state department

This doesn’t have much actual bearing on the case of Matthew Hoh, the top U.S. civilian official in Zabul Province, resigning from the State Department in protest of the Afghanistan war, but this post from a foreign service officer reminds people that Hoh wasn’t actually an FSO, but rather a temporary contract employee. He She [...]

This seems almost too weird to be true, but Wired reports that on Oct. 1, federal agents seized the computers, manuscripts and pickaxes of an anarchist social worker in Queens, N.Y., claiming he violating anti-rioting laws on Twitter.

The planning process is expected to result in significant policy changes.

President Obama convenes the national security team for another debate on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, and I notice an addition to the guest list is Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew. Lew is the deputy in charge of management and personnel for Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, so perhaps part of today’s session will include an assessment of [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s subpanel on human rights and the law is holding a hearing today in which the Justice Department, State Department and FBI have sent officials to boast of their impressive record of prosecuting human rights violators. Really. The subcommittee isn’t addressing the U.S.’ record of prosecuting its own officials who have committed [...]

Remember ArmorGroup, the negligence-and-fraud-prone security contractor that’s responsible for protecting the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan? When last I checked in, the State Department was reviewing its contract — yes, again — and dangling the possibility that it might finally revoke the deal after credible allegations emerged of widespread incompetence, dabbling in prostitution, the inability of [...]

In New York, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the press a brief reaction to news of Iran’s concealed and still-under-construction nuclear facility near Qom:
This is further evidence of Iran’s continued defiance of IAEA and the United Nations obligations. Iran is breaking rules that all nations are expected to follow, and we fully [...]

According to a State Department spokesman, a new review currently underway within the department might result in controversial security company ArmorGroup North America losing its $189 million contract to guard the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
“Action with regard to the existing static guard contract in Afghanistan is under review,” said Andrew Laine, a spokesman for the [...]

The congressionally chartered commission on wartime contracting is meeting today, and one of its witnesses is Danielle Brian, the Project on Government Oversight executive director who blew the lid off of ArmorGroup’s failures in protecting the U.S. embassy in Kabul.  In her prepared testimony, she excoriates the State Department for its laxity in overseeing its [...]

Despite the State Department’s insistence that staffers for Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on the Senate government affairs committee didn’t turn over information about its buck-wild contractor ArmorGroup from whistleblower John Gorman, Lieberman’s staff isn’t backing off the claim. “The Senator’s staff verbally conveyed the information it received from Mr. Gorman to the State Department Inspector’s [...]