In "Trigger-happy security complicates convoys", the Army Times is reporting on the deleterious impact private security guards are having on U.S.-led efforts in Afghanistan. The contractors hired to escort supply convoys through western Kandahar province are "out-of-control" and have killed more than 30 civilians.
"They’ll start firing at anything that’s moving, and they will injure or kill innocent Afghans, and they’ll destroy property," said Lt. Col. Jeff French, commander of 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment and Task Force Legion, the main coalition force in Maywand since mid-September.
When private contractors kill civilians they undermine the efforts of the U.S.-led coalition because the local Afghan people "associate the contractors with the coalition". According to Haji Obidullah Bawari, the Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand, the guards are "heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles".
To make matters worse, the are questions about which corporation hired these men as guards. Lt. Col. French hasn't gotten an answer.
Magnifico's diary :: :: No one who knows (if anyone does) is saying.
Until recently, the identities of the companies for whom the security guards worked remained shrouded in mystery, even from the coalition headquarters whose troops they are supplying. French said he requested information on the companies through his higher brigade headquarters — 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division — but had yet to receive any word back.
An International Security Assistance Force spokesman said the convoy security workers are employees of the logistics contractors running the convoys. Those contractors work for one or several of the ISAF, NATO or 26 countries operating in Afghanistan. As a result, he said he did not know how much is spent on the security firms or which companies had hired them.
The military convoys are vital to the coalition ability to fight the war, but they move across Afghanistan without the protection of U.S. or coalition forces. "Instead, each convoy is protected by Afghan security guards armed with AK-series assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in sport utility vehicles".
"These guys are like gun-toting mercenaries with probably not a whole lot of training... They’re just light on the trigger finger," said Capt. Casey Thoreen, commander of 2-1 Infantry’s B Company.
We send the our highly professional Army over to Afghanistan and then have their hard won efforts undone by untrained, unaccountable guns-for-hire.
"We’re getting fairly consistent complaints about them," Thoreen said. "Everybody knows somebody who’s been shot by the contractors."
The contractors have killed children, families, and a nomadic herder.
"They roll through, and if they see something that seems like a threat to them, or they feel that they’re under attack, the local Afghans are saying that they just start to lase and blaze," French said. "They don’t stop, they don’t wait for the police to come and do an investigation or anything; they just take off."
The corporations who hire these men seemingly give them guns and ammunition and set them loose. If something happens to them, then they're out of luck.
"There’s no give-a-s— factor in them when it comes to their employees," he said. The firms’ attitude was: "Good luck — it sucks to be you. You’re in Maywand. We’re kicking you to the curb."
The U.S. military often evacuates the wounded guards to their own medical facilities rather than leave them by the side of the road with their wounds.
In September, the NY Times reported that contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The numbers cited in the report by the Congressional Research Service are dated because earlier this year, President Barack Obama ordered an additional two brigades be deployed to Afghanistan. But as of March, there were 68,197 contractors, many of them Afghans.
The U.S. uses contracts to "handle a variety of jobs, including cooking for the troops, serving as interpreters and even providing security... The growing dependence on contractors is partly because the military has lost some of its logistics and support capacity".
Lack of security and logistics capacity are one of the reasons why trigger-happy, heroin-addicted Afghan guards have jobs protecting coalition convoys in western Kandahar.
Presidential candidate Obama promised to create transparecy for military contractors and to "restore honesty, openess, and commonsense to contracting". Obama said:
We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors. To add insult to injury, these contractors are charging taxpayers up to nine times more to do the same jobs as soldiers, a disparity that damages troop morale.
The out-of-control convoy guards are hurting U.S. and coalition efforts in Afghanistan. There is no transparency to which company is responsible for hiring and equipping these gunslingers.
TPM Muckraker reports the number of contractors in Afghanistan is set to increase to support the increasing number of U.S. troops deployed there.
continued>>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/1/809667/-Army-Times:-Private-security-impairs-U.S.-forces-in-Afghanistan
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