Review: Human Terrain

Since the early 20th century, modern warfare has ceased to rely solely on what happened in battlefields with tanks and guns. Campaigns to win the hearts and minds of the moderate or allied-minded civilians has been a standard component of military strategy never more necessary and complex than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In 2003, the United States military began funding a campaign called The Human Terrain System (HTS) that embedded anthropologists with combat brigades to help the teams better understand local customs and cultures as well as provide detailed reports to commanding officers back home about the social and power structures in the far-flung, little understood provinces where jihadism is widely considered by American intelligence, to be in an incubative state. The film comes right up to the edge of, but won't quite explicitly say that an unstated agenda of HTS is to compile a hitlist for potential jihadists leaders. 

Where the film does go into great detail is the complicated nature of implementing largely theoretical concepts into high stakes war zones and the in-fighting this shift has created in both military and academic circles. 

Previous to HTS, military efforts to be culturally sensitive had run from the ridiculous to the sublimely logical. Hiring nearby residents to work as navigators of local customs seems smart enough. Elaborate SIMs-like training video games wherein soldiers (depicted by crude avatars) have to determine (with all the time in the world to decide) if a given situation calls for a friendly chat or turning someone's house upside down and arresting them seem somewhat less effective. While delivering toys to village children, including a truckload of soccer balls with dead American soldiers' names written on each one seems both futile and tacky considering the rate of civilian casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Similar to Charles Ferguson's Oscar-nominated No End in Sight, Human Terrain relies on high-level officials, diplomats, journalists and historians to explore the nuances of these complex issues. Richard Holbrooke represents the current administration's official viewpoints, Christopher Hitchens ensures angry, malcontents have their say and several Majors, Lt. Colonials and one Major General are invited to discuss HTS effectiveness. All are in agreement that warfare is changing making experimentation a necessary enterprise, but enticing young academics with the thrill of adventure and the honor of serving country leaves some of the old guard academics feeling queasy. At the same time, hardline military officers have seen the benefit of drawing lines in the sand and using force to make things clear and resent being guinea pigs for a new, touchy-feely military model. 

Human Terrain weaves these experiences and observations with two other main threads, the story of Michael Bhatia a social scientist who was embedded with a military unit in Afghanistan and died in an IED explosion. Bhatia's family members and co-workers, still sick with grief, talk about how naive they found his choices and share emails with the filmmakers that show Bhatia desperately trying to convince his former classmates and colleagues that this was legitimate academic work for a good cause. But as his tour stretches into long months his enthusiasm has clearly waned and he becomes increasingly despondent. The other 'human' element Terrain ties in are the crudely shot home video of troops and Congressional representatives behaving badly. The former threatening children and mocking slow-witted interpreters, the latter making bold and dumb proclamations in the interest of election-year grandstanding. 

This ancillary footage can feel overwrought and even on occasionally mildly insulting, but it serves as a good reminder that while a war of ideas may be raging in the insular worlds of military strategy and academia, the majority of people directly involved with the War on Terror are not as comfortable taking the longview approach.

Human Terrain screened as part of the HotDocs 2010 program.

Comments

[MIchael Udris]

Erin,

Just emailed you this morning with some clarifications. Thanks.

Michael

[Erin D.]

Hi there, I'm not sure which information you're specifically taking issue with, but I found most of my ancillary info from the film's official site.

[Michael Udris]

Not sure where you are getting your information, but much of what you have written is simply untrue. Please contact us at your convenience to clear up these matters.

Michael Udris
Co-Director, Human Terrain