WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Overwork, language barriers and obscene, drunken behavior among guards at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan is causing a breakdown in discipline that is jeopardizing security, a watchdog group said on Tuesday.
The nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight sent U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a letter documenting complaints about guards working for ArmorGroup, North America, and photos of nearly naked men behaving lewdly at their camp.
"These are very serious allegations and we are treating them that way," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said at a briefing, adding the issue had been turned over to the department's inspector general.
Kelly was unable to say if the State Department was satisfied with ArmorGroup's performance or when the documents were sent to the inspector general. He said the State Department had "zero tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged in these documents."
Pictures obtained by POGO showed guards, barely dressed in G-string style outfits, dancing around a bonfire and urinating while others snapped photographs. Video showed them pouring alcohol down the bare backside of a new recruit and trying to drink it as it spilled from the recruit's buttocks.
ArmorGroup, North America, a subsidiary of Wackenhut Services Inc., had no immediate comment on the letter or the allegations. The firm employs 450 guards to provide security at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul under a five-year, $189 million contract with the U.S. State Department.
O.K. Take a deep breath.
First, the staff is so thin that maintaining security with the personnel on hand is causing sleep deprivation? At a U.S. Embassy?
And what few, sleep deprived personnel they DO HAVE can't even communicate with each other due to language barriers?
And to blow off steam and have some fun, these protectors, these soldiers, these man's men run around in G-strings drinking liquor off of their buddies ASSES?!!!!
And the company running the show is called WACKENHUT, for Pete's sake? Who the hell couldn't have seen a problem with this coming a mile away? Sounds like the wacko's are certainly whacking each other off... I mean since they can't understand what each other are saying, why not? The universal language of man love.
Don't get me wrong, I don't personally care who you love or how you do it. But there is a time and a place for everything. A fucking war zone just doesn't strike me as the place to be holding man orgies! Of course, I could just be a prude. But I kind of doubt it in this circumstance.
But do you know what the most disturbing thing about this whole story is? THAT WE EVEN HAVE AN EMBASSY IN KABUL OF THIS MAGNITUDE! If the damned thing wasn't there, we wouldn't have the conditions that make this kind of embarrassing behavior even possible!
The reason that they have a "Lord of the Flies" mentality there is because that is the mentality of their bosses HERE!
I'm officially disgusted.
