openly so far. Ghafour is correct, and more critics are welcome here. The “selectively outraged,” however, know where they can go instead — that is, to other blogs.

The third in a series of articles by John Stanton on the follies and failures of the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System has just been released. The previous two articles can be seen here, and here.

•••••••

US Army’s Human Terrain System: Madness, Mayhem and Troughs of Cash*

by John Stanton

*Part III of the Series. Part I is titled US Army’s Human Terrain System in Disarray. Part II is titled US Army’s Human Terrain System: From Super Concept to Absolute Farce

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in political in national security matters. His last book was Talking Politics with God and the Devil in Washington, DC. Reach him at cioran123[at]yahoo.com

Led by a wildly unpopular program manager (Steve Fondacaro) and a detached social science advisor (Mrs. Montgomery McFate Sapone), the HTS program continues to unravel. Program morale is at its lowest point in the short and controversial life of the program. Sources predict that more civilian HTT team members and soldiers will be killed/wounded because of lousy management practices and zero program oversight by upper echelon commanders/civilians. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus are also responsible for this dark state of affairs. In placing a recycled concept miles ahead of proper foundation and structure, they have compromised warfighters-in-theater, destroyed lives, and created a get-rich program for the most mercenary of HTS personnel and private contractors looking for lucrative employment.

Gates and Petraeus are also to blame for perpetuating the belief that Irregular Warfare and Asymmetric Warfare are different from past Guerrilla/Unconventional wars the United States has been involved with, whether fought in urban or jungle terrain (the singular difference being the globalization of insurgent warfare).

As one source put it, “After the takeover in the North of Iraq (the Mosul area) by the Green Berets with their trained Peshmerga’s, they were kicked out by General Petraeus, who during that time was the 101st Commander. He did this because it was his Battlespace. Our so called military leaders are part of the problem. That is why we’ve been in neck deep in this whole thing for seven years. Every military commander (Colonels on up to Generals) that are not Green Berets are trying to justify their existence in this Unconventional War. The military has even gone as far as creating terms like Irregular Warfare and Asymmetric Warfare (re-inventing the wheel). The term Special Operations Forces in the military is used loosely now because the military wants everybody to be SPECIAL. Besides, if the Green Berets were allowed free reign in this war, what would we do with all the MRAPS, TANKS, STRYKERS, and all other sorts of junk that we bought for the rest of the troops that have no business fighting in this type of war? Bottom line is that our military is still set up to fight a Conventional War.”

This is what happens when money and bodies are thrown at an unstructured, recycled idea to “see what happens.” HTS Deputy Program Manager Steve Rotkoff (a 1977 graduate of West Point and a McNeil Technologies employee who achieved a measure of fame in Bob Woodward’s book State of Denial) who joined the HTS program in August of 2008 confirmed this point in an early September 2008 email message to HTS personnel, “Because this idea is so vital to our nation, it has grown more quickly than the in-place administration and structure to support it.” That confounded statement is at the core of the HTS program’s woes and, in a larger sense, to the national and military strategies/tactics currently operational. Indeed, a case can be made that the idea of the United States of America has grown too quickly for an administration and structure to support it.

Agents of Chaos

Many in the HTS program predict more deaths will occur because Human Terrain Team (HTT) members are poorly prepared for an insurgency environment and no one is providing a risk analysis for deployed members. One source indicated that a social scientist stationed with the US Marines in Al Anbar is “chasing IED’s” while another went out on a shopping adventure days after arriving in-theater. The social scientist, who has a Masters degree in communications, boasted in a blog about an escape from danger in Iraq by speeding recklessly through the streets of Baghdad while blaring music from a car. Another social scientist commented, “we are all islands of autonomy … doing what we want.”

Sources say Fondacaro and McFate-Sapone are not concerned with activity in-theater and that the measures of effectiveness they use are dubious and unquantifiable. For example, the “60 percent reduction in kinetic force in a small village in Afghanistan” is hardly quantifiable but is used to gin up more money for the program. Sources say Fondacaro’s advice is this: “If there are troubles, be sure to appear as a united front to the Brigade [Command].” But the reality in-theater is that most, if not all, of the HTS teams are dysfunctional and fragmented.

The word from Kindergarten Cop Rotkoff at the top was this: “I want to kill rumor mongering and innuendo in this organization. If you think something is broken bring me clear dispassionate facts with some form of documentation or evidence and I will fix it. Please discourage people from engaging in conspiracy theories or personal attacks whenever you encounter them. Do not engage in playing mom against dad. I will eventually find out that you are shopping around for the answer you want and it will irritate me greatly.”

Yet, multiple sources indicate that problems and solutions brought forward to HTS management result in firings or reassignments for, as one put it, “not going along with the original idea.” Mrs. McFate-Sapone reportedly nixes any dissent or critique of the HTS program. She has been described by HTS personnel as “a poisonous individual,” “the crazy aunt in the room”, and a “hustler”. One said “you’ve got to watch your six with her.”

Almost a year into the HTT deployment cycle, the HTS program has finally produced a Human Terrain System Handbook. There is debate, according to sources, in the HTS program about the basic structure of the HTT teams. Some have complained that there is no mission-essential tasking listed for the teams. Should the Human Terrain Team Leader, who has no cultural intelligence of the area, be the brigade commander’s advisor? Or should it be the social scientist?

One deployed anthropologist suggested that a social scientist should be the direct advisor to the Brigade Commander, while another social scientist–who suggested the same idea and recently returned from theater–is being terminated for the same view. In correspondence dated September 23, 2008, Mrs. McFate-Sapone stated that while “[the] social scientist did a great job for the Battalion Commander… I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to have someone on staff who doesn’t actually believe in the HTS mission.” Yet, there was a simple disagreement with the HTT structure, not the mission.

Harsher comments were reserved for Fondacaro. Sources likened him to a madman. “He is sending neophytes into theater and they will get killed.” BAE Systems has relinquished control of its employees and leaves them at the mercy of Fondacaro who is referred to as an “idiot” and “the worse program manager the US Army has ever seen”, said sources. Training is a waste of time, money and resources, they say. Sources say that both Michael Bhatia and Nicole Suveges — HTT social scientists tragically killed while deployed — rarely showed up to training. Program participants in Bhatia’s class said they are not even sure what training he attended or which training cycle he was in. “Fondacaro was in a rush to get a ‘warm body’ into theater, so Michael was sent in prematurely,” said a source.

Pontius Pilate Approach

BAE Systems’ employees complain about not having any contact with their employer while deployed. That’s because Fondacaro is their direct contact. But his approach is to sweep all issues under the carpet and protect himself from any fallout from US Army Brigade Command that would cause him embarrassment. Individuals who complain or offer solutions to improve the program are fired or ostracized. Fondacaro pushes program troubles onto BAE Systems by saying the Human Terrain Teams deployed are under the responsibility of the US Army Brigade Command. Discussions with the media are prohibited unless approved by Fonadacaro.

In the midst of this turmoil, BAE Systems has made a Pontius Pilate economic decision that the profits to be taken from the HTS funding trough are worth the daily troubles. According to sources, BAE Systems’ vice president, Steve Braun, who oversees the HTS contract, speaks with Fondacaro almost daily. People working in Fondacaro’s office at Oyster Point, Virginia, have heard him yelling and ranting at Braun like a “madman.” Fondacaro dictates to BAE Systems whom he wants hired/fired from the HTS program, forcing them to comply or they risk losing the contract. “If Fondacaro wants to priority-hire a felon or manic depressant, then so be it. The value of the contract is lucrative enough BAE Systems will provide that service, according to a program participant.”

Contractors looking to make money on the HTS program should beware. According to a defense industry analyst, “Several major defense contractors imagine that HTS will eventually turn into a technology development program, against which they can sell elaborate sensor and processing systems. Aside from a potential use of COMINT (communications intelligence) and social mapping network software, I really doubt that any major, high-dollar-value programs will come out of HTS that would be compatible with technology acquisition.”

Kuwait Blues

Meanwhile over in Kuwait it’s late September 2008. HTS teams have been sent to staging areas in Kuwait. It’s hot, nerves are a bit frayed and there is tension in the air. The last thing that needs to happen is a nightmare of the logistics type and missteps by program management. The “last thing” happens according to sources/internal correspondence.

“Morale is very low and continues to drop daily. Many personnel are staying in Kuwait City at their own expense. Some have even found a hotel that only charges $150 a day, plus a high tax. Meals are expensive; hence the high per diem. Personnel now know that…knew about the BAE (Building 48) Letters of Authorization (LOA) SNAFU but kept it to …,with the exception of your hint of delay to a few. Per HTS management e-mail that we are competing with 1000’s to get our LOAs fixed, and since it is doubtful Continental United States (CONUS) personnel other than Regional Readiness Command (CRC) work weekends, it’s anyone’s guess how long we will be stuck here. Personnel know that…used the Thursday we were at CRC to go to an all day beauty spa and get the works. Hence when personnel needed processing assistance, no one was available since…drove…to Atlanta. I saw…momentarily from a distance on Friday, movement day to ‘Freedom Hall.’ You can imagine comments that have been made that neither…saw HTS personnel off. Personnel are asking about returning to CONUS and waiting for the LOA SNAFU to get fixed. Some have suggested all contractors depart in mass and return home since their pay has been cut and weekends are not included while in Kuwait. Even paying for the flight out-of-pocket is cheaper than living on the economy.”

This is a hell of a way to run a program based on an idea that is so vital to the nation.

Writing in late September 2008, a source had this to say, “I was treated horribly. I have filed a complaint with the inspector general. If they do not address it, I plan on filing a Congressional.”

Sphere Related Content

US Army Human Terrain System in Disarray

Millions of Dollars Wasted, Two Lives Sacrificed

Pravda, July 23, 2008

by John Stanton

According to sources, United States Army brigade commanders privately believe that the US Army’s TRADOC Human Terrain System (HTS) program is a “joke” and completely unnecessary. The HTS program is publicly supported by brigade military commanders, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, only because it is a “pet project” of the currently politically popular US Army General David Petraeus.

BAE Systems, the prime contractor on the project, has repeatedly been pressured by the HTS program manager and his staff to hire individuals who are not field-experienced ethnographers/anthropologists, but rather Google-fed political and social scientists. In two cases, pre-security clearance award investigations revealed that one candidate recommended for hire by senior staff was a felon. The other candidate had health problems that would have compromised the functions of a deployed Human Terrain Team (HTT). BAE Systems has been the punching bag for the poor decision-making of HTS program managers and advisors.

The tragic deaths of two HTS members — HTT IZ3 Nicole Suveges and HTT AF1 Michael Bhatia — came amidst program management’s confusion over roles and missions, ignorance of threat situations, even dress code problems. Key questions remain open. What’s the role of a civilian ethnographer/anthropologist working with the military in a combat zone? Is a civilian trained to respond to a threat without threatening the life of the team? Should they carry weapons and wear military gear? Are they there to enhance the kill chain, organize and facilitate sporting events, or examine trash dumps for behavioral patterns? What kind of data do warfighters and negotiators really want? What happens when the HTT leaves the site of success? What’s the historical experience of the US military with human geographers? (see David Price, Anthropolgical Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War: Duke University Press, 2008).

Whether all this mattered in the deaths of Suveges and Bhatia is utterly debatable. But according to sources, Suveges was a no-show at many training sessions at Fort Leavenworth and not properly trained for work in a combat zone. She was sent initially to the United Kingdom to recruit there for the HTS program and then afterwards was ultimately deployed to the volatile Sadr City in Iraq where three weeks later she met her end. One insider had predicted prior to her death that “someone was going to get killed.”

One of the HTS prime movers, TRADOC HTS Senior Social Scientist, Mrs. Montgomery McFate (Phd, JD), took a seven month sabbatical on the eve of the first deployment of the HTT’s to Iraq in 2007. Whatever guidance she had to offer the fledgling HTT’s would have to wait months until her sabbatical ended. Not bad for a $200,000 base salary and $200,000 in overtime, according to reports.

Allegations of HTS members plagiarizing Defense Intelligence Agency reports and articles from anthropology-specific blogs have been made. Remotely using search engines/databases and attending conferences to troll for HTS-related data, and passing that off as legitimate field data, are also alleged. HTS program funds may also have been used to allow participants to gain advanced degrees.

At the helm of it all is program manager Steve Fondacaro who has been described as a “great used car salesman” but not interested in programmatic details. One of his current goals is to market the HTS program to the controversial AFRICOM project and keep the funding alive. But his task will be difficult. On his watch the Pentagon/taxpayers lost $15 million on the MAP HT software/hardware effort. The MAP HT software/hardware apparently sits unusable with the blue wiring connections still hanging from shelves where the system was to have been housed and operated.

Sources indicate that sexual dalliances, falsified leave forms, crony no-bid contracts to Fondacaro colleagues (one in which deliverables were not fully provided), and verbal harassment of civilian staff have compromised the US Army’s TRADOC program. The hiring of a former Lincoln Group strategic communications specialist to handle public relations is a sure sign of trouble.

Worse still, the reach-back center at Fort Leavenworth remains understaffed. According to a source, the staff is “in a pinch” because Fondacaro is alleged to have used billets meant for reach-back operations to hire non-essential staff. Reach-back staff at Fort Leavenworth and HTT members in the field “do not communicate,” according to reports.

It is not clear whether Secretary Gates or General Petraeus are aware of these problems but they should be. Warfighters in the battlespace should not have to spend their time babysitting those who have an itch to play Army or engage in a proof-of-concept program that has, in one form or another, been behind every US attempt to colonize and/or subdue an intransigent population since the nation’s founding. While the funding for the HTS program is not large, mere millions, that money could be used to enhance training for Special Operations fighters or even buy better equipment for them. America’s uniformed soldiers have been experimented with and on — whether via faulty national security policy and tactics or recycled physical and social science — for the last eight years. That’s enough!

•••••••

MF: It would be interesting to see the responses, if any, from people at the HTS. As far as I can see, there has been no public response yet, and if none is forthcoming that would suggest that either they have not read the report, or are unable to challenge its contents.