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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsErik Prince charging $6.5K per seat to evacuate Afghans
He is reportedly a multi-billionaire and could easily afford to cover the cost, but he is a mercenary above all else.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tbsnews.net/world/us-defense-contractor-erik-prince-charges-6500-person-seat-plane-out-kabul-292960%3famp
"US defense contractor Erik Prince said he is offering people seats on a chartered plane out of Kabul for $6,500 per person.
US and NATO forces are sending special rescue teams into Taliban-controlled areas of the city to spirit their citizens into the airport, reports the Wall Street Journal.
...
Chartered planes are flying out of Kabul with hundreds of empty seats. New Taliban checkpoints on the road to Pakistan have made driving out of the country increasingly risky."....(more)
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(Prince famously tried to sell Trump on allowing him to privatize military operations in Afghanistan)
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/09/05/heres-the-blueprint-for-erik-princes-5-billion-plan-to-privatize-the-afghanistan-war/
"
Blackwater founder Erik Prince thinks the time is right to try a new approach in Afghanistan, one that he says will reduce war spending to a sliver of its current levels, get most troops home and eliminate Pakistans influence on U.S. policy there: Let him run it.
In an exclusive interview with Military Times, Prince shared new details about his proposed force and why he believes a small footprint of private military contractors and even smaller footprint of U.S. special operators may be able to accomplish what hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and NATO forces over the last 17 years could not.
Prince first presented the idea as President Donald Trump took office last year, hoping that the presidents long-stated opposition to keeping U.S. forces in Afghanistan would open the door to a privatized presence.
But Trump listened to his national security team instead, including critics of the plan like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster."...(more)
niyad
(113,275 posts)CurtEastPoint
(18,639 posts)Marcuse
(7,479 posts)Kid Berwyn
(14,888 posts)By Dave Anderson
Boulder Weekly - January 7, 202
Donald Trump violated the U.S. governments obligations under international law when he pardoned American mercenaries Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, according to the United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries, a division of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
The four men were employees of Blackwater, a private security firm owned by Erik Prince, a loyal Trump ally and brother of Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education.
In 2007, the firms armored convoy engaged in an unprovoked indiscriminate shooting frenzy in downtown Baghdad in the middle of heavy traffic at noontime. They opened fire with weapons including machine guns and grenade launchers. They murdered 17 unarmed civilians and seriously injured 20.
Snip
The mercenaries killed two children ages 9 and 11, a mother and her infant son, a 26-year-old taxi driver, a 20-year-old medical student and his mother, a car dealer, a delivery truck driver, a 77-year-old gardener on a bus, a woman doctor, an Iraqi soldier standing at a military checkpoint, a blacksmith commuting to work on his motorcycle. No Iraqis fired shots, displayed weapons or threatened the Blackwater thugs in any way.
Snip
John M. Patarini, the FBIs lead investigator in the case, said he is disgusted with the presidents actions in a letter to the New York Times. He explained:
We originally went to Iraq thinking this shooting was some form of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire between Blackwater guards and insurgents. After only one week, we determined that this incident was not as presented by Blackwater personnel and their State Department lackeys, but it was a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam.
Irish_Dem
(46,946 posts)Karma13612
(4,552 posts)We have AirBnB offering refuge for thousands of fleeing Afghans, at no cost.
joetheman
(1,450 posts)Firestorm49
(4,032 posts)Who authorized him to be the official scalper?
Midnight Writer
(21,751 posts)Our military serves our country, mercenaries serve greed.