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...illegal drug activity, the administration is looking to increase the severity of consequences for students caught with illegal substances, especially marijuana. According to the “Drugs and Alcohol” section of the FAS Student Handbook, students found using illegal substances will be issued a referral letter and are required to meet regularly with consultants from Alcohol & Other Drug Services (AODS...
...dispiriting reports of the security situation in Afghanistan. But the graphic images of U.S. embassy guards engaged in all manner of obscene, drunken behavior that emerged last week were still shocking. The revelations were presented in detail by the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight (POGO), which sent a letter on Sept. 1 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exposing an alleged atmosphere of fear and coercion among guards at the embassy in Kabul, which involved bacchanalian parties, hazing, prostitution and drunkenness. "The lewd and deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of the leadership...
Taken together, the complaints help explain how such a high-profile contract, flawed from the outset, could have led to the current scandal. ArmorGroup's record at the embassy has not been impressive; according to the POGO letter, nearly 90% of the Americans and other Western expats quit in the first six months of its contract, which meant there had to be constant training of new staff and a dissolution of any semblance of team cohesion. At one point, 18 guards were not at their posts, requiring embassy personnel to be redeployed to fill critical gaps. The State Department said...
...that is, guards at specified posts. (The role of traveling bodyguards for embassy personnel is contracted out to another firm, Xe, the company formerly known as Blackwater.) What's more, the mission left remaining embassy security personnel without any night-vision equipment, or "largely night blind," as the POGO letter...
Even before the POGO letter to Secretary Clinton, the ArmorGroup contract was under scrutiny. The State Department issued the first of eight "deficiency letters" in July 2007, the same month ArmorGroup took over embassy security. But after each complaint, the company somehow persuaded the State Department that the problems were being addressed. In April 2008 the State Department's contracting officer warned this was the company's "final opportunity" to correct shortcomings, and a September 2008 letter declared termination was being considered. In the end, however, the department renewed the contract until July...