US embassy bans alcohol amid guard scandal
Contractors put security at risk, experts doubt war can be won
The United States embassy in Afghanistan Thursday banned alcohol from a contractor camp following wide-ranging inquiry into allegations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct among private security contractors amid skepticism by experts that the war can be won.
The ban followed allegations that contractor guards had engaged in drunken brawls and lewd behavior that put the more than 1,000 U.S. diplomats and Afghan nationals and embassy security at risk.
The U.S. ambassador and other senior embassy officials met on Thursday to discuss the issue, an embassy statement said, and were interviewing guards as part of an investigation. They are also assessing whether any staff should be suspended or fired.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight said private guards from the security company ArmorGroup held parties in their camp where they stripped near-naked, drank vodka and abused Afghans.
ArmorGroup and the State Department came under fire Tuesday after the watchdog group said that the nearly 450 ArmorGroup guards live and work in an oppressive environment in which they are subjected to hazing and other inappropriate behavior by supervisors.
Last month, insurgents fired rockets that landed near the embassy and a suicide car bomber struck close to its gates, killing at least seven people and wounding almost 100. The Taliban said the embassy had been the bomber's target.
Latest allegations
The State Department said Wednesday the company's $189 million contract could be terminated. ArmorGroup employs 450 guards to provide security at the embassy under a five-year contract that was extended in June, despite the State Department being aware of some problems.
The company is a subsidiary of Florida-based Wackenhut Services Inc., which has not commented on the report.
The findings were the latest in a string of allegations of misconduct by private security contractors hired by the U.S. government to perform duties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the letter sent to Clinton on Tuesday, the Project on Government Oversight said the contractors fostered a "Lord of the Flies environment" built on abuse and humiliating rituals.
It quoted witnesses as saying they had seen guards urinating on people and drinking "vodka shots out of (buttock) cracks."
In one case, a supervisor wearing underwear and brandishing bottles of alcohol abused an Afghan national by grabbing his face and using strong language to humiliate him, it said.
Opposition increases
The revelations came just weeks before President Barack Obama was expected to send more troops to Afghanistan amid a crumbling consensus and increasing references to the specter of a new Vietnam.
Eight years after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion ousted the former Taliban regime, Afghanistan has become increasingly treacherous and a growing number of experts doubt that the war can be won.
Already, 2009 has been a record-breaking year for the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan and elections last month have been heavily tainted by allegations of fraud and fears of low turnout.
Nearly six in 10 Americans are opposed to the war in Afghanistan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this week.
The similarities to Vietnam are ominousWesley Clark
Another Vietnam
Wesley Clark, the former commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, worried about the course of the conflict.
"The similarities to Vietnam are ominous," Clark wrote in the New York Daily News.
"There, too, an insurgency was led and supported from outside the borders of the state in which our troops were fighting. There, too, sanctuaries across international borders stymied U.S. military efforts," the retired general said.
Michael O'Hanlon, an expert who favors Obama's offensive strategy in Afghanistan, said critics need to better understand the strategy and developments on the ground.
"In Vietnam, we lost 5,000 or more Americans a year and the Vietnamese lost hundreds of thousands. In Afghanistan, we are losing 200 to 300 a year and the Afghans are losing a few thousand," the Brookings Institution analyst told AFP.
"However there is one disturbing parallel: the corruption in the respective indigenous governments and their general weakness."
(With Agencies)
However there is one disturbing parallel: the corruption in the respective indigenous governments and their general weaknessMichael O Hanlon, Brookings