Humint Intelligence Collection Literature Review

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human intelligence particularly in the context of Afghanistan war. Afghanistan is a Muslim Asian state which has been victimised by external forces of USA and Russia. The internal state of Afghanistan is very unfavourable for the development of country and it is most likely that for rehabilitation, it needs the assistance of many other countries.

In the context of human intelligence, it is important to mention that this topic has not been much explored in the literature. The reason can be its possible connection with the car, while the literature mainly casts light upon the causes and outcomes of the war. The strategies are mostly confidential and it takes centuries to explore them.

The paper will explain the concept of human intelligence and its implications in war against the countries. The paper revolves around USA policies and practices maintaining focus on its invasion in Afghanistan in the background of Iraq.

Human Intelligence is a field of data collection through interacting with the people who are supposed to have information about a certain topic. In other words, it can be said that human intelligence is acquiring information from humans through discussion with them. The discussion can be in the form of interrogation whereby the interested party develops questions to ask to the people who may have knowledge of the subject.

Primarily appearing similar to interview, human intelligence is altogether a different field. It is because; the respondent may not even know what the information seeker actually wants to know and how he has twisted the question to motivate the respondent to speak about the topic. It is also possible that human intelligence practices are carried out to get information about an object which is not related to any body of knowledge. The information may not be quoted in the literature and the sole purpose of this information collection is to plan an event effectively (Rothstein, 2006).

In order to explain the concept of human intelligence, the word intelligence needs elaboration. It is used in the sensitive environment to gather the information that may not be publicly available and the data collection authority does not want to disclose its identity. There exist well defined systems of technical intelligence whereby machines and sensors are involved to record the hidden facts. In human intelligence, the same data is supposed to be gathered from the human beings. It can be said that human intelligence is a step ahead in the field of intelligence.

A point of differentiation between the interview and human intelligence is about the willingness of information provider. In interview, the respondent agrees to answer the question while in human intelligence; one can be forced to answer as well.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Use of Human Intelligence

As specified in the definition of human intelligence, it is an information collection method in which the source of information is human being. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach lie in the very source of this information. Since human beings are subject to their own perception and understanding, it is easily possible that the acquired information is incorrect altogether. As mentioned earlier, the questions and discussion is twisted so that the respondent does not about the real purpose of the information seeker, it is easily possible that the respondent does not understand the question or point of discussion at all. On the other hand, the information seeker has own biases and perceptual framework. His interpretation of information passed on to him may also be incorrect.

Another important disadvantage related to human intelligence is about the personality of the people. People have their own personalities and mindset which shape their communication patterns. Their communication style may not in conformity with the information seeker hence communication gap may occur.

It is also possible that the information provider skips certain information because of temporary or permanent loss of memory. In human intelligence, the worth of the person is determined through the criticality and volume of information he has in his knowledge bank. If he forgets it, it is almost impossible to recover the information.

Yet another point related to disadvantages is about the identity of information seeker. Too many questions may become the information seeker susceptible. For instance, an individual visits a place for the first time and poses himself as a tourist. He mixes with people and asks them about the routes of the city. He also collects information about the important locations and takes high interest in listening to the people rather than speaking himself.

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It is quite possible that any person having an intelligent mind becomes susceptible about the information seeker that he motivates people to talk and listen to them keenly. Furthermore, the information about important places and routes may also add to this point that he is a security threat and may lead to trouble in the city.

There are certain advantages of human intelligence as well. The first and foremost advantage is related to the prompt information collection which can be detailed as well. The information seeker may need to read uncountable books and magazines to collect the information which is sought form an individual in the discussion of half an hour. The information provided by the human beings will contain the element of subjectivity as well as objectivity. Furthermore, there are many things which can not be put in black and white but they have substantial impact on the lives of people. Many norms are not found in the books and reading psychology cannot give the clear picture of a person unless the concepts are applied in the evaluation of discussion during the discussion.

Another advantage is related to support for military purposes as happened in U.S.-Iraq case. The human intelligent mechanism led USA exploit the situation by promoting conflict among the people belonging to the same country but different sects. The extremism of people living in Afghanistan provided another opportunity to break a war like condition in the country.

Human intelligence practices are important as the source of information is human beings whose life may be dear to many people. This is the reason, many countries try to protect their people and make big deals to get their important personnel back. In other

Types of Interrogation

There are certain objectives behind adopting this particular approach for data collection. As yet, there are two main points for human intelligence practices. Both of them are related to military purposes, and there is a common cause behind both of them. The cause is; successful accomplishment of a mission. The invading forces develop their human intelligence expertise so that the opportunities of disturbance in the country can be exploited. It is somewhat an indirect interrogation. Another practice of human intelligence is interrogation with the one who is in the custody of forces and is subject to direct interrogation.

In the context of recent trends of use of human intelligence in Afghanistan, both the perspectives are common. The U.S. invaders properly recorded the lesson learned form the experience of Iraq invasion (Thaler, 2008). When U.S. forces entered there, it was difficult to expect any civil war in Iraq, Gradually, with the promotion of conflict of interest between Shii'a and Sunni sects, the invaders made the room for human intelligence and collected the pieces of information could be in favour of civil war.

After completing mission in Iraq, U.S. carefully planned its human intelligence in Afghanistan. The troops were properly and formally trained on the subject and the practices were started long before the formal and known intervention in Afghanistan (Holmes and Dixon, 2001).

Since the concept of war is changing as time passes and there are many methods to pose threats other than inviting a nation in the battlefield, the spy networks have also been changed (Hastedt and Guerrier, 2010). Presently, forces are assigned with the missions to accomplish in a respective area. The mission can be critical in terms of security measures as well. This perception is particularly valid in the present era of 21st century where terrorist attacks are in practice everywhere and security risk is high (Tsang, 2008). It is also perceived that internal matters are spoiled by foreign power with the help of internal agencies. It is also possible that the internal agencies do not know that they have been victim of human intelligence while the foreign powers are deliberately involved in investigation with the agencies so that any clue about a mission can be found (Lansford, 2003).

Conducting Interrogations

It is important to mention at this stage that human intelligence practices are mostly conducted by the security forces, armed forces, intelligence bureaus and police forces. To be more specific, when somebody is in the custody of forces, they assume his as a source of information about complete mission he is appointed at, and want to extract as much information as possible. The process of information collection is known as interrogation. The term is self explanatory; the security officers interrogate the person about himself, his background, associations and objectives.….....

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