Hiring trigger-happy heroin addicts as security guards

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 10:52 PM Share

Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I don't think hiring heroin addicts as security guards makes sense. Especially when they seem to open fire with little provocation.

The district chief in Maywand, in southwestern Afghanistan, says that is what is happening. And American officers in the area agree that the guards are a problem, according to a fine article by Sean Naylor in the November 30 edition of Army Times.

"They'll start firing at anything that's moving, and they will injure or kill innocent Afghans, and they'll destroy property," Lt. Col. Jeff French, a battalion commander, told Naylor.

"We're getting fairly consistent complains about them," added Capt. Casey Thoreen, one of French's company commanders. "Everybody knows somebody who's been shot by the contractors."

French has taken to pulling over convoys at gunpoint and taking their security chiefs in for questioning at his base.

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

EXPLORE:MIDDLE EAST, AFGHANISTAN, MILITARY, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

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JSINAIKO

1:48 AM ET

November 25, 2009

Who are the guards? Are they

Who are the guards? Are they Afghans or Europeans? Who hires them? All we know is that someone says they are junkies.

DAVE-T

3:48 PM ET

November 25, 2009

Tom shows his age...

Heroin and gun play... It's what the kids do now a days...

APARICIO

4:56 PM ET

November 25, 2009

They should give them some pot

They shall smoke some weed, to come down.

WALKING WOUNDED

6:26 PM ET

November 25, 2009

real men use Oxy-Contin

for the proprietary time-release benefits, balanced by mil-spec ups and sleeping pills. Take the edge off with prozac or other SSRI of choice.

Now coming home, to a family near you.

TYRTAIOS

6:33 PM ET

November 25, 2009

High - on Semper Fi

Real men get high - on Semper Fi! :)

Though when running Chinese Nungs across the border in RVN, one did have ensure an adequate supply of booze and female companionship in between operations during happy-hour.

WALKING WOUNDED

7:38 PM ET

November 25, 2009

point of info...

Weren't the parent clans of the Nung mercs associated with unregulated opiate traffic? VC taxation of the market for GI self-medication was a strategic insurgency tactic-one that I understand was promoted by Casey and implemented agin the rooshuns by ISI operatives in the 80's Afghanistan insurgency.

As the late Gen. Odom pointed out, if the insurgents are tax supported, and the local army is foreign supported, who is the real gov't?

As a matter of pharmacology, all drugs are performance decreasers in the mid term. In the short term, they are impotent compared to the adrenal surge and dopamine release available to an unmedicated, healthy, alert body.

That said, pain relief does promote more rapid healing. Any sleep is better than none, and I begrudge no one the relief of sleep aids. Zero tolerance for booze and foreign amenities must suck large.

Semper Fi contact high.
Yer a poet, and ya knowit.

Here's wishing a natural tryptophan buz, to all abroad. ;)

(Little known fact: TE Lawrence, posing as a troublemaking Arab Islamist, went native and married a local aristocrat, while deployed in Her Majesty's service to Pashtunistan. The Bactrians wouldn't let Alexander loose until he married Oxana. Now, for extra points, why do we call Ben Franklin's favorite bird a Turkey?)

TYRTAIOS

8:57 PM ET

November 25, 2009

Point Answered & More

Back in "the day" Blesse Soldat, eastern Native Americans were heard to refer to the bird as a firkee, but I believe like S'unka Wakan (horse), the turkey was introduced to North America probably by the Spanish from Mexico.

Incidentally, S'unka Wakan means sacrad dog, because he could do everything an intelligent dog could, but better.

Prior to the introduction of the horse, dogs pulled the tee-pee poles which meant that they were smaller structures back then. With the acquisition of the horse, larger
poles and wrappings could be carried, and thus, the tee-pee size and configuration as we know it today.

Have a great Thanksgiving! : )

WALKING WOUNDED

5:14 AM ET

November 26, 2009

By any name, a wild turkey

is beautiful in flight. I've seen them in the Appalachians, and on the Redwood coast.

The naming myth I heard is that back in the day when the Pilgrim refugees starved under watchful eyes from the forest, most exotic new stuff came to Europe thru the land of the Ottoman turks. So the exotic new fowl was dubbed a 'turkey' bird, and the oversize new grain 'turkey corn'.

Even better if 'firkee' is a first american name. Peace and prosperity to you and yours.

GRANT

5:52 PM ET

November 25, 2009

There are reasons why

There are reasons why Machiavelli* argued against the use of mercenaries. You can't be sure of quality training or even thorough background checks.

*I don't consider using the words of people centuries ago to normally be a good way of proving your point on a modern day problem, but for someone who wrote so little this guy was remarkably clear minded.

In re. to Jsinaiko: It seems likely that they're American or at least Western. If they were Afghan it no one outside of Afghanistan would care.

JSINAIKO

11:21 PM ET

November 25, 2009

At least the Condottieri

At least the Condottieri tended to be local guys. And Niccolo hired lots of them when he was a big-shot in Firenze - before the Medici threw his butt down to the Val de Pesa a few kilometers South of town.

It was easy to do background checks on those guys - they were all local, with a few enterprising Spaniards thrown in, but preventing them from making pre-battle deals with each other to "hold down casualties and keep things civilized" was a different story.

If the jamokes Tom is writing about are Western, they probably didn't show up as hypos; most junkies don't have the wherewithal to get hired, much less to cross the Khyber Pass or Hindu Kush. If what I've been told about the Afghani heroin is true, it doesn't take much to get strung out - pretty strong stuff. A little dab 'l do ya, but I do remember Afghani hash (Kandahar black) from some time spent in Copenhagen in my mis-spent youth and it was enough to knock you back a good piece. Also pretty strong stuff!

INTELTROOPER

7:04 PM ET

November 25, 2009

Compass Security

If these guys are guarding supply or fuel convoys, they are more than likely locals employed by companies like Compass. In that case, they are not mercenaries. They are local security guards, like the ones who drive armored trucks in the US, so your point is moot.

DRLAKE777

9:04 PM ET

November 25, 2009

Tom, you dropped the ball on

Tom, you dropped the ball on bit on this one, since you don't provide enough context for many of us to understand what the hell you are talking about.

That said, if these guys are Western contractors, this just continues to illuminate the problems with the extensive use of PMCs to make up for the inadequate military personnel available for the mission. Maybe instead of hiring mercenaries, we should put resources into building up the military?

TIMBERLAND

7:15 AM ET

December 11, 2009

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