Afghanistan–It’s Blackwater’s Fault

I will admit it …I do not approve of the private military that privatization has allowed to blossom….and the most notorious of these “armies” is Blackwater, or whatever name they go by these days…..I have blamed them for so many situations but I have seen an article that blames the group for the failing Afghan peace process…..

Pakistan’s diplomatic push to bring the Afghan peace process back on track has paved the way for the resumption of peace talks between the U.S and Afghan Taliban. The question, however, arises here: why were the peace talks canceled if they were to be restarted?

The meeting in Islamabad on Oct. 4 between the U.S. negotiators, led by special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban delegation led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an important milestone to resume the peace negotiations, which were abruptly called off by U.S. President Donald Trump, apparently after the insurgent group accepted responsibility for attack earlier last month that killed 12 people including one American soldier.

Was this attack the only reason behind the abrupt cancellation last month of an “almost done peace deal” between the U.S. and the Taliban? It is an undeniable fact that peace talks kept on track for the last one year despite the Taliban continued to launch attacks on the Afghan and U.S. soldiers. The other side of the story of calling off the Afghan peace process points to Donald Trump’s covert plan with Blackwater.

https://www.dailysabah.com/op-ed/2019/11/14/was-blackwater-behind-the-collapse-of-afghan-peace-talks

As much as I would like to say this is so….I cannot….I have no confirmation of the accusations from this publication….but it does sound like something that could quite possibly be accurate.

Pompeo has tried to blow frresh air into the lungs of the peace process by the release of two POWs…..

“The Taliban have indicated that the release of the two professors is intended as a goodwill gesture, which the United States welcomes,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement about the release of U.S. citizen Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, who were kidnapped in August 2016.

“We see these developments as hopeful signs that the Afghan war, a terrible and costly conflict that has lasted 40 years, may soon conclude through a political settlement.”

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-afghanistan-taliban-usa/u-s-sees-hope-for-wider-afghan-peace-in-release-of-two-hostages-idUKKBN1XT28F

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–02May19

I am not a big fan of the use of mercenaries to do our bidding in the implementation of our foreign policy…..that said the biggest merc has been Erik Prince and his Blackwater (among others) and now he has a new patron…..China……

Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s new company is reportedly operating in Iraq, a country from which his former company was banned for killing civilians.

A subsidiary of Frontier Services Group (FSG), a security and logistics company Prince founded in Hong Kong, has set up shop in Basra, Iraq, BuzzFeed News reported Saturday, citing official documents. The subsidiary, the Dubai-based Frontier Logistics Consultancy DMCC, has officially registered as a foreign company with Iraq’s Ministry of Trade, an official document from last year shows.

In March, Prince told Al Jazeera that he hoped to see FSG supporting oil operations in countries like Iraq. Their subsidiary is operating out of Basra, which is located in the oil-rich southern region.

https://www.businessinsider.com/blackwater-founder-erik-princes-new-company-operating-in-iraq-report-2019-4

Now here is where my problem arises……if China is fronting him the cash and he has access to sensitive info….will he share it with his masters? Does that not mean he needs to register as a foreign agent? Has he done so?

News has come out that Prince is offering a merc army to fight against Maudro……

Erik Prince – the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater and a prominent supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump – has been pushing a plan to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicholas Maduro, four sources with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Over the last several months, the sources said, Prince has sought investment and political support for such an operation from influential Trump supporters and wealthy Venezuelan exiles. In private meetings in the United States and Europe, Prince sketched out a plan to field up to 5,000 soldiers-for-hire on behalf of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, according to two sources with direct knowledge of Prince’s pitch.

One source said Prince has conducted meetings about the issue as recently as mid-April.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-erikprince-exclusi-idUSKCN1S608F

Keep in mind that Prince has offered up a merc army to takeover in Afghanistan…..

This is a despicable person in my opinion……plus I would not trust this toad as far as I can spit him.

I think Prince is a crimminal….and I apparently am not the only one who thinks this……

The chairman of the House intelligence committee is making a criminal referral to the Justice Department for the founder of the security firm Blackwater, with Adam Schiff alleging Erik Prince lied to his committee in 2017. Prince testified to the panel that a meeting in the Seychelles islands with a Russian with ties to Vladimir Putin was a chance encounter. He said, “I didn’t fly there to meet any Russian guy.” That’s directly contradicted by the special counsel’s report on the Russia investigation, which says the meeting was set up ahead of time and that there were communications about it with Trump campaign adviser Steve Bannon. Questions have long surrounded the mysterious meeting, reports the AP, which has more:

Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev, who headed a Russian sovereign wealth fund, as Trump was preparing to take office and the Russian government was seeking contacts with the incoming administration. Dmitriev reported directly to Putin, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. Prince told Mueller’s investigators that he had briefed Bannon on the meeting, but Bannon told them they never discussed it. The report says investigators couldn’t iron out the “conflicting accounts” by reviewing communications, in part because text messages between them were missing. Phone provider records showed that Bannon and Prince had exchanged dozens of messages, including two that Prince sent within hours of the meetings with Dmitriev, but the investigators could not find the messages on their phones. Prince denied deleting messages and Bannon said he did not know why the messages were missing. Schiff said Tuesday there is strong evidence that Prince, a prominent supporter of President Trump, “willingly misled” the intelligence committee as it probed connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia. “The evidence is so weighty that the Justice Department needs to consider this,” Schiff said.

One potential wrinkle, from the Washington Post: Schiff and his committee do not yet know what Prince’s arrangement with Mueller was. If the men arranged a deal that saw Prince give information “under the condition it not be used against him, then being able to prove” Prince lied in his congressional testimony “might be problematic,” says Schiff. The Justice Department didn’t have immediate comment on the referral. Prince is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

To use a meme of our Dear Beloved Supreme Leader…..

Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up!

Any thoughts?

Afghanistan: A New Year’s Conspiracy

I would like to wish my readers a very and prosper New Years….I will try to make this year, 2019, as good if not better than last year….thanx for your visits and your support.

Down to business.

I begin my year with a conspiracy theory…..

As I was eating my New Years meal of corned beef, cabbage, peas and corn bread I was talking with my son-in-law and we were voicing our thoughts and opinions of the troop draw down…..as I was telling him why we should bring our troops home from these adventures I was struck by a blinding light of a conspiracy theory.

A little background……

I am opposed to mercenaries used by the US to fight our wars…..oh so I do not hurt their feelings….they like to be called private security firms…..if it smells like sh*t it usually is…..

Pres. Trump employs the sister of the chief mercenary, Erik Prince, as his SecEd…..so the chief mercenary has the president’s ear….to the point that he float a plan to use Blackwater to privatize the war in Afghanistan….

https://lobotero.com/2017/08/11/dont-privatize-the-afghan-war-just-end-it/

The plan was shelved and we heard no more after that…..

Afghanistan?

Wait!

Did not Trump announce a draw down of US troops for Afghanistan?

Do you see where my thinking is going?

…..(Pause here for some to catch up)……

Now that Trump has managed to remove most of the generals from his administration, people who would have opposed using mercenaries to fight the war, could the plan come off the shelf and dusted off?

After finishing the meal I decided to hit the reference button in my brain and see if there could be any validity to the fear that gripped me……

My research produced some evidence in favor of my fear…..

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is out.

Mattis’ resignation comes amid news that President Donald Trump has directed the drawdown of 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria, and 7,000 U.S. forces from Afghanistan, a U.S. official confirmed to Military Times, a story first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil,” the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”

Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ― about to be privatized?

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/21/mattis-is-out-and-blackwater-is-back-we-are-coming/

Trump and Prince have a relationship and he, Trump, can look like he is keeping a campaign promise about our troops while making billions for Prince and whatever he names his near enterprise.

Here is his “pitch” for Afghanistan…….

Prince’s plan…..

Prince’s plan would see troops replaced with private military contractors who work for a special envoy that reports directly to the president.

“Right now, there are 15,000 US troops and another 30,000 contractors. All I need is … my plan would say 2,000 special forces remain and about 6,000 contractors. That is by any stretch a severe reduction in manpower and spending,” Prince told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell Friday, adding later that his whole plan would only cost around $3.5 billion, much less than the tens of billions of dollars the US spent in Afghanistan last year

https://www.businessinsider.com/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-aims-to-privatize-us-war-in-afghanistan-2018-8

In depth plan……

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/09/05/heres-the-blueprint-for-erik-princes-5-billion-plan-to-privatize-the-afghanistan-war/

His, Prince, one selling point…it will be cheaper…..that is a LIE! Let me repeat that…IT IS A LIE!

But don’t believe me……

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/08/08/Five-Things-You-Need-Know-About-Plans-Privatize-Afghan-War

It is NO secret that I am antiwar and I am a staunch opponent to the privatization of war and the corruption and profit that is brings.

Closing Thought–17May18

I have never been a fan of the antics of so-called “Security Firms” or as they should called by their real name….mercenaries…..that aside …..during the Iraq debacle some employees of Blackwater were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians…..then they had the Supreme Court rule on their appeal……

The supreme court has refused to consider appeals by the former Blackwater security contractors convicted in the 2007 slaying of 14 Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic junction in Baghdad that marked one of the lowest points in the bloody conflict.

The court announced on Monday that it will not hear an appeal brought by the four men convicted in 2014 trial. They worked for the North Carolina-based private security firm then called Blackwater Worldwide that was contracted by the US government to provide security to US officials working in Iraq.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/14/blackwater-supreme-court-appeals-rejected-iraq

I am pleased to see that these paid killers, mercenaries, are not above the law……we probably have not heard the last of this situation. Stay tuned.

So goes another day……I shall retire and be back in the morrow with more stuff. chuq

How To Start Your Own Intel Agency

What should a president do….one like Fearless Fosdick……when he does not like the info that is given to him by his intel agencies?

Well if you are a moron and we have such a creature at the helm of government then you start your own intel agency….a private one that reports to the president only and skews the info to his world view…..

About now a well read visitor is asking what he Hell I am talking about…..szo let me enlighten the masses……

The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.

The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.

“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/

Prince the founder of the mercenaries some call Blackwater….basically a thug employing thugs to go around the world killing and maiming…..

Prince is a butt buddy to Trump and will do whatever he takes to do whatever Trump wants him to do or say…..

A few other thoughts about this circumvention of law…..

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-ominous-plans-private-cia

Is there something wrong with the intel agencies we have now that we need another that answers only to one person and not the rule of law?

But we have a president that thinks the rule of law does not apply to him anyway.

Return Of The Hessians

I have written many times about the US use of mercenaries….oh my bad….they like security contractors…..a rose by another name is still a rose…..

It appears that the paid soldiers, the “Hessians”, are making a comeback….if you are not sure about a “Hessian”…..

Hessians were the 18th century German auxiliaries contracted for military service by the British government, which found it easier to borrow money to pay for their service than to recruit its own soldiers. They took their name from the German state of Hesse-Kassel. The British hired Hessian troops for combat duty in several eighteenth century conflicts, but they are most widely associated with combat operations in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

Remember those guys? They are the ones that Washington caught with their pants down, both literally and metaphorically, at Trenton, NJ during the Revolutionary War……

I bring this up because of something that I read the other day about our policy toward Afghanistan…..

President Trump’s advisers recruited two businessmen who profited from military contracting to devise alternatives to the Pentagon’s plan to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, reflecting the Trump administration’s struggle to define its strategy for dealing with a war now 16 years old.

Erik D. Prince, a founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, and Stephen A. Feinberg, a billionaire financier who owns the giant military contractor DynCorp International, have developed proposals to rely on contractors instead of American troops in Afghanistan at the behest of Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, his senior adviser and son-in-law, according to people briefed on the conversations.

Here we go again…using mercenaries to do our fighting for us……leaving the foreign policy toward a country in the hands of a businessman is disastrous for the Afghan people.

If anyone thinks this will win the hearts and minds of the people then you have not been watching the news in the last 15 years…this is just more problems waiting to happen….this group does not have a good rep with the local people….this is a STUPID idea!

And who do you think will have to clean up the mess that these guys create?

If you believe that the war in Afghanistan is too expensive….just wait until you see the bill these guys present for payment.

Oh Blackwater

I could turn my readers onto a Doobie Brothers tune….but in this case I am talking about the private army of Eric Prince……

This organization by now has changed its name to out run bad press and the tax man many times……name changes but the boss remains……it is a private security firm, a private air force and a contracted intel gatherer…..I have been keeping my eye on the doings of this group……

Source: Blackwater Enters The World Of James Bond – In Saner Thought

Source: ‘Blackwater Air’ – In Saner Thought

The boss, Eric Prince has even been used by Trump and his cronies as a go between with Russia……

Days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Blackwater founder Erik Prince met with a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles islands to create a communication back-channel between Trump and Russia, according to The Washington Post.

Officials with the United Arab Emirates brokered the January 11 meeting in the hopes of helping to encourage Russia to distance itself from Iran, a major Kremlin ally. The Trump administration has often expressed its skepticism of Iran, and Trump often derided the US nuclear deal with Iran on the campaign trail.

Source: Erik Prince set up secret meeting to create Trump/Russia backchannel – Business Insider

Now it seems the Prince has developed a plan for Afghanistan……

Lost in the cascade of stories of potential White House criminality and collusion with foreign governments is the Erik Prince affair. It is reported that Prince, the brother of controversial Education Secretary Betsy Devos who established his power in Washington with his mercenary army Blackwater during the Iraq war, met with Russian intermediaries in an obscure Indian Ocean archipelago to establish back-channel communication with Moscow, possibly in coordination with the efforts of Jared Kushner, who last week was reported to have sought a White House back channel to the Kremlin.

Bloomberg reports that during the presidential transition late last year “Prince was very much a presence, providing advice to Trump’s inner circle, including his top national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.” While President-elect Trump, in reality show style, paraded administration applicants through the gilded front doors of of Trump Tower for the gauntlet of cameras, Prince “entered Trump Tower through the back,” reports Bloomberg.

Source: Erik Prince’s dark plan for Afghanistan: Military occupation for profit, not security – Salon.com

This slug is a danger to the US and the world and all in the name of profit.

I will continue to monitor the doings of this mercenary and his deadly game….

Mercenaries To China

I have written extensively about the private armies from the US…..let’s be honest these are nothing short of mercenaries (my blog search widget will get you to all the posts on the subject)

Blackwater or whatever name they use this time around is back in the news. These so-called security contractors have been at the heart of several wars in the recent past….from Iraq and Libya and now they are on there way to China…..

OK, OK, not Blackwater. That’s the mercenary force of convicted war criminals founded by Erik Prince that will never outrun its infamy no matter how many times it changes its name.

No, no, no! Not Blackwater! It’s Frontier Services Group—an entirely different mercenary group chaired by Erik Prince—that is heading to China! And they’re not there to sell mercenary services! Absolutely not. They’re merely opening some “forward operating bases” to help the Chinese train “ex-” PLA soldiers how to be mercenaries! It’s entirely different!

Now that we have that clear, some context: Erik Prince is the notorious mercenary who believes he’s the modern-day descendant of “Wild Bill” Donovan. (Prince even named his youngest son, Charles Donovan Prince, after Bill.) Prince’s budding career as a contract killer went down in flames in 2009 after it was revealed that Blackwater was a front for a secret CIA assassination program. He later admitted that Blackwater “became a virtual extension of the CIA” and took orders directly from the agency, but by that point the news spotlight had shifted elsewhere.

Source: Blackwater Heads to China

It is time to end the career of these mercenaries that operate outside the parameters of decency. These hired killers should be imprisoned not employed.

‘Blackwater Air’

Like a bad penny they just keep turning up.

I have written many posts about the private army of mercenaries that use to be called Blackwater….after their problems with civilian deaths in Iraq Blackwater changed its name to Xe and fell off the grid…..but they really did not go anywhere….except back to war…..

Now they are an air force for hire….in Libya and now by US Special Forces……

I wrote about the re-surfacing in Libya……(there is lots of background in this post)

I have been a critic of the so-called “security contractors”….these people are nothing more than mercenaries….hired soldiers to fight wars for the rich and powerful…..…

Source: From The Ashes – In Saner Thought

A report has come out that “Blackwater” is now being deployed in the Central African Republic……

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Sikorsky helicopter that The Daily Beast’s source observed in Central African Republic belongs to Illinois-based EP Aviation, LLC.

EP Aviation was once a subsidiary of Academi, the Virginia-based company that was formerly known as Blackwater. The “EP” stands for “Erik Prince,” Blackwater’s founder and the younger brother of billionaire U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. (Does this mean that Trump has a private army at his disposal?)

Source: ‘Blackwater Air’ Is Back, and Flying for U.S. Special Forces – The Daily Beast

Once again the private army/ air force of mercenaries returns after many name changes to keep their activities off the grid….they are back in action and this time as part of our Special Ops activities.

Modern day Hessian……mercenaries in service to empire…..

See What Blood Money Can Buy?

Yesterday I wrote a post about the defunct mercenary operation, Blackwater, and how it is functioning as an air force in Libya…..read below…

Source: From The Ashes – In Saner Thought

After posting that article I found another one about Blackwater and its founder and CEO, Prince, it appears that he is working as an adviser to the Trump team from the shadows……

Erik Prince, America’s most notorious mercenary, is lurking in the shadows of the incoming Trump administration. A former senior U.S. official who has advised the Trump transition told The Intercept that Prince has been advising the team on matters related to intelligence and defense, including weighing in on candidates for the defense and state departments. The official asked not to be identified because of a transition policy prohibiting discussion of confidential deliberations.

On election night, Prince’s latest wife, Stacy DeLuke, posted pictures from inside Trump’s campaign headquarters as Donald Trump and Mike Pence watched the returns come in, including a close shot of Pence and Trump with their families. “We know some people who worked closely with [Trump] on his campaign,” DeLuke wrote. “Waiting for the numbers to come in last night. It was well worth the wait!!!! #PresidentTrump2016.” Prince’s sister, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s nominee for education secretary and Prince (and his mother) gave large sums of money to a Trump Super PAC.

Source: Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Trump From the Shadows

What does this mean to the future of war for the US? An adviser whose sole reason for life is……..WAR!

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Blackwater