WaPo breaking: Trump Aides Recruited Businessman to Devise Options for Afghanistan

[Leghorn21]

Trump Aides Recruited Businessmen to Devise Options for Afghanistan
By MARK LANDLER, ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL R. GORDON JULY 10, 2017


WASHINGTON — 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.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Bannon sought out Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon to try to get a hearing for their ideas, an American official said. Mr. Mattis listened politely but declined to include the outside strategies in a review of Afghanistan policy that he is leading along with the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster.

The highly unusual meeting dramatizes the divide between Mr. Trump’s generals and his political staff over Afghanistan, the lengths to which his aides will go to give their boss more options for dealing with it and the readiness of this White House to turn to business people for help with diplomatic and military problems.

more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/world/asia/trump-afghanistan-policy-erik-prince-stephen-feinberg.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Eric Prince, ya'll. Many people's worst nightmare, mine included.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. Erik Prince. All of our Bush era nightmares are returning - this - the voting dudes (von spakosky

et al) - trump is dredging the swamp and bringing all of the festering rotting matter back.

[longship]

14. Erik Prince -- Betsy Wetsy DeVos is his sister. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Gee, do you think 2 men who would make millions of dollars from the use of

mercenaries would advise the use of 'contractor's in a military venture?

[Solly Mack]

3. Damn

[VMA131Marine]

4. How did the use of mercenaries work out for the British trying to put down the American Revolution

'Nuff said!

[angrychair]

5. Seriously W. T. F.

These assholes want to pull back US troops and use mercs that are not bound by international agreements, the Geneva Convention and the UCMJ.

That is a seriously bad idea.

[Leghorn21]

7. Agreed, angry. Horrendously bad idea. And the way "things" are going, when do mercs get

unleashed on American soil? - as we know, the "Tigerswan" mercs were used for "security" at Standing Rock, so what's to keep them from being deployed at other hot spots in our country?

I wish I wasn't thinking this could happen, but - well, I am, and have been since this cabal's installation. (and I know I'm not the only one)

[kskiska]

6. He's Betsy DeVos' brother.

[struggle4progress]

8. Our plan for ending the war: Build Trump Towers Afghanistan!

[procon]

9. As in hiring foreign mercenaries?

What could possibly go wrong?

[Rstrstx]

10. Have they considered calling up Stark Industries?

They specialize in this exact sort of stuff. And Manhattan based too.

[iluvtennis]

11. SMDH. How asinie-having private business men recommend the use mercenaries in Afghanistan vs going

with the plans of the Pentagon experts.

[Puppyjive]

12. Tax Dodgers

This is what is making America poor. And while they are investigating these clingons of the almighty government dime, let it be known that they need to be investigating them for tax evasion as well.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. "Businessman"? Talk about burying the lede. They make it sound like the Chamber of Commerce

sent someone along to make suggestions. "Controversial military contractors" would be a neutral headline. Prince's mercenary outfit was hip deep in violence and killing in Iraq, and he seems willing to sell his services to China as well as the USA.

[Ilsa]

17. They'd be unaccountable to all laws, raping, stealing, and murdering at will.

Mercenaries viciously assaulted American women contractors in Iraq. One woman was so violently raped that she cannot have children -- the doctors had to perform a hysterectomy, and she may not be able to have sex (I'm not certain, just going off what I read years ago). The men who did it and their ringleader got away with it because they had immunity from prosecution.

Erik Prince and his buddies are fine with this as long as they make money.

Fuck them all with a cactus.

[Blue_true]

18. A Law and Order SVU covered that incident.

Coverup to the ying-yang. Of course some stuff was dramatized.

[ehrnst]

15. Thank GOD the WH didn't go to that corporatist who was gonna hand our country over to Wall Street!

Last edited Tue Jul 11, 2017, 09:32 AM - Edit history (1)

Dodged THAT bullet....

[spanone]

16. privatizing war....how american