We Got Them Pech Valley Blues

C. J. Chivers, Alissa J. Rubin and Wesley Morgan in NYT:

After years of fighting for control of a prominent valley in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the United States military has begun to pull back most of its forces from ground it once insisted was central to the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The withdrawal from the Pech Valley, a remote region in Kunar Province, formally began on Feb. 15. The military projects that it will last about two months, part of a shift of Western forces to the province’s more populated areas. Afghan units will remain in the valley, a test of their military readiness.

While American officials say the withdrawal matches the latest counterinsurgency doctrine’s emphasis on protecting Afghan civilians, Afghan officials worry that the shift of troops amounts to an abandonment of territory where multiple insurgent groups are well established, an area that Afghans fear they may not be ready to defend on their own.

And it is an emotional issue for American troops, who fear that their service and sacrifices could be squandered. At least 103 American soldiers have died in or near the valley’s maze of steep gullies and soaring peaks, according to a count by The New York Times, and many times more have been wounded, often severely.

Matt Cantor at Newser:

Military leaders say the valley ate up more resources than was appropriate considering its importance, that troops can be better used elsewhere, and that there aren’t enough troops for a clear victory in the region even if they did stay. “What we figured out is that people in the Pech really aren’t anti-US or anti-anything; they just want to be left alone,” notes an official. “Our presence is what’s destabilizing this area.” But insurgents will likely see this as a victory for their side, the Times notes. As for the Afghan troops that will remain behind, “It will be a suicidal mission,” says a former Afghan battalion leader.

Joshua Foust at Registan:

In a way, this will be more than a test. Our ultimate goal for every part of the country, whether Panjshir or Marjah, is to leave competent Afghan forces in our wake so we can withdraw responsibly. It is, in many ways, the only real strategy we have left, since the state-building that should be accompanying it remains embarrassingly negligent. Pech also isn’t the only place we’re pondering this. The French are trying this in Sarobi district of Kabul provinceᾹan area of acute emotional reaction in France because of all the casualties they’ve taken in the area. Sarobi, however, has been relatively calm as of late, so there is something of a push to declare it a success and hand over responsibility to the Afghans.

Sarobi hasn’t seen much violence in the last six months. There are appropriate concerns over why that is, including the political savvy of local militants who might just want to wait out the French until the area is open again. It is also a short drive from both Kabul and Bagram, meaning if something does go wrong help is very close by. There is a sense that the area has been “won” by the French, so therefore it is an appropriate time to handover the area to the Afghans, who will maintain that win.

Pech is a harder decision to make. It is remote and difficult to get to, either by land or air. There hasn’t been a reduction of violence in recent months. In fact, the network of river valleys centered on Pech are probably the most violent in the country: the Waigal Valley (where the Want base was attacked), the Korengal, Watapor. The only area nearby that’s been worse is Kamdesh, in Eastern Nuristan.

Tom Maguire:

The WaPo covered the action in the Pech Valley late last year:

U.S. troops battle to hand off a valley resistant to Afghan governance

By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 27, 2010; 12:00 AM

IN PECH VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN — Earlier this year, Lt. Col. Joseph Ryan concluded that his 800-soldier battalion was locked in an endless war for an irrelevant valley.

“There is nothing strategically important about this terrain,” said Ryan, 41, a blunt commander who has spent much of the past decade in combat. “We fight here because the enemy is here. The enemy fights here because we are here.”

Ryan’s challenge for the past several months has been to figure out a way to leave the Pech Valley, home to about 100,000 Afghans, without handing the insurgents a victory. This fall he launched a series of offensives into the mountains to smash Taliban sanctuaries. His goal is to turn the valley over to Afghan army and police units who would work out their own accommodation with bloodied insurgents.

“The best thing we can do is to pull back,” he said, “and let the Afghans figure this place out.”

So it is all going according to the latest revised plan and there may be a bit of hype in the current Times headline

Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy:

So how can you or I tell if the war is going well or not? For that matter, how can Barack Obama be sure that he’s getting the straight scoop from his commanders in the field? Even if the military was initially skeptical about a decision to go to war, once committed to the field its job is to deliver a victory. No dedicated military organization wants to admit it can’t win, especially when it is facing a much smaller, less well-armed, and objectively “inferior” foe like the Taliban. Troops in the field also need to believe in the mission, and to be convinced that success is possible.

To the extent that they need to keep civilian authorities and the public on board, therefore, we can expect military commanders to tell an upbeat story, even when things aren’t going especially well. I am not saying that they lie; I’m saying that they have an incentive to “accentuate the positive” in order to convince politicians, the press, and the public that success will be ours if we just persevere. Indeed, this was one of the key “lessons” that the U.S. military took from Vietnam: Success in modern war — and especially counterinsurgency — depends on more effective “information management” on the home front. And this tendency is not unique to the United States or even to democracies; one sees the same phenomenon in most wars, no matter who is fighting.

The Violence In Osh

Michael Hancock at Registan:

As night comes to Kyrgyzstan, the violence in Osh is subsiding according to AKIpress, but the situation in general is heading south as fighting is reported in Jalalabad.  [Apologies for mistakes in translation – they are my own]

В Жалал-Абаде наблюдается 6-7 очагов пожара по улице Ленина между автовокзалом и телекомпанией ЖТР, само здание ЖТР почти сгорело.  По словам очевидцев, каждые пять минут слышны выстрелы, сотрудников милиции вообще нет, 15 машин спецназа направились в Сузакский район.

In Jalalabad 6 or 7 fires were observed burning on Lenin street between the bus station and the ZhTR broadcast station, with the broadcast station nearly consumed.  According to witnesses, every five minutes shots are heard, with still no police response, and fifteen cars of the Spetsnaz (SWAT)  in the Suzak region.

Russia Today has it that a crowd has raided/attacked a local military base.

[…]

The BBC has video (as does Al-Jazeera) of the refugees heading out of Osh into Uzbekistan as part of their story on the interim government’s plans to clamp down on inter-ethnic violence.  The government is discussing the mobilization of peacekeeping forces from the CSTO, meaning the combined response forces of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Otunbaeva, I think I should have mentioned this before, has suggested that Bakiyev and his brother are directly responsible for inciting the riots.  Russia is sending aid, which might account for the reported movements of their paratroopers in the area.  Otunbaeva has addressed the nation, calling for peace and a cessation of violence.  As the situation spirals out of control, the interim government’s cries for aid have become more strident.

Nathan Hamm at Registan:

Call it whatever you want, but I name it a massacre of Uzbeks in Osh and Jalalabad (Kyrgyzstan), which is, at the moment, still going on and the Interim government headed by Rosa Otunbaeva cannot do anything to prevent it. I knew of disaffection, I knew of tension, but I never knew there was so much hatred against Uzbeks in the South of Kyrgyzstan. I am blaming the incapable Interim government, and those people, who provoked masses, and especially those stupid Uzbek and Kyrgyz, who are buying it.

Grave reports continue coming from friends in Osh and Jalalabad. Videos and photos of killed Uzbeks, burning houses, restaurants and shops that belonged to Uzbeks started appearing in internet. Thousands of Uzbeks are seeking shelter in Uzbekistan. Today, the Uzbek authorities finally agreed to accept Uzbek refugees. Uzbeks in the South have lost their trust to the interim government and are hoping for Russia’s help, but Russia is not being active.

The emergency situation introduced in several cities in the South including Osh and Jalalabad is not helping. Many police and army institutions were attacked, and great numbers of weapons are now on people’s hands. People say that attacking groups wear police and army uniforms. Therefore, many have lost their trust in law enforcement institutions.

The Interim government is blaming everything on the Bakievs that the latter are intending to disrupt the referendum scheduled for 27th of June, 2010.

The death toll is much much higher than the official figures, as people are still finding dead corpses around Osh, and many were burnt down in their houses in mahallas (Uzbek neighborhoods). While I was writing this, I got several gruesome calls from friends in Jalalabad that some groups seized buildings belonging to army and police. Tonight, Jalalabad will suffer its worst night ever! My heart is with them!

The Huffington Post:

The Kremlin says it won’t immediately send Russian troops to Kyrgyzstan, which has asked Moscow for military assistance to help quell ethnic violence.

But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said Saturday that Russia would offer humanitarian assistance and help evacuate those wounded in rampages that swept Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city of Osh.

More than 60 people have been reported killed and nearly 850 wounded in the violence.

Steve LeVine at Foreign Policy:

Before Kyrgyzstan turned to Russia, it informally asked Washington for military assistance including a supply of rubber bullets to quell ethnic bloodletting in the south of the country, but was turned down, I am told by people privy to the situation. Russia says it may deploy troops if it’s a collective regional decision.

Kyrgyz President Rosa Otunbayeva made the request of Washington for troops and rubber bullets after Kyrgyz and Uzbeks living in the city of Osh began to fight on Friday. She formally asked for Russian help yesterday, putting the timing of the request to the U.S. sometime in between.

A senior Obama administration official, speaking to me on condition of anonymity, denied that the U.S. has received any formal Kyrgyz request for military assistance.

To the degree that the fighting — at least 100 people have already died and more than 1,000 have been injured in the fighting — destabilizes the fragile Kyrgyz government, it’s a security concern for the U.S., which maintains an important Air Force base near the capital of Bishkek that serves Afghanistan.  In addition, Kazakhstan — with its enormous oil, uranium, copper and other natural resources  — is right next door.

So in deferring to Russia for the security of its traditional backyard, Washington puts further distance between itself and Kyrgyzstan. It’s another signal of Washington’s policy reversal, known as “reset,” in which the Obama administration is attempting to have a more cooperative relationship with Moscow than did the Bush administration.

The Economist:

In an immediate sense, it is unclear what caused the violence. Kyrgyzstan has been on a low boil since Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced from power in April. National police killed at least 83 protesters on April 7th, losing several of their own men too; less deadly clashes have broken out several times in the months since. The leader of the interim government, Roza Otunbayeva, has said that the latest fighting may have been sparked by a “local conflict”.

In another sense though, the cause of this week’s fighting is all too easy to guess. Ms Otunbayeva’s government, struggling to maintain order on a national scale, may well be right in its initial assessment that this began as an isolated fight in a casino. But it seems likely that the violence was caused by an explosion of the broader tensions between the ethnic groups that predominate in southern Kyrgyzstan. In the chaotic days and weeks after Mr Bakiyev surrendered his seat in Bishkek, opportunistic mobs indulged in looting and score-settling across the country. In the north, around Bishkek, Kyrgyz gangs attacked enclaves of Russians and Meshketian Turks. What had been latent became manifest.

But the real show was in the south, where Mr Bakiyev fled with his entourage, taking brief refuge in his family stronghold. One of our correspondents was travelling with him at the time: a major theme of the diary he kept was of the anxiety felt by both sides of the ethnic divide. A majority of the country is ethnically Kyrgyz, perhaps 70%, with large minorities of ethnic Uzbeks, Russians and other groups spread throughout. Uzbeks comprise perhaps 15% of the country’s population, a plurality among the minorities. But around Kyrgyzstan’s bit of the Fergana valley—the eastern rim surrounding the ethnically mixed heartland of modern Uzbekistan—Uzbeks form a narrow majority. (Ethnolinguistic maps of the region reward close study, though the figures from the best Soviet-era research are out of date.) Mr Bakiyev’s departure aggravated the anxieties felt by both of the peoples there: that in a vacuum, the other side would seize power. There was fighting in Jalalabad, the other major city of the south; our correspondent sheltered with Uzbeks in a university courtyard.

In June 1990, during the last days of the Kyrgyz and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republics, street brawling around the oblast of Osh took a turn for the bloody. A state of emergency and curfew were imposed for the whole of the summer. That’s when Kyrgyzstan got its first president, Askar Akayev, who held country’s ethnic frictions in check while governing with increasing brutality—until Mr Bakiyev displaced him in the “tulip revolution” of 2005

UPDATE: Max Fisher at The Atlantic

We Are All European Union Reports Now

Marc Champion at WSJ:

Both Russia and Georgia claimed vindication Wednesday after a nine-month European Union investigation into last year’s war in the Caucasus found that Tbilisi triggered the conflict, but that Moscow acted illegally in the extent of its invasion of Georgia and allowed “ethnic cleansing.”

The roughly 1,000-page report, released on Wednesday by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, found no evidence to support Russian claims Georgia committed genocide the night of Aug. 7-8, 2008.

The conflict, which briefly brought the U.S. and Russia into Cold War-style confrontation, left hundreds of people dead and 35,000 displaced, and severely weakened Europe’s security agreements. Russian forces remain in occupation of two Georgian territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow has recognized them as independent states.

Ms. Tagliavini’s conclusions were nervously awaited by both sides, each of which has brought lawsuits against the other in international courts.

James Joyner:

The EU’s findings are, quite frankly, bizarre.

Only the most ardent Georgian nationalists believe that Mikheil Saakashvili was other than a reckless fool in his actions leading up to the Russian invasion. However, once one recognizes — as the EU panelists here explicitly do — that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of Georgia, it no longer much matters.

If sovereignty means anything, it means that leaders of a state have license to take actions within the confines of their borders as they see fit, so long as they don’t create adverse spillover effects for their neighbors.  Saakashvili’s actions against internal groups conducting illegal activities within the borders of his country, while unwise and perhaps even provocative, are simply no justification for an illegal invasion of its sovereign territory by another member of the United Nations. Period. End of story.

Similarly, the United States, Israel, Ukraine, and Georgia are all member states of the United Nations.  Georgia was not under any sort of UN Security Council sanction nor was it or is it now a threat to its neighbors.  Why, then, are the first three not allowed to sell or give arms to Georgia as they please?  Georgia is a staunch ally in the war on al Qaeda and were even participants in helping secure Iraq until illegal violation of its own territory forced them to bring troops home.  The United States is particular, then, had every reason in the world to augment Georgia’s military power and none not to. Indeed, if their military were weaker, there’s plenty of reason to believe Russian forces would be even further into “Georgia Proper” now, perhaps even going so far as to remove the duly elected president by force.

Joshua Foust at Registan responds to Joyner:

Secondly, I gotta raise a big red flag over the whole “Georgia helps us with al Qaeda and Iraq” thing. Georgia deployed its troops in a very obvious quid-pro-quo for substantial American technical and military training assistance—that is why there was such an enormous U.S. presence in the country during Russia’s advance. In 2006, Nathan Hodge even interviewed Georgian soldiers who viewed their arrangement with the U.S. as being preparation work for forcibly retaking their wayward territories, which would be a violation of the UN-brokered cease-fire.

Then there’s that al Qaeda bit. Unless James knows of something else, most of the concern about “al Qaeda in Georgia” really amounts to 2002-era concern-trolling over the Pankisi Gorge (this article in Time is a good representation). The thing is, until 9/11 the big concern in Pankisi was actually Chechen fighters using the area as a safe haven for their war with the Russian Army—which takes us back to that whole sovereignty bit (namely, just how tacit, from either party, was the approval for such groups for so long?). In other words, the United States has been inserting itself—indirectly, but not very subtly—into both Georgia’s conflict with Russia, and with Russia’s own internal conflicts. Which doesn’t really leave the United States as a neutral partner to the conflict, hence the limitations on its arms sales.

Bringing it all back around, it’s a tough sell to call the Russo-Georgian War a clear cut open-and-closed example of one country violating another’s sovereignty. Russia has staffed a UN peacekeeping force in both of Georgia’s breakaway territories for years, and lest we forget—Georgia started shelling Tskhinvali, which necessitated a Russian response of some sort.

When discussing the conflict’s ultimate blame, however, Georgia cannot be singled out. Russia has undoubtedly behaved provocatively as well, whether issuing Russian passports to Ossetians and Abkhazians, or through its outrageous and unjustifiable lightning thrust into the country. Realizing both countries bear substantial blame for the conflict does not require apologizing or moral equivalency for either side, but rather realizing the situation is both legally and ethically kind of murky, and that, in fact, both countries can be in the wrong. I mean, that isn’t so hard, is it?

Nathan Hodge at Wired:

Russian troops pushed well outside the boundaries of the disputed enclave of South Ossetia; opened a second front in Abkhazia; and were followed by militias who conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Georgians in South Ossetia.

Not surprisingly, the Kremlin spin machine is going into overdrive on this one — they don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. But if you read the fine print, you’ll note that the report dismisses allegations of “genocide” — a term that was thrown around rather loosely by Russian politicians and press — and faults Russia for handing out Russian Federation passports to Abkhaz and South Ossetians before the war, among many other things.

The report was awaited with some trepidation here in Georgia, especially after the German magazine Der Spiegel ran a story suggesting it would be an indictment of Georgia. But it’s not a document that is going to change facts on the ground.

Doug Bandow at The American Spectator:

There’s much to blame on Russia, particularly its brutal, disproportionate response to Georgia’s attack.  But for the West, which attacked Serbia in 1989 in order to detach Kosovo from Belgrade’s control, to complain about Moscow’s support for South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence is rather rich in hypocrisy.  Washington cares about the territorial integrity of nations only when it’s convenient.  The U.S. can hardly complain about Russia not behaving in a more principled fashion.

But the most important lesson of the Russia-Georgia war is how foolish it would be to extend NATO membership to a country which is not only irrelevant to American security but prone to start wars with nuclear-armed powers.  It was one thing for America to risk all to protect Europe from the Evil Empire.  But to contemplate a nuclear confrontation on behalf of a country prepared to foolishly initiate hostilities against Moscow?  Such a step would make America less, not more, secure.

Michael Totten:

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

Regional expert, German native, and former European Commission official Patrick Worms was recently hired by the Georgian government as a media advisor, and he explained to me exactly what happened when I met him in downtown Tbilisi. You should always be careful with the version of events told by someone on government payroll even when the government is as friendly and democratic as Georgia’s. I was lucky, though, that another regional expert, author and academic Thomas Goltz, was present during Worms’ briefing to me and signed off on it as completely accurate aside from one tiny quibble.

Goltz has been writing about the Caucasus region for almost 20 years, and he isn’t on Georgian government payroll. He earns his living from the University of Montana and from the sales of his books Azerbaijan Diary, Georgia Diary and Chechnya Diary. Goltz experienced these three Caucasus republics at their absolute worst, and he knows the players and the events better than just about anyone. Every journalist in Tbilisi seeks him out as the old hand who knows more than the rest of us put together, and he wanted to hear Patrick Worms’ spiel to reporters in part to ensure its accuracy.

“You,” Worms said to Goltz just before he started to flesh out the real story to me, “are going to be bored because I’m going to give some back story that you know better than I do.”

“Go,” Goltz said. “Go.”

David Lindsay at Post Right:

The massively “elected”, mind-bogglingly corrupt, mentally defective Saakashvili sent in his forces to exterminate the population of a territory which had never been part of Georgia until Stalin (yes, Stalin) redrew the map, which had not been run by Georgia since the fall of the Soviet Union, and whose people were Russian citizens closely connected to those in the neighbouring part of Russia from whom and from which they had only ever been sundered by fiat of one of the worst mass murderers of all time.

He did so in order to prevent that territory from taking a stand against the three closely interrelated forces of global capital, European federalism, and American “full spectrum dominance”.

Between that day and this, all three of those have collapsed.

Think on.

At The End Of The Day, Gawker Holds The Conch Shell

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.

Spencer Ackerman:

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