BAe Systems, Africom, and HTS

Akin writes about Human Terrain System:

In 2007 we learnt, the US military engaged anthropologists and sociologists in a programme called the Human Terrain System (HTS) for Iraq and Afghanistan in the two preceding years; this studies the complexities of human beings and their societies trying to appreciate how these communities work, how they make decisions, how they thrive and from a cynical if not sinister perspective how to infiltrate those communities in what is neatly called the battle of hearts and minds.

The connection between HTS, Africom and BAe Systems?

What makes this HTS curiously interesting is the Pentagon partly outsourced this activity to BAe Systems, the defence contractor and it really makes one wonder why engaging anthropologists and sociologists for a field study is not handled by some renowned academic faculty from the many world standard universities in the United States.

And:

The head of this facility is Colonel Dean Bland who says “We have no combat mission in Africa.” So we have nothing to fear only that people who have studied and understood what makes Africans tick and are privy to the secrets of our culture, our traditions, our languages and our communities can lay bare all this information to AFRICOM who can use the surge and embed lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan to infiltrate and assimilate without firing a gun shot.

Please visit his blog for the full post.