The fire hose of seemingly ever worse stories gushing forth from this White House often obscures consideration of real-world actions and consequences. As I (and others) have written sometimes this President generates news stories as a “Weapon of Mass Distraction” and usually succeeds in his goal. Even though they often later admit they were distracted journalists can’t resist talking ad nauseum about the latest Tweet or ridiculous/outrageous statement –instead of just mentioning it and setting to work figuring out just what it is the administration is trying to hide.
OTOH sometimes the news coming out of the White House isn’t some planned distraction at all. It’s just the petulant Man-Baby-In-Chief exploding because he doesn’t like what he’s been told, or even (gasp) someone questioning him. Someone like the Joint Chiefs for example. I mention them because with all the worry this week about North Korea, something happened last week in the White House Situation Room that made the news – and then got overwhelmed by new news.
Trump had a meltdown (www.nbcnews.com/… ) in the Situation Room. He literally lost it with the Joint Chiefs and advisors in the meeting over Afghanistan, apparently because they were trying to explain the complexities of the situation there and/or outlining their strategy for how they wanted to proceed – or some combination of the two. And what ever they had to say was different than this GREAT idea their Commander-In-Chief sprung on them and wanted them to accept. It’s the news that broke since the meltdown about Erik Prince-of-Darkness has been pushing “privatization” of our efforts in Afghanistan, using mercenaries from his own company.
Btw, as someone who once was a Marine “grunt” I realize mercenary is a loaded term in this context because the lion’s share of Prince’s Blackwater folks formerly served in our Armed Forces and a lot of them in Special Ops. However, there’s no getting around a couple of facts. First, Prince’s company is a private paid army (and air force now too apparently) of guns for hire that will work not just for the U.S. but other countries and/or people who aren’t from the U.S. which by definition makes them mercenaries. One also has to consider Erik Prince and his infamous war-profiteering creation Blackwater ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince ) which he tried to re-brand — or the renamed version. It’s actually been through more than one re-branding but it’s now known as Academi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi). Same leopard, just different (and more) spots. Yes, the latest iteration is trying to convince everyone the bad old days of Blackwater are a thing of the past and the new company has genuinely turned over a new leaf. And I believe that about as far as I can throw the building I live in. It’s the same for believing that somehow, some way Prince himself doesn’t have a financial stake in the company.
The reason Prince and his demon-spawn mercenary company factor into this is Prince’s relationship to the President, and Vice-President too while we’re on the subject. While there have been attempts to play down the relationship Prince and his family (including sister Betsy Devoss – yes THAT Betsy DeVoss who married into serious money) have been heavy GOP investors and Prince played a notable role in the transition. That includes btw setting up that hush-hush meeting between Team Trump and Putin’s pals in the Seychelles, well away from prying eyes. So Prince has the President’s ear. Also, and more to the point Prince is hurt by the criticism his baby, the infamous Blackwater has gotten over time. He wants vindication for his vision. More importantly, he wants money. Lots of it. He scored a good 2 billion in government contracts in Iraq during Blackwater’s heyday. Anyone care to bet he doesn’t see the potential for far more if he gets what he now wants?
If you’re wondering what Prince now wants, that was the subject briefly in the news early this week before Trump’s dick-waving contest North Korea’s own dick-waving honcho overwhelmed everything. Prince wants to “privatize” the effort in Afghanistan, and he wants U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill. More on that later. More specifically, Prince knows just who things should be outsourced to – his old company! Turns out he pitched this idea months ago and got shot down at the staff level. However, he hasn’t given up which is why I say while it may be(intentionally) obscured or concealed he has a significant financial stake in(now) Adademi. Say what you want about the guy (and I’ve got plenty of negative stuff to say) but he’s a bona fide Navy SEAL - and one doesn’t become a SEAL if one doesn’t have what it takes to fight through damned near any obstacle put in their path.
Follow along with my logic here:
- Prince wants to use his old company to privatize operations in Afghanistan and (of course) eventually other places too.
- He’s got fairly good access to this President, who isn’t the brightest bulb in the room and has a well-known tendency to make even big decisions based on what the last person he spoke with told him.
- Prince floats a plan to have his old company take over in Afghanistan and gets shot down. He backs off for a bit and refines his approach, and when discussions are well underway about the mission in Afghanistan and the President is asking the Joint Chiefs for options he manages to get direct access to the President.
- Putin isn’t the only one who knows how to “stroke” Trump and he sells the President on his idea. Trump listens, or maybe doesn’t to the Joint Chiefs presentation in the Situation Room last week and then tells them about the GREAT, bigly absolutely best awesome idea.
- The Chiefs shoot it down, or at least push back and hard.
- And Trump loses it and goes mental on them.
It makes sense – to me at least. We know how much Trump likes to think he knows more/better than all his Generals. He did after all attend a military prep school – a place that catered to spoiled rich boys. So “of course” he knows more than professionals who’ve spent decades training and actually fighting! But most of all he trusts other rich guys when they kiss his ass. Or at least pretend to. I’m quite certain that despicable as he is, someone like Prince who can make it through SEAL training and even take part in operations has nothing but contempt for a Chicken Hawk like Trump. But he apparently learned an important survival skill while in the Navy– the care and feeding of Flag Officers (and lesser superiors) that were overly full of themselves. That was surely a far greater challenge than Trump presents for him. So I think what happened (last week) Prince decided it was a perfect time to make his pitch to Trump, and if I’m right it’s not at all hard to imagine Trump being all excited going into that meeting last week in the Situation room — and throwing a tantrum when it was suggested his “bigly” idea wasn’t some grand stroke of genius that will make everything awesome.
Here’s the thing though – Prince isn’t about to give up for reasons I’ve already stated. Also, if you look at the link for Academi I provided some of those names are well plugged in to the government and national defense/security apparatus of our country. So this attempt to privatize operations in Afghanistan and/or elsewhere isn’t over and won’t be as long as Trump (or even Pence if things break that way) is in the Oval Office. There’s just too much money to be made via the American taxpayer. It doesn’t matter that the costs would be five times (or more) greater than having actual American troops currently serving do the same jobs – mostly training and support. Also, while they continue to wrap themselves up in the flag when it suits their purposes, the GOP isn’t as dominant on the “Patriotism/support the troops” issue as they once were. Their support for Trump during the election (and since) even as he denigrated POWs, Gold Star families, etc. has added new cracks to what was once a solid shield. Combine that with their fervent belief that the private sector can do anything government can & do it better and it’s not such a far-fetched notion that Prince might be able to thread the needle and get Afghanistan or some other area of operations outsourced to his baby, whatever it’s now named.
Remember when I said I’d get back to Prince wanting taxpayers to foot the bill for his company’s taking over for the U.S. Military? I don’t like the idea of private armies fighting for us or any other country. As you can tell I find it especially appalling that U.S. taxpayers have been on the hook to Blackwater and smaller companies in Iraq & to a lesser degree elsewhere, such as taking over for some State Dept. security functions, or CIA operations. But if another country chooses to make that particular deal with the devil then while I think they’d come to regret it, it would be their choice to do so. And to pay for it out of their own pocket. IOW, if what passes for the government of Afghanistan wants to hire Prince’s outfit, then as long as we can ensure they aren’t taking financial aid from us to cover the bill then so be it. Of course, Prince and his cronies won’t approach them and try to negotiate such a deal for a couple of reasons. First is that the end-game is to privatize operations in other places than Afghanistan. If you’ll pardon the sick pun, they want to use Afghanistan as the “gateway drug” and get our government(and people) hooked on private contractors for military operations (edited/added for clarification) – the government paying the ever increasing cost (and something else I’ll get to in a moment) and also because there’d not be so much news in cities and towns across America about U.S. troops coming home maimed or in body bags. Having the U.S. Government as their employer has an additional benefit as we’ve just seen with the overturning of the conviction of those Blackwater contractors providing State Dept. security in Iraq – the full legal & diplomatic protection of the United States when (and it’s not a question of if but when) they step over the line and commit what in effect are war crimes.
Given all that’s going on with North Korea in the news it’s easy for this to get lost – especially the part about Trump’s meltdown in the Situation room last week. However, I truly believe he was all hopped up on this “great idea” Prince sold to him and he went spastic when the Joint Chiefs poured cold water all over his enthusiasm. Sadly, for reasons I’ve outlined I’m convinced we haven’t seen the last of this, nor will we while Trump (or Pence )sits in the Oval Office. The real world, practical consequences of what Prince is trying to do makes a dangerous world even more so, and while our standing in the world is significantly diminished due to this administration it would go right over the cliff if we start to literally replace our military in a given theater of operations with mercenaries, even if it’s an American company.
It’s been said “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” Well, I maintain that what we defend and how we defend it also requires eternal vigilance – and privatizing operations in an entire country or even section of a country & kicking out our actual Armed Forces in the process isn’t the way to go.