A FLAT LEARNING CURVE

In Iraq, all too many private security contractors undermined out efforts because they had little regard for the lives of Iraqi civilians (see here and here) and the same damn thing seems to be going on in Afghanistan (h/t Raw Story):

Trigger-happy security complicates convoys

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Dec 2, 2009 14:45:11 EST
ARMY TIMES

HUTAL, Afghanistan — Ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province, undermining the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy here and leading to at least one confrontation with U.S. forces, say U.S. Army officers and Afghan government officials.

The security guards are responsible for killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians during the past four years in Maywand district alone, said Mohammad Zareef, the senior representative in the district for Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

Among incidents this year involving the security guards in Maywand, according to Zareef, the NDS chief:

• On May 9, contractors shot dead an Afghan National Policeman manning a checkpoint on Highway 1, then drove away.

• Contractors left their broken-down car for a night at a gas station and found the next morning that insurgents had burned it. In their anger, the security guards turned their guns on the local population. “They started shooting and killed a kid,” Zareef said.

• On March 28, speeding contractors killed a local man and his wife, and injured their child, when the security guards’ SUV hit the motorcycle on which the family was riding.

• Afghans arrested a convoy security guard for the March 4 killing of a kuchi, or nomadic herder.