{"id":85211,"date":"2017-01-09T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=85211"},"modified":"2017-01-06T14:29:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T14:29:39","slug":"blackwater-founder-returns-to-save-europe-from-refugee-crisis-claims-private-security-is-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/01\/blackwater-founder-returns-to-save-europe-from-refugee-crisis-claims-private-security-is-the-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackwater Founder Claims Private Security Is the Answer to Save Europe from Refugee Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erik Prince, the former CEO of the firm responsible for opening fire on Iraqi civilians, has the militarised solution to Europe’s migrant problem.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>

Prince testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in October, 2007 (AFP)<\/p><\/div>\n

5 Jan 2017 – <\/em>Starting the new year off with a bang, the Financial Times has just published a dispatch<\/a> by Erik Prince, notorious founder and former CEO of the private security contracting firm Blackwater<\/a>, the outfit responsible for projects such as the 2007 Nisour Square massacre<\/a> of Iraqi children and other civilians.<\/p>\n

In peddling his alleged antidotes to the crisis, Prince is symptomatic of a far more profound one.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The company has undergone a series of rebranding efforts over the years as an apparent means of distancing itself from overtly toxic connotations.<\/p>\n

Prince\u2019s Financial Times bio discreetly identifies him as simply \u201ca former US Navy SEAL [and] executive chairman of Frontier Services Group,\u201d a Hong Kong-headquartered entity.<\/p>\n

According to its website<\/a>, FSG offers \u201csecurity and logistics services in frontier markets\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A man prays in the Moria camp on the Greek Island of Lesbos in December, 2016 (AFP)<\/p><\/div>\n

In an\u00a0investigation<\/a> by The Intercept, Prince\u2019s activities at FSG were reported to include endeavouring to sell weaponised crop dusters in Africa as part of \u201cwhat one colleague called his \u2018obsession\u2019 with building his own private air force\u201d. As with many of Prince\u2019s operations, a facade of legality has often proved elusive.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say that the Financial Times isn\u2019t racking up huge points on the ethical front by promoting a man whose modus operandi has essentially been to make a killing off of killing.<\/p>\n

READ: ‘They started to die together’: Can Egypt protect migrants in 2017? <\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In his\u00a0memoir<\/a>, Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror<\/em>, Prince writes that, by 2009, his company had received more than $1bn for its services in Iraq from the US State Department alone.<\/p>\n

This is not counting copious other contracts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, including contributions to the CIA\u2019s drone strike programme.<\/p>\n

Saving the EU<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his Financial Times debut, Prince sounds the alarm that Europe has been overwhelmed with refugees and that the \u201cvery existence of the EU is in danger\u201d. Luckily for humanity, however, Prince has \u201ca solution that will restore stability to Libya and mitigate the crisis\u201d – a solution he says is \u201cbased on many years\u2019 experience in military and civilian business\u201d.<\/p>\n

Call me a party pooper, but I wouldn\u2019t file the regular\u00a0imprisonment, torture and rape\u00a0of migrants in Libya under the category ‘travelling unchecked’.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Never mind that Prince himself is implicated in a fair amount of destruction and havoc-wreaking in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locales that now serve as primary sources of – you guessed it – Europe-bound migration.<\/p>\n

Prince\u2019s proposed refugee \u201csolution\u201d involves a \u201cpublic-private partnership\u201d – a euphemism of sorts for what appears to boil down to a privatised war on refugees. He envisions \u201cbase camps\u201d for security personnel \u201calongside a new border fence\u201d in Libya, with border police \u201cconsist[ing] of mentors with a European law enforcement background, supported by locals trained in key basic skills”.<\/p>\n

Prince writes: \u201cAll personnel would be armed and have agreed-upon rules of engagement and migrant detention and repatriation policy. Each base would have airborne surveillance and search and rescue as well as armed vehicle quick reaction forces. Air operations would be provided by third-party professional providers, as would medical evacuation services.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescues people from a distressed vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, 20 miles off the coast of Libya in October 2016 (AFP)<\/p><\/div>\n

The \u201cmentors\u201d, Prince specifies, \u201cwould be the skeleton structure of the unit providing key leadership, intelligence co-ordination, communications, medical and logistics expertise\u201d.<\/p>\n

As for what global entity might be called upon to supervise the whole shebang, maybe something with the words \u201cfrontier services\u201d in its title?<\/p>\n

So much for paid advertising.<\/p>\n

In Prince\u2019s reality, the present dearth of Libyan border security means that any old migrant can \u201ctravel unchecked\u201d to the coast and hop on a boat for the \u201cshort, if dangerous\u201d ride to Europe.<\/p>\n

Call me a party pooper, but I wouldn\u2019t file the regular imprisonment, torture and rape<\/a> of migrants in Libya under the category \u201ctravelling unchecked”.<\/p>\n

Free Market Obsession<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Prince\u2019s fervent commitment to stanching the flow of certain humans naturally does not translate into an across-the-board opposition to human movement.<\/p>\n

Perhaps mercenaries also hold the key to other persistent global issues like climate change and snoring and erectile dysfunction.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Private security mercenaries, for one, should evidently be permitted to transcend borders at will – as should persons with the last name of Prince who relocate to Abu Dhabi<\/a> to set up secret armies.<\/p>\n

In his memoir, Prince reminisces fondly about Ronald Reagan\u2019s free market obsession and anti-communist \u201caggressive military policy\u201d, quoting Reagan\u2019s 1985 State of the Union address<\/a> in which the president once again obliterated any pretences to a separation of church and state in the US: \u201cFreedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God\u2019s children.\u201d<\/p>\n

But just as the anti-communist version of \u201cfreedom\u201d meant freedom for capital rather than people, Prince\u2019s conception is similarly exclusive.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Iraqi lawyer Hassan Jabbar, who was wounded in a shooting incident involving Blackwater in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, lies injured as his wife comforts him in the hospital on 22 September 2007 (AFP)<\/p><\/div>\n

While Prince and his bank account are apparently eligible for unfettered intercontinental exploitation of conflict and misery, poor folks fleeing war and economic persecution must be stopped at all costs.<\/p>\n

Nor is \u201cfreedom\u201d a detectable option for Iraqis slaughtered by US security contractors or Pakistanis killed by US drones.<\/p>\n

In the end, Prince\u2019s refugee \u201csolution\u201d is hardly surprising coming from someone who has also proposed<\/a> combating Ebola with private contractors.<\/p>\n

And who knows: perhaps mercenaries also hold the key to other persistent global issues like climate change and snoring and erectile dysfunction.<\/p>\n

One thing is for certain, though: that Prince\u2019s \u201csolutions\u201d aren\u2019t aimed at any sort of resolution but rather at the perpetuation of strife in the interest of financial gain.<\/p>\n

In peddling his alleged antidotes to crisis, Prince is symptomatic of a far more profound one.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Belen Fernandez\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>is the author of <\/em>The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at <\/em>Jacobin magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 middleeasteye.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erik Prince, the former CEO of the firm responsible for opening fire on Iraqi civilians, has the militarised solution to Europe’s migrant problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}