Security at the US embassy in Kabul is being undermined by a breakdown in discipline and morale among guards, some of whom have been subjected to “deviant hazing,” a watchdog group said on Tuesday.
The nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO) said on its Web site it had sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton detailing the problems, which also include language barriers between Nepalese Ghurkas and other guards.
It said it had obtained many e-mails, photographs and videos that “portray a Lord of the Flies environment,” referring to the title of the novel by William Golding about stranded school boys who turn into savages on a desert island.
In the letter dated Tuesday, POGO said it launched its investigation after about one-tenth of the 450 guards and supervisors responsible for security at the embassy contacted the group.
They sought “to express concerns and provide evidence of a pattern of blatant, longstanding violations of the security contract, and of a pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale.”
It said such an environment has led to “chronic turnover” among the guards and has undermined security at the embassy where about 1,000 US diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals work.
It said security for the embassy is provided under a State Department contract with ArmorGroup, North America (AGNA), owned by Wackenhut Services, Inc (Wackenhut).
It said guards presented POGO with allegations and photographic evidence that some supervisors and guards are engaging in “near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates.”
Management has declined to discipline the culprits, it said.
“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,” it said.
POGO said security was also endangered by language barriers between the Nepalese Ghurkas and other guards. Even though they make up nearly two-thirds of the force, it said, most Ghurkas “cannot adequately speak English.”
It said the “State Department has acknowledged the [language] issue as a problem, but has not fixed it.”
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters the POGO charges were being taken seriously.
“Let me just say that these are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way. As soon as we received the documents, they were turned over immediately to our Office of the Inspector General,” Kelly said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS