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asylum seeker
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Location: On your computer screen.
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 Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:47 pm Post subject: What happens when you privatize military operations |
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Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Warlords with monikers from a Quentin Tarantino film and rocks standing in as fake guards at untended posts illustrate mismanagement of U.S. security contracting in Afghanistan, a Senate investigation found.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, in a report issued after a yearlong probe, detailed cases of private security contractors funneling U.S. taxpayer dollars to warlords tied to murder, kidnapping and bribery. Some of the people paid with U.S. funds worked with the Taliban or took part in actions directed against the U.S.-led coalition fighting the war, the committee concluded.
�All too often, our reliance on private security contractors in Afghanistan has empowered warlords and power brokers operating outside Afghan government control,� committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, told reporters in Washington yesterday. �There is significant evidence that some security contractors even work against our coalition forces.�
The report is the latest to outline lax U.S. oversight of private security contractors during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for private security firms in Afghanistan to disband by the end of the year, saying they are a source of corruption that�s undermining support for the fight against the Taliban.
More than 26,000 private security personnel operated in Afghanistan as of May, according to U.S. military figures cited by the committee, which examined a sample of 125 contracts.
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ArmorGroup �relied on Afghan warlords, some of whom were Taliban supporters, to provide manpower for the company�s guard force� in 2007 at an Afghan air base under a U.S. Air Force security contract, the probe found.
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The report concluded that the case demonstrated a failure of contractors such as ArmorGroup to vet and properly supervise their personnel and ensure compliance with regulations.
In another case, EOD Technology �relied on local powerbrokers to supply manpower,� the committee said. They included one guard that the U.S. military said raised money for the Taliban and another who allegedly worked with �a hostile foreign government,� the panel said.
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Marine Shooting
The committee report highlights the Feb. 19 accidental shooting by an Afghan security contractor of Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Birchfield, 24, as an example of the human cost of poor contractor oversight.
Birchfield, of Westville, Indiana, was shot and killed while on foot patrol in northeastern Farah Province by a security guard under a contract funded with U.S. tax dollars.
Birchfield�s shooting �exemplifies the risks that untrained and unsupervised armed private security contractor personnel can pose for U.S. troops,� according to the report. The committee didn�t give the name of the company that employed the guard.
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-08/warlords-evoke-tarantino-mar-afghan-security-u-s-panel-finds.html
Looks like another failed neo-con policy to me. |
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mc_jc
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Location: C4B- Cp Red Cloud, Area-I
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| Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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That's why there are no Afghans roaming the compound where I work (Yes, the guards ARE contractors, but they are mostly Filipinos).
Several Afghan guards were caught on different previous occasions directing rocket and mortar fire on the base here when they were contracted to work here.
You think Koreans are hard on their soldiers when they screw up- you have to see a group of Afghan soldiers with their hands bound behind their backs being led away to be executed for screwing up.
The ANA is an untrustful lot, but the Afghan military is always ready to make brutal examples of those who harm their reconstruction efforts. |
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