11 ms·

Founder of Blackwater's Drive to Build a Private Air Force

105 points by nomoba 11y ago

calgoo 11y ago
A really hope Karma / Murphy deals this guy what he deserves for the crimes that his company has done. Private militarizes armies should NEVER be allowed to exist. These people should never have the right to fight for governments, and should all be put in jail, especially Erik Prince. Also, the government officials that gave them the contracts should also be jailed as traitors to their countries. They are handing over military power to non-government actors to commit crimes without punishment. This needs to be stopped, right now.
- ethana 11y ago
  The U.S government is his biggest customer since the Iraq war in 2003.
  - toyg 11y ago
    The Iraq war was a turning point in this area, actually. Stretched between two active conflicts far from each other, and having re-structured the US military as a smaller army of highly-specialised troops, there were not enough boots on the ground to maintain security across the whole country. Enter unregulated mercenary armies. Sure enough, the US is re-learning why mercenary armies have always been a bad idea throughout history.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    Hardly surprising, given the size and propensity of the US to engage in armed conflict with organized fighting forces. (Who else on the planet could possibly be a bigger customer than the US?)
- harperlee 11y ago
  Although I believe that you are right, you are jumping here from "this particular mercenaries are criminals" to "the use of mercenaries is treason and should never be allowed", an that is a big jump. In my opinion, if there are adequate mechanisms for the control of mercenaries (such as not allowing them to have more power than the public army, or the restriction to / of particular capabilities), having mercenaries in particular situations (such as people with a high degree of specialization) could be feasible. The problem here is that they were given ample independent power with adequate supervision, again imho.
  - toyg 11y ago
    If you need an army of supervisors to oversee your mercenaries, you might as well just train more troops.
    - harperlee 11y ago
      The efforts might not be the same.
      - toyg 11y ago
        Yeah, but considering your core competency is "kill the bad guys" rather than "manage and police subcontractors", you're more likely to get good results by sticking to what you know.
        harperlee 11y ago
        I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Neither a government in general nor particularly its army have only one core competency, and surely it's not "kill the bad guys". I'd actually say management is closer to their core competency. Which percentage of the army's personnel is shooting bullets, and which percentage of them are managing putting the bullets (and the troops) on the ground, analyzing where to put them, policing that they comply with what the government wants, recruiting, overseeing, intelligence, managing subcontractors and providers (gasoline, tanks, fences, uniforms, building construction, IT equipment, etc.)?
        toyg 11y ago
        These ancillary skills in management are developed in order to achieve well-defined objectives: overpower (i.e. shoot) the bad guys and conclusively win conflicts. You cannot apply them to mercenaries; even if you replicate the chain of command down to sergeant level or whatever, their incentives are fundamentally different: mercenaries have a fundamental interest in keeping the fighting going as long as possible, because they are paid to fight. A regular army is supposed to go out, win a conflict ("shoot the bad guys"), go home, get decorated, enjoy pensions and glory; that's the core mission, and its core competency is (or rather should be) to get that done in the shortest possible amount of time (or even not getting engaged in the first place). A mercenary only gets paid as long as there is an ongoing conflict involving a wealthy-enough client. He's not interested in ending the conflict; thinking you can police him in seeing it some other way is just deluded.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  ... as opposed to the unpunished crimes acknowledged to have been committed by State actors? I really don't see why you draw a distinction. War crimes are war crimes, and should be punished regardless of the perpetrators.
  - calgoo 11y ago
    Of course they should, and I dont argue against that. However, I see private actors such as Blackwater (or whatever he calls it today), that directly make money of the war, and are not held accountable at all are a huge problem that needs to be dealt with. Regarding state actors, I am 100% for punishing them, but see this as a bigger issue of corruption of morals and ethics in general. In the military i see the issue as a failure in the oversight processes and support frameworks. Military has always been secretive about their mistakes etc, which in my mind is understandable (not excusable). However, it seams like the compartmentalizing of the different areas of operations have completely sealed off the solders from any kind of support framework. Which means that anything that should be reported, never gets to the people who needs to see it. This last part applies to the Blackwater types as well, with probably even more pressure to not do anything and look the other way etc.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      Sure. But you seemed to be implying that just being a mercenary - regardless of whether you committed any war crimes - ought to be in and of itself a crime. Perhaps I misunderstood.
    - lmm 11y ago
      I still don't see the difference. Maybe state-military generals don't stand to profit directly, but they have plenty to gain from war - promotion, influence, status - money is attractive not for itself but for what it represents. So I don't think there's any inherent problem with one that doesn't occur with the other - either way you need to beware of principal-agent problems and ensure that your actions are actually working towards your goals.
- cm2187 11y ago
  That's a very nationalistic position. You are basically saying that every soldier should have the nationality of the army he fights for. Mercenaries are a very old tradition and I don't see what is intrinsically wrong with it, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries. And what about the European and American nationals who joined the kurds to fight ISIS in Syria? Are they traitors and should be jailed because they fight for a foreign army?
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    And their are Uk nationals who join the US armed forces
    - gadders 11y ago
      Not to mention the French Foreign Legion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion or the UK's use of Nepalese Ghurkas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha
      - eveningcoffee 11y ago
        Foreign Legion and The Gurkhas are not private mercenary units. These are regular army units where the enlisted are not native nationals. The first sentence from linked article about French Foreign Legion says that The French Foreign Legion is a military service branch of the French Army established in 1831, unique because it was created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. I repeat if it did not sink in: Foreign Legion and The Gurkhas are not private mercenary units, they are not private armies. The main argument of calgoo was that "Private militarizes armies should NEVER be allowed to exist.". This is very far from being "a very nationalistic position". He did not say that foreign nationals should not be enlisted into national armies. So please, could we stop this bullshit now?
        gadders 11y ago
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Both France and the UK effectively employ Mercenarys the Foreign Legion and The Gurkhas. And arguably the Swiss Guard are as well.
  - eveningcoffee 11y ago
    Foreign Legion, The Gurkhas and Swiss Guard are not private mercenary units.
- logicchains 11y ago
  >They are handing over military power to non-government actors to commit crimes without punishment. Perhaps the issue is that this power to commit crimes without punishment exists in the first place. Doesn't matter whether the government does it themselves or they delegate.
- atemerev 11y ago
  What is the difference between government fighting wars and PMCs fighting wars? Military power is military power, and government leaders are no more anointed and divine than PMCs leaders. The age of kings is long gone.
  - RockyMcNuts 11y ago
    The difference is a guy becoming a billionaire fighting a war, and then facilitating / fomenting more wars to make more money.
    - atemerev 11y ago
      Governments have quite a history of doing the same.
      - RockyMcNuts 11y ago
        That's one reason democracy is a good thing ... the people getting sent to fight and die have a say, less moral hazard, since most people don't benefit from war. If a king or a billionaire can get rich fighting a war and has the power to make it happen, you're going to have more wars. It's probably better for civilization if a democratic government has a monopoly on extreme force like bombers, WMDs. War is sufficiently stupid, it's probably better if entrepreneurs don't disrupt it, and the military remains the one 100% socialist enterprise in America.
- kosmic_k 11y ago
  Why? Its not like PMC's have ever done anything that is exceptionally more cruel than any state armed force. It's not like they're going to be much worse at preventing civilian casualties. When the United States left Iraq it left a huge security void which has allowed ISIS to thrive. Why would it be immoral for Baghdad to have hired a PMC to help defend against ISIS? It's not like Iraqi troops were somehow magically killing less civilians. When these cases happen they are written off as casualties and no one is ever punished. The utter cowardice and incompetence of the Iraqi army has helped for 8 Million to live under the control of ISIS. Do you think these people would care if it was an Iraqi or Syrian who may accidentally kill them instead of a well paid mercenary? Do you think that it is more moral to allow these people to live under the constant threat of rampant murder or rape than it would be to allow for private militarizes to exist? It seems to me that western soldiers aren't really supposed to die anymore. Every single lost American solider somehow matters 1000x more than some Iraqi, Syrian, or Ukrainian. Despite the US easily having the ability to eliminate the ISIS threat it does not. There just isn't the political will to send Americans into harms way. Meanwhile many security forces lack the capability of actually handling the threats they are encountering. PMC's could possibly solve this. No one cares if a mercenary dies. I don't see a well paid mercenary abandoning their post, tanks, equipment, along with a city of a million without having fired a shot. You can't say the same about the Iraqi army. Even should PMC's have somehow a double or triple civilian casualty rate it would still be more moral for those civilians to die than allow millions of people to fall into the murderous regime of ISIS. Of course it will always be preferable for state forces to be able to handle the threats they encounter. But given the reality that many cannot and will not receive the boots on the ground assistance to win their respective conflicts and protect their citizenry, would it really be immoral for a private force to pick up the slack? It's not like this man was trying to see fighter to ISIS or North Korea. He was trying to create services that would assist state actors against terrorists. Given that no one else is wiling to provide assistance with this, I cannot help but feel that the ends justify the means here.
andyjohnson0 11y ago
"In May 2014, both Thrush planes were flown from the U.S. across the Atlantic Ocean to Airborne’s hangar." How common is it for single engine single seat aircraft to be flown across large oceans? Does the Thrush 510G have sufficient fuel capacity?
- tronje 11y ago
  "According to the plan, the aircraft would have 12 hours of endurance to conduct operations." I'm no expert nor have I done the calculations, but 12 hours sounds like enough time to cross the Atlantic. What I don't know is whether the fuel tank was expanded/replaced.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    Thrush 510G is way too slow and draggy to cross the ocean in one hop. It's unpressurized, meaning typically operates at low altitudes, where the air is dense and its turboprop engine is less efficient than an engine designed for higher flight. Typical cruise speed is 160mph and ferry range is only 800 miles, meaning it's taking the northern route across Goose Bay, Greenland, and Iceland.
- dingaling 11y ago
  > How common is it for single engine single seat aircraft to be flown across large oceans? It is routine. SOCATA deliver their popular single-turboprop TBM aircraft from their factory in southern France via Ireland, Iceland and Canada to US customers. Likewise Pilatus stage PC-12s through Scotland as the first hop. Spotters at Keflavik in Iceland have a great variety! Cessnas flow in the other direction, though less frequently. Even a little piston-engined C172 has made the eastbound delivery journey and he skipped Iceland! Usually the flights are made by contracted ferry pilots, from companies such as Southern Cross http://southernx.com/ http://southernx.com/
  - andyjohnson0 11y ago
    Thanks! Your comment reminded me of a discussion about this from a few months ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10372898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10372898
exDM69 11y ago
Taking a look at his Wikipedia page, it seems like his PR company wrote it. The man is described as a "philantropist" ffs. The history of the page looks a bit suspicious too. There's very few mentions of any kind of criticism or negative statements about him or his ventures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- chippy 11y ago
  Yeah if only there was a way of changing that page to say something else.
  - exDM69 11y ago
    And engaging in a Wikipedia editing contest against a supposedly well funded PR company on a very controversial topic? Don't expect a very positive outcome from such endeavors. At least the page isn't full of blatant lies (well the philantropy is a bit questionable) but it's very selective about the facts it brings up. I'd expect it would be much harder to get approved edits done on this page than most other Wikipedia pages, including those of big name politicians. You'd have to really pay attention to the sources you'd be citing and careful about the language you use not to get disputed/deleted.
gadders 11y ago
Why was the title changed from "ECHO PAPA EXPOSED: Inside Erik Prince’s Treacherous Drive to Build a Private Air Force" Perhaps it should at least be just the subheading?
numair 11y ago
This story is written with such an incredibly obnoxious and sensationalist slant, like most things written about Erik Prince and Blackwater. You'd think they had uncovered evidence he was working on contract for ISIS or something. America's use of PMCs is as old, actually older, than the country itself. Many of the issues that led to Blackwater's infamy from their time in Iraq were directly caused by State Department incompetence (I doubt anyone would want to argue that the US State Department is an efficient, well-run, non-politicized entity). Erik Prince is not some crazy Christian zealot out to wage a holy war; if anything, he provided the US government with unique capability that they desperately needed, and things would have probably been far messier if he hadn't been involved in Iraq. I see nothing evil or nefarious about a defense contractor commissioning efficient tactical aircraft for anti-terrorism and civil defense operations. The fact that it's Erik Prince, and the mass media has painted him as the evil overlord that caused all of our problems in Iraq, doesn't make it any different. It would be strange if someone who was highly competent and specialized in defense operations, who had enough money, WASN'T building these sorts of things. Look, I'm mad about what the US government did in Iraq. Everyone should be. We shouldn't have even gone there. But none of this is Erik Prince's fault. Venture capital firms have "scouts," giving them access to deals they'd otherwise overlook or couldn't access. The US defense and intelligence communities have people like Erik Prince.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- marincounty 11y ago
  When did being a war profiteer become acceptable? And I know most of you don't think it as a necessary war. All I remember from Blackwater is open expense accounts, jet skis, the best hotels, the best of everything. Why--because they were getting paid a huge amounts, with weird accounting. 'Drive the cost up boys--the government will pay.' I might be confusing Blackwater with Halliburton? Again--too angry to go over that history again. Yea--I know their were other players, and ultimately the government was at fault. (Don't have the stomach this morning to provide any factoids.)
  - deleted 11y ago
frozenport 11y ago
Why is Embraer allowed to make a coin aircraft but these guys aren't?
- gambiting 11y ago
  Oh they are. They just haven't applied for the proper permissions, while Embraer has. The problem here seems to be that Prince wanted to modify planes in secret, without obtaining necessary permits.
RockyMcNuts 11y ago
You let entrepreneurs make billion-dollar fortunes on war, they're going to make wars keep happening. Roosevelt said 'not one war millionaire' from WWII and it's one of the things that made WWII legitimate and successful. Adventurers wearing the mantle of patriotism while enriching themselves and leaving a trail of destruction and hatred that will last for generations are one of the things that made Iraq and Afghanistan a travesty.
- explorigin 11y ago
  Have you heard about IBM's role in WWII? Go read "IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black. Those tattooed numbers on the arms of people in concentration camps were numbers tabulated by IBM machines.
  - phreeza 11y ago
    I believe Roosevelt was mostly talking about nobody making a fortune off american war expenditure, not german. (also, the Holocaust and WW2 are not the same thing)
  - artimaeis 11y ago
    Pretty interesting read from IBM about this: https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss
- maaku 11y ago
  > Roosevelt said 'not one war millionaire' from WWII and it's one of the things that made WWII legitimate and successful. WWII made a lot of millionaires. I suggest you re-evaluate what you've been led to believe regarding that.
  - RockyMcNuts 11y ago
    I never said it didn't, however it was a goal and a statement Roosevelt made, and there were no billionaire private army princes. So I gently invite you to re-evaluate your reading comprehension before getting snide :)
jokoon 11y ago
So a little like SpaceX for NASA? I wonder how international laws and military laws cover PMCs. I also wonder how efficient they really are. I guess they mostly are mostly used for flexibility and lower important objectives. The larger problem is discipline, you can easily have a PMC do some horrible thing or a scandal, which could create international tensions.
- exDM69 11y ago
  Not at all like SpaceX for NASA (which is mostly civilian operations, and pretty transparent when it's for DOD). The article describes an operation where the Chinese were funding the manufacture of light attack aircraft to be used to guard special interests in the civil wars of corrupt African nations.
strictnein 11y ago
Strike Commander (1994) was only a couple years off. The game was set in 2011, based around the idea of a small private air force doing various work for various agencies (including the IRS, I believe). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander
contingencies 11y ago
Quite a long article; I'm not surprised some of the comments here appear inconsistent with the content. TLDR; A great deal of money (allegedly only $8M, but probably more including facilities and engineering) and effort was put in to acquiring, adapting and testing two conventional, piloted planes as offensive weapons and surveillance platforms. They were riddled with problems including registration and licensing and actual flight problems and have never seen service. Prince let down his clients, raised significant heat from western governments and subsequently his own board members (who then needed to cover their collective asses), but sidestepped these issues by seeking Chinese government investment: his efforts continue. After all of this, from a business perspective one wonders if larger COTS UAV could have been utilized more cost effectively. From a moral perspective, everyone mentioned in this article including the Austrian engineers are culpable.

105 points by nomoba 11y ago

A really hope Karma / Murphy deals this guy what he deserves for the crimes that his company has done. Private militarizes armies should NEVER be allowed to exist. These people should never have the right to fight for governments, and should all be put in jail, especially Erik Prince. Also, the government officials that gave them the contracts should also be jailed as traitors to their countries. They are handing over military power to non-government actors to commit crimes without punishment. This needs to be stopped, right now.

ethana 11y ago
The U.S government is his biggest customer since the Iraq war in 2003.
- toyg 11y ago
  The Iraq war was a turning point in this area, actually. Stretched between two active conflicts far from each other, and having re-structured the US military as a smaller army of highly-specialised troops, there were not enough boots on the ground to maintain security across the whole country. Enter unregulated mercenary armies. Sure enough, the US is re-learning why mercenary armies have always been a bad idea throughout history.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  Hardly surprising, given the size and propensity of the US to engage in armed conflict with organized fighting forces. (Who else on the planet could possibly be a bigger customer than the US?)
harperlee 11y ago
Although I believe that you are right, you are jumping here from "this particular mercenaries are criminals" to "the use of mercenaries is treason and should never be allowed", an that is a big jump. In my opinion, if there are adequate mechanisms for the control of mercenaries (such as not allowing them to have more power than the public army, or the restriction to / of particular capabilities), having mercenaries in particular situations (such as people with a high degree of specialization) could be feasible. The problem here is that they were given ample independent power with adequate supervision, again imho.
- toyg 11y ago
  If you need an army of supervisors to oversee your mercenaries, you might as well just train more troops.
  - harperlee 11y ago
    The efforts might not be the same.
    - toyg 11y ago
      Yeah, but considering your core competency is "kill the bad guys" rather than "manage and police subcontractors", you're more likely to get good results by sticking to what you know.
      - harperlee 11y ago
        I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Neither a government in general nor particularly its army have only one core competency, and surely it's not "kill the bad guys". I'd actually say management is closer to their core competency. Which percentage of the army's personnel is shooting bullets, and which percentage of them are managing putting the bullets (and the troops) on the ground, analyzing where to put them, policing that they comply with what the government wants, recruiting, overseeing, intelligence, managing subcontractors and providers (gasoline, tanks, fences, uniforms, building construction, IT equipment, etc.)?
        toyg 11y ago
        These ancillary skills in management are developed in order to achieve well-defined objectives: overpower (i.e. shoot) the bad guys and conclusively win conflicts. You cannot apply them to mercenaries; even if you replicate the chain of command down to sergeant level or whatever, their incentives are fundamentally different: mercenaries have a fundamental interest in keeping the fighting going as long as possible, because they are paid to fight. A regular army is supposed to go out, win a conflict ("shoot the bad guys"), go home, get decorated, enjoy pensions and glory; that's the core mission, and its core competency is (or rather should be) to get that done in the shortest possible amount of time (or even not getting engaged in the first place). A mercenary only gets paid as long as there is an ongoing conflict involving a wealthy-enough client. He's not interested in ending the conflict; thinking you can police him in seeing it some other way is just deluded.
duncan_bayne 11y ago
... as opposed to the unpunished crimes acknowledged to have been committed by State actors? I really don't see why you draw a distinction. War crimes are war crimes, and should be punished regardless of the perpetrators.
- calgoo 11y ago
  Of course they should, and I dont argue against that. However, I see private actors such as Blackwater (or whatever he calls it today), that directly make money of the war, and are not held accountable at all are a huge problem that needs to be dealt with. Regarding state actors, I am 100% for punishing them, but see this as a bigger issue of corruption of morals and ethics in general. In the military i see the issue as a failure in the oversight processes and support frameworks. Military has always been secretive about their mistakes etc, which in my mind is understandable (not excusable). However, it seams like the compartmentalizing of the different areas of operations have completely sealed off the solders from any kind of support framework. Which means that anything that should be reported, never gets to the people who needs to see it. This last part applies to the Blackwater types as well, with probably even more pressure to not do anything and look the other way etc.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Sure. But you seemed to be implying that just being a mercenary - regardless of whether you committed any war crimes - ought to be in and of itself a crime. Perhaps I misunderstood.
  - lmm 11y ago
    I still don't see the difference. Maybe state-military generals don't stand to profit directly, but they have plenty to gain from war - promotion, influence, status - money is attractive not for itself but for what it represents. So I don't think there's any inherent problem with one that doesn't occur with the other - either way you need to beware of principal-agent problems and ensure that your actions are actually working towards your goals.
cm2187 11y ago
That's a very nationalistic position. You are basically saying that every soldier should have the nationality of the army he fights for. Mercenaries are a very old tradition and I don't see what is intrinsically wrong with it, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries. And what about the European and American nationals who joined the kurds to fight ISIS in Syria? Are they traitors and should be jailed because they fight for a foreign army?
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  And their are Uk nationals who join the US armed forces
  - gadders 11y ago
    Not to mention the French Foreign Legion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion or the UK's use of Nepalese Ghurkas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha
    - eveningcoffee 11y ago
      Foreign Legion and The Gurkhas are not private mercenary units. These are regular army units where the enlisted are not native nationals. The first sentence from linked article about French Foreign Legion says that The French Foreign Legion is a military service branch of the French Army established in 1831, unique because it was created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. I repeat if it did not sink in: Foreign Legion and The Gurkhas are not private mercenary units, they are not private armies. The main argument of calgoo was that "Private militarizes armies should NEVER be allowed to exist.". This is very far from being "a very nationalistic position". He did not say that foreign nationals should not be enlisted into national armies. So please, could we stop this bullshit now?
      - gadders 11y ago
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
Both France and the UK effectively employ Mercenarys the Foreign Legion and The Gurkhas. And arguably the Swiss Guard are as well.
- eveningcoffee 11y ago
  Foreign Legion, The Gurkhas and Swiss Guard are not private mercenary units.
logicchains 11y ago
>They are handing over military power to non-government actors to commit crimes without punishment. Perhaps the issue is that this power to commit crimes without punishment exists in the first place. Doesn't matter whether the government does it themselves or they delegate.
atemerev 11y ago
What is the difference between government fighting wars and PMCs fighting wars? Military power is military power, and government leaders are no more anointed and divine than PMCs leaders. The age of kings is long gone.
- RockyMcNuts 11y ago
  The difference is a guy becoming a billionaire fighting a war, and then facilitating / fomenting more wars to make more money.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    Governments have quite a history of doing the same.
    - RockyMcNuts 11y ago
      That's one reason democracy is a good thing ... the people getting sent to fight and die have a say, less moral hazard, since most people don't benefit from war. If a king or a billionaire can get rich fighting a war and has the power to make it happen, you're going to have more wars. It's probably better for civilization if a democratic government has a monopoly on extreme force like bombers, WMDs. War is sufficiently stupid, it's probably better if entrepreneurs don't disrupt it, and the military remains the one 100% socialist enterprise in America.
kosmic_k 11y ago
Why? Its not like PMC's have ever done anything that is exceptionally more cruel than any state armed force. It's not like they're going to be much worse at preventing civilian casualties. When the United States left Iraq it left a huge security void which has allowed ISIS to thrive. Why would it be immoral for Baghdad to have hired a PMC to help defend against ISIS? It's not like Iraqi troops were somehow magically killing less civilians. When these cases happen they are written off as casualties and no one is ever punished. The utter cowardice and incompetence of the Iraqi army has helped for 8 Million to live under the control of ISIS. Do you think these people would care if it was an Iraqi or Syrian who may accidentally kill them instead of a well paid mercenary? Do you think that it is more moral to allow these people to live under the constant threat of rampant murder or rape than it would be to allow for private militarizes to exist? It seems to me that western soldiers aren't really supposed to die anymore. Every single lost American solider somehow matters 1000x more than some Iraqi, Syrian, or Ukrainian. Despite the US easily having the ability to eliminate the ISIS threat it does not. There just isn't the political will to send Americans into harms way. Meanwhile many security forces lack the capability of actually handling the threats they are encountering. PMC's could possibly solve this. No one cares if a mercenary dies. I don't see a well paid mercenary abandoning their post, tanks, equipment, along with a city of a million without having fired a shot. You can't say the same about the Iraqi army. Even should PMC's have somehow a double or triple civilian casualty rate it would still be more moral for those civilians to die than allow millions of people to fall into the murderous regime of ISIS. Of course it will always be preferable for state forces to be able to handle the threats they encounter. But given the reality that many cannot and will not receive the boots on the ground assistance to win their respective conflicts and protect their citizenry, would it really be immoral for a private force to pick up the slack? It's not like this man was trying to see fighter to ISIS or North Korea. He was trying to create services that would assist state actors against terrorists. Given that no one else is wiling to provide assistance with this, I cannot help but feel that the ends justify the means here.

andyjohnson0 11y ago

"In May 2014, both Thrush planes were flown from the U.S. across the Atlantic Ocean to Airborne’s hangar." How common is it for single engine single seat aircraft to be flown across large oceans? Does the Thrush 510G have sufficient fuel capacity?

tronje 11y ago
"According to the plan, the aircraft would have 12 hours of endurance to conduct operations." I'm no expert nor have I done the calculations, but 12 hours sounds like enough time to cross the Atlantic. What I don't know is whether the fuel tank was expanded/replaced.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  Thrush 510G is way too slow and draggy to cross the ocean in one hop. It's unpressurized, meaning typically operates at low altitudes, where the air is dense and its turboprop engine is less efficient than an engine designed for higher flight. Typical cruise speed is 160mph and ferry range is only 800 miles, meaning it's taking the northern route across Goose Bay, Greenland, and Iceland.
dingaling 11y ago
> How common is it for single engine single seat aircraft to be flown across large oceans? It is routine. SOCATA deliver their popular single-turboprop TBM aircraft from their factory in southern France via Ireland, Iceland and Canada to US customers. Likewise Pilatus stage PC-12s through Scotland as the first hop. Spotters at Keflavik in Iceland have a great variety! Cessnas flow in the other direction, though less frequently. Even a little piston-engined C172 has made the eastbound delivery journey and he skipped Iceland! Usually the flights are made by contracted ferry pilots, from companies such as Southern Cross http://southernx.com/ http://southernx.com/
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  Thanks! Your comment reminded me of a discussion about this from a few months ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10372898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10372898

exDM69 11y ago

Taking a look at his Wikipedia page, it seems like his PR company wrote it. The man is described as a "philantropist" ffs. The history of the page looks a bit suspicious too. There's very few mentions of any kind of criticism or negative statements about him or his ventures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
chippy 11y ago
Yeah if only there was a way of changing that page to say something else.
- exDM69 11y ago
  And engaging in a Wikipedia editing contest against a supposedly well funded PR company on a very controversial topic? Don't expect a very positive outcome from such endeavors. At least the page isn't full of blatant lies (well the philantropy is a bit questionable) but it's very selective about the facts it brings up. I'd expect it would be much harder to get approved edits done on this page than most other Wikipedia pages, including those of big name politicians. You'd have to really pay attention to the sources you'd be citing and careful about the language you use not to get disputed/deleted.

gadders 11y ago

Why was the title changed from "ECHO PAPA EXPOSED: Inside Erik Prince’s Treacherous Drive to Build a Private Air Force" Perhaps it should at least be just the subheading?

numair 11y ago

This story is written with such an incredibly obnoxious and sensationalist slant, like most things written about Erik Prince and Blackwater. You'd think they had uncovered evidence he was working on contract for ISIS or something. America's use of PMCs is as old, actually older, than the country itself. Many of the issues that led to Blackwater's infamy from their time in Iraq were directly caused by State Department incompetence (I doubt anyone would want to argue that the US State Department is an efficient, well-run, non-politicized entity). Erik Prince is not some crazy Christian zealot out to wage a holy war; if anything, he provided the US government with unique capability that they desperately needed, and things would have probably been far messier if he hadn't been involved in Iraq. I see nothing evil or nefarious about a defense contractor commissioning efficient tactical aircraft for anti-terrorism and civil defense operations. The fact that it's Erik Prince, and the mass media has painted him as the evil overlord that caused all of our problems in Iraq, doesn't make it any different. It would be strange if someone who was highly competent and specialized in defense operations, who had enough money, WASN'T building these sorts of things. Look, I'm mad about what the US government did in Iraq. Everyone should be. We shouldn't have even gone there. But none of this is Erik Prince's fault. Venture capital firms have "scouts," giving them access to deals they'd otherwise overlook or couldn't access. The US defense and intelligence communities have people like Erik Prince.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
marincounty 11y ago
When did being a war profiteer become acceptable? And I know most of you don't think it as a necessary war. All I remember from Blackwater is open expense accounts, jet skis, the best hotels, the best of everything. Why--because they were getting paid a huge amounts, with weird accounting. 'Drive the cost up boys--the government will pay.' I might be confusing Blackwater with Halliburton? Again--too angry to go over that history again. Yea--I know their were other players, and ultimately the government was at fault. (Don't have the stomach this morning to provide any factoids.)
- deleted 11y ago

frozenport 11y ago

Why is Embraer allowed to make a coin aircraft but these guys aren't?

gambiting 11y ago
Oh they are. They just haven't applied for the proper permissions, while Embraer has. The problem here seems to be that Prince wanted to modify planes in secret, without obtaining necessary permits.

RockyMcNuts 11y ago

You let entrepreneurs make billion-dollar fortunes on war, they're going to make wars keep happening. Roosevelt said 'not one war millionaire' from WWII and it's one of the things that made WWII legitimate and successful. Adventurers wearing the mantle of patriotism while enriching themselves and leaving a trail of destruction and hatred that will last for generations are one of the things that made Iraq and Afghanistan a travesty.

explorigin 11y ago
Have you heard about IBM's role in WWII? Go read "IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black. Those tattooed numbers on the arms of people in concentration camps were numbers tabulated by IBM machines.
- phreeza 11y ago
  I believe Roosevelt was mostly talking about nobody making a fortune off american war expenditure, not german. (also, the Holocaust and WW2 are not the same thing)
- artimaeis 11y ago
  Pretty interesting read from IBM about this: https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss
maaku 11y ago
> Roosevelt said 'not one war millionaire' from WWII and it's one of the things that made WWII legitimate and successful. WWII made a lot of millionaires. I suggest you re-evaluate what you've been led to believe regarding that.
- RockyMcNuts 11y ago
  I never said it didn't, however it was a goal and a statement Roosevelt made, and there were no billionaire private army princes. So I gently invite you to re-evaluate your reading comprehension before getting snide :)

jokoon 11y ago

So a little like SpaceX for NASA? I wonder how international laws and military laws cover PMCs. I also wonder how efficient they really are. I guess they mostly are mostly used for flexibility and lower important objectives. The larger problem is discipline, you can easily have a PMC do some horrible thing or a scandal, which could create international tensions.

exDM69 11y ago
Not at all like SpaceX for NASA (which is mostly civilian operations, and pretty transparent when it's for DOD). The article describes an operation where the Chinese were funding the manufacture of light attack aircraft to be used to guard special interests in the civil wars of corrupt African nations.

strictnein 11y ago

Strike Commander (1994) was only a couple years off. The game was set in 2011, based around the idea of a small private air force doing various work for various agencies (including the IRS, I believe). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander

contingencies 11y ago

Quite a long article; I'm not surprised some of the comments here appear inconsistent with the content. TLDR; A great deal of money (allegedly only $8M, but probably more including facilities and engineering) and effort was put in to acquiring, adapting and testing two conventional, piloted planes as offensive weapons and surveillance platforms. They were riddled with problems including registration and licensing and actual flight problems and have never seen service. Prince let down his clients, raised significant heat from western governments and subsequently his own board members (who then needed to cover their collective asses), but sidestepped these issues by seeking Chinese government investment: his efforts continue. After all of this, from a business perspective one wonders if larger COTS UAV could have been utilized more cost effectively. From a moral perspective, everyone mentioned in this article including the Austrian engineers are culpable.