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We proudly bring you today yet another less-than-noble security contractor. Houston-based U.S. Protection and Investigations provides security services to USAID, which falls under the State Department.
A mom-and-pop Texas company that provides security in Afghanistan is accused of overbilling the U.S. government by charging for nonexistent employees and vehicles, an American security official with close ties to the company told The Associated Press.
The overbilling by USPI could add up to millions of dollars, the American security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in Kabul.
Eric Dubelier, USPI’s attorney, called the official’s allegations “factually incorrect.” He said no one has accused the company or any of its employees of wrongdoing. He acknowledged the government is conducting an inquiry into the firm but declined to elaborate.
Just common-or-garden-variety fraud, so far. Perfectly respectable contractors do this every day (and get rewarded with bigger, better, more longer-lasting contracts). But USPI may not be as respectable as, say Blackwater USA or Halliburton.
The company employs more than 3,600 people in the war-torn country, nearly all of whom are Ministry of Interior supplementary troops, its Web site says.
Hiring locals. That’s always a good sign, isn’t it? I’m not going to suggest for a minute that that may have something to do not having to pay them anywhere near what you pay ex-Navy-Seals. Whether you still get to charge the government upwards of $400,000 per employee is, unfortunately, not known at the time of going to press.
Bu wait. What type of locals has USPI been hiring?
USPI’s hiring practices in Afghanistan have drawn criticism from the International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based think tank that works to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.
In a 2005 report on disarmament in Afghanistan, the group said a majority of the men on USPI’s payroll are associated with private militias and have not gone through formal channels.
“Many have used their authority to engage in criminal activity, including drug trafficking,” the report said.
Oh dear! And what kind of stuff have their American employees been getting up to?
Later that year, the firm drew attention again when an Afghan official said an American supervisor for USPI allegedly shot to death his Afghan interpreter and was flown out of the country the next day. USPI officials have declined to comment on the incident.
Oh-oh! I can’t imagine Blackwater USA was too amused. They probably jumped angrily to their feet, and went: “Hang on one bloody second! Where do they get off doing that? That’s our thing! Nobody gets to dilute our brand. No-bloody-body!”
Which may explain this report:
The American security official said agents from the private security firm Blackwater USA raided USPI’s Kabul office last month and seized computers and office files.
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Can you believe that’s all the AP article I’m working from says on the subject? No further explanation at all. Was it a private enterprise thing? Were they acting for somebody else? The U.S. embassy? The U.S. military? Afghani drug lords? The Taliban, maybe?
A separate AP story provides some more details, but no real explanation:
Afghan police provided security for the raid on the company, according to (police Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal), and the U.S. official said Blackwater security teams took computers and office files. Two Afghan workers were taken into custody, and Blackwater held American and Canadian citizens at gunpoint, the official said.
Blackwater, which helps provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, could not immediately be reached for comment.
A Blackwater security team conducted the raid, and the Afghan police provided security for them? I imagine Blackwater doesn’t really want this getting around. Surely it’s not good for business when a security outfit needs someone to provide security for them?
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But let’s turn serious now. Because this is bloody serious stuff.
I guess AP is kind of implying that the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was behind the raid, but they’re really not coming out and saying so. If Blackwater wasn’t acting for the embassy, if it was acting for someone else, or just settling professional scores, that probably makes them look even worse. And “acting for the embassy” does sound like the most reasonable assumption here, so let’s go with that, for now. (Yes, even before “all the facts come out”! Gasp!)
It’s all very well for Blackwater to be hired to provide security, but by what stretch of imagination and law does their role extend to conducting raids on business premises in an independent, sovereign country? Not only conducting raids but seizing property. And holding American and Canadian citizens at gunpoint. Recently schooled in this aspect of the law, thanks to O.J. Simpson’s Las Vegas hotel shenanigans, I can confidently assert that that constitutes kidnapping. But they didn’t stop at the holding-at-gunpoint version of kidnapping. They actually took Afghan workers into custody.
Let’s go ahead and assume that the Blackwater guards in question were not duly constituted deputies of the Afghan police. Their actions then constitute armed robbery and multiple counts of kidnapping.
Great! So now, thanks to our Condi, the U.S. government is presiding over armed robbery and kidnapping.
Not just conspiring to cover up these acts by their Most Favored Contractors after the fact — as happened with the civilian deaths in Baghdad or when that drunk dude shot the vice-president’s guard — but orchestrating them and presiding over them. To put it bluntly, we have been caught red-handed in the act of paying third parties to commit armed robbery and kidnapping for us. If there was some remaining line between Bush’s U.S. government and a gang of thugs, our Condi has certainly been working overtime to erase that line. Frank Rich wrote in the NYT on Sunday (in the context of the torture that we do not do): “There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.” Personally, I’d file our country’s good name under “going, going, gone”.
So what we’re saying then is that the U.S. embassy ordered a raid on the business premises of USAID’s security contractor (in an independent, sovereign country). And they ordered their own private paramilitary force –a very private company, as the Prince of Blackness was kind enough to remind us all — to conduct the raid. In pursuance of said criminal contract, Blackwater USA then burst into USPI’s business premises (with guns drawn, just like O.J.’s goons), engaged in multiple acts of the holding-at-gunpoint version of kidnapping (just like O.J.’s goons) and decamped with property belonging to the person or persons in occupation of said premises (just like O.J.’s goons). And they went one better than O.J.’s goons — as any paramilitary NGO would have to, just out of professional pride — by kidnapping Afghan workers who were physically removed from the premises at gunpoint.
So what the eff is this? One more installment of “Embassies Gone Wild”?
As I write this post on Sunday morning, this has still not become a major story. AP mentioned it only in passing. No one in the mainstream media has picked up on it. It is already being spun as something very different; The Houston Chronicle on Friday night had a short, uninformative piece claiming that the raid in question — which occurred in August, incidentally — was conducted by “Afghan officials”.
But indulge me in a little fantasy. Suppose this story takes off this week (ignited, perhaps, by a post in a little known liberal blog with no letters in its name). You can be sure that the Afghan government would be forced to issue a strong denunciation of the raid. No choice. Once it’s splashed all over the international press that Blackwater USA conducted a law-enforcement-style raid in Kabul, and “confiscated” property and “arrested” workers, any self-respecting independent, sovereign nation would have to issue a strong denunciation. Condi Rice will then suddenly wake up — as she is wont to do — and be outraged, simply outraged, by the incident. She will promptly dispatch yet another high-powered delegation to the scene of the crime, to conduct a “top-to-bottom” investigation. (Except these investigations never reach anywhere near all the way to the top, do they?)
But as long as nothing hits the fan, everyone is cheerfully willing to shrug, and defer to business as usual. After all, that’s how the first six Blackwater USA civilian killings in Iraq played out, didn’t they? So the real question is: how close is this camel’s back to breaking? Is this the last straw, or can it still take a few more?
Echoing a growing problem in Iraq, Afghan authorities are cracking down on lucrative but largely unregulated security firms, some of which are suspected of murder.
Two private Afghan security companies were raided and shut down this week, and a dozen or so more contractors — including some protecting embassies — would be closed soon, police and Western officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The government is proposing new rules to tighten control over such firms, including some Western companies, amid concerns they intimidate Afghans, show disrespect to local security forces and don’t cooperate with authorities, according to a draft policy document obtained by the AP.
Blackwater’s alleged raid would seem to fit all three parts of that.