Since 2007, an experimental Pentagon program has been sending teams of civilian anthropologists and other social scientists into the hardest-fought regions of Iraq and Afghanistan to pursue a mission that's both deeply controversial and increasingly important to U.S. military strategy.
Good Intentions, Thwarted
Published August 30, 2009
Photos and audio reporting by Vanessa Gezari
Additional photos courtesy of U.S. Army Task Force 2-2
Editing by Megan Rossman of The Washington Post
U.S. soldiers are working with civilian anthropologists in the Human Terrain project to find new ways to win the trust of villagers in Afghanistan. But one Army unit's efforts to refurbish a mosque in a strategically important village are frustrated by Taliban interference.
Pulitzer Center-sponsored journalist Vanessa Gezari will speak about Afghanistan and her human terrain reporting project and the role of anthropologists at 1 p.m.
The Afghan army commander motioned the American lieutenant into his office. Lt. Col. Attaullah was 48, with gelled hair, blue-framed eyeglasses and the rigid bearing of a communist general. A...
Grantee
Vanessa M. Gezari writes about national and international affairs with a focus on Afghanistan, South Asia and West Africa. She was a national writer for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida...
