The letter from Project On Government Oversight to Secretary Clinton:
Guards have come to POGO with allegations and photographic evidence that some supervisors and guards are engaging in near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates. Witnesses report that the highest levels of AGNA management in Kabul are aware of and have personally observed—or even engaged in—these activities, but have done nothing to stop them. Indeed, management has condoned this misconduct, declining to take disciplinary action against those responsible and allowing two of the worst offending supervisors to resign and allegedly move on to work on other U.S. contracts. The lewd and deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of command, compromising security.
Numerous emails, photographs, and videos portray a Lord of the Flies environment. One email from a current guard describes scenes in which guards and supervisors are “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….” (Attachment 2) Photograph after photograph shows guards—including supervisors—at parties in various stages of nudity, sometimes fondling each other. These parties take place just a few yards from the housing of other supervisors.
Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically. Others have reported that AGNA management has begun to conduct a witch hunt to identify employees who have provided information about this atmosphere to POGO.
Gawker had the photos first. We will not be reprinting them here. John Cook at Gawker:
What sort of hazing? The traditional desperately homoerotic frat boy kind, mostly involving eating and drinking things off of other men’s butts. Also some nipple-biting, as you can see below. One POGO whistle blower described it thusly [PDF link]: “They have a group of sexual predators, deviants running rampant over there. No, they are not jamming guys in the ass per say [sic], but they are showing poor judgenment [sic].” Most of it appears to have been voluntary, but those who didn’t really want to drink vodka shots out of the clenched butt-cheeks of their male co-workers were penalized and reported barricading themselves in their rooms. And sometimes the behavior extended to the locals:
“An Afghan national employed as a food service worker at the guard corps’ base at Camp Sullivan submitted a signed statement dated August 16, 2009, attesting that a guard force supervisor and four others entered a dining facility on August 1, 2009, wearing only short underwear and brandishing bottles of alcohol. Upon leaving the facility, the guard force supervisor allegedly grabbed the Afghan national by the face and began abusing him with foul language, saying, “You are very good for fXXXing.” The Afghan national reported that he “was too afraid of them I could not tell them any thing.””
So anyway, these are the people who are guarding our national security in Afghanistan, being paid vast multiples of what soldiers, sailors, and marines get with your tax dollars. Are these guys asking, or telling?
Daniel Schulman at Mother Jones:
These allegations raise serious questions about why ArmorGroup has been allowed to retain this important contract, which gives the company the responsibility for protecting the lives of the hundreds of diplomats, officials, and others who work within the embassy compound. Also in question is the State Department’s ability to provide adequate oversight of contractors under its jurisdiction. It should at least be able to ensure that its embassy doesn’t provide the backdrop for a Contractors Gone Wild video.
POGO is calling on the State Department to launch an independent investigation of the Kabul embassy contract and to “consider initiating suspension and debarment proceedings against the companies ArmorGroup North America.” As for the State Department officials who were supposed to be providing oversight, the watchdog says they, too, should be held accountable. Perhaps as punishment they ought to be forced to watch the buttcrack vodka shot video.
UPDATE: The State Department responds. Plus: Why did a top State official tell Congress in June that ArmorGroup’s performance in Afghanistan “has been and is sound” when internal documents suggest he had reason to belive otherwise?
The Jawa Report thinks differently on the topic.
On what planet are these prudes living on that such behavior is considered shocking?
Her Royal Clintoness should watch The Dirty Dozen one more time. You know the scene I’m talking about.
Or pick up a history book. And then read it. Just the parts describing the etymology of phrases such as “filthy as a sailor” and “girl in every port” might suffice.
They even go on to call this kind of behavior “deviant”.
Did these people not get invited to any parties in college?
Joshua Foust at Registan:
Ahh yes, the Project on Government Oversight’s accusatory letter to Secretary Clinton for the years of allegations about contractor misconduct at the American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. I for one didn’t realize the Embassy threw parties like Snaxx on a Thursday night. I can’t say I find the prospect of slurping vodka out of some dude’s butt crack particularly appealing, but whatever—frat boys, right? I mean, right down to the hazing (those who chose not to participate were barricaded in their rooms), it’s kind of ridiculous and head-shaking, but not 100% outrageous, considering some of the other ex-patriate behavior in Kabul.
The part that gives me serious pause, however, is this:
“An Afghan national employed as a food service worker at the guard corps’ base at Camp Sullivan submitted a signed statement dated August 16, 2009, attesting that a guard force supervisor and four others entered a dining facility on August 1, 2009, wearing only short underwear and brandishing bottles of alcohol. Upon leaving the facility, the guard force supervisor allegedly grabbed the Afghan national by the face and began abusing him with foul language, saying, “You are very good for fXXXing.” The Afghan national reported that he “was too afraid of them I could not tell them any thing.””
Right. So, the problem is, it’s one thing when you behave boorishly toward your own people on your own compound—worth investigating and punishing, to be sure, but not an international incident. It’s another entirely when you bring the locals into it and threaten them with rape. Male or female, that is inexcusable, and should result in the immediate termination of that guard supervisor, and if there is evidence any of the contractors or government CORs ignored the problem, they should be fired as well.
Of course it won’t happen that way. The quick corrective action and sincere apology that could turn this into a non-issue will instead turn into a months-long hand wringing gesture about the goodness of our contractors and their necessity to the mission. Sigh. The State Department has been “investigating” the guards in question for a little over two years now. Nothing happened, and nothing probably will.
I can’t imagine why we’re doing so poorly there.
Asked about ArmorGroup at a press briefing today, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said that Clinton would have “zero tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged.” But when a reporter challenged Kelly over the fact that State has put ArmorGroup on notice about inappropriate behavior in Kabul since June 2007, this was his response:
“We’ve been investigating this organization for some time now. We understand that we have made some – we have pointed out to them some of the deficiencies. And I can’t answer right now from this podium exactly what they have done in response to this letter.”
It’s into this sort of oversight environment that Blackwater Xe is looking to re-up its contracts with State to protect diplomats.
But who broke this story? Glynnis MacNicol at Mediaite:
Does the long arm of Gawker reach all the way to the State Department? Yesterday, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton detailing and protesting the behavior of private contractors employed by ArmorGroup who guard State Department employees in Kabul, Afghanistan. From the letter:
“Numerous emails, photographs, and videos portray a Lord of the Flies environment. One email from a current guard describes scenes in which guards and supervisors are “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….””
Disturbing, yes? Mother Jones picked up on the letter yesterday morning and wrote a longish piece about it — that post now has 26 comments. Then, just after 4pm yesterday Gawker published an enormously disturbing slide show of photos (provided by POGO) depicting the “animal house” antics. When I saw the post an hour or so later it had already clocked over 12,000 views. As of this morning 95,000 plus people had seen it. Yesterday evening a State Dept. spokesperson announced that an investigation had been ordered and that “these are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way.”
So, was Gawker publishing the pics a motivating factor behind the State Dept’s quick response? Hard to say. Clearly that letter and those photos (which POGO also sent to the State Dept.) would have resulted some sort of reaction, though apparently the contractor ArmorGroup has been under some sort of investigation due to its behavior since 2007. But, much like the shots out of Abu Ghraib, the pictures Gawker first pubbed are upsetting, utterly damning, and impossible to ignore, and they’ve now been seen very quickly by a whole lot of people (though not as many as saw McSteamy!).
What may be the most interesting part of all this is that POGO chose to “provide” Gawker with those pictures early on, when no doubt there are plenty of mainstream organizations who would have been happy to pick up. Someone at POGO knows their new media stuff: Gawker is the online tastemaker and is capable of immediately getting a story out to a large, connected audience, who will pay attention and quickly pass it on. Inevitably the MSM will follow sooner or later, and get it out to everyone. Is this a sign of things to come? Maybe Gawker is turning itself into the new media world’s version of Woodward and Bernstein. It’s certainly quickly becoming the MSM of the blogosphere.
John Cook at Gawker responds:
But there’s a funny story behind all this, one that’s instructive about the way mainstream media organizations approach digital media and the way digital media organizations approach reporting.
Here’s how it happened:
1. The Project on Government did an enormous amount of work uncovering a pattern of coercive and unprofessional behavior at ArmorGroup North America, including “extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, and examination of documents, photographs, videos, and emails.” POGO’s executive director, Danielle Brian, assembled that work into a letter to Hillary Clinton, which she sent along with attachments, photos and videos. Then she posted the letter on the internet.
2. We read it. It mentioned a whole bunch of pictures of gross stuff. We wanted to see the pictures!
3. We called POGO. They are lovely people. Could we see the pictures?
4. Yes! They e-mailed us the pictures.
5. They were gross, so we put them on the internet.
The end. That’s how you launch a State Department investigation. What makes this amusing to us is that POGO held a news conference at 10 a.m. yesterday, six hours before we published the photos. Ten or so reporters showed up. Brian walked them through the letter, and then showed them all the pictures — the self-same pictures that we published — on a projector screen. POGO provided CD-ROMs with the photos to reporters who asked for them. After the conference, the AP, Mother Jones (that’s how we initially became aware of the story), and a handful of other outlets ran stories, but no one thought to put the pictures of the guys drinking vodka off the other guys’ butts online.
There’s a lesson here for newspapers, maybe? And popular blog web sites?
UPDATE: David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy
UPDATE #2: Ken Stier at Foreign Policy
UPDATE #3: Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy
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