Petraeus Quietly Disses ‘Human Terrain’

[unhappycamper]

Petraeus Quietly Disses ‘Human Terrain’
By The Security Crank Email Author
September 3, 2010 | 11:18 am

Did Gen. David Petraeus just call the Human Terrain System worthless? With a few choice sentences to the Wall Street Journal, the top commander in Afghanistan highlighted the disconnect between what the Army’s social science program is supposed to be doing — and what’s actually happening in the field.

“We have never had the granular understanding of local circumstances in Afghanistan that we achieved over time in Iraq,” Petraeus told the Journal. “One of the key elements in our ability to be agile in our activities in Iraq during the surge was a pretty good understanding who the power brokers were in local areas, how the systems were supposed to work, how they really worked.”

Under Gen. Petraeus’ predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization tried to overhaul its intelligence collection, to focus more on learning about individual tribes and local Afghan leaders. Gen. Petraeus said only now the military was getting an “understanding of local circumstances, customs and tribal relationships.”

~snip~

But a lot of them aren’t. For one reason or another, they are not connecting with their units’ leadership, or they cannot find people within the chain of command to read their reports, or they are just plain old unable to get out and do their research. Or, in some cases, they do really poor research. The important part here is, whatever the reason, the Human Terrain System is failing to do its job, which is to support and advise the U.S. military on the social organization and environment of Afghan communities.

Petraeus already has assets in-country that are assigned the task of identifying who to talk to, and of developing the means to talk to them. But they’re un-used, misused, ignored, crushed by their own chain of command, or staffed with morons who can’t do their job. No wonder he’s having trouble getting a feel for the local culture.

[Schema Thing]

1. his boots are on, so that's not a good sign

[Angry Dragon]

2. Perhaps he thinks "Human Terrain" means

making hills and mountains out of body bags and civilian deaths