Afghanistan: Embedded anthropologists and the state of the war

Vanessa Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center

Journalist Vanessa Gezari answers your questions about her story on the Human Terrain program in Afghanistan for The Washington Post Magazine. She writes from Helmand Province, where she is embedded with a Human Terrain team attached to the Marines.

Check back soon for additional responses!

Hi Vanessa!

I hope that this finds you well. I'm curious about the hiring and vetting process for the anthropologists who sign onto the human terrain program. In the article you mention that most anthropologists who have knowledge about Afghanistan don't want to work with the military, but what is the skill level of those who are eventually hired? Do Karl and Banger speak Pashto? Do you feel like they are well-informed about Afghanistan's history and government?

Also, what is the Afghan government's view of the program, and is that likely to change after the election results?

Posted by: David Sasaki | August 31, 2009 at 10:58 AM

Hi David,

Good to hear from you! You raise some excellent questions. I'm still trying to piece together a coherent picture of the hiring and vetting process for anthropologists and other Human Terrain team members. My understanding is that BAE Systems has the contract to recruit and hire for the Human Terrain System (HTS), meaning that they and their subcontractors advertise when personnel are needed, collect resumes and conduct job interviews. This is true even though the people working for HTS are no longer contractors but government employees (I just got an email last week from a guy who told me that BAE hired him for the program and he's about to start his training). At least one former Human Terrain team member told me that the people who interviewed him knew nothing about the region or anthropology, which surprised and dismayed him. I've been told that the people who run the program conduct additional vetting during stateside training, which can last up to seven months. (If any current or former HTS staffers or team members know more about this, feel free to comment.)

As you'd expect under this system, the skill level of the team members varies widely. I've met some who know quite a bit about Central Asia or the Middle East, who have spent time there in the military, as contractors, with civilian agencies or doing field research. I've met others who have never been to Iraq or Afghanistan, but have served in the military elsewhere or have relevant language skills. And I've met some who have social science backgrounds but may have worked in completely different geographic areas, and who seem unprepared for a combat zone. It's a very mixed bag.

Neither Karl nor Banger speaks more than a few words of Pashto, and when I was with them (after they'd been in country about a month) neither knew much about Afghanistan. However, their team included a Farsi linguist, a Dari speaker with a lot of experience in Afghanistan and a guy with a master's in Central Asian studies who speaks passable Pashto. Rumsfeld famously said that you fight with the Army you have; the journalistic corollary is that you work with the sources you have and tell the best story you can under the circumstances. Karl and Banger were the team members doing the most work on the ground during the period of my embed, and they were very gracious in sharing their experiences and letting me tag along on their patrols. I also think they're indicative of a larger truth about HTS. People join this project for all kinds of reasons, including that, like Karl, they want to serve and contribute, they have skills that might be valuable and, importantly, they don't think like soldiers. I think this last point is really worth paying attention to. We have never had enough civilians – or at least non-military thinkers – on the front lines of this war, and it's been a major stumbling block. In some ways, HTS can be seen as an early iteration of the civilian surge proposed by the Obama administration this spring. The military may be this era's go-to entity for nation building, but it can't – and shouldn't – do this alone.

I don't know what the Afghan government's view of the project is. That's something I hope to learn more about in the coming months. I'd guess it's not high on their radar screen right now, given everything else that's going on. But that could change as HTS ramps up here.

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Hello Vanessa - How long do anthropologists embed with military forces in the field? Has there been much progress in the last two years? All the news indicates a worsening situation in Afghanistan. Thank you, Anne

Posted by: Anne H. | August 31, 2009 at 01:27 PM

Hi Anne, thanks for your question. HTS anthropologists are asked to deploy for six, nine or 12 months, but I know of some who have stayed less than six months and others who have done multiple tours. One good thing about the HTS structure is that the teams are designed to overstay their military units, meaning that when a new unit rotates in, the Human Terrain team that was attached to the previous unit stays on to familiarize the new unit with the area of operations. This can be a big help, because in the past much institutional knowledge was lost when one military unit replaced another. It was as if the war began again at the beginning of each new deployment.

You're right that the situation in Afghanistan has been worsening. The country is dramatically less secure than it was when I first started reporting here in 2002, and the weakness and corruption of the government as well as violence inflicted by insurgents and coalition forces have eroded the optimism many Afghans felt in the period after the Taliban fell. But progress here is always uneven. In Helmand, where I am now, the area of land devoted to poppy cultivation has fallen by 33 percent compared with last year; yet the insurgency here is alive and well. I still have hope for this place, but things seen likely to get worse before they get better.

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I don't think there is anything worth winning in Afghanistan. The government is totally corrupt. The country is not under the control of the national government. We have been there for 8 years and have nothing to show for it. I think that Afghanistan is not worth the life of one more American or British soldier. I was in Vietnam, and the whole show in Afghanistan has a familiar ring to me. We get deeper and deeper and then try to justify the KIA's by sending more troops.

Posted by: John King | August 31, 2009 at 07:04 PM

Hi John, I have to disagree with you that the Afghan government is "totally corrupt." There is a lot of corruption here, but there are good, hard-working public servants and security forces here too, people who have lived through decades of war in this country and badly want things to change. The US has been in Afghanistan for eight years, but we have been monumentally distracted. Why should Afghan civilians, who have suffered far more losses than we have, be forced to pay for our inattention and failed policies? We roared in here when Afghanistan was a pressing national security problem, and have since decided that building a working civilian government and a viable military are key to long-term security. Whether or not you agree with this, it's indisputable that if we leave now, we'll have failed to secure ourselves against another threat from the region and failed the Afghan people on a large scale.

The least we could do before we go is lay the groundwork for some kind of political settlement here that protects Afghan civilians. I don't believe that the US or any other country can ultimately secure Afghanistan. Afghans have to take responsibility for their security and success, and many have. Others have taken advantage of this war for power and profit, and U.S. leaders have often supported them. If we leave, they will continue to destroy this place. I'm not just talking about the many groups that we collectively refer to as "Taliban," but about the drug lords and commanders who have used their power to prey on ordinary Afghans for years. If we do one thing in Afghanistan, it should be to create a working justice system, so that Afghans of any ethnic group or socioeconomic class can have their grievances addressed by a powerful and neutral judge. This should have been our top priority when we got here eight years ago, but it wasn't. We're paying the price for that now.