by Jennifer C. HuntHTS Double Agent Promises Scandal but Comes Up Short
John Allison is a human terrain team social scientist who went through training at Fort Leavenworth and then resigned before going down range. In the last few days, he’s published a 54 page scathing critique of HTS and what he calls the military industrial complex in the blog, Zero Anthropology (http://zeroanthropology.net/2010/12/05/the-leavenworth-diary-double-agent-anthropologist-inside-the-human-terrain-system/). He quotes scholar David Price at various points, which added to my initial impression that maybe he’d have something intelligent to say about the relevant debate.
He doesn’t. I’m disappointed. His writing amounts to an insider report that promises revelations of scandalous proportions but turns into a polemical diatribe against HTS and the military industrial complex with minimal ethnographic or other support for most of his assertions.
I can’t figure out if he’s an archeologist or a cultural anthropologist. In either case,(1) he doesn’t appear to have applied his training to understanding the culture of the military, the dynamics between social scientists and defense contractors with prior military experience, and between contractors and active duty military personnel associated with various units that are trained in different ways. He’s also not tried to understand the dynamics of the multitude of organizations involved in HTS and how they contribute to the good and bad in the program.
Allison admits that he entered the program with the notion of changing the military mindset and then goes on to criticize the military for trying to do the same thing in Afghanistan – by encouraging Americanization (colonialism/ideological imperialism of whatever you want to call it ) and the implementation of a government that will work in the interests of the U.S. (I don’t dispute the latter goal. I’m just noting the contradiction in the way Allison thinks).
He seems to view his photographs of the building in which HTS is housed as uncovering the location of some kind of black-ops operation because training takes place in a basement, and the door is dark and labeled in such a way as to discourage unauthorized persons from entry. BIG DEAL!!! You have to get an I.D. to go upstairs in just about any building in New York City as well as police and other security related facilities. That doesn’t mean these buildings house big secrets or some sort of off the books torture chamber for detainees (no he doesn’t claim that – it’s just a metaphor).
The sad part of his report is that he doesn’t appear to have developed the kind of relationships with retired military and active duty personnel that would allow them to share insights into their way of thinking and create a dialogue. I can guarantee they don’t all think alike.
Allison claims that HTS is mainly a form of PR to make the public think we are mainly involved in the touchy- feely politics of cultural understanding rather than lethal operations down range. This isn’t the case. The military is involved in both types of operations and HTS, whether successful or not, wasn’t and isn’t intended to serve PR purposes alone. Some in HTS believe in the COIN mission of winning hearts and minds and would find it problematic to get involved directly in kinetic operations. Others wouldn’t think twice. In either case, the counterinsurgency goal of HTS teams is a lot more complex than Allison claims.
I agree with Allison on a few things and sort of agree on a few others but think he’s being simplistic:
l. I don’t like current reporting on the war(s). My reasons are different from Allison’s. I don’t like that we don’t see the dead and mutilated bodies of our soldiers, “the enemy,” or the civilians who are killed accidentally or as part of some other type of collateral damage. The war is sanitized for public consumption and so we remain passive in letting it go on.
2. Soldiers are trained to kill and to obey their commanders and go through the chain of command. This means that many of those in HTS who have been or are in the military may have fewer qualms about how HTS intelligence (“data”) is used by brigade commanders than some social scientists who are trained to protect human subjects. At the same time, I know of military personnel who are adamantly opposed to HTS getting involved in lethal operations and one or two social scientists who couldn’t care less if they did.
3. He is right, from what I have heard, that the training in research methods is a waste of time.
4.He claims BAE and the subcontractor that hired him are in cahoots because someone from BAE did his exit interview rather than someone in his firm. That’s totally ridiculous! The person at BAE contractors was assigned the role of facilitating the exit of personnel associated with HTS. Whether or not Allison’s subcontractor also has an exit procedure is up to them. Most subcontractors do. Maybe his didn’t. Sure the prime and its subcontractors attempt to have good relationships. After all both profit from sending qualified personnel down range. Allison appears to advocate a conspiracy theory about HTS and the contracting world that does not do justice to the complexity of the relationships.
On the other hand, a network analysis of the relationships between difference defense contractors down range and at home and members of congress and high ranking persons in the military etc. would be illuminating although I don’t know what it would illuminate.
6. Out of the blue, Allison claims that human terrain teams are involved in targeting. He gives no support to his claim. This may be true in some cases as a result of team decisions. It may be true in others as a result of individuals secretly sharing information. It may not be true in yet others, depending on the team. Yes. It’s true that brigade commanders can use information in any way they see fit and that could include targeting. It’s still a very far stretch to go from Allison’s experience in training to claiming that HTTs are routinely used in purposefully gathering intelligence for targeting.
In summary – Allison’s purported expose hits the dust and fizzles out under the weight of the author’s megalomania (his I know everything and more than you do mentality) and his lack of ability to use the skills in anthropology he apparently was taught. On the other hand, maybe he’s an archeologist and knows a lot about how to construct history from artifacts but not much about people and organizations. Then it’s the fault of HTS for hiring him.
(1) I have deleted the inflammatory “shame on him” that appeared in the original post.
(2) I have also deleted a reference to archeologists that could be interpreted as disrespectful to the field
Do you have a link to the article?
http://zeroanthropology.net/2010/12/05/the-leavenworth-diary-double-agent-anthropologist-inside-the-human-terrain-system/
Eric above. jch
Thank you, Jennifer Hunt and DB, for the opportunity to reply.
You will find my reply here:
http://zeroanthropology.net/all-posts/the-leavenworth-diary-double-agent-anthropologist-inside-the-human-terrain-system/#comment-15681
Cheers!
John Allison
John,
I have taken the liberty of excerpting your response from Zero Anthropology so my readers can see it in the “flesh” and I can respond although I have to check who DB is who’s letter you appear to be answering along with my blog. Reference is http://zeroanthropology.net/all-posts/the-leavenworth-diary-double-agent-anthropologist-inside-the-human-terrain-system/#comment-15681
“John Allison permalink
10 December 2010 5:35 pm
Dear, dear, dear, Ms BD, or is it Mr. BD, or Colonel BD?
Let me answer your angry doubts and questions first:
I am a cultural anthropologist; truly an ethnologist and ethnographer, who did his doctoral thesis research high in the area of the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan known as Nuristan; also referred to by Dupree – my in-country host and now-known CIA operative – in his definitive “Afghanistan” (1980), , as the homeland of “fiercely independent” people; who repelled the Brits, and now the USans hiding behind “NATO”, who lable it a “No-Man’s Land” after the disastrous defeats that they have suffered there.
I have also had considerable field experience in the Middle East, in Mexico and among American Indian nations.
I am NOT a Marketing Research Specialist as was the instructor in the classes that were labeled “Ethnographic Method”, whose dossier was strangely empty of such research into the inner cultural world of an indigenous people – as contrasted with the world of marketing psychology and statistical “modeling” of market audiences and clever graphics.
I am a Truth Teller, not a “liar”. And, clearly that is the burr under your saddle, on which rides the military supervision you are working for. And, so, I admitted from the beginning that one motivation was the disproportionate pay that I could earn; as it was with you and with almost all soldiers on both sides who are not hereditary members of the officer caste; the boots on the ground for both sides that profit the Global Warfare Industries. The people from the working class who do the dying for the profit-makers.
I also admitted to my Seminar Leader from the beginning that I had the doubts about my fit into the ideological position; doubts that later were validated.
My mind was open. My eyes were also open. I was taking notes.
My article is the result of long hours of self-examination as well as analysis of what I experienced and what I learned in further research. The essence of it is there.
And, you, my dear DB, don’t want it to be there – available to the world’s people. Just as you and your ilk don’t want the USA and the world to see the truth that is now being spread out before the world to see, on WikiLeaks.
You are either with the Truth, or you are against it.
Which side are you on, Boy, or Girl, or whomever is hiding behind “DB”?
God Save Julian Assange! … and David Price, and Hugh Gusterson, and our host here, Maximillian Forte. Such brave souls are the only hope for the American Way. It is those who want to mislead US citizens and want to mislead the world, that are Un-American, in the broadest sense, that includes all the nations of the Americas, not only the USA.”
Cheers!
John Allison
John,
I recognize that some of your comments are directed at a letter from DB, whoever that may be and not from me but I will take them one by one.
I’m glad to hear you are a cultural anthropologist. My comments about your ability to apply those skills to understand the military remain the same.
I never thought you were a marketing research specialist. I’ve never seen you but doubt you even dress like who my blog once referred to as camel-toe,a nickname given the research methods instructor by a retired member of the military and defense contractor in the program.
I’ve never accused you of being a liar so that must not pertain to my blog either. I don’t work for the military and never have. Truth is interpretation and point of view, at least that’s what phenomenologically oriented ethnographers like me think. While, I’ve never dismissed what you’ve said as a lie, I do think you’ve made more of some of your “findings” than they are worth and have not provided sufficient support to support your claims.
I have no problem with what I’ve read of David Price’s work. He’s an excellent scholar. I am disappointed in your “diary” “notes” or whatever was recently published in Zero Anthropology. I seem to remember reading something you wrote that was rather insightful, perhaps on the same website. I’m afraid the insights you had in that old post have been lost under the weight of polemics.
I dislike social scientists who dismiss other persons’ comments with such words as “God Save J.A”….”You are either with the Truth or against it” or “Which side are you on….” These sort of statements remind me of conservatives’ dismissal of arguments against those who oppose American foreign policy (including various wars) by saying that those who disagree with them are “unpatriotic” and hate America.
You have reduced yourself to the stereotypical image you have produced of the people you appear to loathe – this is unfortunate and does nothing to bolster your arguments.
It appears as though Julian Assange will at least be out on bail any minute but what about Bradley Manning? Solitary confinement for seven months so far without being tried and convicted of anything, without a trial, even. That’s wrong!
No, actually you’re wrong.
It’s called “pre trial confinement” and he was placed there in that status by his CO…or someone higher in his CoC, with concurrence by Staff SJA, based on the serious nature of the charges against him.
As he may eventually be charged with Treason, a capital offense under the UCMJ and Manual for Courts Martial, that’s where he’ll stay until trial.
As for solitary confinement, it’s to ensure he doesn’t get his skinny little ass beat on a daily basis by those in confinement who don’t share his hatred of our country and contempt for it’s laws with regard to aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war.
Don’t think for one minute that the UCMJ is analogous with civilian trial/legal procedures; it’s not. Although on the whole, service members enjoy more protection under the UCMJ than civilians have under Federal/State law and due process, in serious cases such as this, pre-trial confinement is not unusual.
Thanks Mike for the clarification and correction. jch
In contrast to JA Bradley Manning is a soldier who is being treated and tried according to the canons of the military system of justice. The notion of guilty until proven innocent doesn’t apply in the same way. A sad and interesting story because there’s a news blackout from DOD and, to some degree Manning’s lawyers (in order to protect him). We don’t know what he did and didn’t do and why and may never find out.
Please see Mike S’s comments’ that correct some confusions in my statement above. Most important is that Manning’s placement in what is called in the civilian vernacular “solitary confinement” is likely for his own protection so he is not beaten by other prisoners.
I’m still curious why he did what he did and what was going on in his head. I can’t assume that he leaked the information for political reasons such as a belief in transparency or in response to something personal. I expect his rationale will become apparent when he goes to trial.
It still strikes me as sad because he is young although I might change my mind when I learn more. However, in contrast to some I don’t view J.A. or Manning as heroes as others appear to do. Helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson is more my kind of hero…. He was the helicopter who intervened with the threat of “friendly fire” to stop the continued massacre of civilians at Mylai during the Vietnam War. There are many kinds of heroes but he is one in my book.
I personally hate it whenever I debate something with someone and they say “I’m only interested in the Truth” especially when spelled with a capital “T”. It is prententious, and bad rhetoric. It also usually accompanies a bad arguement.
Thank you Eric. I know. I don’t want to restart the hornet’s nest so I won’t add any further comments about the use of capital T.