Why would the U.S. government let warlords exist in the U.S.? The founder of the old Virginia-based Blackwater, now known as Xe Services LCC but changing its name to Academi, Erick Prince has started yet another business, Frontier Services Group (FSG), that is building an air force using rebuilt crop dusters.
It may sound funny until you consider crop dusters can fly very low to the ground and fast. Prince is outfitting these planes with armored cockpits, engines, gas tanks and air frames to make it harder to shoot down. The gas tanks will have fuel for 12-hour excursions to conduct Black ops.
According to a Business Wire’s press release: “FSG provides complete logistics solutions in frontier markets with a particular focus on Africa. Serving sectors across oil and gas, mining and humanitarian relief organizations, FSG is able to support customer’s needs around moving goods, material and people in to, and out of, some of the fastest growing, but more difficult operating environments in a safe, reliable and cost-effective manner.”
So, if one reads between the lines, Prince is essentially amassing an army of killers that will work for the highest bidder. There will be no accountability to anyone or government. Prince is not the first person to try building a mercenary army, people have been doing this dating back to the year 410 when the Visigoths, who had been Roman mercenaries, retaliated against the Romans for killing innocent Germans. It doesn’t end well for the warlords.
For-profit armies do not want to end conflicts, and they would have no problem turning against the one who hired them in the first place if someone came along and was willing to pay them more to do so. There are a lot of corporate warriors with privatized armies, but none with a private air force. Most likely, they use drones or will be eventually, but low-flying air planes --imagine the damage they can do with these.
This new military outsourcing started in 1992 with Brown and Roots, a unit of Haliburton, was hired by the Department of Defense and paid nearly $3.9 million to produce classified reports detailing how private companies, such as itself, could help provide logistics for the U.S. government. As of 2004, there were 69 private so-called warriors companies in existence.
Privatizing armies really got going at the end of the 100-year war, 1337-1453 when soldiers were out of a job so they formed companies for hire. Today, we have been at war for more than 10 years in different parts of the Middle East. We have lots of soldiers needing jobs so how will they be used and who will they be used on? Will it be on civilians who participate in a revolution for change?
The public needs to keep an eye on our homegrown warlords. It is no coincidence that Prince expanded his operations to Africa. Corporations aren’t done raping and pillaging that continent of its resources and minerals and his planes used to quell any uprising by the people being exploited. And his other company, Academi, could very well be hired to quash any uprisings in the U.S. against the oligarchy-controlled government as they have been used against striking workers tired of being exploited by their employers.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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