Who Needs Pompey When You’ve Got Erik Prince?
Posted on November 19th, 2008
by Kelley Vlahos |
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With their prospects for fleecing the U.S government in Iraq beyond 2009 drying up, Blackwater Worldwide is diversifying like mad. First it was flying spy machines, today it’s angling to train soldiers in Darfur and providing sellswords for international shipping companies trying to avoid pirates on the high seas. With a federal murder indictment over the slaying of 17 unarmed Iraqis looming and a reputation for using excessive force, gouging Uncle Sam, and flouting the law, one would think Blackwater would have a credibility problem.
Not when you have the best political connections and lobbyists money can buy — don’t forget John McCain’s own chief strategist Charlie Black was once hired to coach CEO Erik Prince before he testified before congress — plus free advertising with military news outlets and gushing conservative media. Yes, Prince and his little start-up-that-could are well on their way to riding the Global War on Terror gravy train for all it’s worth.
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I love my friend who is a contractor for Blackwater. He is an honorable and decent family man. He also has a dark sense of humor about his job in Iraq. (We joke about him being a merc’ in King Bush’s imperial army.) Blackwater and its ilk are not creating the gravy train (though their owners/shareholders may be trying to extend its life). I also have close friends in the green building industry and in the pseudo-governmental humanitarian industry who are excited about how their careers will take off under Obama’s reign. This is why I’m a conservative: I don’t believe the proper role of government is creating winners and losers in society– even if the winners are people I care about.
This story explains the comments by the Navy yesterday criticizing shipping firm’s for expecting the US and other nations’ navies to do something piracy. Its spokesman asserted the shipping firms should do more to protect themselves.
How convenient. The Navy creates a ready market for Blackwater. Of course, I suppose these aren’t US flagged vessels being attacked by pirates (since our gov’t has gutted our domestic merchant marine.) Maybe that gets the Navy off the hook despite the fact that its creation was for the purpose of protecting shipping either from “pirates” (remember Barbary?) or English privateers.
Amazing how strange comments (the Navy isn’t responsible for protecting shipping from pirates? Huh?) gets quickly explained by the graft industry known as “the Global War on Terror.”
Private protection agencies are nothing new, and in fact I believe that groups like Blackwater SHOULD be doing things like protecting shipping or arming proxies in dangerous areas, etc. That would obviate the need for a massive, corrupt, bloated military superstructure that continues to feed excessively off the tax base. Besides, how likely is it that a CEO is going to overthrow the government? And how likely is it that some wildly successful general would be able to overthrow the government, or maul it beyond recognition? Wait, don’t answer that.
‘I don’t believe the proper role of government is creating winners and losers in society– even if the winners are people I care about.’
I agree, that’s the role of elections.
‘The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim — for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives — is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.’
Dems and Reps switching places, some families go up in terms of status and power others go down. 95% of us stay exactly the same. New boss relatively the same as old boss.
‘This is why I’m a conservative:’
Not exactly. I feel the same way and you’ll never catch me calling myself conservative. It makes us both Americans.