Go figure? The APPF needs more time…. lol I imagine they will need a lot of things in the near future. Like more money, more training, more drugs, more guns and bullets to sell, and more sleep time on post, etc. For those companies signing contracts with them, enjoy your overpriced government security force/Karzai money machine.
The other hypocrisy about this is that it was foreign PSC’s that protected Karzai in his beginning years. So for him to criticize this industry and at the same time basically create another government raised army, is certainly telling. Karzai is purely focused on money, and the APPF is just another money making scheme that he can use to juice these western companies and agencies. Might I add that the APPF is more expensive and with the current arrangement, a western company will have no real buffer force to protect it’s people from any rogue guards or enemy infiltrators. How could any company trust this arrangement?
Of course this is also about money for these western companies as well. They know the situation, and the contractors that work for them know the situation. These companies and contractors are making their bets, and banking on the hope that nothing bad will come out of the arrangement. That the money is more important than their personal safety and security.
I guess you can tell that I am not that impressed by this force and arrangement? lol Yes, I am vocal against it, because you can just look at the arrangement and know how this will turn out. It’s like watching a car heading into a rioting crowd. You know that car is getting damaged or destroyed, and the driver might be killed or hurt in the process, and doom on that driver for making such a poor decision.
My other view on this is that I am a champion of private industry. I am absolutely biased against government run programs like this, and especially governments that are corrupt and poorly run. And when lives are in the hands of such government programs….look out. This isn’t cutting grass (which government would probably suck at as well), this is the profession of arms and providing security in a war zone. This is not a matter that should be taken lightly. –Matt
A Blue Hackle security contractor handing over his weapon to an APPF guard during a ceremony.
Afghan government extends deadline for abolishing private security guards
March 18, 2012
The Afghan government is giving companies extensions ranging from a few weeks to 90 days to change from private security guards to a government-run force, officials said Sunday.
The reprieve comes just three days before the March 21 deadline that the Afghan government had set for the majority of companies to start using government-provided security.
Private development companies have said the move is threatening billions in U.S. aid to the country because companies would delay projects or leave altogether because they didn’t feel safe using strictly local security over whose training and procedures they have little control.
President Hamid Karzai has railed for years against the large number of guns-for-hire in Afghanistan, saying private security companies skirt the law and risk becoming militias.
It’s been part of Karzai’s larger push for more control over the way his international allies operate in Afghanistan, as seen most recently in his call for NATO troops to pull back from village outposts and to hand over security responsibilities to Afghans more quickly.