I may have misjudged our president, I thought he was an
incompetent fool, now I know better. This epiphany occurred when I learned that
his chosen senior aides had a long discussion with Erik Prince, formerly CEO of
Blackwater, about Afghanistan .
Prince was also a campaign advisor and go between for Trump prior to his
election. Mr. Prince’s proposal is that the United States privatize the
occupation there by replacing our troops with security contractors working for
a new company he offered to create. Prince’s plan would also save the U.S. money by
paying for his company troops using the proceeds of the mineral wealth they
would extract from the country.
In interviews Prince explained that the reason both Bush and
Obama failed to succeed in Afghanistan
is that they were attempting restore the country to self rule by training and
supporting its fledgling government and troops. In his view holding territory
and protecting the rural population should be secondary to securing routes to
valuable resources and their extraction points such as mines and wells. The
desire to complete the job and leave, in other words have an exit strategy, has
been the undoing of both prior administrations’ efforts he said. In a
television interview Prince said the occupation of Afghanistan is premised on a faulty
model. “We’ve fought for the last 15 years with the 1st Infantry Division
model,” he says. “Now we should fight with an East India Company model, and do
it much cheaper.”
This is a stunning opportunity for the American people, we
could bring our troops home while at the same time have the opportunity to
invest in this new, potentially highly profitable corporation. The genius of it
is that Prince’s plan harkens back to the days of the British East India
Company which essentially ruled India
for over 100 years. In his presentation to Trump, Mr. Prince pointed out that
while American security contractors cost three times as much as American troops
he plans to keep costs down by using foreign mercenaries.
What could possibly go wrong? Let’s consider what went wrong
with the British East India Company occupation. By working with local
chieftains they created warlords rather than strengthening the national
government and troops loyal to it. Their troops and their management took graft
and corruption to new heights such that the company didn’t turn a profit during
the century of the occupation.
Prince isn’t proposing to just replace the U.S. military
with hired contractors, his explicit reference to the British East India Company
says he’s actually proposing to remove elected civilian control over operations
and replace it with a profit seeking corporation’s board of directors. How do
you maximize profits in this scenario? You pay as little as possible to the
troops while pillaging natural resources. There will be no schools or hospitals
built to win hearts and minds or build a better future for the populace; only
mines, oil wells and roads to the nearest port.
The very idea that such a proposal would even be considered
by high level White House staff is an abomination. The old adage that you can
tell the character of a man by the company he keeps tells us all we need to
know about Trump. He’s far worse than even his biggest critics ever imagined.
Published in the Seguin Gazette, August 25, 2017
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