“US Marines Being Trained for Cultural Sensitivity Before Deployment - Global Security” plus 1 more |
| US Marines Being Trained for Cultural Sensitivity Before Deployment - Global Security Posted: 03 Jan 2011 08:51 PM PST Ana Ward | Quantico, Va 03 January 2011 The U.S. military is expected to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014. But thousands of U.S. Marines will still deploy there within the next year to support the war. To prepare them, the Defense Department has introduced culture training programs at several military bases around the United States. One such program is being conducted at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia - about 58 kilometers from Washington. Marine Corps Captain Josh Parish, a civil affairs officer, will deploy to Afghanistan in 2011. His job will be to work with local tribes to build wells, roads and schools. But he will also work on understanding the sources of insurgency and how the Marines can win the trust of the local population. To get ready for his deployment he is attending a civil affairs class. "There is a huge push right now towards winning the hearts and minds and the way I see it you know is, if we're able to drive a wedge between the Taliban and the local population than as a civil affairs guy that's when I can come in and using my tools, using my knowledge of their culture, I am able to figure out what are the areas of instability, what are the things that they need," Parish said. The Marines started their culture learning programs in the aftermath of the Iraq war -- when experience on the ground showed US servicemen did not understand the customs of the country they were fighting in. In 2005, the Marine Corps started a flagship program to teach deploying troops some Arabic, Dari and Pashto, along with the religions, economies and social issues in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The Marines truly understand that the people are important to winning, they're important to stabilizing, they're important to the security of that region and because of that, because they understand and respect that, they're accepted better," said George Dallas, the director of the program known as the Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning. Other branches of the US military have had similar training programs for their special forces or intelligence units. But the Marines' program is the first to give all deploying troops wide access to language and culture training. Dr. Paula Holmes-Eber, an anthropologist who teaches in the program, says in the beginning, culture was a strange concept for a military used to conventional warfare. "If you take a Marine who's grown up in Iowa, 19-years-old, never left the US, he will see hese things and not understand them at all. So the hope is that by giving them a framework to think about, there will not be this gut reaction, 'oh, these are strange and awful people' but 'yes, it's different but I can do something about that and I can help them,'" she said. Holmes-Eber says the progress in Iraq's Anbar province provides the best example of how cultural understanding and working with local people turned around the country's most violent province. To prepare them for future deployments, the Marine Corps now trains its troops about all areas of the world so they are ready for crises, like Haiti, or small conflicts anywhere. "The Marine Corps has a long history of being involved in small wars that range back to early in our history. Since we never really know what the next war is going to be, the next conflict or affected area, making sure that we have this capability of adapting to a population is really critical to our overall success," said Major Jonathan Kenney, an academic planner at the expeditionary warfare school in Quantico, Virginia. So far, the impact of the Marines' program is hard to measure. But as the 2014 withdrawal deadline gets closer, the Marine Corps believes it will achieve not only the long-term strategy of stability and peace but a better understanding of a culture that until a few years ago was foreign to the troops being sent there. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2011 08:22 PM PST Jan 04, 2011 (BBC Monitoring via COMTEX) -- The government yesterday bowed to pressure and agreed to consult further on the proposed cultural leaders bill even as Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi insisted that "the bill is not stayed". The decision was reached at a closed-door meeting with the Speaker of parliament, Edward Ssekandi, where it was agreed that Gender Minister Gabriel Opio, under whose docket the bill was introduced, consults all the stakeholders, including the president before re-tabling the amendments in parliament. "We have agreed on some amendments in the Institution of Traditional or Cultural Leaders Bill, 2010 which Honourable Opio will announce after consulting stakeholders at an appropriate time," Prof Nsibambi said. "The stakeholders will include people like the Buganda [Kingdom] Attorney-General (Apollo Makubuya) who presented some proposals, religious leaders and all those people who are interested in making proposals." Prof Nsibambi said: "I don't intend to disclose the amendments, the minister will make a statement after consultations. The minister is aware of the urgency of the matter and we shall not dictate to him what to do." Responding to government's climb-down, the chairperson of the Legal Affairs Committee, which is currently handling the bill, Mr Steven Tashobya, however, said yesterday: "The bill is a property of parliament and we cannot stop the process until the Speaker advises us otherwise." Under parliament rules of procedure, the Speaker has the discretion to allow amendments delivered in writing that do not "substantially" or "materially alter the principle" of a motion tabled before the House. Buganda Prime Minister J B Walusimbi yesterday welcomed the government decision. "That's the right thing to do. That bill in its current form has a lot of things which shouldn't have been there. It's good they have seen the problem and we're ready to give our views." While a number of stakeholders particularly Buganda Kingdom have been pushing for the withdrawal of the bill after President Museveni and some ministers claimed that its more controversial sections were smuggled in, Prof Nsibambi said: "I don't think it's possible for someone to smuggle a clause in the bill although human beings make mistakes." Source: Daily Monitor website, Kampala, in English 4 Jan 11 BBC Mon AF1 AFEau 040111 mr BBC Monitoring. Copyright BBC. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from cultural - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment