Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Newsweek
May 5, 2008
I was surprised to read NEWSWEEK's negative assessment of the U.S. Army's Human Terrain System, which is being employed in Iraq and Afghanistan to better understand these countries' cultures in an effort to reduce the human cost of war ("A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the Other," April 21). To claim Human Terrain Team members lack expertise is simply not true. The goal of HTS has always been to use teams to advise military commanders and staffs on the ground. These teams are composed of social scientists with the appropriate research skills and methodological approaches, retired and reserve military personnel and other team members with linguistic skills. Because Iraq and Afghanistan have been closed to research for many decades, there are very few social scientists in the United States with the requisite knowledge. What social scientists bring to HTS is their ability to quickly learn how another society works and to communicate that knowledge to the military. That NEWSWEEK dismisses the efforts of those social scientists who have answered the call and taken on the challenges and risks to help make such a necessary program work is disappointing. HTS is another example of the sacrifice of the few for the good of the many.
Gen. William S. Wallace, Commanding General, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Va.
Editor's Note: The article by Dan Ephron and Silvia Spring appeared in the Current News Early Bird, April 14, 2008.
May 5, 2008
I was surprised to read NEWSWEEK's negative assessment of the U.S. Army's Human Terrain System, which is being employed in Iraq and Afghanistan to better understand these countries' cultures in an effort to reduce the human cost of war ("A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the Other," April 21). To claim Human Terrain Team members lack expertise is simply not true. The goal of HTS has always been to use teams to advise military commanders and staffs on the ground. These teams are composed of social scientists with the appropriate research skills and methodological approaches, retired and reserve military personnel and other team members with linguistic skills. Because Iraq and Afghanistan have been closed to research for many decades, there are very few social scientists in the United States with the requisite knowledge. What social scientists bring to HTS is their ability to quickly learn how another society works and to communicate that knowledge to the military. That NEWSWEEK dismisses the efforts of those social scientists who have answered the call and taken on the challenges and risks to help make such a necessary program work is disappointing. HTS is another example of the sacrifice of the few for the good of the many.
Gen. William S. Wallace, Commanding General, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Va.
Editor's Note: The article by Dan Ephron and Silvia Spring appeared in the Current News Early Bird, April 14, 2008.