Page 34 of 48 FirstFirst ... 24323334353644 ... LastLast
Results 661 to 680 of 945

Thread: Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

  1. #661
    Council Member 120mm's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Wonderland
    Posts
    1,284

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
    IThe ironic thing is you keep using 'foreign' -- in a sense and with a use with which I have consistently agreed -- and seem to me to be saying that since Asians and their reasoning or approach to things are not foreign to you, they are therefor not different -- yet all the while acknowledging there are differences, if generally indirectly...
    I'm not saying they aren't different; I'm saying the differences aren't fundamental. Rather they are variations on a theme. I see human beings as being more alike than they are different. Kind of a "glass half full" thing.

    On the other hand, there appears to be no end of people who comment about how fundamentally different people are, depending on their culture/national identity. I'm saying it's more accurate to say they are cosmetically different.

  2. #662
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    8,060

    Default Agree, noting that even minor differences can be militarily important.

    Quote Originally Posted by 120mm View Post
    I'm not saying they aren't different; I'm saying the differences aren't fundamental . . . I'm saying it's more accurate to say they are cosmetically different.
    No argument on that; People as they say are people. My point all along has simply those differences do exist and they need to be considered in military decision making because subtle and cosmetic though they may be, they can still be problematic -- reporting of numbers is a great and simple example...

    Re: your earlier clarifying post Post on HTTs:
    The primary problem with The Army is that they suck at self-examination. Too many people at too high of levels focused on their own rice bowl. HTS isn't perfect, but at least they are outsiders, capable of seeing the problems.
    Forgot to mention earlier that I agree with that as well.

    Who sez we were talking past each other...

  3. #663
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    The State of Partachia, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean
    Posts
    3,947

    Default Culture is vital

    ...my sole point being that while it is all too easy to screw up or not understand folks, the getting to understand is pretty simple.

    I live in a very complex multi-cultural society, and religiously diverse beliefs and practices, but it's pretty easy to work out how the whole place works, and who hates who, and why, once you know what each believes and why. History is usually the key and history can be learnt.

    I'm still fascinated to know how we could have employed HTTs in Sierra Leone, for example, which has a good few competing ethnic and tribal groups.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

  4. #664
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    8,060

    Default True dat

    It is easy to understand other cultures -- if one wants to do so; it's the dummy who don't wish to or who are too lazy to do so that are problematic. Been my observation that generally the former far outnumber the latter and most suffer from over active egos...

    I think the HTTS are like any other operational tool; there are times when they're appropriate and times when they aren't. They would, for example, have been of little use to the US in Central America some years ago (to provide a corollary to Sierra Leone).

  5. #665
    Council Member 120mm's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Wonderland
    Posts
    1,284

    Default I couldn't find a better place to stick this

    But I found this to be funny, relevant and enlightening to the subject at hand:


  6. #666
    Council Member Beelzebubalicious's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    currently in Washington DC
    Posts
    321

    Default Paula Loyd

    Paula passed away recently. She was with her family and friends.

    Paula asked her family, in the event of her demise, to establish a program for girls in her memory at an Afghanistan school. The family will be providing details and I'm sure would be happy for support.
    Last edited by Beelzebubalicious; 01-08-2009 at 04:19 PM.

  7. #667
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    DeRidder LA
    Posts
    3,949

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Beelzebubalicious View Post
    Paula passed away recently. She was with her family and friends.

    Paula asked her family, in the event of her demise, to establish a program for girls in her memory at an Afghanistan school. The family will be providing details and I'm sure would be happy for support.
    I am sorry to her that. My best to her family and friends.

    Tom

  8. #668
    Council Member Ron Humphrey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Kansas
    Posts
    1,099

    Unhappy Very sorry to hear it

    Quote Originally Posted by Beelzebubalicious View Post
    Paula passed away recently. She was with her family and friends.

    Paula asked her family, in the event of her demise, to establish a program for girls in her memory at an Afghanistan school. The family will be providing details and I'm sure would be happy for support.
    seems to represent the kind of person she was.
    Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours

    Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur

  9. #669
    Council Member Beelzebubalicious's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    currently in Washington DC
    Posts
    321

    Default

    On another note, this report appeared recently in Wired magazine,

    Help Wanted: 'Human Terrain' Teams for Africa

    Now it looks like the human terrain teams -- or something very much like them -- are coming to Africa. Research and risk management firm Archimedes Global, Inc. recently sent out help-wanted ads for a new "socio-cultural cell" within U.S. Africa Command, the new regional military headquarters. Within two months of the contract start, the company will deploy a six-contractor team to eastern Africa.

  10. #670
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Estonia
    Posts
    3,817

    Default

    Hey Eric,
    Quote Originally Posted by Beelzebubalicious View Post
    On another note, this report appeared recently in Wired magazine,

    Help Wanted: 'Human Terrain' Teams for Africa
    Intriguing link and story, Thanks!

    While I've been an advocate of soldiers studying host country culture, language and awareness (especially in Sub-Sahara) prior to getting into deep Sierra, I'm going to remain a tad skeptical at this current job ad. Taking a look at Archimedes' site and the folks charged with this latest shindig doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.

    Not to toot my own horn, but we have (or at least had) well-trained and experienced CA, PSYOPS and countless other SF teams performing the very same. We've been pounding the sand demanding our soldiers be taught and learn something, but yet those that have, are merely replaced with yet another quick fix. Smells like status quo at least until the funding runs out and we find another acronym and task to replace it with.

    Regards, Stan
    If you want to blend in, take the bus

  11. #671
    Council Member marct's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Ottawa, Canada
    Posts
    3,682

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
    Hey Eric,
    Intriguing link and story, Thanks!
    Second that!

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
    While I've been an advocate of soldiers studying host country culture, language and awareness (especially in Sub-Sahara) prior to getting into deep Sierra, I'm going to remain a tad skeptical at this current job ad. Taking a look at Archimedes' site and the folks charged with this latest shindig doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.
    Yeah.....

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
    Not to toot my own horn, but we have (or at least had) well-trained and experienced CA, PSYOPS and countless other SF teams performing the very same. We've been pounding the sand demanding our soldiers be taught and learn something, but yet those that have, are merely replaced with yet another quick fix. Smells like status quo at least until the funding runs out and we find another acronym and task to replace it with.
    I think you're right about that, Stan. It strikes me that what is being tossed around at the conceptual level is an either/or scenario. It makes a lot of sense to have an academic style research reachback available, although hopefully operating at faster than academic speed , but on the ground? I think a mixed type of set up might work better - take the people with the training and experience, send in an anthropologist for ~3 months or so from the reachback group (cycle them all through), and let them work together.
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

  12. #672
    Council Member Beelzebubalicious's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    currently in Washington DC
    Posts
    321

    Default

    I think there's a place for rigorous and objective research as a basis for understanding the culture, politics and other facets of a given society.
    Anthropologists could be engaged in doing specific studies and briefing people in theater in a way that goes beyond the usual cross-cultural stuff that people get.

    By the way, the Millenium Challenge Corporation is going to issue a RFP any day now for a civic participation project in Rwanda that calls for the participation of Anthropologists. For example, see this recruitment ad on www.devex.com:

    "RTI International (www.rti.org) is accepting expressions of interest to fill a senior-level Anthropologist position for a three-year program funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) focusing on improving political rights, civil liberties, and accountability in Rwanda.

    RTI International seeks an Anthropologist with significant background in history or culture as it applies to modes of discourse, attitudes toward authority, and in assisting in the design of meaningful public participation experiences in Rwanda or similar setting."

  13. #673
    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SOCAL
    Posts
    2,152

    Default

    I'd like to take this thread slightly off the anthopological tack and delve into a question that has been grinding my gears for at least a week now.

    Imagine if you will, that you are serving as a PRT member, and are involved in bringing foreign businessmen into Iraq for the purpose of business development talks in an area where a foreign company was responsible for an agricultural project many years ago. Along for the ride is a certain blond DoD liaison representative who, while attractive and young, and a Harvard grad, has about zero wits about her when it comes to cultural sensitivity, and doesn't recognize the fact that her Uggs boots don't fit the freaking climate

    If you are said PRT and you are participating in an engagement with the "sheik of sheiks" of Iraq, and happen to know that there is a potential for many other sheiks to be present for impromptu discussions, would you require that the DoD liaison adhered to the basic cultural sensitivity nod of covering her head before she stepped into the ornate home of the host, even if it was a relaxed Queen Noor sort of way?

  14. #674
    Council Member Surferbeetle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    1,111

    Default More info needed...

    Jcustis,

    How much pull does your fictional DoD rep have?

    Perhaps this person is needed to facilitate an important advance meeting with a similar demographic of the Iraqi population that they can effectively influence and perhaps observe and internalize cultural 'norms' for this demographic. Engagement planning and post engagement discussions may help to orient them to your/The Shiek's concerns.

    After all this effort and coordination go for the consensus decision, if there is 'no time for this' then you make the call my friend.

    Regards,

    Steve
    Last edited by Surferbeetle; 01-17-2009 at 03:22 PM.
    Sapere Aude

  15. #675
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Montreal
    Posts
    1,602

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jcustis View Post
    I'd like to take this thread slightly off the anthopological tack and delve into a question that has been grinding my gears for at least a week now.
    I would take her aside and explain to her the cultural and political facts of life, and suggest that she wouldn't want to inadvertently compromise the mission by failing to adapt to local circumstances. How tactfully you do this depends, of course, on rank/influence/age issues.

    Of course, I can say this having never served in a PRT However, I wouldn't hesitate to straighten out a fellow consultant/team member when I'm on a field mission for a development agency.

  16. #676
    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SOCAL
    Posts
    2,152

    Default

    I suppose that for clarification, I need to say that this in fact did happen, and also make the correction that she was not a liaison, but rather on a fellowship, and responsible for some sort of tag-along responsibilities.

    My non-kinetic effects manager told the story from several days ago, as he was part of the movement for the delegation's junket. He is kicking himself for not stopping to make the point that she was out of place, in part because he unconsciously decided that if she had come all the way from the Green Zone that someone had to have screened her and thought she was good to go. When she interrupted a meeting of some 50 sheiks and walked past them all at the head sheik's bidding (he has very Western tendencies BTW), my guy did cut her off when she started asking who the PDK was and who the particular visiting sheiks were aligned with. He made the point that she needed to excuse herself, uncovered and all, and make for a bathroom until the meeting was over.

    Makes me think of Emerald City moments, and I am once again brought back to the reality that sometimes, we just don't freaking get it. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, but everything to do with the fact that it was just a stupid series of moments.

  17. #677
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Montreal
    Posts
    1,602

    Default HTTs meet HST?

    (...as in Hunter S. Thompson, that is.)


    Afghanistan: The New War for Hearts and Minds
    Men's Journal
    Wed, Jan 21, 2009

    ROBERT YOUNG PELTON goes deep inside America’s new, brainier strategy in Afghanistan and finds that, on the front line, scientists and soldiers don’t always mix. An absurdist tale of modern warfare.

  18. #678
    Council Member Surferbeetle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    1,111

    Default Thanks for the link to the article.

    From wikipedia

    Robert Young Pelton (b. July 25, 1955, Edmonton, Canada), is an author, journalist and documentary filmmaker. A self-styled adventurer, he considers himself a "witness" to conflict, rather than a serious journalist. He has witnessed conflicts such as the siege of Grozny in Chechnya, the battle of Qala-I-Jangi in Afghanistan, the rebel campaign to take Monrovia in Liberia. He embedded himself with the CIA during the hunt for Bin Laden, and spent time with both insurgents and Blackwater security contractors during the war in Iraq.[1]

    Pelton's regularly published guide The World's Most Dangerous Places, which provides practical and survival information for people who work and travel in high risk zones, was a best seller.[2] He was also host of the Discovery Travel Channel series "Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places" from 1998 to 2003. Now residing in Los Angeles, California, Pelton currently writes books and produces documentaries on conflict-related subjects. He is a popular interview subject appearing as an insightful expert with ground experience or as an often humorous raconteur of his various misfortunes and safety tips on shows as diverse as Oprah, Conan O'Brien, CNN, Fox, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and others. Most recently he has been in negotiations with the President of Equatorial Guinea regarding the arrested coup plotters, many of whom had worked for Executive Outcomes in the mid-1990s. The story behind the coup and his efforts to free Nick du Toit and Simon Mann are documented in the May 2008 Men's Journal "How to Stage a Coup".
    Sapere Aude

  19. #679
    Council Member Beelzebubalicious's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    currently in Washington DC
    Posts
    321

    Default

    I just read the Pelton piece. I feel warm and fuzzy. I'm afraid this guy is going to follow the footsteps of the recently kidnapped anti-kidnap expert.

    Although I think the crusade to bring culture to the military and pastures to the unpasturized is noble and good, I really do wonder how effective it can be in environments like afghanistan and iraq. Someone in the article stated that anthropologists would have been more effective back in 2001 when people would really talk. Perhaps it is too late at this point and at the point of engagement. I know there are efforts underway to improve our understanding of our adversaries and civilian cultures and that's great. It will take time to make a difference. And there are still a lot of hard realities that will always be there.

    Makes me think that the focus can and should be more on the softer side, the foreign service/diplomatic side. I think there's a lot more room for social science and anthropological analysis and tools in understanding a given society/culture. Embassies employ economic and political teams which attempt to understand societies and governments from these perspectives, but the cultural aspect is more about the exchange of culture (as in the arts). I always thought it would be interesting to have a culture team in the Embassy that does research and analyzes that society from a cultural/anthropological perspective. It would also help build up the cadre of trained, educated and informed people in every country that could be called upon to advise and assist when needed.

  20. #680
    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Honolulu, Hawaii
    Posts
    1,127

    Default

    This should be a case study in CGSC (or for LTG Caldwell) of piss poor PAO operations.

    WTF, let's send the major reporter out with a 1LT and a stressed out guard unit. Good idea.

    *sigh*
    "A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, Kelly's Heroes
    Who is Cavguy?

Similar Threads

  1. Terrorism in the USA:threat & response
    By SWJED in forum Law Enforcement
    Replies: 486
    Last Post: 11-27-2016, 02:35 PM
  2. Human Terrain Team study
    By Michael Davies in forum RFIs & Members' Projects
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-02-2011, 01:20 AM
  3. Human Terrain Team Member Killed in Afghanistan
    By SWJED in forum OEF - Afghanistan
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 05-09-2008, 08:05 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •