In June of 2007, a federal judge put a halt to an enormous $475 million contract for private security contractors (i.e. mercenaries) in Iraq. It seemed like the end of Erik Prince, Blackwater's CEO. Then along came MAGA and Afghanistan.
About once a year, when I can find the strength, I do a news search to see what Blackwater-founder Erik Prince has been up to, and he never disappoints. He's always doing things that are immoral, unethical, and often illegal. Keep in mind that this is only a sampling from just this past year.
Let's start with the immoral.
There are three levels of douchebagness.
Level I is the douchebag at work. He cuts people off in traffic, he eats other people's food out of the fridge, he stabs his fellow worker in the back to get ahead. This is the douchebag everybody knows.
Level II is the douchebag in the news. Wall Street CEOs, Washington politicians, and the occasional rich celebrity. These are people that do real damage.
Happy days are here again. Blackwater has returned to Iraq.
I know that "revolting" and "amoral" are relative concepts in the Trump Administration, but I believe that I can say with some certainty that former Blackwater founder, and brother of Betsy DeVos, Erik Prince has got them all beat.
Erik Prince has been pitching a lot of ideas about how this country needs more mercenaries.
One of those ideas was this one.
You remember Blackwater (now called Academi), right?
Erik Prince left Blackwater in 2010, but he's been anything but quiet.
Several weeks ago former Blackwater founder Erik Prince proposed privatizing the entire Afghanistan War in what can only be described as Blackwater 2.0.
The power and influence of the mercenary army known as Blackwater peaked in the summer of 2007. Their immense might was clearly demonstrated when the State Department deployed Jean Richter to Iraq to audit the firm's $1 Billion contract with the Pentagon.
