by Baaz
On Monday, the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke about the Trump administration’s views on the war in Afghanistan. Tillerson said:
· We’ve had now three sessions within the National Security Council exploring a full range of options. And when I say a full range of options, I mean the entire landscape… I think this is reflective of the deliberations that we want to undertake. The President is asking, I think, some very, very pointed questions, and they are good questions. They were the right questions that he should be asking, and perhaps these are questions that no one’s been willing to raise in the past.
· And so with his – with the questions that he’s asked us, we want to give him good, thorough answers and good, thorough analysis to go with that, a very clear-eyed view, a very realistic view of what the future is likely to look like.
· And I think we want to take the time to do the analysis, a fully integrated analysis from the Intel Community to the military planners to the diplomatic channels as to how does this all play out and where does this go. It’s one thing to say we’re just going to keep fighting because we’re – there is no other option. There are always other options.
· And so that’s what the President has asked us to fully explore, and I think the fact that we’re taking our time to try to come to a solution that is realistic, is – takes a clear view of what we’re dealing with on the ground, and being very honest with ourselves about expectations of the future, I think that is – that serves the American people’s interest well. This is a very, very – as you know, a tough area, 16 years, 17 years we’ve been at it now. To just say we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing, the President is not willing to accept that, and so he is asking some tough questions, and the Security Council is working diligently to give him the best answers we can.
By M K Bhadrakumar – August 8, 2017
Trump may outsource the Afghan war
Erik Prince offers Western mercenaries in Afghanistan
Prince’s firm is now called the Frontier Services Group and is based in Hong Kong.
“US military contractor Erik Prince has advised the administration of President Donald Trump to deploy Western mercenaries to Afghanistan to save both manpower and money.
Prince, who founded the notorious private military company Blackwater USA, now called Academi, has proposed a two-year plan for about 5,000 professional killers and under 100 aircraft, bringing the total cost of the failing US war to less than $10 billion a year, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
Prince, a former Navy Seal, said on current spending, the Afghan military campaign would cost the US $45 billion this year and $50 billion the next.
“We’re spending too much in Afghanistan and it’s making the insurgency worse, through corruption and leakage to the Taliban,” he told the newspaper.
“I then heard about a big troop surge [proposal] and I thought that was a dumb idea . . . I’m going to contract everything; I’m going to get down to some spending sanity,” he said.
Blackwater received widespread notoriety in 2007 when a group of its mercenaries killed 14 Iraqi civilians and wounded 18 others using gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection.”
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What we are looking at is
1) Huge Savings of money and human resources for the Deep state to use the regular US army/SOF (not that they r not using those now) either in hotspots such as Syria, Ukraine, Libya , Baltic’s etc
2) or use it in US homeland in case something like a civil war situation arises
3) Considering the global economic situation , there would be many candidates to take up an opportunity earning us $500-600 per day irrespective of the onsequences that it entails including it is morally wrong. (Paid Killers) .
4) Drug trade earning from opium would be in private hands and it would only grow as there is huge amount of money to be minted to pursue hidden agendas .(Self financing cycles)
5) As The Saker says, using mercenaries provides plausible deniability from any covert deep state agenda they might be pursuing being close to Chinese border (Wakhan Corridor .. Pakistani Border and The Stans .(Disruption of OBOR/BRI…non implementation of IPI pipeline (IraN-Pakistan-India) so they could export expensive LNG to India and not provide the Chinese the way out from Malacca dilemma.
These are my 2 cents . troublesome times ahead.
Kind Regards,
Baaz
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by Scott
Baaz brought up a few of the valid points.
The following is some info I want you to consider
- On the face of it, Eric Prince wants to get $10 billion to stage a dignifying withdrawal of the US troops from long suffering Afghanistan.
- Eric Prince refuses to admit that his fighters are mercenaries. In his case, the beauty is truly in the eye of the beer-holder.
However, what’s important is not how Mr. Prince wants to classify them, but how the Russians and their allies will decide to handle them.
Art 47. Mercenaries
A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary
Protocol Additional GC 1977 (APGC77) is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Article 47 of the protocol provides the most widely accepted international definition of a mercenary, though not endorsed by some countries, including the United States. The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, (Protocol I), 8 June 1977 states:
Art 47. Mercenaries
- A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
- A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is especially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
All the criteria (a – f) must be met, according to the Geneva Convention, for a combatant to be described as a mercenary.
United Nations Mercenary Convention
The United Nations Mercenary Convention, officially the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, is a 2001 United Nations treaty that prohibits the recruitment, training, use, and financing of mercenaries. At the 72nd plenary meeting on 4 December 1989, the United Nations General Assembly concluded the convention as its resolution 44/34. The convention entered into force on 20 October 2001[1] and has been ratified by 35 states.
Countries with large militaries that have not ratified the convention include China, France, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[2]
3. Something they are trying to cook up
Two US marines ambushed and killed last week was probably organized to push an issue of the private army to guard all those poppy fields.
Military Times reported that Erik Prince wants to step up the Afghan air war with a private air force capable of intelligence collection and close-air support, according to a recent proposal submitted to the Afghan government.
According to a senior Afghan military official, Prince has submitted a business proposal offering a “turn-key composite air wing” to help the fledgling Afghan air force in its fight against the Taliban and other militant groups
“The proposal submitted to the Afghan government in March boasts an impressive array of combat aircraft for a private company. The aircraft offered in the proposal includes fixed-wing planes, attack helicopters and drones capable of providing close-air support to maneuvering ground forces, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Military Times.
The proposal promises to provide ”high speed response” close-air support and ”the entire country can be responded to in under 1 hour.” The proposal states that weapons release decisions will still be made by Afghans.
The air frames are also outfitted with equipment to provide intelligence collection that includes imagery intelligence, signals intelligence and communications intelligence. The aircraft would be operated by the private company’s employees.”
Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanista says that Afghanistan won’t accept a private contractor force.
“President Ghani has told me he won’t accept it,” Neumann told Military Times in an interview. “Afghans will never accept this.”
Neumann also questioned the legality and cost of using a private contracted force compared to using U.S. military assets.
“It cannot be cheaper,” he said. “This idea that it is somehow cheaper is ridiculous. Any force is going to have the same [support and logistical] requirements.”
Contracted forces would also not have the same legal protections under international law, Neumann said.”
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A private air force for Afghanistan?
A private security firm known as Lancaster6 has offered to provide the government of Afghanistan with a “turnkey air wing” with range of aviation assets. A look at the aircraft it offers:A-4 Skyhawk, T-Bird, Aérospatiale Gazelle, AN-26, Lionseye, Super Puma,
A Russian translation of above-mentioned material titled:
A Blackwater founder offers to Afghanistan to create a privet military air force guided via iPhone
McMaster And Mattis Have Twelve Months To Succeed In Afghanistan
===================================
Aug 8, 2017
President Trump has so far rejected the advice of his national security adviser for the next steps in Afghanistan, a war that’s been going on for nearly 16 years. Erik Prince, founder of the security firm previously known as Blackwater, wants to send about 5,000 private military contractors to replace troops helping the Afghan army. Prince, now executive director of Frontier Services Group, joins “CBS This Morning” to discuss the plan that he says would cut the annual cost of the war from an estimated $45 billion to less than $10 billion.
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Founder and Former CEO, Blackwater Erik Prince Speaks on Admin Split on What to do in Afghanistan
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Scott Humor
Director of Research and Development
author of The enemy of the State
In case you have forgotten what happened in Ukraine, this book should refresh your memory with the incredibly precise and humorous chronicles: ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSIAN HUMOR: FROM MAIDAN TO TRUMP
Absolutely disgusting that they would consider this. Once war becomes a business the incentive to end the killing is gone as ongoing profits become more important.
Not really, it is good, it saves the life’s of American soldiers.
PMCs are really the future of war. And I certainly hope Russia uses PMCs when Donbas needs help and not poor conscripted Russian boys.
hello Eric Prince, I didn’t know you frequented Sakers
What exactly is the difference between US soldiers who are mercenaries for large military industrial complex and mercenaries serving this scumbag Eric Prince? Nothing really, they are both mercenaries, paid killers.
Exactly Melotte22! The US no longer has the draft. The US army is a professional army which provides remuneration for their soldiers. So this dubious plan by Eric Prince is simply sub-sub contracting…
Yes, absolutely totally disgusting.
The US overtly becomes like the British Empire in India?
For humanity the US Empire of Insanity must collapse.
Ike:
Once war becomes a business the …
War always had been a business.
If military contractors a.k.a mercenaries are deployed, Afghan government’s credibility would take a big hit. Taliban’s legitimacy would be enhanced: locals fighting against paid multinational personnel, who do you think local population would support.
One of the reasons Ghani is opposing this proposal is that payments to Afghan warlords will take a hit:
Afghanistan is practically a war economy; opposition to the Taliban is founded on huge amounts of money going into local commanders’ / warlords’ pockets. There is no ideology or any other considerable motivating factor. Yes, it is true that people will protect their ethnic brethren and tribal affiliates but that motivation would fizzle out if lets say you ask Tajiks from north to go against Taliban in the south. You stop or limit those payments and country-wide opposition to the Taliban will disappear to be replaced by localized pockets of resistance.
Also I think that attacks on US bases have been limited in numbers and scale by Afghan Taliban. One of the reasons could be that a large loss of American lives in any such attacks will put huge pressure on Pakistani intelligence agencies by the C.I.A. American deaths is a sensitive subject in Washington and reaction by Americans will be difficult to predict. So it seems that Taliban have been holding back on large-scale coordinated attacks on American bases. This will change once private military contractors are introduced. Taliban would certainly have a go against them. After all, you can be well-equipped and trained but what can you really do against someone who is willing to give up his life and is fighting for an ideal.
Anon:
… So it seems that Taliban have been holding back on large-scale coordinated attacks on American bases. This will change once private military contractors are introduced. …
Another change will be that noone can demand obeying of the Geneva convention. So, paid mercenaries will be fair game for the Taliban.
No surprises here. With the creation of Al-Qaeda & ISIS Zion has made clear how the wars of the future will be fought – by hundreds of mercenaries armies with fancy Hollywood names. Live fake-reporting from the front, while scripting and hoaxing most of the action in real-time by Zionstream media itself (see the current North Korea farce), will replace a good part of the sports/entertainment industry with something far more realistic and exciting.
The only weakness in this scenario is notoriously low fighting spirit displayed by your average mercenary outfit. Luckily, Zion has assimilated all its potent adversaries centuries ago, with the exemption maybe of Russia, Iran, and a few other nations.
Why does it take Elon Musk, DARPA and Boston Robotics so long to finally come up with viable autonomous robot-soldiers as premiered in RoboCop? Eric Prince surely has pre-ordered a couple of millions of these gadgets in a heroic effort to make plundering & pillaging an almost as cost-effective and profitable industry as the golden calf – reserve banking – itself.
Ponder this: If Eric Price plays his cards cleverly he might one day not only be remembered as an outstanding CIA lifetime actor and a great warlord but also the king of cost-cutting. Woohoo!
The US has something like 1.5 million troops (a little less) in all services combined.They have troops fighting in Afghanistan,Iraq,and some in Yemen,and Syria. Troops based all over the World. As well as large numbers in the US itself and in ships on the Oceans. And now are plotting wars in Korea,Venezuela.Iran,and “who knows” where else. I hear all the time about how the US will bleed Russia and China in an “arms race” to bankrupt them.
It seems to me to tables should be turned on them. To use Afghanistan as an example. If say a country like, lets say hmmm,”North Korea”, was to send arms to the Taliban. The Taliban is already an advancing force. But with more arms they might start “really” winning. In which case the US would be forced for “exceptionalism” reasons to move back heavily into Afghanistan. And Afghanistan could drain them like Vietnam did.The same could be said of other wars they involve themselves in. The Roman Empire fell because of too many wars consuming their military ability to fight them all.At the cost of modern warfare,the US doesn’t have the resources to fight full scale partisan wars all over the World at the same time.The losses in wealth,and the casualties in the thousands,would destroy any popular support for those wars in the US.The US public demands instant,and low casualty victories in their wars. Even if the wars continue at a low level for years,and end up costing a fortune. They must be low level,with only a trickle of casualties. Extremely heavy casualties without some victory of some kind to point to,isn’t acceptable to Americans.Even though we know the Afghanistan war has been a disaster. The US public remembers the easy fall in 2001 of the country. The same with Iraq. They point to the quick fall of the country. And try to forget the years of partisan fighting afterwards.To stop the empire’s aggression they need to be trapped in the quicksand of several unwinnable wars. Eating their resources and manpower up. With no victories to point to. Even a “superpower” or as I heard a US official say yesterday about themselves “a hyper superpower” can only fight so many wars at one time without collapsing.
The legalism of constantly changing the name of Prince’s mercenary organization points to its probably illegality and evil reputation.
Yes, of course, BUT the same applies to the others actors, high cost in lives and money will inflict them also,
AND the ziocon beast manages to “serialize” the cost for a fine tunning of the outcry.
We are left imagining where the next hit while some get freezed and postponed.
The question is, WHO has the coordination power to force a “permanent simultaneous commitment” on all the fronts on the zio-beast?
May God protect the peace lovers.
Hello, Uncle Bob 1. “There you go again,” to quote Ronald Reagan in his debate with Jimmy Carter. As in the conversation we had about the origins of the American Revolution, you fill up space with red herrings that, let us say, obscure the forest with trees, or even obscure the trees with twigs and leaves, and then throw in a little historical revisionism for good measure.
If you hadn’t noticed, Pakistan and India became members of the SCO this year, notwithstanding their own border dispute and the little spat between India and China. Kazakh and Russian diplomacy will sort that all out. There is too much at stake for all the members. Iran will become a member next year, now that UN sanctions have been lifted, regardless of US sanctions. Then, it only remains for Turkmenistan to be cajoled into membership, and Afghanistan will be completely sealed and off limits to the US or any US enterprise.
You mention that Afghanistan has been a disaster. That is certainly true for all those killed or maimed and their families, and for the US taxpayer. For those running the heroin and arms trades, however, it has been a roaring success so far. All the current members of the SCO and Iran have problems with addiction rates, and would even be happy leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban, as long as they close down opium production again and stay within their own borders, but there will be Chinese investment to provide alternative economic opportunities to opium production.
The idea of the “Fall of the Roman Empire” went out with Gibbon. The secular empire moved to Constantinople and lasted another thousand years, until overrun in 1453 by the Ottomans, who nearly overran Europe, halted only at the last siege of Vienna in 1683, when a Polish army side-swiped them unexpectedly. The western Roman Empire simply morphed into the Roman Catholic Church, which assumed an imperial as well as a spiritual mantle. The Church still rules an empire of 1.2 billion souls, more divisions than even Stalin could contemplate.
The US will not collapse. It has too many inherent advantages, as explained by Dr. Thomas Barnett in his lecture to the National Defense University in 2015, not that I subscribe to all of the good doctor’s hyperbole. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9adQ250thM&feature=youtu.be Other sections of the video follow automatically.
I do believe that Trump’s instincts are that the US should focus on developing its own immense natural advantages to create the jobs to make America great again, and to heed John Quincy Adams injunction to go “not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Unfortunately, he expresses himself very poorly, and he is up against some very deeply entrenched special interests, who profit hugely from such hunting, but who externalize the costs with American lives and to American taxpayers. As Frédéric Bastiat elegantly demonstrated, although some may profit, you do not increase national wealth by breaking things and having to fix or replace them.
Hi,how are you. I’d think after the “paddling” you got over our last conversation you’d be licking your wounds for a while. But I guess the saying about a “dog returning to it’s vomit” has a lot of truth in it. And you decided to go back to several past threads and find something else to insult and argue over. That’ is really kind of sad.
But more to the point. We will see tomorrow what Trump has decided about Afghanistan. I gave my opinion of what “should” happen. And the reaction that would/could come from that. It was an “opinion” and you are free of course to agree or disagree with it.
So a man with a long history of fraud, murder, subterfuge, wants millions of US taxpayer dollars to wage a genocidal war against a people who are not in any way our “enemy”, and this with no accountability, what could possibly go wrong?
The guy is also a US Christian zealot. Deep down, he probably wants to convert the heathens.
Anonymous:
The guy is also a US Christian zealot. …
Ummm … being warlord and Christian zealot is an oxymoron. Converting pagans by force also contradicts the message of the New Testament.
Here’s what I wrote in my Sputnik anslysis about how “Russia Isn’t Arming The Taliban, But The Deep State Wants Trump To Think So”:
“The US’ latest disinformation offensive against Russia is aimed at manipulating Trump into dispatching more uniformed troops to Afghanistan instead of going through with Bannon’s PMC proposal, as both factions fight for control over who will receive the profitable right to ensure security for future American mining operations.”
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201707261055903610-no-russian-arms-for-taliban/
Thanks, Andrew. Very useful picture of the situation. One Trillion Dollars in mineral extraction is a lot to get greedy about. Not to mention the drugs sitting topside on the surface. Easy now to see that everyone wants a piece of this action.
As I recall, China has already been awarded substantial contracts for mineral extraction in Afghanistan. One wonders if the plan is to invalidate these contracts and simply steal the resources.
@Scott,
Excellent again.
Just as a curiosity, Alexander the Great after destroying Persians in one of the battles collected some 5000 Athenian mercenaries fighting for the Persians to be executed by Athens, as he did not think he wanted to be bothered dispatching the dirt.
This is just splitting hairs. We all know that the reason the US is in Afghanistan is to supply the Rothschild Empire with opium and nothing else. We know that the CIA is Rothschild’s private army. We know the CIA has used sub contractors in all its adventures. And we can be pretty certain that the CIA has used Prince many times in the past.
All Prince is trying to do is cut out the Rothschilds and take control of the opium production/distribution for himself, with the long term view of not only controlling the production but also using Trumps media skills and contacts to handle distribution.
Prince (and Trump) reckon that Rothschilds are up to their eyeballs manipulating Congress and the rest of the Deep State. These two believe the CIA and US military are so weakened dealing with the Russia crisis, that provided Prince and Trump can come up with an infallible plan, (saving $35billion a year), they can outflank Rothschilds and take over their drug empire.
It is quite simple really. If Prince and Trump can smash Rothschild’s grip on the drug trade, they will so weaken the dictator of the west (Rothschilds) they might just be able to topple the evil Satanist Rothschild Empire and become masters of the free world instead!
Simple…all the best plans are simple.
Great plan! Kill the Joobs, exonerate the Trumpeteers!
Ha! Alternative employment for ISIS…
US GovCorp distancing itself from what everybody knows.
This is a really good idea.
They are mercenaries, so fair game to any interested parties – chiefly, Afghans.
Or any other nation that has a border with I Afghanistan – like Russia.
No need for any protocols or rules of engagement.
Please send them, and let open season commence.
Dear Melkor (a.k.a. the human, Erik Prince), Lord of the Dark, purveyor of murder and mayhem, distant cousin of Voldemort, leader of the Death Eaters and Dementors; we the people of the inner kingdom of North America, bid you to listen.
The Washington, DC cabal entertains the notion to hire your services and pay you a filthy lucre; for what is the purpose of work but to garner profit and riches? Their illicit treasury of fiat is filled by stolen coercion of the people’s wealth and the remainder granted to its favorites after taking a healthy portion for themselves.
But why consider the offer of the offending third party when you can deal directly with us? We encourage you to give thoughtful pause and look to bypass the black pool of stagnating purulence and putrid flesh that hangs on their skeletons like wilted appendages of dead flora.
We want to hire you as our paladin. Your task is simple and direct; kill off the disease that has infested the federal government and wipe out the militarists that control American foreign policy. We will give you shelter in our neighborhoods and pay you handsomely. The people shall turn the table on the warmongers and choose to rise up and engage the tyrants in internal conflict, rather than destroy the earth.
The nation will be grateful, you will be heroes in the alternate media and the world will breathe a moment of relief.
Is it not true, the chinese are using Mr.PriningPeacocks mercenaries in west china? Talk about letting the enemies wolfs guard the back door.
I’ve heard Putin mention using “private contractors” in russia . I wonder who’s mercenaries russia is using.
PMC’s would not be a thing if they were not fully controlled by TPTB. In Peacocks mind, they aren’t mercenaries, they are the praetorian guard, doing the rulers bidding.
There is one semi-official PMC, Wagner. Russia, the last I read about it, still hasn’t officially recognized PMCs. One report was Putin issued medals to them for work in Syria.
There is another gray area group of contractors from Central Asia. “Turan”. They have done some very tough missions in Syria.
It is pretty clear Russia is using experienced and ethnic fighters who can move along ratlines tracking terrorists into strongholds, and former fighters who are heavily experienced in Wahhabi tactics and logistics. Thus, PMCs for these irregulars.
War has evolved and is rapidly evolving.
We are close to robotic ground war. We already have robotic aerial war (drones and inflight programmable missiles, and all Space-based weapons.)
Prince has a brain and a business sense. He may be amoral, but nearly all humans are. Some learn morals and ethics. It is not inbred or instinctual.
He offers a reasonable solution to extract the US heavy footprint from Afghanistan.
If it is not attempted, good. The US will go one more year and Trump will end it.
That leaves the US with covert ops and special forces missions with little tactical support in country.
The Chinese and Russians and Pakis will finish off ISIS and AQ and some accommodation will be made with some Taliban.
It’s just what happens once the mineral riches are now widely known. Afghanistan will be exploited by Eurasia for Eurasians.
Prince has contract deals to protect Chinese interests in China and Africa and, soon, elsewhere.
He is the major security player in global conflict areas.
Afghanistan is a big drain on US. He will eventually be paid by the Chinese if the US doesn’t cut this deal.
He’s very smart at business. They say he has 2.5 million names and numbers of Special Operators around the world.
Notice Mattis, McMaster and Nicholson are not generals liking this. That tells me it’s probably a very good idea.
Give it a try.
I think his biggest problem is finding one person to fill the “viceroy” role.
America has specialists not generalists. They are either covert action, diplomatic action, military action or business/capitalist action experts.
Off hand, can’t think of anyone who could do this.
The last bozo who had this power was Paul Bremmer in Iraq. He lost track of one billion in cash and fucked up the entire Iraq infrastructure, national security and led to the Republican Guard turning itself into ISIS and AQ forces. $5 Trillion later, Bremmer is regarded as a winner. He should have been imprisoned or shot.
That’s the hitch in Prince’s plan. Who would do this and not screw it all to hell anyway?
As hired hand Bremer was given to Bush by the same deep state (that went under the name of Dem. party than) that now is actively (and I think successfully as well) reining Trump in.
“A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.”
Does this mean that mercenaries may be summarily executed on or near the battlefield?
Yes,and in the past they many times had the choice of joining the winning side. Or being executed on the spot by the winning side. Not surprisingly quite a few of them decided to join the winners. When you only fight for money. The one paying you isn’t really very important.
There is no new thing under the sun….
Prince is set out as the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood
de nos jours.
Hawkwood’s career is summarised in the NYC historian Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror” re the calamitous 14th Century.
There are two main problems I see with his plan. One,do we want for it to succeed. Do we want for the empire to free itself from the money pit and military humiliation of the Afghan War. Which would allow them to save lots money and give them more freedom and the resources to cause much more trouble elsewhere.
But the second reason is worse.What he is purposing is the same thing as the CIA jihadi armies,minus the ideology,and better trained.A mercenary military open to the highest bidder. In the US that could come under the heading in a court of law as a “contract killer”. Where you pay someone to kill someone else for you. His idea in the long ago past was common. And it always ended badly. Opening up a new can of worms with something like that today, is also going to end badly. Lets say a private corporation decides to hire an army like that to take over a country to get access to their resources.Or a political candidate in a country hires an army like that to put them in power. The ability for misuse of something terrible like that is without end. Its just a new form of a Worldwide mafia being created.The opening of a true “Pandora’s Box”.That would be very hard,if not impossible to close before it caused immense damage to the World.
This might very well save Washington money. However, mercenaries tend to be poor (low morale) soldiers. Just look at the Saudi’s laughable performance using mercenaries against Yemen. If the NATO grunts are mostly withdrawn from Afghanistan and replaced with hired guns, the Taliban will outright win the war. If Washington is serious about continuing to occupy Afghanistan, Uncle Sam will have to deploy more US troops, there is no other way to get around it.
So, what we have here is, in essence, East India Trading Company v2.0
Erik Prince’s reasoning for saving cost is fairly hogwash. With Afghanistan generating billions in cash from its opium trade and whatever other resources they’re raping, the net cost of sustaining the US forces indefinitely would be near zero or even turn a profit.
Where all that income goes is really irrelevant. They’ve been there almost two decades, why suddenly complain about cost cutting now? Heck, they don’t even bother arguing the trillions in US debt.
Imo, there are few (hidden) goals to this :
1. Debut of the PMC concept to the mainstream to garner more exposure.
2. To improve worldwide & internal public perception towards the US as a “good guy”, defender of justice & democracy. Not that it’ll do any good, the cat’s out of the bag … lol.
3. To remove any internal resistances from real US patriots who oppose its neocon policies.
4. To mollify locals to accept PMC vs an overt US force. Relying on Afghans’ stupidity? Perhaps those in their paycheck, but never with those with intelligent visions.
Whatever happens, nothing will change in Afghanistan, regardless of who stomps their boot there. The US will never let go of it willingly – too much cash at stake, plus its strategic value vs China/Russia/Iran.
Erik Prince wants to wrest control of Afghanistan’s lucrative heroin production away from US Blowback Lunatic Merchants, formerly known as US CIA (Criminally Insane Agency). Somehow I don’t think that they are going to let him get control of the heroin. If he does manage to do it he won’t live very much longer.
Just another step towards the privatization of power.
There is some contents of this guys in english.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXS6b6ah6A4