Military Contractors Are Still Being Accused Of Facilitating Prostitution
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Today's Washington Post contains some fresh news on the military contractor front, which is sure to delight your hearts!
Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years with phony billing, including charging for a prostitute, alcohol and spa trips.
Charging for a prostitute? Tell me more!
[Two ex-Blackwater employees] assert that Blackwater officials kept a Filipino prostitute on the company payroll for a State Department contract in Afghanistan, and billed the government for her time working for Blackwater male employees in Kabul. The alleged prostitute's salary was categorized as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation" expenses, they said.
You'll have to forgive me if I can't feign too much surprise at the thought of our beloved military contractors indulging themselves in a little pimping. This is actually par for the course. Let's flashback to April of 2008:
A contractor died when a DynCorp manager used an employee's armored car to transport prostitutes, according to Barry Halley, a Worldwide Network Services employee working under a DynCorp subcontract.
"DynCorp's site manager was involved in bringing prostitutes into hotels operated by DynCorp. A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission. I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by the contractor's manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad."
And now, smash-cut to August of 2002:
Two former employees of DynCorp, the government contracting powerhouse, have won legal victories after charging that the $2 billion-a-year firm fired them when they complained that co-workers were involved in a Bosnia sex-slave trade.
[...]In late June, Salon published a two-part investigation into the participation of DynCorp employees in the Bosnian sex-slave trade, based in part on evidence uncovered in the Johnston case. At least 13 DynCorp employees have been sent home from Bosnia -- and at least seven of them fired -- for purchasing women or participating in other prostitution-related activities. But despite large amounts of evidence in some cases, none of the DynCorp employees sent home have faced criminal prosecution.
You really must partake of the aforementioned Salon report. Click here, and get familiar with the particular version of deep-seated, nausea-inducing disgust that comes from reading the sentence, "My girl's not a day over 12."
Look, by now, I'm repeating myself on these matters. But it's worth bringing up again, if only to wonder why no one's particularly outraged by this. Back when ACORN was caught in the gonzo-journalism equivalent of an Upright Citizens Brigade sketch, Congress practically fell all over itself to subject them to a bill of attainder. But here we have actual government contractors facilitating actual prostitution. Your tax money paid for a Filipino prostitute to provide "Morale Welfare Recreation." Is it that euphemism that's confusing people?
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First Posted: 04/13/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 04:30 PM ET