Tag Archives: Strategy

End of Truth

“They are gone.” These are the words that propelled photojournalist Nicole Tung into a daunting situation which nothing could have prepared her for. Masked men wielding Kalashnikovs had abducted her friends John Cantlie and James Foley while they were en route from Syria back into Turkey. Nicole had been nervously waiting for their arrival at the border. Instantly, their fate rested upon her ability to find out who captured her friends and how to get them back alive.

The abductions of John Cantlie and James Foley were the beginning of a hostage taking frenzy which impacted the foreign policy of many countries.  Because of media blackouts surrounding the kidnappings, many others unwittingly ventured forth into hostile ISIS territory. Fixers were targeted, causing people who thought they were safe to be captured. These unsuspecting journalists and aid workers were thrown into a dark and desperate situation that ended horribly for those whose countries didn’t pay ransom. These crimes revealed what can happen when truths are obscured – causing negotiations and rescue missions to go horribly wrong.

End of Truth is an emotionally powerful investigation into the political and criminal enterprise of kidnappings as ISIS rose to power in war torn Syria. By intercutting exclusive footage with intimate interviews of negotiators, investigators, fixers and even a used car salesman who are caught up in the confusion, we examine the leads that led to lies revealing the terrible consequence of misinformation when lives are at stake.

Human Terrain

Human Terrain tells two stories. The first exposes the US effort to enlist the best and the brightest of American universities in a struggle for the hearts and minds of its enemies. Facing long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has adopted a controversial new program, ‘Human Terrain Systems’, to make cultural awareness a key element of its counterinsurgency strategy. Designed to embed social scientists with combat troops, the program swiftly comes under attack by academic critics who consider it misguided and unethical to gather intelligence and target potential enemies for the military.

Gaining rare access to wargames in the Mojave Desert and training exercises at Quantico and Fort Leavenworth, Human Terrain takes the viewer into the heart of the war machine and the shadowy collaboration between American academics and the armed services.

The second story is about a brilliant young scholar who leaves the university to join a Human Terrain team. After working as a humanitarian activist, Michael Bhatia returned to Brown University to conduct research on military cultural awareness and a year later, he left as a Human Terrain member in Afghanistan. On May 7, 2008, en route to mediate an intertribal dispute, his humvee hit a roadside bomb and Bhatia was killed.

Is this a genuine attempt at cultural awareness in the battlefield or a cynical new strategy to achieve the same ends? Human Terrain asks what happens when war becomes academic and academics go to war.