Group: US Embassy Security in Kabul Risky ("Lord of the Flies environment")

[sabra]

Source: CBS News/AP

Security Guards Overworked, Sleep-Deprived and Subject To Humiliating Hazing, Including Being Urinated On, Watchdog Says

(CBS/AP) A private security company hired by the U.S. State Department to protect diplomats and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan provides shoddy security and fosters a "Lord of the Flies environment" in which subordinates are subjected to hazing and inappropriate behavior by supervisors, a government oversight group alleged Tuesday.

In a 10-page letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Project on Government Oversight contended the situation has led to a breakdown in morale and leadership, compromising security at the embassy in Kabul where nearly 1,000 U.S. diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals work.

The group is urging Clinton to begin an investigation of the contract with ArmorGroup North America. It also recommends that she ask the Pentagon to provide "immediate military supervision" of the private security force at the embassy.

The oversight group's findings are based on interviews with ArmorGroup guards, documents, photographs and e-mails.

One e-mail from a guard describes lurid conditions at Camp Sullivan, the guards' quarters a few miles from the embassy. The message depicted scenes of abuse including guards and supervisors "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of (buttock) cracks, vodka shots out of (buttock) cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken (sic) brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity."


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/01/world/main5279801.shtml?tag=stack

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. Our tax dollars hard at work

[Mari333]

3. yep!! thats YOUR money paying for this shit

amazing that so few people care.

[OwnedByFerrets]

12. Two reasons.....they dont know because they

aren't as inquisitive as we are AND a feeling of helplessness. I know the latter...I feel helpless to change most of the ills that I see happening every day. I do what I cant....calling congress and writing letters, but it sure seems to fall on deaf ears.....ESPECIALLY when it comes to military spending, the sacred cow.

[Betsy Ross]

2. Well, we don't need to ask "why do they hate us."

Why shouldn't we hate ourselves when this is the behavior we support with our dollars. This has got to STOP. Xe must be happy the heat is on a different contractor.

[appal_jack]

4. I'm SHOCKED, I tells ya

Yes, SHOCKED, just SHOCKED that an unsupervised, private, for-profit, contractor group should do such shoddy work and treat their employees so poorly!

:sarcasm:

WHERE, oh WHERE is that invisible hand that guides private industry toward universal benevolence?

Oh, that's right:

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/12/09/tomo/

k&r

-app

[pinto]

5. Ah geez. n/t

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[damntexdem]

7. U.S. marines used to provide the security.

Marines may get rowdy, but they do tend to do a good job, unlike these nutcases.

[JDPriestly]

8. Yet another and actually the most important reason for ending

the private contracting of security and military work: lack of discipline. The military functions well because merit decides advancement, and discipline is required by law. Not so with private contractors.

[Ghost Dog]

9. Who is ordering your President to insist on this?

Who is even investigating this question (and is allowed to publish)?

[starroute]

10. The name of Steve Kappes comes to mind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Kappes

Stephen R. Kappes (born August 22, 1951, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) is a senior U.S. government intelligence officer. He is currently Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DDCIA), having assumed this position on July 24, 2006. . . .

Kappes joined the CIA in 1981 and has held a variety of operational and managerial assignments at CIA Headquarters and overseas, serving as assistant deputy director to former Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) James Pavitt, and later as DDO after Pavitt stepped down in August 2004. At the time of the September 11 attacks, Kappes was the associate deputy director for operations for counterintelligence. Kappes has been station chief in Moscow, New Dehli and Frankfurt and has served in Pakistan. . . .

Kappes was named Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) for the CIA in June 2004 and took office in August 2004 while the appointment of Porter Goss as the next Director of Central Intelligence was still pending in the Senate. Kappes succeeded James Pavitt, who resigned in June 2004. Both Kappes and Pavitt oversaw the CIA’s Directorate for Operations during the controversial Iraq WMD reporting. He served in that position until he resigned in November 2004. . . .

For a brief period in between his senior appointments, Kappes worked in the private security industry. In April 2005, ArmorGroup, a British security firm, named him vice president in charge of global strategy, and named him Chief Operating Officer (COO) in November 2005.

Kappes was named as the next DDCIA by Negroponte in May 2006. Kappes was believed to be the preferred choice for Director of the CIA in the incoming Obama administration by Senators Jay Rockefeller, the outgoing chairman, and Diane Feinstein, the incoming chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Instead, Leon Panetta was appointed to the position in February 2009, and Kappes was retained as DDCIA, the latter a condition set by Feinstein in exchange for her support for the former.

[sabrina 1]

11. Disgusting. But isn't that what mercenaries always did

throughout history. And why does the US hire mercenaries. We are a Democracy, not an Empire, right?

It is another sign of the decline of an empire, when they resort to the use of mercenaries, because their overseas ventures cannot be explained to their own people in a way that would get support for what they are doing.

They are stealing the resources of other nations, not defending the US. And Congress just sits there and does nothing about it.

We never should have invaded Afghanistan. We did to install a pipeline and to put military bases all around the area to give the US control over the last known oil reserves in the Caspian Sea.

[Mari333]

13. +1 exactly

[Blue_Tires]

14. +1