Sad Outcome For a Former OBO Employee

It has happened before, but one does not get used to seeing the news that a colleague you've known for many years, even one you haven't worked with regularly, has pled guilty to a crime.

See the details behind the guilty plea at Diplopundit's post, here. The bottom line is that $60,000, which DOJ's press release described as "lucrative kickbacks," went from an OBO construction contractor to an OBO employee in exchange for insider information that gave the contractor an advantage in winning contract awards.

The guilty party in this case is someone I like and have high regard for. Her motive was financial desperation, apparently. Considered on a scale of culpability, her offense ought to be seen as somewhat less than that of the contractor who purposefully cultivated her as his inside source.

Now, as for the real villain in the piece, OBO's construction contractor Montage Inc and its CEO, I have always had as low an opinion as one could have, right from the start of its engagement with OBO and many other government clients. There was just an auru of sleeze around whatever I saw of the company.

Good riddence to that guy.

Settlement Reached in Harry Dunn Civil Suit

While there is surely a non-disclosure agreement as to the amount involved, Sky News is reporting today:

The details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but Mr Seiger said a resolution in the civil claim means Harry's parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, will now turn their focus to the pending criminal case.

So then, it appears that the family is able to put some things ahead of the emotional catharsis of a face-to-face meeting with the American driver, contrary to their U.S. attorney's representation last month to the judge hearing the case.

Well, it's just as easy to focus on a pending criminal case from Ibiza as from home, innit?

Is this the end of the matter, or will there be more to come? 

Oh, there will be lots more, at least if you credit the family's spokesman/advisor/lawyer/and all-around hustler, there certainly will be. But you shouldn't take him seriously, because he's obviously a grandiose malignant narcissist. 

Specifically, there are now three things on the agenda. First, a criminal trial of the driver, then an inquest, and then a parlimentary inquiry into all the ways the UK government has outraged the spokesman.

"The family feel they can now turn their attention to the criminal case and the long-awaited inquest into Harry's death which will follow the criminal case ... There will also need to be a parliamentary inquiry into this scandal in due course."

The UK High Court has already ruled out a trial. A coroner's inquest following a trial seems out of sequence to me. But I'm all for a parlimentrary inquiry. All those UK officials who have for two years played to public sentiment and refused to talk hard truths to the family deserve to be hoist by their own petard now. Or rather, "in due course."

You Shake My Nerves And You Rattle My Brain, Things Like This Drive the Voters Insane

AP has reported the disconcerting news that "U.S. officials at intake centers in the United Arab Emirates and in Wisconsin have identified numerous incidents in which Afghan girls have been presented to authorities as the 'wives' of much older men" (see reports of child brides among Afghan refugees).

That will not come as news to those of you with access to official situation reports on the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans, but it does to your fellow citizens in places like Wisconsin. And they do not like it.

Even in 1957, the American public did not like it the least little bit when the very popular Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year-old third cousin, and the backlash sunk his career for at least a decade. 

Joe Biden doesn't have a decade to wait out the public's anger and the political hit that his administration will take over this outrage, and rightly so. That's an irresistible story for all points on the spectrum. Everyone can hate it that the administration did not screen out the perpetrators of child marriage, whether their interest is from a legal, moral, cultural, religious, nationalist, feminist, government-hating, left-wing, or right-wing basis. 

Just last week I thought the images of government contractor working dogs left behind in Kabul would become one of those ineradicable social media disasters for Biden, but now that seems to have dropped out of the news in favor of the child 'brides' story.

C'mon Man!© Stop the child sexual abuse and visa fraud malarkey before you lose both houses in the mid-term elections.

   

"Tho' All the World Betrays Thee"

Thinking of the ignominious end of our doomed national effort in Afghanistan, with all its enormous humanitarian costs, I've been listening to the mournful Joe Strummer version of The Minstrel Boy:

Harry Dunn Case Update: Depositions Postponed, Possible Signal of a Settlement?

Somewhat interesting news dropped yesterday when the Dunn family's loquacious spokesman/advisor advised the UK news media that, by mutual consent of the parties, the depositions of the American driver and her husband, which had been heavily promoted in UK media for the 'Mum faces son's killer' drama, are now postponed without explaination:

Issuing a short statement about the postponement, the Dunn family's spokesman Radd Seiger told the PA news agency: 'By mutual agreement, the depositions of Mr and Mrs Sacoolas scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday have been postponed.

'The family accordingly are now remaining in the UK and in the meantime they are once again focusing their attention on securing justice in the criminal case.

'We are unable to go into any further detail at this time.'

Notice that he is unable to go into any further detail except, that is, for the further detail he had already gone into, which was that rather odd statement about how the family is now focusing on the nonexistent UK criminal case. I say nonexistent because there is no prospect of any prosecution so long as the USG continues to refuse to waive the driver's diplomatic immunity.

So, what's up with the civil suit? We know the presiding judge has remarked that the case should have been settled long ago, and we also know the plaintiff's lawyer responded to that remark by, essentially, pleading that the family's highest priority is the emotional satisfaction they would derive by going through the civil process. Would you deny the mother her long-sought opportunity to be face to face with the driver in a small room?

I would think that the last moment before the two principal characters go face to face might also be a great moment for the defendants to offer a settlement. Did the insurance company make an offer, and did the family's lawyers - meaning the real ones on this side of the Atlantic, and not that retired ambulance chaser and neighbor who the family is in thrall to - strongly advise accepting it? 

Stopping the civil process short of its emotional climax would surely go against the family's wishes, but recall that the family is now on its second set of American lawyers after a mysterious blow-up with the first set, and perhaps they decided they can't afford to reject legal advice a second time. Maybe they need to take stock of what they really want here.

Taking a payout and then turning their full time and attention to the futile pursuit of a criminal trial might be their best course.

"All Americans Out ... Local Nationals Left Behind"

Afghanistan — From someone at Embassy: All Americans out. Landed in Doha. Local nationals left behind.

— Michael Yon (@Michael_Yon) August 15, 2021

Contrast that with SecState Blinken's performance on ABC News' This Week, less than one hour ago:

  

'This Week' Transcript 8-15-21: Sec. Antony Blinken

KARL: Respectfully, not much about what we're seeing seems too orderly or standard operating procedure. I just -- just last month, President Biden said that under no circumstance, and that was his word -- those were his words, under no circumstance would the U.S. personnel, embassy personnel be airlifted out of Kabul in a replay of the scenes that we saw in Saigon in 1975.

So, isn't that exactly what we're seeing now? I mean, even the images are evocative of what happened in Vietnam.

BLINKEN: Let's take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon.

Not to dispute SecState Blinken, but it is manifestly the case that in the evacuation of Saigon we did not leave (most) of the local nationals behind. 

 

My Vote For Most Iconic Photo of Evacuation From Kabul

The Taliban are still outside the city and talking about a transitional government, so no one is forcing that guy at gunpoint to paint over female images, but everyone knows what will be expected of them and they are already complying. 

My vote for most iconic image of the U.S. Embassy's hasty departure is the one below. Forget all the photos of choppers over the embassy, here's the final act of our evacuation: dropping helmets and body armor just before boarding the flight out.

The equivalent in Saigon '75 was the evacuees dropping their small arms into the embassy pool before getting on the chopper.