Army kills controversial social science program (to put psychologists on battlefields)

Stars and Stripes ^ | 6/30/15 | Vanden Brook

[pabianice]

* This is NOT satire*

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — The Army has quietly killed a program that put social scientists on battlefields to help troops avoid unnecessary bloodshed and improve civilians' lives, an Army spokesman said Monday.

The initiative, known as the Human Terrain System, had been plagued by fraud and racial and sexual harassment, a USA TODAY investigation found.

HTS, which spent at least $726 million from 2007 to 2014 in Iraq and Afghanistan, was killed last fall, Gregory Mueller, an Army spokesman, said in an email.

Commanders in Afghanistan, where the U.S. combat mission ended last year, no longer had a need for the advice of civilian anthropologists...

Some team members, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY, filled out fake time sheets at the urging of supervisors to pad their paychecks. Some members were paid $280,000 per year for work that investigators doubt was done...Team members, who worked as federal government employees, were entitled to six months of paid leave when they returned home.

[17th Miss Regt]

Dear Lord! A jobs program for those that can’t find a sinecure teaching!

[Secret Agent Man]

This was an attempt to replace chaplains. Chaplains hold units together.

Secular relativist to replace theologic/moral.

Shrinks are often too effed up themselves and seeing other shrinks while treating others.

[mongo141]

Absolute insanity.

[Fred Hayek]

Replace chaplains with zampolits?

[doc1019]

This was an attempt to replace chaplains

Outstanding catch. You make a great point, never gave that a thought until now.

[RightGeek]

The commissar is not amused with your joking!

[RetiredTexasVet]

Put them and the JAG (political officers) right on the front lines with grunts .... not back at base camp but toting a 80 lb pact, carrying a rifle, and getting shot at like the rest of the troops .... there would be a significant attitude change immediately or just as viable some dead “do gooders and PC harpies”.

[1010RD]

Psychologists commit fraud and racial and sexual harassment who would have guessed it?

[gaijin]

Didn’t some Taliban guy throw FIRE on a female with working on this program...?

Stupidest program I have ever heard of in my life.

[Intolerant in NJ]

...no longer had a need for the advice of civilian anthropologists...while it's always fun to take out after shrinks, psychologists and the like, the article actually mentions anthropologists as the social scientists involved in the program - probably were supposed to be gathering and interpreting information on the habits, culture, etc. of the local inhabitants to help the troops better understand what they were up against.....

[pabianice]

I resent that!