Erik Prince, who founded security contractor Blackwater Worldwide and remained defiant after the company became embroiled in controversy following a deadly 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad, is stepping down as chief executive of the parent company.
Erik Prince
The 39-year-old Mr. Prince will retain his post as chairman but move away from daily oversight of the company he started 11 years ago. The closely held venture earned more than $600 million in revenue last year, with about a third of that coming from a major U.S. State Department contract to protect diplomats in war zones.
"I'm a little worn out by the whole thing, the politics of it all," Mr. Prince said during an interview at the company's headquarters in McLean, Va. "Me not being part of the equation reduces the 'X' on the thing."Erik Prince, who founded security contractor Blackwater Worldwide and remained defiant... more
After $1.3 billion in government contracts and controversy over the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians, Blackwater Worldwide is moving on. The powerful military corporation has no plans to slow down after what has been an extraordinarily profitable decade.
"The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans." - Hermann Hesse
Mike Papantonio of Air America's Ring of Fire talks about how the private mercenary firm Blackwater USA is expanding its projects to include domestic services, which could be disastrous if they act as they've acted in Iraq.
“Most people know the basic facts behind the Blackwater story. They may have read a few facts about how that mercenary organization was started by a phenomenally rich multimillionaire inheritance baby named Erik Prince. For decades, Prince’s daddy wooed all of his political friends by spreading millions of dollars around to conservative think-tanks and ultra-right religious infrastructures that helped shape the now floundering neo-con revolution.
Today, the Prince family’s private army numbers about 25,000 strong. They have their own inventory of aircraft, tanks, helicopter gunships, amphibious assault crafts and ammunition stashes that rival the armies of many Third World countries.
Soldiers enlisted in the US military get paid about $70 a day to put themselves in harm’s way while Mr. Prince’s private family soldier is paid around $1,500 a day for the same risks.
The numbers of Prince family mercenaries have mushroomed in these last eight years. Each of the mercenaries know they cannot be court-martialed when they break the law. And to this day, the lawyers for the Prince family soldiers are still arguing that these mercenaries can’t be prosecuted under traditional criminal and civil US Statutes.
Dwight Eisenhower made it clear on numerous occasions that no military machine should ever be allowed to gain independent unchecked power in America. Eisenhower developed his fears of unchecked military power at a time that he could not even visualize an entity as creepy and unregulated as this Prince private army.
Private armies were rare in the US during Eisenhower’s service as a soldier. And that was at a time when America’s public military had shown that it was capable of winning two World Wars without the help of American mercenaries.
As you might expect, the congressmen and advocacy groups that are trying to shut Blackwater down are being branded as un-American, unpatriotic liberals by the Prince family loyalists. But they would need to roll Eisenhower into that list of unpatriotic objectors.
They would also need to add the names of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to their list of un-American types. Both of them also warned us about the unchecked expansion of a military of any kind, public or private.
Washington put it this way: “Overgrown military establishments under any form of government are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
As I write this column, Blackwater is using part of the billion plus dollars they have been paid in mostly no-bid contracts to expand what they call their domestic operations division. That part of Prince’s private army will be able to defy the 130-year old policy of posse comitatus that says that a standing military may not carry out active operations on US soil.
More than a few of those so called un-American congresspeople have voiced concerns that Blackwater has reached a level of overgrown and unchecked power that make them capable of overpowering the military of many of the world’s governments. Blackwater spokesmen tell us that their mercenaries operate under a pledge of strict loyalty and patriotism. But take time to follow the story about this mercenary group and you will wonder who or what entity actually benefits from that loyalty pledge.”Mike Papantonio of Air America's Ring of Fire talks about how the private mercenary... more
The saga continues as Rambo heads to Washington D.C. to get some answers. Meanwhile Osama bin Laden and his cohorts race to build a rocket to send to the moon. Will Rambo make it in time? Find out in this episode.The saga continues as Rambo heads to Washington D.C. to get some answers. Meanwhile... more
Rambo is back and ready to kick some serious butt. With Osama Bin Laden still at large, Sly Stallone teams up with Blackwater USA to fight the war on Terror.Rambo is back and ready to kick some serious butt. With Osama Bin Laden still at... more
