Rounding out the morning was Professor Michael Bishop, expert in something called Geographic Information Science. He showed a rapt audience how using remote sensing and computer maps of Afghanistan they can display numerous physical features of the country—soil quality, vegetation, water, snow, cloud cover, and many more—at high resolution at the click of a mouse. This capability has myriad applications, from the design of irrigation systems to prediction of floods to the location of safe construction sites. It will be made available via a “reachback” system now being developed to allow HTTs to consult distant experts and databases by email.
During their time in Omaha, HTT trainees have classes in the history and politics of Afghanistan in the 20th century, Pashtun society and culture, women in Afghanistan, religion in Afghanistan, the Afghan Army and its evolving structure, the globalization of religious extremism, medicine in Afghanistan, and the role of drugs in international terrorism. Six of their ten instructors are Afghans. It’s during their longer stay at Fort Leavenworth that they receive basic survival training and concentrate on social science methods and analysis. Some are sent to participate in exercises at a simulated Afghan village in Death Valley.
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