2nd 'Human Terrain' Social Scientist Slain in 7 Weeks (Updated)

By Noah Shachtman June 25, 2008 | 11:00:00 PM

Img1c For the second time in seven weeks, a social scientist embedded with the U.S. military has been killed on the battlefield. Nicole Suveges, a political scientist serving with the Army's controversial Human Terrain System, was slain Tuesday in a bombing in Sadr City, Baghdad. Early last month, social scientist Michael Batia suffered a similar fate in Afghanistan.

For nearly a year, American combat deaths have been on a slow, uneven decline in Afghanistan and Iraq. Which makes the slayings of these two social scientists stand out all the more. The Human Terrain System placed researchers into combat units, in an attempt to lower the levels of violence in their districts; instead, these two social scientists have become its victims. Critics of the project claimed that the researchers might help the U.S. military in its warzone targeting; instead, its the social scientists themselves who have been killed. Ironically, these civilian academics, in their attempts to promote cultural understanding, are spending more time outside the protective walls of the American military enclaves than many soldiers.