Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Vaguely Homoerotic Navy Recruitment Posters
An interesting blog post titled The Gayest Generation: Navy Recruiting Posters from World Wars I & II. Check it out HERE.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Anthropology controversy: Human Terrain program
Wired
Academics Turn On "Human Terrain" Whistleblower
By Noah Shachtman EmailDecember 03, 2007 | 3:52:42 PMCategories: Human Terrain
The fight between the Army and academics over the military's social science projects has taken a strange, ugly new turn.
On Thursday, Zenia Helbig, a former researcher with the Army's "Human Terrain System," took the stage at the annual meeting of the American Association of Anthropologists. The executive board of the organization had already spoken out against the program, to embed social scientists into combat units as cultural advisers. And so when Helbig began taking the the military to task for its "inept management and execution at every level" of the Human Terrain effort, audience members nodded their heads in approval. (Here is the text of Helbig's talk.)
But as Helbig started answering questions, the mood turned ugly. Turns out Helbig still backed the idea of boosting the military's cultural IQ -- she just didn't think the Human Terrain program was doing a particularly good job at making it happen. That set some in the audience off. Why, they demanded to know, was she still sticking with the military? And wasn't she "embarrassed" by her fiancee, Captain Matthew Tompkins, for continuing to serving as a Human Terrain team leader in Iraq?
People in the audience began to clap. Helbig began to cry. And one of the biggest critics of the Human Terrain System, George Mason University professor Hugh Gusterson, had to stand up, and tell the collected academics to stop their jeering.
"They just didn't want to hear anything that didn't jive with their conspiracy theories," Helbig tells DANGER ROOM.
Inside Higher Education has more from the meeting. After the jump: excerpts from Helbig's speech.
Having spent four months with the Army, I can’t stress to you the tremendous need for both social science and academic rigor in the military. More particularly... the Army is in need of regional experts, who possess a knowledge of the history, culture and languages of both Iraq and Afghanistan... Yet even HTS, despite its millions of dollars of funding, is proving incapable of delivering those much needed skills to the military in Iraq. HTS has proven unable to deliver because of its own internal tensions, and due to a lack of professionalism, organization, and general competence on the part of its staff, contractors and administrators.
HTS’ greatest problem is its own desperation. The program is desperate to hire anyone or anything that remotely falls into the category of “academic”, “social science”, “regional expert”, or “PhD”. As such, the program has made numerous regrettable decisions regarding both its civilian and military personnel. HTS currentl y has 18 individuals serving down range – 8 in uniform and 10 civilians in Iraq, working as social scientists, linguists and analysts. The 10 civilians include:
* 3 PhDs in Anthropology, none of whom have prior regional knowledge
* 1 civilian with “Arabic proficiency” and an MA in something IR-related, currently serving as a Social Scientist
* 2 native Arabs working as analysts, one of which has relatively poor English, and neither of which seems to have prior work experience as a linguist or analyst
* and 2 prior-service individuals working as team leaders, both of which seem to have served in the Middle East, but neither of which has studied the Middle East...
If AAA [American Association of Anthropology] is concerned with the welfare of the civilian populations in question, please consider whether these populations are better served by anthropologists primarily concerned with maintaining their ethical purity or by anthropologists teaching the military to engage populations more effectively. Your collective ethical concerns would be relevant if the military were onl y “fighting the enemy” and nothing more. In a situation where the military has been ordered to create governments, restore public services, rebuild economies and foster social ties within stratified societies, anthropologists should ask themselves if they want to leave such complex tasks in the hands of people who almost universally have little training and no pre-existing interest in either these tasks or the population.
Academics Turn On "Human Terrain" Whistleblower
By Noah Shachtman EmailDecember 03, 2007 | 3:52:42 PMCategories: Human Terrain
The fight between the Army and academics over the military's social science projects has taken a strange, ugly new turn.
On Thursday, Zenia Helbig, a former researcher with the Army's "Human Terrain System," took the stage at the annual meeting of the American Association of Anthropologists. The executive board of the organization had already spoken out against the program, to embed social scientists into combat units as cultural advisers. And so when Helbig began taking the the military to task for its "inept management and execution at every level" of the Human Terrain effort, audience members nodded their heads in approval. (Here is the text of Helbig's talk.)
But as Helbig started answering questions, the mood turned ugly. Turns out Helbig still backed the idea of boosting the military's cultural IQ -- she just didn't think the Human Terrain program was doing a particularly good job at making it happen. That set some in the audience off. Why, they demanded to know, was she still sticking with the military? And wasn't she "embarrassed" by her fiancee, Captain Matthew Tompkins, for continuing to serving as a Human Terrain team leader in Iraq?
People in the audience began to clap. Helbig began to cry. And one of the biggest critics of the Human Terrain System, George Mason University professor Hugh Gusterson, had to stand up, and tell the collected academics to stop their jeering.
"They just didn't want to hear anything that didn't jive with their conspiracy theories," Helbig tells DANGER ROOM.
Inside Higher Education has more from the meeting. After the jump: excerpts from Helbig's speech.
Having spent four months with the Army, I can’t stress to you the tremendous need for both social science and academic rigor in the military. More particularly... the Army is in need of regional experts, who possess a knowledge of the history, culture and languages of both Iraq and Afghanistan... Yet even HTS, despite its millions of dollars of funding, is proving incapable of delivering those much needed skills to the military in Iraq. HTS has proven unable to deliver because of its own internal tensions, and due to a lack of professionalism, organization, and general competence on the part of its staff, contractors and administrators.
HTS’ greatest problem is its own desperation. The program is desperate to hire anyone or anything that remotely falls into the category of “academic”, “social science”, “regional expert”, or “PhD”. As such, the program has made numerous regrettable decisions regarding both its civilian and military personnel. HTS currentl y has 18 individuals serving down range – 8 in uniform and 10 civilians in Iraq, working as social scientists, linguists and analysts. The 10 civilians include:
* 3 PhDs in Anthropology, none of whom have prior regional knowledge
* 1 civilian with “Arabic proficiency” and an MA in something IR-related, currently serving as a Social Scientist
* 2 native Arabs working as analysts, one of which has relatively poor English, and neither of which seems to have prior work experience as a linguist or analyst
* and 2 prior-service individuals working as team leaders, both of which seem to have served in the Middle East, but neither of which has studied the Middle East...
If AAA [American Association of Anthropology] is concerned with the welfare of the civilian populations in question, please consider whether these populations are better served by anthropologists primarily concerned with maintaining their ethical purity or by anthropologists teaching the military to engage populations more effectively. Your collective ethical concerns would be relevant if the military were onl y “fighting the enemy” and nothing more. In a situation where the military has been ordered to create governments, restore public services, rebuild economies and foster social ties within stratified societies, anthropologists should ask themselves if they want to leave such complex tasks in the hands of people who almost universally have little training and no pre-existing interest in either these tasks or the population.
Third 'Human Terrain' Researcher Dead
Wired
Third 'Human Terrain' Researcher Dead
By Noah Shachtman EmailJanuary 08, 2009 | 3:26:21 PMCategories: Human Terrain
Loyd For the third time in eight months, a social scientist with the Army's Human Terrain cultural research program has died.
In early November, while on patrol in an Afghan village, Paula Loyd was doused with a flammable liquid, and set on fire. She suffered second- and third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body. Loyd was rushed to a nearby medical center, where she was treated by a burn specialist. Shortly thereafter, Loyd was evacuated to the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and then to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. But after a two month struggle, she was overcome by her injuries.
This is the latest in a series of attacks on Human Terrain personnel. In May, Michael Bhatia, an Oxford-trained political scientist working in eastern Afghanistan, was killed, along with two soldiers, by a roadside explosive. Less than two months later, a bomb detonated inside the Sadr City District Council building in Iraq. Social scientist Nicole Suveges was inside. She and 11 others died instantly.
The small staff of the Human Terrain program is "reeling" from this latest death, one employee tells Danger Room. "Paula dearly loved Afghanistan -- it showed in the way her face lit up whenever she spoke of it. In the field, her work was stellar, and more than that, she was deeply kind, too. We'll miss her terribly."
The incident that took her life continues to have repercussions, here in the United States. Shortly after Loyd was burned, her assailant, Abdul Salam was allegedly shot in the head by Don Ayala, Loyd's Human Terrain colleague. Ayala was then taken into custody, and charged with 2nd degree murder in U.S. District Court. A Virginia grand jury is scheduled to hear Ayala's case, by the end of the month.
Third 'Human Terrain' Researcher Dead
By Noah Shachtman EmailJanuary 08, 2009 | 3:26:21 PMCategories: Human Terrain
Loyd For the third time in eight months, a social scientist with the Army's Human Terrain cultural research program has died.
In early November, while on patrol in an Afghan village, Paula Loyd was doused with a flammable liquid, and set on fire. She suffered second- and third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body. Loyd was rushed to a nearby medical center, where she was treated by a burn specialist. Shortly thereafter, Loyd was evacuated to the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and then to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. But after a two month struggle, she was overcome by her injuries.
This is the latest in a series of attacks on Human Terrain personnel. In May, Michael Bhatia, an Oxford-trained political scientist working in eastern Afghanistan, was killed, along with two soldiers, by a roadside explosive. Less than two months later, a bomb detonated inside the Sadr City District Council building in Iraq. Social scientist Nicole Suveges was inside. She and 11 others died instantly.
The small staff of the Human Terrain program is "reeling" from this latest death, one employee tells Danger Room. "Paula dearly loved Afghanistan -- it showed in the way her face lit up whenever she spoke of it. In the field, her work was stellar, and more than that, she was deeply kind, too. We'll miss her terribly."
The incident that took her life continues to have repercussions, here in the United States. Shortly after Loyd was burned, her assailant, Abdul Salam was allegedly shot in the head by Don Ayala, Loyd's Human Terrain colleague. Ayala was then taken into custody, and charged with 2nd degree murder in U.S. District Court. A Virginia grand jury is scheduled to hear Ayala's case, by the end of the month.
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