Posted on 03/09/2016 1:33:46 PM PST by detective
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Obama sees the military as his personal social experimentation playground.
Whew, I thought we were talking about Outcome and LARX...
No wonder that suicide rates are so high with these scientific frauds neck deep in it.
My recollection of the Human Terrain System was that it was focused on non-Americans in our areas of operation - who is is who, how they relate and what motivates them.
It was part and parcel of Petraeus championing a counter-insurgency approach. With the Americans turning over every few months or every year, they needed good info on the people they would work with, and among.
Sending political officers out with the troops was a hallmark of the Stalin regime - no wonder obama’s embraced it.
The only time ever that a Sociology major made $280,000 a year.
And only showed up to hit on the cute troops.
In the Red Army they are called "Political Officers."
why is obama?
Social Scientists?
Oh yes.
Back in the old days the Russians had those. They called the political officers. They kept the morale up at Stalingrad.
“Social Scientists” = PC Narcs
We’ll end up with a commissar assigned to each battalion.
“They kept the morale up at Stalingrad.”
Or else.
I guess these ‘scientists’ may get the chance to study first hand the nuanced meanings of the term ‘fragged’.
Most of the comments reflect the overall ignorance of this program and what these people did. At first, they were contractors and, then later, they were civilian employees. They were never part of the chain of command, their purposes were to advise commanders about the culture, behaviors, and possible reactions of the local populace to military activities. This information can be invaluable in the environment that we faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, academics and the military can be polar opposites, especially of those from the humanities disciplines. That was Problem #1, but not the biggest problem.
The biggest problem was the guy that the Army put in charge. He was brilliant and a high energy guy who made things happen. He was given the carte blanche. Unfortunately, he also discovered the the female PhD lead scientist turned out to be a helluva fart sack warmer and she went way beyond the specified tasks laid out in the contract. She also apparently liked her compensation arrangement with bonuses when she maximized profits, so she started submitting falsified invoices. With problem #1 coming to the attention of the senior leaders, they discovered Problem #2 and both of these love birds were sent packing.
Like many things in life graft, corruption, and sex is much more important than political ideology, the fact that this sort of things happen more often in a Democrat administration is not an accident, however.
Source of the COIN failure in Afghanistan.
We had one of these Human Terrain Teams with us in Iraq in 2008-09. It was staffed by several liberal PhD types who had a “rainbow stew” vision of a post-US occupied Iraq. I told one of the what I thought would happen and she disagreed (with her blinders on). Turns out I was right. And I’ve only got an associates degree. But then again, I live in the real world.
Sad part is, she didn’t even wake up the slightest when her friend was killed by an IED. Liberals in denial cost lives.
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