Justin Elliott December 4, 2009, 9:20 AM

Last night, Rachel Maddow took a look at what she called the “sobering” issue of private contractors in Afghanistan, who, according to the military’s latest figures, number 104,100.

As we’ve reported, the contractors do the logistical and security work that make the war possible, and most of them are in fact Afghan nationals.

Here’s the Maddow segment, which also touches on the recent controversy over ArmorGroup security contractors in Kabul doing Vodka shots out of a … well, human luge. Watch the segment below (or click here if the embed isn’t working):

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