Vodka Butt-Shot Contractor STILL Guarding the Kabul Embassy

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:




Thu Feb. 17, 2011 3:00 AM PST

More than a year has passed since the State Department decided to drop its contract with the security firm protecting the US embassy in Kabul, following an international scandal featuring drunken debauchery fit for a Van Wilder flick. But the company that introduced the world to vodka butt-shots is still on the job—and it doesn't seem to have plans to stand down anytime soon. Long after the expiration of its initial contract, in fact, ArmorGroup North America is currently hiring more guards to protect the Kabul embassy.

The firm sparked controversy in September 2009, when a Washington-based watchdog group sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighting a list of violations by the company, from a chronic guard shortage to the hiring of personnel who couldn't speak English and would be unable to communicate with their colleagues in an emergency. But the most shocking charges concerned what the Project on Government Oversight called a "Lord of the Flies environment"—hazing and wild partying depicted in a series of graphic photographs showing members of the Kabul embassy security force drunk, half-naked, and engaged in an array of NSFW behavior.

Embassygate tainted not just ArmorGroup North America (AGNA) and its parent company, the security conglomerate G4S, but the State Department, too, leading to investigations by Congress and State's inspector general. In the years leading up to the scandal, it turned out, the State Department had repeatedly found fault with the company's performance—at one point stating in an internal memo that "the security of the US Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy" as a result—but failed to fire AGNA. A former high-level AGNA employee also came forward to say that he'd warned the State Department about "lewd, aberrant, and sexually deviant behavior" by the company's recruits more than two years before this conduct made global headlines. Again, no action was taken. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/armorgroup-eodt-kabul-embassy

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R for more visibility and disgust.

:hi:

[Canuckistanian]

2. WTF?

Is there anyone in control at the State Department? Or are THEY doing "butt shots" too?

[RagAss]

3. Van Wilder wouldn't fart on these people.