Blackwater

Blackwater (temporarily known as Xe[2], now known as Academi[3]) is a mercenary army private security firm that won huge no-bid contracts from the Bush administration to work as mercenaries in the Iraq War (at much higher pay than the United States Armed Forces), and as a private police force in post-Katrina New Orleans. Erik Prince (1969–), the brother of Betsy DeVos and a wealthy supporter of fundamentalist Christian conservative causes like Focus on the Family, is a co-owner of Blackwater, a fact that had absolutely no bearing on the company's success at "winning" lucrative contracts during the tenure of George W. Bush, who by sheer coincidence also professed to be a Christian in addition to being the Decider for the free world. Their corporate logo looks like something rejected by a high school football team.

Be scared, be werry scared!
It never changes
War
A view to kill
v - t - e
“”He cloaks himself in the American flag when he's seeking a U.S. contract, but he is the hood ornament of the new era of the military industrial complex and a set of mercenaries who work for countries, oligarchs and random billionaires. The Pentagon and national security establishment view Erik as a pariah.
—Sean McFate, author of The Modern Mercenary[1]

Murder and mayhem

The Iraqi government condemned Blackwater for the September 2007 Nisour Square massacreFile:Wikipedia's W.svg in which Blackwater forces killed 17 Iraqi civilians including 9-year old Ali Kinani. Blackwater claims that their forces were fired upon; the Iraqi government denies this. Four people were convicted.[4]

The whole incident led to an increase in attention to the use of "private security firms" for essential military functions in Iraq and other trouble spots. While the term "mercenary" is not used by the government, many people have argued that these firms act as soldiers for hire. In 2007, there were more "private contractors" in Iraq than regular troops (roughly 180,000 vs. 160,000).[5] Moreover, some of these contractors have begun conducting intelligence work for the US as well. (Most of these private security operatives are Iraqi citizens.)

Apologetica

One defense that has been put forward for Blackwater is that it is often more efficient than US regular forces. For instance, during the emergency after Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater was on the ground before the National Guard or FEMA. At the same time, there have been allegations that Blackwater used excessive force in policing the area, even shooting unarmed civilians.[6]

Implications

This use of mercenaries has several implications for the strength of the United States. No major power has had to rely on mercenaries in quite this fashion in roughly 200 years.[note 1] Moreover, these mercenaries are not subject to the same US laws as the regular forces,[8] which has led many to question how much control the US has over them. Some of the mercenary companies are even foreign-owned and -run[9] (though Blackwater is itself a North Carolina company), which means that the US is relying on foreigners to bolster its ability to conduct foreign relations. To many, the US has granted some bit of its sovereignty away to foreign citizens. (However, you do not hear the same kind of protests from conservatives that you often hear about the United Nations.)

The true "coalition of the billing"

Also troubling from the perspective of other nations, many of the "private contractors" have come from nations that refused to participate in the "Coalition of the Willing." For instance, while the Chilean government specifically refused to send troops to help the US in the invasion, there are a large number of Chileans working for these "private contractors". This works to undermine the neutrality of sovereign states, as they can be accused of secretly abetting an aggressor, if their people join in the fighting.

Blackwater pulls out

As of 22 July 2008, Blackwater was planning to get out of the mercenary business.[10] What they'll do with all that military style infrastructure back home is anyone's guess.

And is kicked out

"Iraq will not renew the licence of US security firm Blackwater…" 29 January, 2009. [11]

Well, not quite

Blackwater has a presence on Pakistan's Northwest frontier.[12]

And now…

"Federal prosecutors are considering filing weapons charges against former top officials of the Blackwater Worldwide private security company over allegations they illegally stockpiled automatic rifles at the company's North Carolina headquarters, …"[13]

Murder most foul

On August 3, 2009, a former Blackwater employee and an ex-Marine testified under oath that Erik Prince views himself as a latter-day crusader on an unrealistic mission to eliminate Islam from the world. They also testified that, Sixth Commandment notwithstanding, Prince has had some annoying whistleblowers assassinated.[14]

Team Trump

It was reported that Prince, as an unofficial emissary of the Trump transition team, attempted to establish secret backchannel communications between Russia and the Trump presidential transition team in January 2017.[15]

Cambridge Analytica, a data mining company that assists election campaigns with the data, assisted the Trump 2016 election campaign and is alleged to have committed illegal acts, including with Facebook data, in doing so.[16] Cambridge Analytica is associated with Frontier Services Group (FSG), which provides security to Chinese businesses in Africa.[17] Prince is the Executive Director & Chairman of FSG.[18]

Helping out the commies

Though he was born into a wealthy, strongly anti-communist family, Prince decided to help build a mercenary army to defend communist China's business interests in Asia and Africa via the Beijing's International Security Defense College, which is overseen by the Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group, which Prince founded.[1] There is obviously no guarantee that mercenaries trained by the college would not be used for enforcement within China, or even engage against US forces. Prince has been accused of acting against US interests, particularly with this college, and of being a mercenary cloaked in patriot's clothing.[1] In 2019, Prince's Frontier Services Group was planning to build a training base in Xinjiang, the likely aim of which would be aiding in the suppression of China's Uighur minority, where there are reportedly widespread human rights abuses. [19][20]

Spying on the libs

In 2020, it was reported that Prince recruited former spies to work at James O'Keefe's Project Veritas and spy on liberal organizations.[21] The espionage operations included ex-MI-6 agent Richard Seddon spying on the teachers' union American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger.[21] Not surprisingly, Prince's sister, Betsy Devos, is a major critic of teachers' unions.[21] The AFT Michigan has sued Project Veritas for trespassing in 2018.[22][23]

gollark: Maybe an order of magnitude or so slower as it is slower to check.
gollark: Krist mining can do a few GH/s on a good GPU, and that's SHA256, so you could bruteforce the entire practical namespace in 100 seconds.
gollark: Especially if you can wrangle a good FPGA into running hashes really fast.
gollark: This sounds like a lot, but computers *are* fairly fast.
gollark: There are maybe 1e5 common first and last names, so you can bruteforce all likely names ever in 1e10 hash operations (maybe add another factor of 10 for spelling/caps?).

See also

Notes
  1. Though Russia seems to be relying heavily on mercenaries in the Syrian Civil War.[7]

References
  1. Behind Erik Prince's China venture: The Blackwater founder has cut a lucrative security-training deal with Chinese insiders. But is it against U.S. interests? by Marc Fisher, Ian Shapira & Emily Rauhala (May 4, 2018) The Washington Post.
  2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021303149_pf.html
  3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16149971
  4. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/22/us-jury-convicts-blackwater-security-guards-iraq
  5. 180,000 Private Contractors Flood Iraq By RICHARD LARDNER (September 19, 2007; 6:26 PM) AP via The Washington Post.
  6. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/13/former-blackwater-guards-sentencing-baghdad-massacre
  7. Syria war: Who are Russia's shadowy Wagner mercenaries? (23 February 2018) BBC.
  8. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/31/i-was-a-mercenary-trust-me-erik-princes-plan-is-garbage-215563
  9. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/iraq-afghanistan-contractor-pentagon-obama/495731/
  10. Blackwater leaving security business
  11. BBC report
  12. Despite US gov't denials
  13. "Federal law prohibits private parties from buying fully automatic weapons registered after 1986, but does let law enforcement agencies have them." Associated Press
  14. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/04/blackwater-founder-erik-p_n_251181.html
  15. Mueller gathers evidence that 2017 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin by Sari Horwitz & Devlin Barrett (March 7, 2018 at 7:53 PM) The Washington Post.
  16. Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians (19 Mar 2018) Channel 4.
  17. The Latest: Cambridge Analytica links to Blackwater founder (March 21 at 7:15 AM) Associated Press via The Washington Post.
  18. Our Team Frontier Services Group
  19. Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s new company is building training center in Xinjiang by Anna Fifield (February 1, 2019 at 6:22 AM) The Washington Post.
  20. See the Wikipedia article on Xinjiang re-education camps.
  21. Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups: Mr. Prince, a contractor close to the Trump administration, contacted veteran spies for operations by Project Veritas, the conservative group known for conducting stings on news organizations and other groups. by Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman (March 7, 2020, 12:41 p.m. ET) The New York Times.
  22. Lawsuit Against Project Veritas May Shed New Light on Right-Wing Group's Internal Operations by Rachel M. Cohen (July 23 2018, 11:03 a.m.) The Intercept.
  23. Federal Judge Denies James O'Keefe's Attempt to Dodge Accountability for Illegal Michigan Sting (March 28, 2019) American Federation of Teachers.
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