Erik Prince

While Trump is attempting to drain the swamp, I thought it would be a good time to revisit one of the security contracting agencies that was founded in a swamp--that is to say Blackwater.

There is an old statement that comes to mind in regard to this book that one should not get in the way of people doing a job unless one can do the job better. When it comes to security and the assessment on the ground, I believe nearly everything Mr. Prince has to say here. I furthermore believe that Blackwater was used as a pawn politically mostly by Democrats who did not like the fact that Mr. Prince was more conservative. I further believe that Blackwater was making a colossal amount of money through wars that were likely manipulated into existence. Indeed, Blackwater was born after the shooting at Columbine. Likewise, Blackwater appears to have had a heavy hand in the CIA and the fact that Mr. Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates after everything was "over" suggests to me that his love of America might not be as strong as he states. Certainly, as a moral agent, there is much to dislike about Mr. Prince. On the other hand, he at least admits where his weaknesses were and seems to be trying, in perhaps a limited way, to atone for those character traits that have caused he and his spouses trouble.

What Mr. Prince had at his disposal that most people do not have was a pile of money to begin his security business. This allowed him to bypass many pieces of bureaucracy and assisted him in making a larger pile of money. On the other hand, this also seems to have created an envy among those in other branches that were governmental and distantly not private sector.

I suppose then my feeling is that if one has a pile of cash that trying to serve the country in some of its less than glamorous work is perhaps the best worst use of such money. If there had been no Mr. Prince, there still would have been an Iraq. Of course, I suspect the casualty rate would have been considerably higher in such an alternative universe. How can I come to that conclusion? Because it is evident that the training Mr. Prince was able to conduct saved lives in part because the issue of time that bureaucracy often causes to be lengthened was shortened by the assuming of personal responsibility for items such as armored vehicles.

Conversely, involvement in the CIA likely did not do Blackwater or the world at large any favors. That is not to say the CIA was inherently wrong in all of its goals. Rather, it is to say the CIA was OFTEN wrong in how it went about achieving its goals. It shares this in common with the FBI. Trying to avoid either of those agencies in the 90's on to do what Mr. Prince was doing however would have been next to impossible. They were and are forces that existed in the narrative of the world and how politics unfolded.

Mr. Prince is right in the sense that "Mercenary Forces" or PCM's or whatever label we want to attach to such an organization have always existed in one sense or another. The only issue in the game of politics is who gets defined what a thing is. In the case of Blackwater, it appears that the idea of the organization being reckless cowboys had taken hold. Do I think Blackwater holds this title? Not so much. The CIA however, certainly moreso. I suspect then it was more of a "Birds of a feather" attack on Mr. Prince. Blackwater, though, on some level appears to have held an idealism that those it had served would later "have its back". That, ultimately, is how I know that Blackwater though it might have been involved with the CIA and other shadowy sorts of organizations really did not understand the landscape of intelligence and politics. Ironically, the best witness to that fact MAY have been Saddam Hussein.

The book is well written and contains some interesting information. I tried to keep in mind that the entire purpose of the book is to allow Mr. Prince to defend his company. However, for the things that he says in this book that his company was ultimately dismantled for, I would say that though any one of those things are probably provable offenses given a certain perspective, the real offense was Mr. Prince not being a Democrat and not being part of the approved "good ole boys club".… (plus d'informations)

Erik Prince built an objectively great company and was the victim of political infighting about larger issues (the Iraq war itself, the role of contractors in war, etc).

Blackwater grew from a small training center in North Carolina into the world leader in the highest risk private security. This book details the rise and fall of the company, and based on my knowledge of events, is pretty accurate. It does explain the motivations for some things which always seemed inconsistent or difficult to explain, and was worth reading on that basis if you are already familiar, but it would be a solid introduction as well. As an introduction, though, be aware that there were 50 other companies doing what Blackwater did but in a much more subdued but often less capable way.

He certainly wasn’t perfect — cheating on his dying of cancer wife and getting an employee pregnant was a low poor, and he didn’t push back enough against stupid State Department policies which forced his personnel to drive like assholes, in high profile vehicles, due to being forced into high profile vehicles by incompetence at State (they wanted to “show that the US wasn’t afraid”, even though this essentially created new enemies every time they moved, and made them a net negative.) I believe Blackwater had enough credibility with their customer that they could have successfully gotten this changed, rather than using it as an excuse for the bad things, best exemplified at Nisour Square, which happened.

(As a disclaimer, I worked in Iraq/Afghanistan for about 7 years and was pretty familiar with Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, and military/JSOC operations from multiple angles (I sold them communications services including Internet), and got to see a lot of this stuff evolve in real-time. I met Erik’s country manager for Iraq the second evening I was in country, and told him I’d come in from the airport in a bronco with a couple local guards; he pointed out that Blackwater only did that run in 3-5 hard cars with 3 personnel per vehicle. I then complained about challenges buying guns on the local market and basically pumped for information on how to get a Glock, HS2000, etc to augment my AK and Hi-Power. I’ve also been on the road in Iraq in an old low-profile BMW when “those crazy security contractors” went bombing past in their SUVs, and was afraid of getting shot by them.)

Overall, I hope Erik Prince continues to innovate in this space. His original concept (not accepted) of a completely private humanitarian or post conflict force (“assistance with teeth”) is something which I’ve always wanted to do, and which I think is the obviously correct way to provide aid in conflict zones.… (plus d'informations)