Tag: Mercenaries

The Game Of Afghanistan

17 years on and the war in Afghanistan is a game played by our Pentagon…….

Taleban and government have a ceasefire……

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US supports a new Afghan ceasefire, saying it is “time for peace” and that the US is ready to facilitate peace talks between the two sides. Direct US involvement may not be publicly accepted by the Taliban, but again may be tacitly allowed if they believe it will lead to a US withdrawal.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has announced a ceasefire for the upcoming holiday of Eid al-Adha. He says the ceasefire is “conditional” and will last only as long as the Taliban chooses to respect and abide by it.

A similar ceasefire was declared and followed by both sides for Eid al-Fitr, though the Taliban declined to extend it after the feast was over. The Taliban issued a statement over the weekend warning that true peace was not possible so long as US occupation forces remain in Afghanistan.

That said, analysts say they believe the Taliban will ultimately accept this new ceasefire, even if they decline to publicly announce that they have. The public broadly has supported holiday ceasefires, and the Taliban would not want to undermine its public image by declining it.

(antiwar.com)

Analysts believe they will accept a ceasefire……(do they?)

The Taliban ambushed a convoy of buses Monday on a road in northern Afghanistan and took more than 100 people hostage, including women and children, in the latest brazen assault by insurgents, provincial officials say. The ambush came despite Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s announcement of a conditional ceasefire with the Taliban during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha this week. The fate of the abducted in Kunduz province—in an area that has recently fallen under Taliban control—was not immediately known and there was no statement from the insurgents, the AP reports.

The Taliban have resurged in recent years, seizing entire districts across Afghanistan and regularly carrying out large-scale bombings and other attacks. According to Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, the head of the provincial council in Kunduz, the insurgents stopped three buses on the road near Khan Abad district and forced the passengers to come with them. Ayubi said he believes the Taliban were looking for government employees or members of security forces who usually go home for the holidays. In his call on Sunday for the truce, Ghani said “the ceasefire should be observed from both sides, and its continuation and duration also depend on the Taliban’s stand.”

This is why US troops need to come home…NO one knows what is truly happening….why not let our troops rest and these guys duke it our……..

On a side note…..it is said that Trump us considering a privatization of the war in Afghanistan……https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/officials-worry-trump-may-back-erik-prince-plan-privatize-war-n901401

Let mercenaries fight our war at a great profit for the owners of the private army……NOT A GOOD IDEA!

Closing Thought–02Mar18

Could This Be A Step Closer?

Recently in Syria the US engaged some hostiles in Syria and those troops were Russian in origin…..some say mercenaries but they were Russian citizens……

France 24 published an interview last week with a man it described as a Russian paramilitary chief who provides Russian citizens access to mercenary work in Syria in which he said his countrymen had been galvanized by reports that they were taking an embarrassing loss to US forces.

“Each week I receive five or six new requests,” the man said. “Some call me by phone; others come to see me.”

He said that about 100 people in Russia’s Yekaterinburg region, where he is based, were “planning to go to Syria.”

The man said that after reports that US forces earlier this month crushed an advance of fighters loyal to the Syrian government — troops said to have contained hundreds of Russians — he had seen a change in the volunteers.

“Now it’s more about getting revenge than it is about money,” he said.

http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-mercenaries-want-revenge-losing-to-us-forces-syria-2018-2

The US is selling this attack as self-defense…….

U.S. Military Battle with Possible Russian Mercenaries: ‘Our Strikes Were Done out of Self-Defense’

The Pentagon is reiterating that a battle in Syria that allegedly left some number of Russian mercenaries dead was purely an act of self-defense on the part of U.S. forces. Indeed, the Pentagon still does not know exactly who it is that American forces targeted during their retaliatory strike on Feb. 7.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-military-battle-possible-russian-010500172.html

This could be a diplomatic nightmare but we will never know because we have very few diplomats left……could this spiral out of control of tit for tat attacks?

Keep in mind that the US and Russia and confronting each other in the Baltics, Eastern Europe and Southern Europe….would not take much for this to become a major international problem.

On to the weekend and some much needed enjoyment…..thanx guys….chuq

The Dogs Of War

A tale of mercenaries and authors…..back in the late 1970’s Frederick Forsyth wrote a book, The Dogs of War, about a mercenary operation to takeover an African country.

It was an excellent read…..it was packed full of details that anyone could use…..as a matter of fact there was rumblings that Forsyth had actually put together a team for a coup attempt in West Africa……Benin was the targeted country…..which is interesting considering that a coup attempt was made in 1977.

Much of modern-day public opinion about mercenaries is still colored by adventures of Robert Denard, a French solider and mercenary, famous for his involvement in numerous “jobs” in support of Francafrique – France’s sphere of influence in its former colonies in Africa. One of Denard’s typical operations was the coup attempt against the government of Benin, from January 1977. Such and similar operations in turn inspired numerous novels and a few Hollywood movies, too.

The Republic of Benin is a little-known country in western Africa, bordered by Togo in the west, Nigeria in the east and Burkina Faso and Niger in the north. It came into being as a combination of three political and ethnic systems, the most significant of which – the Kingdom of Dahomey – used to be one of largest exporters of slaves to Portugal in the 18th Century. The French occupied the area in the late 19th century and declared it a part of their West Africa in 1899.

https://warisboring.com/in-1977-80-mercenaries-nearly-took-over-benin/

Another case where life imitates art……

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….

Child Soldiers Reloaded

It is no secret that I have been a verbal critic of private armies…..those for profit war mongers like Blackwater or Xe or whatever this pack of barbarians want to call themselves this week.

The sad part of any war is when the children are turned into soldiers…it is big in Africa….but in case you are ignorant on what entails a child soldier…I can help…..

  1. Child soldiers are any children under the age of 18 who are recruited by a state or non-state armed group and used as fighters, cooks, suicide bombers, human shields, messengers, spies, or for sexual purposes.
  2. In the last 15 years, the use of child soldiers has spread to almost every region of the world and every armed conflict. Though an exact number is impossible to define, thousands of child soldiers are illegally serving in armed conflict around the world.
  3. Some children are under the age of 10 when they are forced to serve.
  4. Two-thirds of states confirm that enrollment of soldiers under the age of 18 should be banned to prohibit forced child soldiers, as well as 16- and 17-year-old armed force volunteers.
  5. Children who are poor, displaced from their families, have limited access to education, or live in a combat zone are more likely to be forcibly recruited.

Children who are not forced to be soldiers volunteer themselves because they feel societal pressure and are under the impression that volunteering will provide a form of income, food, or security, and willingly join the group.

In the last 2 years, 20 states have been reported to have child soldiers in government, government-affiliated, and non-state armed groups. Additionally, 40 states still have minimum age recruitment requirements under 18 years.

Girls make up an estimated 10 to 30 percent of child soldiers used for fighting and other purposes. They are especially vulnerable when it comes to sexual violence.

A few of the countries who have reported use of child soldiers since 2011 are Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007.

I revisit this subject because these private armies are recruiting former child soldiers to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria….

How private companies recruit former child soldiers for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

From opportunistic guns for hire on the fringe of domestic conflicts to a global force operating within a multibillion-dollar industry – the private military sector seems to be flourishing.

As armies and war increasingly become ‘outsourced’, private military companies have taken on a wider increasing range of responsibilities, from security and intelligence analysis to training and combat roles.

“The private military industry is a part of how the countries fight wars today … The US government doesn’t track the number of contractors used in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. We know it’s a lot, we don’t know exactly how many,” says Sean McFate, a professor at Georgetown University who used to work for a private military company.

Source: Child Soldiers Reloaded: The Privatisation of War | Sierra Leone | Al Jazeera

When Obama announced that the US would be pulling its troops out of Iraq…something had to be done to keep the fight going…..

…..when the US decided to end its military mission in Iraq, budgets decreased and the private military industry had to start offering different types of deals. As a result, they started to hire cheaper soldiers, many of them from the developing world.

Once again these former child soldiers were exploited when they were young and now they are being so again….this time by the for profit war machine.

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!

From The Ashes

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…..they fight for money not some noble excuse like fighting communism or terrorism…..money is the only motivation.

To save space and my typing finger I will send you to an op-ed I recently wrote on this subject…..

Source: Rise of the American Mercenary – In Saner Thought

After so much bad PR the mercenaries in the Blackwater group changed their name to Xe and then sort of dropped off the world stage press coverage….

But did they?

Appears Blackwater guys have been working off the radar so to speak……

On Jan. 11, 2017, Intelligence Online — a professional journal covering the world’s intelligence services — revealed that the pilots of Air Tractor attack planes flying from Al Khadim air base in Libya are private contractors working for Erik Prince, the founder of the company formerly known as Blackwater.

War Is Boring’s own sources in Libya confirmed the assertion. Our sources said that the pilots flying the United Arab Emirates Air Force IOMAX AT-802 Air Tractors — converted crop-dusters — are mercenaries and aren’t Arabs.

Source: Erik Prince’s Mercenaries Are Bombing Libya

Once again we have an American company supplying mercenaries to fight in wars…an American company profiting off of the science of war….just an extension of the M-IC.

There use to be a punishment for fighting in a war that was not of your home nation…loss of citizenship…may I suggest that it is time for this to be reconsidered.