Army Set to Expand Program (HTS) it Claims it Killed by Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today
The Army misled Congress and taxpayers when it said it had killed in 2014 a program that embedded social scientists with combat units, according to a congressman, a Defense official and Army documents.
Last year, the Army said it had terminated the controversial battlefield anthropology program, known as the Human Terrain System, which had been plagued by documented time sheet fraud, racism and sexual harassment. It is not clear why the Army said the program was dead, according to a Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because officials were not authorized to speak publicly about the program.
Not only is the Human Terrain System alive, the official said, but the Army could expand it if more money becomes available.
Its continued existence and potential expansion outraged Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a member of the Armed Services Committee…
Comments
There were many wastes of money in Afghanistan but HTS has to be one of the silliest. Pay ~ $250,000 per year for "experts" in the cultures of the Plains Indians and Medieval Japan (who not surprisingly lacked any skill in Afghan languages to explain our supposed allies culture and politics etc. Meanwhile if you were a NGO you hired an educated local who spoke at least English, Dari and Pashtu to fill you in on what the lay of the land was. You paid him $1200 per month. He didn't need a ex sgt major to babysit him. There were no extra cost like air transport or leave. Ah! But could you trust him? Certainly better than the expert in the Lakota who was guessing. For $1200 a month you could always hire two and keep them apart.
Given western civilization's goal -- and related effort -- to transform the states and societies of other civilizations; this, more along our civilization's political, economic and social lines (much as the United States Department of State item provided below indicates) and
Given that resistance to this such initiative should be expected and, indeed, has been forthcoming; this, often necessitating western civilizations" use of military force. (This confirming that -- unlike what we had hoped -- such things as western "universal values" had not obtained.),
Then does this not suggest that our political and military leaders might have a need to better "know one's enemy;" that is, to better know the various alternative/different methods and principles upon which the populations of these "different" civilizations order and orient their lives? (And which, thus, stand directly in our way?)
Here are the excerpts from the U.S. Department of State item that I promised you above:
First: The rationale for transformation:
"Democratically governed nations are more likely to secure the peace, deter aggression, expand open markets, promote economic development, protect American citizens, combat international terrorism and crime, uphold human and worker rights, avoid humanitarian crises and refugee flows, improve the global environment, and protect human health."
Next: The successful track record of such transformations and the stated determination not to stop until we have achieved such transformations world-wide:
"When historians write about U.S. foreign policy at the end of the 20th century, they will identify the growth of democracy--from 30 countries in 1974 to 117 today--as one of the United States' greatest legacies. The United States remains committed to expanding upon this legacy until all the citizens of the world have the fundamental right to choose those who govern them through an ongoing civil process that includes free, fair, and transparent elections."
http://www.state.gov/j/drl/democ/
In the "conflict environment" that I describe above, would not the application of anthropology generally, and the use of something like Human Terrain Systems/Teams specifically (these in the service of our civilization's above-described political objective) not seem to make perfect sense?
My argument here possibly stated another way:
One definition of "development" is: "... the purposeful pursuit of economic, social and political goals through planned intervention."
(See the book: "Anthropology and Development: Culture, Morality, and Politics in a Globalized World," Introduction: Hope and Despair, Page 3, by Emma Crewe and Richard Axelby: http://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Development-Morality-Politics-Globali... use the offered "look inside" option.)
This definition of "development" looks stunningly like what I describe, above, as the central foreign policy goal, and method, of the United States/the West.
This being the case, then if anthropologists, in general, do not have a problem working in the "development" field, then (a) why would they have trouble working with our civilization's military, police and intelligence forces to achieve our such "development" goals re: other states and societies? And, given the important information that they might provide us in this regard (think, for example, "know one's enemy"), then (b) why would we not want to them to do so?
Yes I knew HTS was spun out of the early JIEDDO Naval Group that sat in Baghdad (their former commander was the first HTS Director) and that was already 2005/2006....and the HTS was also indirectly tied to a failed attempt by the Army at information warfare when they used an outside contractor to mold the press reporting.
NGIC or National Ground Intel Center was spun into JIEDDO as a cross sharer of funding but basically both did the same work ...just took different credits for the same reporting.
Same as the DOMEX program run by Booze Allen also a strong player in anything JIEDDO focused as well as BAE....there had to be reasons for the 6B being spent every year...
The core problem for both JIEDDO and HTS then and now is that there was really no major "successes to point to"...originally actually JIEDDO was the contracting conduit for all the various types of counter IED defeat equipment and that was actually a major success but then they spun themselves into an intel center and was off to the defense contracting races and hired 100s of defense contractor intel analysts which was the core of the 6B per year.
THEN out of the JIEDDO system came the so called Training Brain a massive simulation center which still sucks up millions and sits under the Army G2 in Virginia....and out of that was spun off the initial program called ISR Topoff which handled all the ISR unit training for the new ISR sensors being purchased and fielded largely in the later years of Iraq and AFG and the list of spin offs just keeps on keeping on......especially the new cloud based intel sharing concept that was to link down to every single battlefield soldier that is earning the defense contractors a ton of money and since the highly successful Russian electronic warfare currently being employed in eastern Ukraine....that concept seriously needs a relook.
Yes there was fraud and abuse along the way.....especially on the TDY funding for defense contractors.....which by the way even bleed into the DAC civil service world in Europe....that cost the US taxpayers 100s of millions of dollars that went straight into the bank accounts of both defense contractors and DAC civil service personnel...and actually did also bleed into the standard army personnel TDY process which just raised the taxpayers loss.
What most do not realize about HTS, is the Army has a massive credibility problem. It is not an "issue" but a specific and endemic serious problem. Lying to the American taxpayer is but ONE of many issues the Army creates. As far as the JIEDDO comment, I bet you didn't know the exact same players involved with the JIEDDO debacle are one and the same group of players involved with HTS? Even beyond JIEDDO and HTS, way back in the day there were huge issues surrounding Army NGIC and scandals involving a company called MZM, Inc and ASDC (you can google old news archives on this). Well, surprise - guess who were the same players all the way back then (with NGIC during the MZM, Inc and ASDC years/debacles and serious issues surrounding contract fraud - MILLIONS simply, gone). The fraud was so bad both MZM, Inc CEO (Mitchel Wade) and NGIC employees pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, etc.
So guess who was the leadership and same group of persons associated with that? Yep, you guessed it - exact same group of Army guys (fed employees) involved with JIEDDO and HTS. The American taxpayers should be outraged this type of behavior is allowed to continue!! OUTRAGEOUS! For years people have brought all this to light, only to have leadership protected and insulated to carry on. Essentially having several issues (NGIC, JIEDDO and HTS allegations of misappropriation of funds) swept under the rug and hide it ALL. This at the taxpayers gross expense. So yes, the Army doesn't just have a lying problem, the Army has a massive credibility problem. Thank God for Congressman Hunter!! He should run for President as he seems to be the ONLY Congressman in DC actually working to solve problems. Now THAT'S LEADERSHIP!! He should get a medal or something!!
Wow.....DoD lying to Congress......that cannot be because DoD and SecDef Carter never lies to Congress...come on.....get real.
Remember that other program called JIEDDO that virtually all studies stated...had to go because it was not cost effective at 6B USDs per year and it really did nothing to stop IEDs.....WELL it is still very much alive and well....just renamed and "hidden".....but still doing it's old mission set....AND did not need DoD say "it was dead and killed as well"???
As one who knows the original starting history of HTS and watched it's utter failures and saw it as a boondoggle costing millions for the US taxpayer starting in 2005 THIS does not surprise me at all.....
BUT we must I guess get use to DoD lying....somehow they must think they are going back to the good old COIN days.....