A Day in the Life of:

Dr. Ronald Holt, anthropology professor at Weber State University, recently returned from serving as a social scientist in Afghanistan. The Signpost inquired about his experiences.
SP: What did you do in Afghanistan?
RH: I was a senior social scientist for a human terrain team, and I was assigned to the fourth brigade of the 101 airborne and so I lived along the Pakistani border, and we would go out and meet with different tribal chiefs and tribal elders and other important people. Sometimes we would go out and interview people off the street and the bazaars and out in the villages. Our job was to try to understand what the Afghans were thinking and translate that to the Army, so that the Army could make better judgments about what they were going to do depending on the cultural information we gave them.
SP: What were some of the questions you would ask?
RH: It depended on what the brigade commander was interested in. We’d ask about tribal affiliations, kinship, which markets they perceived to be the best markets; then if we wanted to put in a health clinic, we could put it in where people were actually going shopping. We asked a lot of what appeared mundane questions, but turned out to be really important about how people arrange their lives, their economy, and what they thought was important.
SP: Did the army take you guys seriously?
RH: Yes, very much so, and in fact, General Patraeus certainly got the program started, and now General McChrystal has asked for human terrain teams down to the battalion level, so clearly we are making a difference for the best.
SP: What was your scariest moment in Afghanistan?
RH: We got mortared and rocketed pretty regularly, shot at on occasion, but the scariest thing, I think, was flying in a black hawk helicopter at night with night vision on through the mountain passes. That was pretty scary.
SP: Do you think your influence down there is going to help solve the conflict faster?
RH: Yes, I think so, I think if we are allowed to solve it at all, because democracies give up on this kind of warfare pretty easily. There is some data that says where the human terrain teams are operating, kinetic or lethal engagements are down at least 60 percent. It makes a difference if you are talking to the local people and treating them like human beings. It makes a big difference.
SP: What do you think needs to happen to stabilize things in the Middle East?
RH: First, the Karzai government is incredibly corrupt, and the police are incredibly corrupt. We shouldn’t be backing a government that is that corrupt. If we are going to stay the course, and really turn things around, we have to put pressure on the Karzai government to reform. Currently the government we are supporting is very, very corrupt.  The police there are so bad that most of the Afghans we talked to preferred the Taliban over the police; the police take money from them, sometimes take their young boys for sex, stuff like this. We also have to deal with the Pakistani situation as well. When I first got there, even the Pakistani army was shooting at us occasionally across the border. As it became more and more obvious that Pakistan itself might fall to the radicals, so-called radicals, the army began to be a little more helpful on the Pakistani side. But the Pakistanis are much more worried about India than they are the Taliban, and that is incredible given the facts on the ground.
SP: What do you think is something important that the average American should know about?
RH: I’d say much of what is going on there is due to Saudi Arabian propaganda, Wahhabi Islamic propaganda, and they spend millions of dollars spreading it around the world. They are trading their oil for our dollars, and then using our dollars to support their own Wahhabiest propaganda efforts. If we had a viable alternative to oil it would make a huge difference, we wouldn’t be held hostage to the Saudis and others nearly so much.
SP: How was adjusting when you came back?
RH: There are always re-entry issues, culture shock. Coming back from a war situation to the basic ignorance of the average American is kind of a shock
SP: What would make the biggest difference in the Middle East?
RH: We need to get off the FOB’s (forward operating bases); we need to get out into the villages and out into the tribes. That would make the biggest difference. Just the presence of American troops out in the countryside makes a huge difference. If we were to pull our troops out, the Taliban would take over and create an Islamic Amorite and use it as a base for further expansion and terrorism, there is no doubt about that. And Pakistan would probably fall eventually to nuclear weapons. Pulling out of Afghanistan would be insane.  At the same time, I think going into Iraq was a terrible strategic error. It was pretty clear there were no weapons of mass destruction left; Saddam Hussein had done away with his, or hidden them away in Syria or wherever. He was not a real threat to us at this point, we had him bottled up pretty well. We should have used Saddam and the Iraqis against the Iranians. The Iranians are the real threat. The Iranians can have nuclear weapons as early as 18 months now. Right now, American policy for Iran is appeasement. Appeasement gets you nowhere in the Middle East. But Afghanistan is a whole different issue.
SP: So many Americans are completely unaware what is happening in the Middle East.
RH: Not very many Americans take the time to educate themselves; it’s too bad. We have no sense of history, even our own.