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Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror
Founder and former president of Blackwater, the private contractor that provided security in Iraq and Afghanistan defends himself from the many accusations that his organization was trigger-happy and bilked the American taxpayer.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2013
About the author
Erik Prince
5 books25 followersErik Dean Prince (born June 6, 1969) is an American businessman and former U.S. Navy SEAL, best known for founding the world’s largest private military company, Blackwater USA, in 1997. He served as its CEO until 2009 and later as chairman until Blackwater Worldwide was sold in 2010 to a group of investors. Prince currently lives in the United Arab Emirates.
Prince was born on June 6, 1969, in Holland, Michigan, to Edgar D. Prince and Elsa Broekhuizen, the youngest of four children. Both his parents share Dutch heritage (the family name, Prins, was at some point anglicized to Prince). He graduated from Holland Christian High School.
Prince was accepted into the United States Naval Academy and attended it for three semesters before leaving, citing that he loved the Navy but disliked the Academy. He went on to receive his B.A. in economics from Hillsdale College in 1992. During his time at Hillsdale, Prince served as a volunteer firefighter and as a cold-water diver for the Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Department. Prince eventually became an emergency medical technician.
After college, Prince was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy via Officer Candidate School in 1992. He went on to become a Navy SEAL and deployed with SEAL Team 8 to Haiti, the Middle East, and the Balkans. He credits the SEALs for being an outlet for his entrepreneurial spirit. In his autobiography he states that it was during the Yugoslav Wars of the early 1990s that he realized the need for private training facilities for special operations.
Prince ended his U.S. Navy service prematurely in 1995 when his father died. Prince’s mother sold the Prince Corporation for $1.3 billion in cash to Johnson Controls. Prince moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater Worldwide in 1997. He bought 6,000 acres (24 square kilometers) of the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and set up a school for special operations. The name “Blackwater” comes from the peat-colored bogs in which the school is located.
From 1997 to 2010, Blackwater was awarded $2 billion in government security contracts, more than $1.6 billion of which were unclassified federal contracts and an unknown amount of classified work. From 2001 to 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates. It became the largest of the State Department's three private security companies, providing 987 guards for embassies and bases abroad. Prince built a shooting range on his rural Virginia land to serve as a nearby training facility to CIA headquarters in Langsley, VA. In his memoir, Prince says that he provided the CIA with links to Afghan warlords, who helped topple the Taliban and drive al Qaeda into hiding."
After Blackwater faced mounting legal problems in the United States, Prince was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and moved to Abu Dhabi in 2010. His task was to assemble an 800-member troupe of foreign troops for the U.A.E., which was planned months before the Arab Spring revolts [28] He helped the UAE found a new company Reflex Responses, or R2, with 51 percent local ownership, carefully avoiding his name on corporate documents. He worked to oversee the effort and recruit troops, among others from Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm hired by several African governments during the 1990s to put down rebellions and protect oil and diamond reserves. The battalion was to engage in intelligence gathering, urban combat, special operations “to destroy enemy personnel and equipment, crowd-control operations, response to terrorist attacks, to put down uprisings inside labor camps, and to secure nuclear and radioactive materials in planned nuclear power plants. The force, made up largely of former Colombian soldiers, failed.
In January 2011, the Associated Press reported that Prince was training a force of 2000 Somalis for antipiracy operations in the
Prince was born on June 6, 1969, in Holland, Michigan, to Edgar D. Prince and Elsa Broekhuizen, the youngest of four children. Both his parents share Dutch heritage (the family name, Prins, was at some point anglicized to Prince). He graduated from Holland Christian High School.
Prince was accepted into the United States Naval Academy and attended it for three semesters before leaving, citing that he loved the Navy but disliked the Academy. He went on to receive his B.A. in economics from Hillsdale College in 1992. During his time at Hillsdale, Prince served as a volunteer firefighter and as a cold-water diver for the Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Department. Prince eventually became an emergency medical technician.
After college, Prince was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy via Officer Candidate School in 1992. He went on to become a Navy SEAL and deployed with SEAL Team 8 to Haiti, the Middle East, and the Balkans. He credits the SEALs for being an outlet for his entrepreneurial spirit. In his autobiography he states that it was during the Yugoslav Wars of the early 1990s that he realized the need for private training facilities for special operations.
Prince ended his U.S. Navy service prematurely in 1995 when his father died. Prince’s mother sold the Prince Corporation for $1.3 billion in cash to Johnson Controls. Prince moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater Worldwide in 1997. He bought 6,000 acres (24 square kilometers) of the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and set up a school for special operations. The name “Blackwater” comes from the peat-colored bogs in which the school is located.
From 1997 to 2010, Blackwater was awarded $2 billion in government security contracts, more than $1.6 billion of which were unclassified federal contracts and an unknown amount of classified work. From 2001 to 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates. It became the largest of the State Department's three private security companies, providing 987 guards for embassies and bases abroad. Prince built a shooting range on his rural Virginia land to serve as a nearby training facility to CIA headquarters in Langsley, VA. In his memoir, Prince says that he provided the CIA with links to Afghan warlords, who helped topple the Taliban and drive al Qaeda into hiding."
After Blackwater faced mounting legal problems in the United States, Prince was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and moved to Abu Dhabi in 2010. His task was to assemble an 800-member troupe of foreign troops for the U.A.E., which was planned months before the Arab Spring revolts [28] He helped the UAE found a new company Reflex Responses, or R2, with 51 percent local ownership, carefully avoiding his name on corporate documents. He worked to oversee the effort and recruit troops, among others from Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm hired by several African governments during the 1990s to put down rebellions and protect oil and diamond reserves. The battalion was to engage in intelligence gathering, urban combat, special operations “to destroy enemy personnel and equipment, crowd-control operations, response to terrorist attacks, to put down uprisings inside labor camps, and to secure nuclear and radioactive materials in planned nuclear power plants. The force, made up largely of former Colombian soldiers, failed.
In January 2011, the Associated Press reported that Prince was training a force of 2000 Somalis for antipiracy operations in the
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June 23, 2020
There are a couple of books I've read lately which I'm going to give the same advice about. Simply stated, just attempt to read it with an open mind.
You know if for instance a congress-person takes the experience they've gained and say maybe...goes to work for a private company, no one is surprised. I mean where do you think lobbyists come from? The same goes for most any government job. People from public jobs go to work for private companies all the time.
But if a military person does it they suddenly become a MERCENARY.
Are you aware that up to half the "military personal" in the Middle East are from Private Military Companies? They do food service, they do mail delivery, they do security etc. Blackwater got to be the most well known of these for a while and their own success made them somewhat of a target.
Personally I've not seen "Mercenaries" as somehow another word for evil. Mostly the paid military personal from private companies are simply using the experience and training they have to make a "better" living.
This book is basically a response to all the "stuff" that was said about Blackwater and it's personnel. I'd say read it with an open mind not going in assuming anything and being aware that both sides will probably give the facts in a way that makes them look the best.
Recommended.
You know if for instance a congress-person takes the experience they've gained and say maybe...goes to work for a private company, no one is surprised. I mean where do you think lobbyists come from? The same goes for most any government job. People from public jobs go to work for private companies all the time.
But if a military person does it they suddenly become a MERCENARY.
Are you aware that up to half the "military personal" in the Middle East are from Private Military Companies? They do food service, they do mail delivery, they do security etc. Blackwater got to be the most well known of these for a while and their own success made them somewhat of a target.
Personally I've not seen "Mercenaries" as somehow another word for evil. Mostly the paid military personal from private companies are simply using the experience and training they have to make a "better" living.
This book is basically a response to all the "stuff" that was said about Blackwater and it's personnel. I'd say read it with an open mind not going in assuming anything and being aware that both sides will probably give the facts in a way that makes them look the best.
Recommended.
Read
November 7, 2013Everybody knows Blackwater was the private security contractor that provided bodyguards in Iraq and Afghanistan and was regularly accused of shooting innocent civilians, vastly overpaying its employees, and wasting the taxpayer's money.
It turns out its founder and former president (he sold the company in 2010) was forbidden by his contract from talking to the media, but now he wants to set the record straight.
His ghost writer should have urged Prince to tone down the hard-right, liberal-bashing rhetoric. It doesn't help his case, and plenty of conservatives denounced Blackwater. But Prince makes some good points. The Bush administration went to war with a firm goal of not upsetting the electorate, so there was no conscription (resulting in a critical shortage of military forces) and no tax increases (resulting in an unlimited supply of money -- the wars were financed entirely through borrowing which, at the time, no one protested). Private contractors were essential, and there was plenty of money to pay them.
When the wars began going badly, few dared criticize our boys in uniform, but contractors were an easy mark. I tend to believe Prince's claim that Blackwater operated more efficiently than the military, that his employees weren't overpaid and didn't shoot civilians more often than coalition soldiers, and that they did a reasonable job. He's not my sort of guy, but I learned a lot about running a private contracting organzation and the difficulties of dealing with the government.
It turns out its founder and former president (he sold the company in 2010) was forbidden by his contract from talking to the media, but now he wants to set the record straight.
His ghost writer should have urged Prince to tone down the hard-right, liberal-bashing rhetoric. It doesn't help his case, and plenty of conservatives denounced Blackwater. But Prince makes some good points. The Bush administration went to war with a firm goal of not upsetting the electorate, so there was no conscription (resulting in a critical shortage of military forces) and no tax increases (resulting in an unlimited supply of money -- the wars were financed entirely through borrowing which, at the time, no one protested). Private contractors were essential, and there was plenty of money to pay them.
When the wars began going badly, few dared criticize our boys in uniform, but contractors were an easy mark. I tend to believe Prince's claim that Blackwater operated more efficiently than the military, that his employees weren't overpaid and didn't shoot civilians more often than coalition soldiers, and that they did a reasonable job. He's not my sort of guy, but I learned a lot about running a private contracting organzation and the difficulties of dealing with the government.
May 7, 2014
You can't reasonably expect a book about Blackwater written by the founder and former CEO of Blackwater to be unbiased. Even so, Civilian Warriors is light on facts and high on emotion. Prince spends most of the book talking about his Christian and conservative background, and how that influenced his decision to form Blackwater to help his country and all the oppressed people of the world. He spends time blaming Democrats for starting a witch hunt against him, simply because he's a successful businessman from a wealthy, prominent Republican family. He trots out the tired lines that private enterprise is invariably more cost-efficient than the government, without any real discussion involving statistics or facts. In order to counter claims of abuse or negligence by Blackwater, he talks personally and emotionally about the men involved in its many incidents, arguing that they can't possibly be bad guys—except when they were, in which case he talks about how he didn't know the person involved and had him fired immediately anyway.
The way I see it, there are basically three arguments leveled against Blackwater: one, that it's not cost-effective for the government to subcontract security and military work; two, that Blackwater was heavy-handed and "above the law"; and three, that it's immoral for the government to use private military contractors. I think that Prince is smart enough to see and understand these arguments, but instead of addressing them, he makes an emotional plea that his company was great, even necessary, and he was just serving his country. He never addresses any of these concerns—save for the first, although he simply takes it for granted that corporations are more cost-effective than "big government".
It's nice to see the other side of the Blackwater story, but Prince is too closely involved with the company to give any sort of reasonable account from another perspective. Civilian Warriors is a good read, but light on facts.
The way I see it, there are basically three arguments leveled against Blackwater: one, that it's not cost-effective for the government to subcontract security and military work; two, that Blackwater was heavy-handed and "above the law"; and three, that it's immoral for the government to use private military contractors. I think that Prince is smart enough to see and understand these arguments, but instead of addressing them, he makes an emotional plea that his company was great, even necessary, and he was just serving his country. He never addresses any of these concerns—save for the first, although he simply takes it for granted that corporations are more cost-effective than "big government".
It's nice to see the other side of the Blackwater story, but Prince is too closely involved with the company to give any sort of reasonable account from another perspective. Civilian Warriors is a good read, but light on facts.
Shelved as 'noway-josé'
May 16, 2017
January 18, 2019
Fascist drivel and imperialist U.S. propaganda, steadfast in its thinly veiled white supremacist worldview. Prince should be jailed for his role in the wholesale slaughter of Iraqi civilians, and his book celebrated for its role in maintaining a warm campfire.
October 29, 2017
1. In this book, Erik Prince, the Founder and ex-CEO/Chairman of the infamous private military contractor, Blackwater, puts forth a vehement defense of his company. Blackwater rose to prominence during the US invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. With rising visibility and a commanding share of contracted government work under the subsequent drawn-out occupation, it quickly became a target of the media and political forces both in Iraq and at home in the US, made worse by a few incidences where Blackwater operatives were accused of being trigger-happy, cold-blooded civilian killers. Four of them faced charges, were subsequently convicted and given lengthy prison sentences. However, just in August this year, three of them had their sentences thrown out on appeal (they are to be resentenced), while the fourth was granted a retrial. You can read about this here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/wo...
2. Naturally, one cannot expect Prince's arguments to be totally unbiased. He maintains that his company has always acted in accordance with State Department rules and codes of conduct. In instances of aberrant behaviour by individual employees, investigations were always carried out and the findings subjected to State scrutiny. Offending employees were either disciplined or fired.
3. It's hard to decide which party is telling the truth in such situations, but Prince does put forth compelling arguments in his book. He provides clear evidence of how Blackwater always acted under oversight by the State Department, even while the media and politicians back home branded them as free-wheeling cowboys or mercenaries running around totally untethered. It's also hard to argue with Blackwater's track record in terms of minimal casualties suffered under their protection and the sheer thousands of successful missions they have accomplished.
4. I looked up some interviews where various media personalities and politicians talked about Blackwater and it's clear there is a definite bias against it in these circles. One interviewee referred to Prince's "criminal past" even though he has never been indicted or convicted on any criminal charge. Several others stated that he absconded to the UAE to avoid facing criminal charges, even though he went there on a very lucrative contract to set up a private military force for the UAE government (after he was forced to sell Blackwater) and returns regularly to the US for golf and skiing. Given my general low regard for politicians of any stripe and high-level government bureaucrats (who are in most cases politicians in disguise anyways), I have to say I do have a feeling Blackwater did serve as a convenient scapegoat for an unpopular war to some extent. I would really love to hear what the real soldiers on the ground or US vets have to say about Blackwater, though.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/wo...
2. Naturally, one cannot expect Prince's arguments to be totally unbiased. He maintains that his company has always acted in accordance with State Department rules and codes of conduct. In instances of aberrant behaviour by individual employees, investigations were always carried out and the findings subjected to State scrutiny. Offending employees were either disciplined or fired.
3. It's hard to decide which party is telling the truth in such situations, but Prince does put forth compelling arguments in his book. He provides clear evidence of how Blackwater always acted under oversight by the State Department, even while the media and politicians back home branded them as free-wheeling cowboys or mercenaries running around totally untethered. It's also hard to argue with Blackwater's track record in terms of minimal casualties suffered under their protection and the sheer thousands of successful missions they have accomplished.
4. I looked up some interviews where various media personalities and politicians talked about Blackwater and it's clear there is a definite bias against it in these circles. One interviewee referred to Prince's "criminal past" even though he has never been indicted or convicted on any criminal charge. Several others stated that he absconded to the UAE to avoid facing criminal charges, even though he went there on a very lucrative contract to set up a private military force for the UAE government (after he was forced to sell Blackwater) and returns regularly to the US for golf and skiing. Given my general low regard for politicians of any stripe and high-level government bureaucrats (who are in most cases politicians in disguise anyways), I have to say I do have a feeling Blackwater did serve as a convenient scapegoat for an unpopular war to some extent. I would really love to hear what the real soldiers on the ground or US vets have to say about Blackwater, though.
January 6, 2014
Excellent expose of the inner workings of our government, the silliness of partisan politics and a man with an entrepreneurial drive and a heart to do things right.
February 6, 2015
*sniff*
my rating doesn't reflect my opinion of blackwater, rather the readibility of the work, which is high. ummm... how does that onion article go? uhh, "sadly, it is unknown whether this rating will induce feelings of anger and/or triggers"
ahh whatever. read-able. that's it.
my rating doesn't reflect my opinion of blackwater, rather the readibility of the work, which is high. ummm... how does that onion article go? uhh, "sadly, it is unknown whether this rating will induce feelings of anger and/or triggers"
ahh whatever. read-able. that's it.
July 23, 2018
Erik Prince built an objectively great company and was the victim of political infighting about larger issues (the Iraq war itself, the role of contractors in war, etc).
Blackwater grew from a small training center in North Carolina into the world leader in the highest risk private security. This book details the rise and fall of the company, and based on my knowledge of events, is pretty accurate. It does explain the motivations for some things which always seemed inconsistent or difficult to explain, and was worth reading on that basis if you are already familiar, but it would be a solid introduction as well. As an introduction, though, be aware that there were 50+ other companies doing what Blackwater did but in a much more subdued but often less capable way.
He certainly wasn’t perfect — cheating on his dying of cancer wife and getting an employee pregnant was a low poor, and he didn’t push back enough against stupid State Department policies which forced his personnel to drive like assholes, in high profile vehicles, due to being forced into high profile vehicles by incompetence at State (they wanted to “show that the US wasn’t afraid”, even though this essentially created new enemies every time they moved, and made them a net negative.) I believe Blackwater had enough credibility with their customer that they could have successfully gotten this changed, rather than using it as an excuse for the bad things, best exemplified at Nisour Square, which happened.
(As a disclaimer, I worked in Iraq/Afghanistan for about 7 years and was pretty familiar with Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, and military/JSOC operations from multiple angles (I sold them communications services including Internet), and got to see a lot of this stuff evolve in real-time. I met Erik’s country manager for Iraq the second evening I was in country, and told him I’d come in from the airport in a bronco with a couple local guards; he pointed out that Blackwater only did that run in 3-5 hard cars with 3 personnel per vehicle. I then complained about challenges buying guns on the local market and basically pumped for information on how to get a Glock, HS2000, etc to augment my AK and Hi-Power. I’ve also been on the road in Iraq in an old low-profile BMW when “those crazy security contractors” went bombing past in their SUVs, and was afraid of getting shot by them.)
Overall, I hope Erik Prince continues to innovate in this space. His original concept (not accepted) of a completely private humanitarian or post conflict force (“assistance with teeth”) is something which I’ve always wanted to do, and which I think is the obviously correct way to provide aid in conflict zones.
Blackwater grew from a small training center in North Carolina into the world leader in the highest risk private security. This book details the rise and fall of the company, and based on my knowledge of events, is pretty accurate. It does explain the motivations for some things which always seemed inconsistent or difficult to explain, and was worth reading on that basis if you are already familiar, but it would be a solid introduction as well. As an introduction, though, be aware that there were 50+ other companies doing what Blackwater did but in a much more subdued but often less capable way.
He certainly wasn’t perfect — cheating on his dying of cancer wife and getting an employee pregnant was a low poor, and he didn’t push back enough against stupid State Department policies which forced his personnel to drive like assholes, in high profile vehicles, due to being forced into high profile vehicles by incompetence at State (they wanted to “show that the US wasn’t afraid”, even though this essentially created new enemies every time they moved, and made them a net negative.) I believe Blackwater had enough credibility with their customer that they could have successfully gotten this changed, rather than using it as an excuse for the bad things, best exemplified at Nisour Square, which happened.
(As a disclaimer, I worked in Iraq/Afghanistan for about 7 years and was pretty familiar with Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, and military/JSOC operations from multiple angles (I sold them communications services including Internet), and got to see a lot of this stuff evolve in real-time. I met Erik’s country manager for Iraq the second evening I was in country, and told him I’d come in from the airport in a bronco with a couple local guards; he pointed out that Blackwater only did that run in 3-5 hard cars with 3 personnel per vehicle. I then complained about challenges buying guns on the local market and basically pumped for information on how to get a Glock, HS2000, etc to augment my AK and Hi-Power. I’ve also been on the road in Iraq in an old low-profile BMW when “those crazy security contractors” went bombing past in their SUVs, and was afraid of getting shot by them.)
Overall, I hope Erik Prince continues to innovate in this space. His original concept (not accepted) of a completely private humanitarian or post conflict force (“assistance with teeth”) is something which I’ve always wanted to do, and which I think is the obviously correct way to provide aid in conflict zones.
September 25, 2014
I was surprised by the content of the book. I expected personal stories of the men who served our country working for Blackwater. The major theme of the book was it seemed, a defense of Mr. Prince and his company for what they did and how they did it. There was at first, some detail of Mr. Prince growing up, his father's accomplishments and work principles, who was clearly his hero, and less of his mother, his heroine.
I could understand why the book seemed to try to justify the company and Mr. Prince. It looks like from his story that he has spent the bulk of his life being a target for very powerful people in this country, even more than the 'bad guys' he was in business to defeat. A man walking around with a target on his back.
I could also see a great clash of cultures. On the one hand, Mr. Prince employed the business principles learned from his father, a very successful and driven man, and Erik Prince, once he committed himself got the job done! On the other, there was the government. Much energy and resources were constantly required to satisfy their unceasing demands to meet ever higher goals and requirements (that sounds familiar). It was like trying to mix oil and water. The communist left finally bringing down his company.
Another thing, though more subdued was I got the impression that Mr. Prince has spent most of his adult life trying to make up for the regret he had for some very bad personal decisions. A sadness hanging over his story. Or so it seemed to me.
I would recommend the book, but we will never know what really happened or 'who did what to whom'.
I wish the man well. I hope he finds healing from God above.
I could understand why the book seemed to try to justify the company and Mr. Prince. It looks like from his story that he has spent the bulk of his life being a target for very powerful people in this country, even more than the 'bad guys' he was in business to defeat. A man walking around with a target on his back.
I could also see a great clash of cultures. On the one hand, Mr. Prince employed the business principles learned from his father, a very successful and driven man, and Erik Prince, once he committed himself got the job done! On the other, there was the government. Much energy and resources were constantly required to satisfy their unceasing demands to meet ever higher goals and requirements (that sounds familiar). It was like trying to mix oil and water. The communist left finally bringing down his company.
Another thing, though more subdued was I got the impression that Mr. Prince has spent most of his adult life trying to make up for the regret he had for some very bad personal decisions. A sadness hanging over his story. Or so it seemed to me.
I would recommend the book, but we will never know what really happened or 'who did what to whom'.
I wish the man well. I hope he finds healing from God above.
February 19, 2020
While Trump is attempting to drain the swamp, I thought it would be a good time to revisit one of the security contracting agencies that was founded in a swamp--that is to say Blackwater.
There is an old statement that comes to mind in regard to this book that one should not get in the way of people doing a job unless one can do the job better. When it comes to security and the assessment on the ground, I believe nearly everything Mr. Prince has to say here. I furthermore believe that Blackwater was used as a pawn politically mostly by Democrats who did not like the fact that Mr. Prince was more conservative. I further believe that Blackwater was making a colossal amount of money through wars that were likely manipulated into existence. Indeed, Blackwater was born after the shooting at Columbine. Likewise, Blackwater appears to have had a heavy hand in the CIA and the fact that Mr. Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates after everything was "over" suggests to me that his love of America might not be as strong as he states. Certainly, as a moral agent, there is much to dislike about Mr. Prince. On the other hand, he at least admits where his weaknesses were and seems to be trying, in perhaps a limited way, to atone for those character traits that have caused he and his spouses trouble.
What Mr. Prince had at his disposal that most people do not have was a pile of money to begin his security business. This allowed him to bypass many pieces of bureaucracy and assisted him in making a larger pile of money. On the other hand, this also seems to have created an envy among those in other branches that were governmental and distantly not private sector.
I suppose then my feeling is that if one has a pile of cash that trying to serve the country in some of its less than glamorous work is perhaps the best worst use of such money. If there had been no Mr. Prince, there still would have been an Iraq. Of course, I suspect the casualty rate would have been considerably higher in such an alternative universe. How can I come to that conclusion? Because it is evident that the training Mr. Prince was able to conduct saved lives in part because the issue of time that bureaucracy often causes to be lengthened was shortened by the assuming of personal responsibility for items such as armored vehicles.
Conversely, involvement in the CIA likely did not do Blackwater or the world at large any favors. That is not to say the CIA was inherently wrong in all of its goals. Rather, it is to say the CIA was OFTEN wrong in how it went about achieving its goals. It shares this in common with the FBI. Trying to avoid either of those agencies in the 90's on to do what Mr. Prince was doing however would have been next to impossible. They were and are forces that existed in the narrative of the world and how politics unfolded.
Mr. Prince is right in the sense that "Mercenary Forces" or PCM's or whatever label we want to attach to such an organization have always existed in one sense or another. The only issue in the game of politics is who gets defined what a thing is. In the case of Blackwater, it appears that the idea of the organization being reckless cowboys had taken hold. Do I think Blackwater holds this title? Not so much. The CIA however, certainly moreso. I suspect then it was more of a "Birds of a feather" attack on Mr. Prince. Blackwater, though, on some level appears to have held an idealism that those it had served would later "have its back". That, ultimately, is how I know that Blackwater though it might have been involved with the CIA and other shadowy sorts of organizations really did not understand the landscape of intelligence and politics. Ironically, the best witness to that fact MAY have been Saddam Hussein.
The book is well written and contains some interesting information. I tried to keep in mind that the entire purpose of the book is to allow Mr. Prince to defend his company. However, for the things that he says in this book that his company was ultimately dismantled for, I would say that though any one of those things are probably provable offenses given a certain perspective, the real offense was Mr. Prince not being a Democrat and not being part of the approved "good ole boys club".
There is an old statement that comes to mind in regard to this book that one should not get in the way of people doing a job unless one can do the job better. When it comes to security and the assessment on the ground, I believe nearly everything Mr. Prince has to say here. I furthermore believe that Blackwater was used as a pawn politically mostly by Democrats who did not like the fact that Mr. Prince was more conservative. I further believe that Blackwater was making a colossal amount of money through wars that were likely manipulated into existence. Indeed, Blackwater was born after the shooting at Columbine. Likewise, Blackwater appears to have had a heavy hand in the CIA and the fact that Mr. Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates after everything was "over" suggests to me that his love of America might not be as strong as he states. Certainly, as a moral agent, there is much to dislike about Mr. Prince. On the other hand, he at least admits where his weaknesses were and seems to be trying, in perhaps a limited way, to atone for those character traits that have caused he and his spouses trouble.
What Mr. Prince had at his disposal that most people do not have was a pile of money to begin his security business. This allowed him to bypass many pieces of bureaucracy and assisted him in making a larger pile of money. On the other hand, this also seems to have created an envy among those in other branches that were governmental and distantly not private sector.
I suppose then my feeling is that if one has a pile of cash that trying to serve the country in some of its less than glamorous work is perhaps the best worst use of such money. If there had been no Mr. Prince, there still would have been an Iraq. Of course, I suspect the casualty rate would have been considerably higher in such an alternative universe. How can I come to that conclusion? Because it is evident that the training Mr. Prince was able to conduct saved lives in part because the issue of time that bureaucracy often causes to be lengthened was shortened by the assuming of personal responsibility for items such as armored vehicles.
Conversely, involvement in the CIA likely did not do Blackwater or the world at large any favors. That is not to say the CIA was inherently wrong in all of its goals. Rather, it is to say the CIA was OFTEN wrong in how it went about achieving its goals. It shares this in common with the FBI. Trying to avoid either of those agencies in the 90's on to do what Mr. Prince was doing however would have been next to impossible. They were and are forces that existed in the narrative of the world and how politics unfolded.
Mr. Prince is right in the sense that "Mercenary Forces" or PCM's or whatever label we want to attach to such an organization have always existed in one sense or another. The only issue in the game of politics is who gets defined what a thing is. In the case of Blackwater, it appears that the idea of the organization being reckless cowboys had taken hold. Do I think Blackwater holds this title? Not so much. The CIA however, certainly moreso. I suspect then it was more of a "Birds of a feather" attack on Mr. Prince. Blackwater, though, on some level appears to have held an idealism that those it had served would later "have its back". That, ultimately, is how I know that Blackwater though it might have been involved with the CIA and other shadowy sorts of organizations really did not understand the landscape of intelligence and politics. Ironically, the best witness to that fact MAY have been Saddam Hussein.
The book is well written and contains some interesting information. I tried to keep in mind that the entire purpose of the book is to allow Mr. Prince to defend his company. However, for the things that he says in this book that his company was ultimately dismantled for, I would say that though any one of those things are probably provable offenses given a certain perspective, the real offense was Mr. Prince not being a Democrat and not being part of the approved "good ole boys club".
April 9, 2018
Entertaining book but not my cup of tea. I find the author to be pretty arrogant. Perhaps this is deserved given his background and accomplishments but overall I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped to.
April 16, 2018
I started this book before I joined the military. Even with the clear bias, it’s a good book. Everyone deserves to tell their own story. I recommend.
May 31, 2019
Is privatization working well for the American military and the security of the American people? Are private military and security companies (PMSCs) posing a threat to democracy?
After being bombarded with the competing arguments in Ann Hagedorn's The Invisible Soldiers: How America Outsourced Our Security I couldn't reach a decision, so I narrowed the scope of my nascent research to concentrate on Erik Prince and Blackwater. Hagedorn's writing explained the pro-PMSC position in generalities, even using a Prince quote comparing Blackwater to Fed-Ex (e.g. "Fed-Ex can do things better, faster, and cheaper than the U.S. Postal Service"), but she never really drew a picture of how those benefits translated into military reality.
On the other hand in Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror, Prince shows what "better, faster and cheaper" looks like with gripping stories straight from the Blackwater mission files.
"Faster" looks like a privately-owned, self-insured (that means the company eats the cost if the bird is lost) Blackwater helicopter rushing more heavy machine guns, ammunition, and shooters to an outpost in Najaf under overwhelming attack by swarms of Mahdi army fanatics. The few contractors and marines on the ground were running low on ammo and being whittled down by wounds. They were in real danger of being massacred. Blackwater came to the rescue long before General Sanchez's Combined Joint Task Force could even pinpoint the trouble spot let alone muster sufficient reinforcements to help. See Chapter 9.
"Better" looks like Presidential Airways little CASA 212 cargo planes flying supplies to troops in remote mountain areas because giant Air Force transports can't do it. They are just way too big to land on the short air strips in the Hindu Kush. "Better" looks like dropping ammo to a long range patrol from the 82nd Airborne who have been in a running gun fight for several days and have expended most of their bullets.. The Air Force wouldn't resupply them because the drop zone hadn't been "surveyed". Check out Chapter 7.
"Best" (I know, this goes bit beyond the Fed-Ex comparison) looks like conducting 16,000 personal security operations for the State Department from June 2005 to June 2007 while protecting hundreds of high value diplomats, aid workers, intelligence officers, and visiting VIPs without one of them being killed or wounded. In these operations Blackwater fired their weapons only 195 times, which is 0.5% . They attained this perfect record in Baghdad and Fallujah - some of the most dangerous places in the world. Check out Chapter 10 and then page 215.
"Cheaper" is harder to visualize. Perhaps you could picture a CEO who prefers to offer his company's services at a fixed rate, thus assuming risk of loss if there are cost overruns, just to get a shot at winning the job. This is opposed to a contractor who angles for a "cost-plus" deal where he charges whatever it costs him to do a job plus a percentage of the costs on top for a guaranteed profit - in fact the higher the costs the bigger the profit. Prince talks about this on pages 95-97. He also talks about his personnel's base pay as opposed to the total compensation package for military personnel and government employees - citing a couple Congressional Budget Office reports in Chapter 11.
This book is basically a response to all the "stuff" that was said to disparage Erik Prince, Blackwater and it's personnel.
The critics said his people were mercenaries, profiteers, jackbooted thugs, and reckless cowboys. They claimed that Blackwater cut corners with safety to maximize profits. They accused Prince of runaway charges and pay rates. They insinuated that Blackwater somehow defrauded the American taxpayers.
The first one to attack was Daniel J. Callahan, California Lawyers magazine's "attorney of the year" for 2003. He sought to do a little war profiteering of his own in 2005 by filing a weak wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the families of the four Blackwater contractors murdered in Fallujah the prior year. He didn't really care that his allegations couldn't stand up in court. He was playing the PR game, figuring that Prince would dump cash on him and the plaintiffs just to make the nasty, accusatory headlines go away.
But to amp up the pressure on Prince even more, Callahan figured out a way to get Democrat lawmakers in Congress to broadcast his talking points. In a letter sent after the 2006 elections, he told Representatives Pelosi, Waxman, and Senator Dorgan of his "precedent-setting lawsuit concerning Blackwater's wrongful conduct". Callahan pledged to expose the "lack of accountability for private security contractors operating in Iraq."
Callahan added that he hoped Waxman's and Dorgan's congressional investigations would be "taken seriously by these extremely Republican companies... who have been uncooperative to date..."
Jan Schkawski, Democrat U.S. Representative from Illinois, went out of her way to decry lack of oversight despite clear evidence of how the State Department, who wrote the rule book and made sure Blackwater obeyed it, never complained about its approach to protecting its people.
Civilian Warriors chronicles the most perfect politically motivated/fake news based annihilation of a company in US. history. The Left utterly destroyed Blackwater for their operations in Iraq. When the wars began going badly, few dared criticize our boys in uniform, but contractors were an easy mark for politicians intent on punishing somebody.
What did the U.S. military think about Blackwater?
One brigade commander, who had been responsible for the health, welfare, and morale of five thousand troops in Iraq, told Prince, "I want you to know as my guys drove through Baghdad, on top of the dashboards in their Humvees was a piece of paper with Blackwater's call signs and frequencies." They knew, the colonel said, that in a crisis Prince's men would always come for them, no matter what.
Retired Marine colonel, Thomas X. Hammes, who served in Iraq and ultimately spoke out against the use of PMSCs in general, said this of Blackwater, "They were there to assist to do the right thing. I never had the feeling that Blackwater was about money. Obviously it is about money, because we've got to stay in business. But these guys were people who dedicated their life to America. They've served in our best Special Forces. They're very, very concerned and dedicated Americans. And they'll do anything, including put their life on the line, to do right."
So, is privatization working well for the American military and the security of the American people? Are PMSCs posing a threat to democracy?
I think that if all PMSCs were like Blackwater back in Prince's day, the answer would be yes, military contractors are definitely beneficial and not a threat to the American way of life at all. But Col. Hammes has me thinking...
Frontline Interview wih Col Thomas X. Hammes
However, one thing this book has done is to reinforce my belief that Leftists like Callahan, Pelosi, and Schkawski are enemies of truth and excellence and ruin anything they touch.
After being bombarded with the competing arguments in Ann Hagedorn's The Invisible Soldiers: How America Outsourced Our Security I couldn't reach a decision, so I narrowed the scope of my nascent research to concentrate on Erik Prince and Blackwater. Hagedorn's writing explained the pro-PMSC position in generalities, even using a Prince quote comparing Blackwater to Fed-Ex (e.g. "Fed-Ex can do things better, faster, and cheaper than the U.S. Postal Service"), but she never really drew a picture of how those benefits translated into military reality.
On the other hand in Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror, Prince shows what "better, faster and cheaper" looks like with gripping stories straight from the Blackwater mission files.
"Faster" looks like a privately-owned, self-insured (that means the company eats the cost if the bird is lost) Blackwater helicopter rushing more heavy machine guns, ammunition, and shooters to an outpost in Najaf under overwhelming attack by swarms of Mahdi army fanatics. The few contractors and marines on the ground were running low on ammo and being whittled down by wounds. They were in real danger of being massacred. Blackwater came to the rescue long before General Sanchez's Combined Joint Task Force could even pinpoint the trouble spot let alone muster sufficient reinforcements to help. See Chapter 9.
"Better" looks like Presidential Airways little CASA 212 cargo planes flying supplies to troops in remote mountain areas because giant Air Force transports can't do it. They are just way too big to land on the short air strips in the Hindu Kush. "Better" looks like dropping ammo to a long range patrol from the 82nd Airborne who have been in a running gun fight for several days and have expended most of their bullets.. The Air Force wouldn't resupply them because the drop zone hadn't been "surveyed". Check out Chapter 7.
"Best" (I know, this goes bit beyond the Fed-Ex comparison) looks like conducting 16,000 personal security operations for the State Department from June 2005 to June 2007 while protecting hundreds of high value diplomats, aid workers, intelligence officers, and visiting VIPs without one of them being killed or wounded. In these operations Blackwater fired their weapons only 195 times, which is 0.5% . They attained this perfect record in Baghdad and Fallujah - some of the most dangerous places in the world. Check out Chapter 10 and then page 215.
"Cheaper" is harder to visualize. Perhaps you could picture a CEO who prefers to offer his company's services at a fixed rate, thus assuming risk of loss if there are cost overruns, just to get a shot at winning the job. This is opposed to a contractor who angles for a "cost-plus" deal where he charges whatever it costs him to do a job plus a percentage of the costs on top for a guaranteed profit - in fact the higher the costs the bigger the profit. Prince talks about this on pages 95-97. He also talks about his personnel's base pay as opposed to the total compensation package for military personnel and government employees - citing a couple Congressional Budget Office reports in Chapter 11.
This book is basically a response to all the "stuff" that was said to disparage Erik Prince, Blackwater and it's personnel.
The critics said his people were mercenaries, profiteers, jackbooted thugs, and reckless cowboys. They claimed that Blackwater cut corners with safety to maximize profits. They accused Prince of runaway charges and pay rates. They insinuated that Blackwater somehow defrauded the American taxpayers.
The first one to attack was Daniel J. Callahan, California Lawyers magazine's "attorney of the year" for 2003. He sought to do a little war profiteering of his own in 2005 by filing a weak wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the families of the four Blackwater contractors murdered in Fallujah the prior year. He didn't really care that his allegations couldn't stand up in court. He was playing the PR game, figuring that Prince would dump cash on him and the plaintiffs just to make the nasty, accusatory headlines go away.
But to amp up the pressure on Prince even more, Callahan figured out a way to get Democrat lawmakers in Congress to broadcast his talking points. In a letter sent after the 2006 elections, he told Representatives Pelosi, Waxman, and Senator Dorgan of his "precedent-setting lawsuit concerning Blackwater's wrongful conduct". Callahan pledged to expose the "lack of accountability for private security contractors operating in Iraq."
Callahan added that he hoped Waxman's and Dorgan's congressional investigations would be "taken seriously by these extremely Republican companies... who have been uncooperative to date..."
Jan Schkawski, Democrat U.S. Representative from Illinois, went out of her way to decry lack of oversight despite clear evidence of how the State Department, who wrote the rule book and made sure Blackwater obeyed it, never complained about its approach to protecting its people.
Civilian Warriors chronicles the most perfect politically motivated/fake news based annihilation of a company in US. history. The Left utterly destroyed Blackwater for their operations in Iraq. When the wars began going badly, few dared criticize our boys in uniform, but contractors were an easy mark for politicians intent on punishing somebody.
What did the U.S. military think about Blackwater?
One brigade commander, who had been responsible for the health, welfare, and morale of five thousand troops in Iraq, told Prince, "I want you to know as my guys drove through Baghdad, on top of the dashboards in their Humvees was a piece of paper with Blackwater's call signs and frequencies." They knew, the colonel said, that in a crisis Prince's men would always come for them, no matter what.
Retired Marine colonel, Thomas X. Hammes, who served in Iraq and ultimately spoke out against the use of PMSCs in general, said this of Blackwater, "They were there to assist to do the right thing. I never had the feeling that Blackwater was about money. Obviously it is about money, because we've got to stay in business. But these guys were people who dedicated their life to America. They've served in our best Special Forces. They're very, very concerned and dedicated Americans. And they'll do anything, including put their life on the line, to do right."
So, is privatization working well for the American military and the security of the American people? Are PMSCs posing a threat to democracy?
I think that if all PMSCs were like Blackwater back in Prince's day, the answer would be yes, military contractors are definitely beneficial and not a threat to the American way of life at all. But Col. Hammes has me thinking...
Frontline Interview wih Col Thomas X. Hammes
However, one thing this book has done is to reinforce my belief that Leftists like Callahan, Pelosi, and Schkawski are enemies of truth and excellence and ruin anything they touch.
April 22, 2015
I got through this book very quickly. It has a great balance of history of Blackwater, some intense scenes about their operations, and a memoir of Erik Prince the founder.
The book and Blackwater's story can be best summarized as the most perfect public/media-based annihilation of a company I've ever read about. The media utterly destroyed Blackwater for their operations in Iraq and as Erik points out, most of the time they were severely misinformed. Not only about what Blackwater was doing in Iraq but the US military committed many of the same mistakes they did but hardly ever got any heat from the American public (the Iraqi citizens seem to be the only ones somewhat informed on that).
They were never, for example, given credit for conducting 16,000 operations and never once having the people they were protecting get hurt aka a perfect record. In those operations they only fired weapons 100-200 times, which is 0.5%. And Baghdad and Fallujah where they operated were some of the most dangerous places in the world. Much worse than anywhere in Afghanistan.
But regardless the state department threw Blackwater under the bus once it became politically popular to be outraged against private militaries - despite secretly continuing the hire them for many years later.
The public outrage was seemingly understandable, if you understand how the public was never really informed about what was happening in the wars, only ever hearing about Blackwater when something went wrong, and the well-practiced moral outrage the media prefers over analytical journalism.
I ended up watching the 3 hour congressional hearing where congress members questioned Erik. It is an amazing display of people asking critical questions - questions that were important regarding the morality of private soldiers killing citizens - yet they manage to demonstrate they knew nothing about the subject. The politicians aides probably just handed them a sheet of questions to ask without investigating it themselves. For example, the paying out of $5000 to families after an injury to an Iraqi citizen, which they got attacked for, which turns out is the exact amount the US Army and every other country paid out for injuries. Or the questioning over the amount of money each contractor made, while then demonstrating they didn't even know how much real government soldiers or their administrators get paid.
Quite a sad tale of misinformation and the brutal side-effects of war. But an interesting one none-the-less.
The book and Blackwater's story can be best summarized as the most perfect public/media-based annihilation of a company I've ever read about. The media utterly destroyed Blackwater for their operations in Iraq and as Erik points out, most of the time they were severely misinformed. Not only about what Blackwater was doing in Iraq but the US military committed many of the same mistakes they did but hardly ever got any heat from the American public (the Iraqi citizens seem to be the only ones somewhat informed on that).
They were never, for example, given credit for conducting 16,000 operations and never once having the people they were protecting get hurt aka a perfect record. In those operations they only fired weapons 100-200 times, which is 0.5%. And Baghdad and Fallujah where they operated were some of the most dangerous places in the world. Much worse than anywhere in Afghanistan.
But regardless the state department threw Blackwater under the bus once it became politically popular to be outraged against private militaries - despite secretly continuing the hire them for many years later.
The public outrage was seemingly understandable, if you understand how the public was never really informed about what was happening in the wars, only ever hearing about Blackwater when something went wrong, and the well-practiced moral outrage the media prefers over analytical journalism.
I ended up watching the 3 hour congressional hearing where congress members questioned Erik. It is an amazing display of people asking critical questions - questions that were important regarding the morality of private soldiers killing citizens - yet they manage to demonstrate they knew nothing about the subject. The politicians aides probably just handed them a sheet of questions to ask without investigating it themselves. For example, the paying out of $5000 to families after an injury to an Iraqi citizen, which they got attacked for, which turns out is the exact amount the US Army and every other country paid out for injuries. Or the questioning over the amount of money each contractor made, while then demonstrating they didn't even know how much real government soldiers or their administrators get paid.
Quite a sad tale of misinformation and the brutal side-effects of war. But an interesting one none-the-less.
September 17, 2017
We know that war is a nasty thing where two states and their troops fight against each other, causing extensive damage to themselves and the countryside in which they fight. In spite of this, the fighting man is the cornerstone of patriotism and sense of duty to one’s country that it might be difficult for some to digest the idea that in the last few decades, the private sector has borne a major share of the military effort, if not actual fighting, from the military’s shoulders. They have their advantages too, when traditional forces can inflame a situation instead of pacifying it. Moreover, nimbleness and fiscal efficiency of contracted Special Forces are so appealing for the government to let the opportunity pass. All the major armed forces use private contractors to outsource many of the ancillary services connected to the military. Blackwater is the most famous among them, whose workers accompanied the US military effort in the Middle East in a big way. As the years rolled by, the company piled notoriety up for its supposedly highhanded misdemeanors towards the locals and was subject to extensive investigations. Erik Prince, a former Navy man, founded Blackwater in 1997 and served as its CEO until 2009, and its chairman till 2010, when the company was sold. A native of Michigan, he now splits his time between homes in Virginia and Abu Dhabi where he pursues a variety of business ventures. This book is the story of the company, its progress, fall from grace and an honest reply to the string of wild allegations against it.
Use of private individuals in war had been going on for a long time, and Prince affirms that they were employed in the US War of Independence against the British. These smart individuals contributed a great deal to secure America’s freedom. By the end of the war, they had captured 2283 British ships, as compared to fewer than 200 by the standing Continental Navy. They have been in operation in all wars since, including the two world wars. Private Military Contractors, or PMCs for short, can be employed for a wide range of activities that includes transportation and engineering services, working laundry details, staffing of dining halls in forward operating bases, provision of security and even fighting for the CIA. Another boon for the military is that these contractors can be used to fudge the number of soldiery present in a foreign land. The quantity of fighting troops can be surreptitiously driven upward by employing more contractors as non-combatants. In the First Gulf War, PMCs hardly comprised 2% of the military manpower engaged. In Iraq a decade later, that number skyrocketed to a whopping 54%. Blackwater protected the Defence department first, but later landed up lucrative contracts with the State department to provide security to its personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. Prince claims that without Blackwater, US diplomacy didn’t run. If their motorcades didn’t run, the State department didn’t run.
Born in a very rich family which even had its own aircrafts, it’s amazing that the author opted for the hardships of the military in enrolling in the navy as a SEAL (Sea, Air and Land team). However, he didn’t continue for long in that career and retired. He and a few of his friends thought up a training facility to impart training to military and law-enforcement agencies. He employed military-trained ex-employees in Blackwater and plunged headlong into the highly remunerative service of providing security to the government staff in Iraq. They are claimed to be instrumental in providing the CIA with a direct link to the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the fight against the Taliban after 9/11. Max Boot, who provided the Afterword of the book, claims that Blackwater had been a front partner to many of the CIA’s operations. However, this is not mentioned in Prince’s narrative, who claims that the manuscript of the book was vetted by the CIA and that he is constrained by several no-disclosure agreements.
Within a few years of Blackwater’s excellent track record in Iraq, the floodgates of opposition opened. They were accused as mercenaries and flayed in the press and cyberspace as immoral killers and profiteers of misery and war. When four of its workers got killed in an ambush in Fallujah, the critics blamed the company for not providing enough ammunition to protect them. But when its operatives used excessive force in Nisour Square in which seventeen innocent Iraqi civilians were killed in a gun battle, public opinion decisively tilted against Blackwater. Prince admits that his guards had indeed used some intimidating tactics like throwing water bottles at Iraqi drivers or shooting at the car’s hood when it came very near to Blackwater’s motorcade. The author justifies it on the need to protect the person under their charge. Suicide bombings were fairly common in Iraq, and how can you ascertain beforehand whether the car approaching you is not a suicide bomber, but an ordinary Iraqi going about his daily business? But it is equally true that no self-respecting nation or a society could allow a bunch of foreign armed personnel meting out such rebuke to its own citizens. When the pressure mounted on the company, Prince sold it out in 2010, but claims that his company enjoyed a 100 percent success rate in protection duty. Although many of their guards were killed in attacks, none of the persons they were protecting did suffer any major injury. Critics doubted its tactics, but never its results. It is also noted that when President Bush faced a shoe thrown against him by an Iraqi journalist in 2008, it was Blackwater’s men who pounced upon the man and prevented him from throwing a second one.
Prince gallantly defends the allegations leveled against him, with a wide array of convincing arguments and statistics. There’s indeed a limit to the accusations that can be directed against a man for the deeds of his employees stationed thousands of miles away in a war zone on another continent. Even with this concession, his finding fault with the NTSB investigation that followed a Blackwater plane crash in Afghanistan exceeds the limits of propriety. As is common with other American evaluations of Asian capability, Prince lambasts the operational facilities and motivation of Asian soldiers. After the untimely exit from the company he had founded, the author now works for a private equity start-up, financing agriculture, energy and mining projects in Africa, the Middle East and other difficult parts of the world.
The book is basically the owner’s response to the flood of allegations heaped on his company. The language is crisp, witty and sharp. He doesn’t mince words when elaborating the pointlessness of many dumb Congress investigators in which the members had no idea of what was going on. The book includes a few photographs, a comprehensive section of Notes, but strangely, no index.
The book is recommended.
Use of private individuals in war had been going on for a long time, and Prince affirms that they were employed in the US War of Independence against the British. These smart individuals contributed a great deal to secure America’s freedom. By the end of the war, they had captured 2283 British ships, as compared to fewer than 200 by the standing Continental Navy. They have been in operation in all wars since, including the two world wars. Private Military Contractors, or PMCs for short, can be employed for a wide range of activities that includes transportation and engineering services, working laundry details, staffing of dining halls in forward operating bases, provision of security and even fighting for the CIA. Another boon for the military is that these contractors can be used to fudge the number of soldiery present in a foreign land. The quantity of fighting troops can be surreptitiously driven upward by employing more contractors as non-combatants. In the First Gulf War, PMCs hardly comprised 2% of the military manpower engaged. In Iraq a decade later, that number skyrocketed to a whopping 54%. Blackwater protected the Defence department first, but later landed up lucrative contracts with the State department to provide security to its personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. Prince claims that without Blackwater, US diplomacy didn’t run. If their motorcades didn’t run, the State department didn’t run.
Born in a very rich family which even had its own aircrafts, it’s amazing that the author opted for the hardships of the military in enrolling in the navy as a SEAL (Sea, Air and Land team). However, he didn’t continue for long in that career and retired. He and a few of his friends thought up a training facility to impart training to military and law-enforcement agencies. He employed military-trained ex-employees in Blackwater and plunged headlong into the highly remunerative service of providing security to the government staff in Iraq. They are claimed to be instrumental in providing the CIA with a direct link to the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the fight against the Taliban after 9/11. Max Boot, who provided the Afterword of the book, claims that Blackwater had been a front partner to many of the CIA’s operations. However, this is not mentioned in Prince’s narrative, who claims that the manuscript of the book was vetted by the CIA and that he is constrained by several no-disclosure agreements.
Within a few years of Blackwater’s excellent track record in Iraq, the floodgates of opposition opened. They were accused as mercenaries and flayed in the press and cyberspace as immoral killers and profiteers of misery and war. When four of its workers got killed in an ambush in Fallujah, the critics blamed the company for not providing enough ammunition to protect them. But when its operatives used excessive force in Nisour Square in which seventeen innocent Iraqi civilians were killed in a gun battle, public opinion decisively tilted against Blackwater. Prince admits that his guards had indeed used some intimidating tactics like throwing water bottles at Iraqi drivers or shooting at the car’s hood when it came very near to Blackwater’s motorcade. The author justifies it on the need to protect the person under their charge. Suicide bombings were fairly common in Iraq, and how can you ascertain beforehand whether the car approaching you is not a suicide bomber, but an ordinary Iraqi going about his daily business? But it is equally true that no self-respecting nation or a society could allow a bunch of foreign armed personnel meting out such rebuke to its own citizens. When the pressure mounted on the company, Prince sold it out in 2010, but claims that his company enjoyed a 100 percent success rate in protection duty. Although many of their guards were killed in attacks, none of the persons they were protecting did suffer any major injury. Critics doubted its tactics, but never its results. It is also noted that when President Bush faced a shoe thrown against him by an Iraqi journalist in 2008, it was Blackwater’s men who pounced upon the man and prevented him from throwing a second one.
Prince gallantly defends the allegations leveled against him, with a wide array of convincing arguments and statistics. There’s indeed a limit to the accusations that can be directed against a man for the deeds of his employees stationed thousands of miles away in a war zone on another continent. Even with this concession, his finding fault with the NTSB investigation that followed a Blackwater plane crash in Afghanistan exceeds the limits of propriety. As is common with other American evaluations of Asian capability, Prince lambasts the operational facilities and motivation of Asian soldiers. After the untimely exit from the company he had founded, the author now works for a private equity start-up, financing agriculture, energy and mining projects in Africa, the Middle East and other difficult parts of the world.
The book is basically the owner’s response to the flood of allegations heaped on his company. The language is crisp, witty and sharp. He doesn’t mince words when elaborating the pointlessness of many dumb Congress investigators in which the members had no idea of what was going on. The book includes a few photographs, a comprehensive section of Notes, but strangely, no index.
The book is recommended.
December 26, 2013
“Civilian Warriors” is a spirited defense by Eric Prince of his company and himself. But do not let that turn you off from reading this most interesting and exciting story with lots of information for entrepreneurs on how to start and grow a company on a shoestring is a person sees a marketing niche. Prince tells about his early life in Michigan and his time at Annapolis and his time in the Navy SEALs. He also provides the history of the American military use of civilian warriors from the time of General George Washington to the current time. I found this discourse most interesting. Prince goes on to describe how and why he started Blackwater to have a complete and diverse training facility all in one location to train Military, law enforcement, and civilian guards and bodyguards. Prince goes on to explain how he was contacted by DOD and the State Department to provide protection for American Diplomats and military bases. Prince also notes that Blackwater never lost a person they protected. The second half of the book goes into the backlash from Congress about the hiring of civilian contractors that were beginning to match one for one the number of military personnel in the war zones. Prince does admit to making mistakes but also goes on to show how he and his company were scapegoats for providing to the government the services they could not supply themselves. The book is well worth the read and is written in an informative and exciting way. I read this as an audio book. Jeff Garner did an excellent job narrating the book.
September 22, 2015
There are a couple of books I've read lately which I'm going to give the same advice about. Simply stated, just attempt to read it with an open mind.
You know if for instance a congress-person takes the experience they've gained and say maybe...goes to work for a private company, no one is surprised. I mean where do you think lobbyists come from? The same goes for most any government job. People from public jobs go to work for private companies all the time.
But if a military person does it they suddenly become a MERCENARY.
Are you aware the up to half the "military personal" in the Middle East are from Private Military Companies? They do food service, they do mail delivery, they do security etc. Blackwater got to be the most well known of these for a while and their own success made them somewhat of a target.
Personally I've seen Mercenaries as somehow another word for evil. Mostly the paid military personal from private companies are simply using the experience and training they have to make a "better" living.
This book is basically a response to all the "stuff" that was said about Blackwater and it's personnel. I'd say read it with an open mind not going in assuming anything and being aware that both sides will probably give the facts in a way that makes them look the best.
Recommended.
You know if for instance a congress-person takes the experience they've gained and say maybe...goes to work for a private company, no one is surprised. I mean where do you think lobbyists come from? The same goes for most any government job. People from public jobs go to work for private companies all the time.
But if a military person does it they suddenly become a MERCENARY.
Are you aware the up to half the "military personal" in the Middle East are from Private Military Companies? They do food service, they do mail delivery, they do security etc. Blackwater got to be the most well known of these for a while and their own success made them somewhat of a target.
Personally I've seen Mercenaries as somehow another word for evil. Mostly the paid military personal from private companies are simply using the experience and training they have to make a "better" living.
This book is basically a response to all the "stuff" that was said about Blackwater and it's personnel. I'd say read it with an open mind not going in assuming anything and being aware that both sides will probably give the facts in a way that makes them look the best.
Recommended.
June 10, 2014
An interesting tale by the founder of Blackwater, the private military contractor of some infamy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though not terribly well written, it is a fascinating and revealing story of the little known, but massive role of private contractors serving the needs of the State Department and U.S. military across the world. The mighty U.S. military is, by this account, only a flashy facade of American power felt globally. The support structure behind it and the indispensable security teams for our foreign diplomats and aid efforts are staffed by these private contractors, according to Prince. Soldiers fight the wars, but these private contractors cover almost every thing else. Definitely worth reading. Prince also explains how duplicitous our politicians are: desperately needing the private contractors on the one hand, and yet willing to sacrifice them at the drop of a hat for the sake of almost any political expediency, on the other. Prince's defense of Blackwater's role in the Iraqi War is credible and an interesting counter to the largely politically motivated slanders from Capitol Hill and a host of ideologically partisan journalistic accounts.
February 4, 2014
The book is well-written, and very well edited. Basically, it is as much a personal autobiography of Mr. Prince as it is the story of the Blackwater private security firm he founded and built. Mr. Prince is a self-described religious conservative, and the views related in the book reflect his biases and perspectives. On the whole, however, the facts related in the book seem reasonable and believable to anybody with even the most rudimentary understanding of American politics. It is unfortunate that greedy tort lawyers and politicians with hidden agendas have, literally, chased Mr. Prince from the country of his birth. He has sold his interests in the companies he founded, and moved his family to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Anybody who cares at all about how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been prosecuted should read this book.
February 27, 2014
After reading so much of what the critics have to say, it was quite interesting to hear Mr. Prince's side of thing. The book is well written, and pulls no punches. More than that, it offers a much needed sense of perspective regarding the current use of PMC's, and how they will be integrated into future conflicts. The audio version features a forward Read by Prince himself. The narration and production quality are top notch throughout the book with no weird pauses or editing gaffs. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in military history.
December 30, 2013
Although some of the time the explanations of governmental procedure were hard to understand, overall the book was quite interesting. The beginning of Blackwater and the early years of Erik Prince's father were intriguing. After reading the book, I feel much better informed about contractors with our government and happenings such as the Cole attack, 9/11 or other terrorist activities.
February 14, 2015
A first-hand account of the rise and fall of Blackwater. This gives a new and human dimension to the puzzle. Admittedly, most of the material I read before this was an indictment of the company. This work sets aside a lot of misconceptions. A good read.
January 6, 2015
Good read, makes you wonder about our government, especially when they sic the IRS on people. interesting that the people who destroyed his business are still using the very same contractors.....
November 28, 2016
In the 21st century, the line between public and private warfare has gotten a bit fuzzy. I realized this most fully when reading a few cybersecurity books early in the year, mulling over how natural security was imperiled by cyber attacks on private firms or networks, but this fuzziness is also expressed via the world of private military contractors. Flash back seven or so years ago, when my rage at the debacle in Iraq was white-hot, I would have never read a book about Blackwater, let alone a defense of it from its creator, Erik Prince. Back then, Blackwater was tantamount with evil. They were lawless mercenaries, the very image of what was wrong with the military-industrial complex. Finally released from confidentiality agreements, here Prince goes to bat for the company he created and guided through the rocky years of the War on Terror.
I purchased this book because I stumbled upon Erik Prince while listening to some podcast or another, and he sounded perfectly normal. He didn't do an evil laugh even once. (It helped that the book was on clearance for $6.) Prince opens with an argument that private military contractors aren't a novelty. His examples are convenient (he cites the Marquis de Lafayette, not the Hessians), but that's to be expected. He also notes that military contractors been put to more use in the 20th and 21st centuries than at any other time, but then wars are a lot more complicated they used to be. There's no more of this telling your peasants with pointy sticks to go stab the peasants with pointy sticks next door, there's logistics and such. Prince's original idea for Blackwater was to fill the need of the American military for training facilities, since budget cuts closed or limited their options. His training lodge not only provided rented space for shooting ranges, but taught courses to interested service organizations. Prince continually responded to the needs of the US as he saw them in the news, achieving rapid success after the Columbine assaults when he began training police in active shooter response scenarios. (Prince created a school mock-up for them to practice in.) After al-Queda bombed the USS Cole, Prince acquired a NOAA ship and turned it into a training ship for sailors to practice threat interdiction.
It was their work in Iraq that made Blackwater infamous, however. They entered the area as security guards for the United States' top man in Iraq, Paul Bremer. Later on they would escort other State department officials, and as Iraq was a warzone, that entailed armored vehicles and M4 rifles. As Blackwater grew, it took on other tasks like handling airdrops in their smaller planes. Prince writes that he viewed Blackwater as a military force that had adopted the principles of lean manufacturing, a kind of Fedex to the government's post office. If Blackwater's security convoys drove aggressively, it was to satisfy their contract stipulations: no losses. Prince would have practiced more discretion than the government allowed him, but they insisted on ambassadors traveling in flagged SUVs, not beaten-looking Iraqi vehicles. Prince also reviews the several bloody incidents which turned Blackwater into a whipping boy for the Bush administration in the war, arguing that his men were merely defending themselves and that they made for effective scapegoats despite also using their resources in a few humanitarian causes.
I suspect Prince is correct in maintaining that military contractors aren't going anywhere. In Afghanistan, there are more contractors than US servicemen, and I think it telling that Candidate Obama condemned Blackwater, and then -- when the group served as his security detail in Afghanistan -- President Obama commented that they were getting a 'bad rap'. If citizens don't want war, but the security state does, then the obvious thing to do is hire people to do the war bit on the state's behalf, or even better to use drones. Although as a candidate Trump indicated that he was less interested in foreign wars than his competitors, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is in the D.C. water leads to military contractors operating discretely in Syria. They're certainly in Iraq now, fighting ISIS -- at least two thousand of them. They aren't necessarily active combatants, but filling in a lot of the logistics holes that Prince noticed and started finding people to fill here.
I found Prince to be interesting as a man -- rich boy turned volunteer fireman & Navy SEAL, then entrepreneur in his own right -- and his apologia informative about the shifting nature of war as executed Even if war is a racket, the operation of that racket is worth noting as it changes.
Related:
The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens. The memoir of a humanitarian turned Navy SEAL, one recently elected as governor of Missouri.
I purchased this book because I stumbled upon Erik Prince while listening to some podcast or another, and he sounded perfectly normal. He didn't do an evil laugh even once. (It helped that the book was on clearance for $6.) Prince opens with an argument that private military contractors aren't a novelty. His examples are convenient (he cites the Marquis de Lafayette, not the Hessians), but that's to be expected. He also notes that military contractors been put to more use in the 20th and 21st centuries than at any other time, but then wars are a lot more complicated they used to be. There's no more of this telling your peasants with pointy sticks to go stab the peasants with pointy sticks next door, there's logistics and such. Prince's original idea for Blackwater was to fill the need of the American military for training facilities, since budget cuts closed or limited their options. His training lodge not only provided rented space for shooting ranges, but taught courses to interested service organizations. Prince continually responded to the needs of the US as he saw them in the news, achieving rapid success after the Columbine assaults when he began training police in active shooter response scenarios. (Prince created a school mock-up for them to practice in.) After al-Queda bombed the USS Cole, Prince acquired a NOAA ship and turned it into a training ship for sailors to practice threat interdiction.
It was their work in Iraq that made Blackwater infamous, however. They entered the area as security guards for the United States' top man in Iraq, Paul Bremer. Later on they would escort other State department officials, and as Iraq was a warzone, that entailed armored vehicles and M4 rifles. As Blackwater grew, it took on other tasks like handling airdrops in their smaller planes. Prince writes that he viewed Blackwater as a military force that had adopted the principles of lean manufacturing, a kind of Fedex to the government's post office. If Blackwater's security convoys drove aggressively, it was to satisfy their contract stipulations: no losses. Prince would have practiced more discretion than the government allowed him, but they insisted on ambassadors traveling in flagged SUVs, not beaten-looking Iraqi vehicles. Prince also reviews the several bloody incidents which turned Blackwater into a whipping boy for the Bush administration in the war, arguing that his men were merely defending themselves and that they made for effective scapegoats despite also using their resources in a few humanitarian causes.
I suspect Prince is correct in maintaining that military contractors aren't going anywhere. In Afghanistan, there are more contractors than US servicemen, and I think it telling that Candidate Obama condemned Blackwater, and then -- when the group served as his security detail in Afghanistan -- President Obama commented that they were getting a 'bad rap'. If citizens don't want war, but the security state does, then the obvious thing to do is hire people to do the war bit on the state's behalf, or even better to use drones. Although as a candidate Trump indicated that he was less interested in foreign wars than his competitors, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is in the D.C. water leads to military contractors operating discretely in Syria. They're certainly in Iraq now, fighting ISIS -- at least two thousand of them. They aren't necessarily active combatants, but filling in a lot of the logistics holes that Prince noticed and started finding people to fill here.
I found Prince to be interesting as a man -- rich boy turned volunteer fireman & Navy SEAL, then entrepreneur in his own right -- and his apologia informative about the shifting nature of war as executed Even if war is a racket, the operation of that racket is worth noting as it changes.
Related:
The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens. The memoir of a humanitarian turned Navy SEAL, one recently elected as governor of Missouri.
March 22, 2018
The book was written by the founder of Blackwater Group, a private security provider. It's been called Academi since 2011 after the original company was acquired by private investors. Eric Prince is a nice writer as he fluently organized every detail in the book. The book is eye-opening to me. I knew nothing about the secretive industry behind national armies. Reading Prince's book makes me awed as it unveils a whole new world to my radar.
Born in a wealthy family, Prince was just like his name suggested, a real prince. His father was a successful automobile parts suppliers which once hired more than 4500 workers. The entrepreneurial spirit was inherited perfectly from his father. Prince launched his own company after he retired from the navy seal. The experience in the seal helped him recognized business opportunity in the military training service. The military budget had been curtailed in every military department. Some training grounds were shut down, which left nowhere to train soldiers. Prince set up a training facility to fill the blank. The business started to grow.
Since 1990s, America has been victims to terrorism. The increasing threat from radical group such as Al-Qaeda made US government enhance their preparation. The demand for training service boomed. Meanwhile, Prince sensed the upcoming 'business' in Iraq and Afghanistan as Bush administration waged wars oversea. The US Department of Defense was unable to fully support the operations own its own. It needed some private contractors to help them run the operations.
Originally, Blackwater was contracted to protect important figures due to the dangerous environment. Blackwater completed the mission efficiently and successfully. As the war went on, the war zones became more chaotic, which pushed the demand further. The firm once had over 2 thousand securities there. It even had helicopters and warship! In such a unpredictable world, some casualties were inevitable. In some incidents, Blackwater security caused civilian deaths. It sparked angers and controversy worldwide. Many people started to question the special existence of 'private soldiers'. Whether their presence was necessary? What rules did they follow? Many saw them as profit-seeking mercenaries that loved to kill. Some people found ways to destroy the company. For example, lawyers filed suit against the firm on various reasons, though sometimes it was purely defaming. The PR eventually failed and Prince had to leave the company.
The stories are surprisingly readable. Though it sounds strange, Prince is good at rebuilding the war stories. There are plenty vividly fighting scenes in the book. Besides, Prince observantly discusses the flaws in American bureaucrats. He reveals some insider views on FBI, CIA, Pentagon, and even White House. He showed readers how American government failed to 'liberate' Iraq, but rather destroy a nation. The book gives me great insight on the Iraq Wars. Indeed, Prince must be somewhat biased. He bluntly shares his philosophy on the importance, and sometimes noble cause, as a private security provider. It may sound unconvincing to some, but surprisingly again, I buy his words to a degree! Maybe it could be called a necessary evil in wars? I have no idea. What I know is war is always a dirty job. War never changes.
Born in a wealthy family, Prince was just like his name suggested, a real prince. His father was a successful automobile parts suppliers which once hired more than 4500 workers. The entrepreneurial spirit was inherited perfectly from his father. Prince launched his own company after he retired from the navy seal. The experience in the seal helped him recognized business opportunity in the military training service. The military budget had been curtailed in every military department. Some training grounds were shut down, which left nowhere to train soldiers. Prince set up a training facility to fill the blank. The business started to grow.
Since 1990s, America has been victims to terrorism. The increasing threat from radical group such as Al-Qaeda made US government enhance their preparation. The demand for training service boomed. Meanwhile, Prince sensed the upcoming 'business' in Iraq and Afghanistan as Bush administration waged wars oversea. The US Department of Defense was unable to fully support the operations own its own. It needed some private contractors to help them run the operations.
Originally, Blackwater was contracted to protect important figures due to the dangerous environment. Blackwater completed the mission efficiently and successfully. As the war went on, the war zones became more chaotic, which pushed the demand further. The firm once had over 2 thousand securities there. It even had helicopters and warship! In such a unpredictable world, some casualties were inevitable. In some incidents, Blackwater security caused civilian deaths. It sparked angers and controversy worldwide. Many people started to question the special existence of 'private soldiers'. Whether their presence was necessary? What rules did they follow? Many saw them as profit-seeking mercenaries that loved to kill. Some people found ways to destroy the company. For example, lawyers filed suit against the firm on various reasons, though sometimes it was purely defaming. The PR eventually failed and Prince had to leave the company.
The stories are surprisingly readable. Though it sounds strange, Prince is good at rebuilding the war stories. There are plenty vividly fighting scenes in the book. Besides, Prince observantly discusses the flaws in American bureaucrats. He reveals some insider views on FBI, CIA, Pentagon, and even White House. He showed readers how American government failed to 'liberate' Iraq, but rather destroy a nation. The book gives me great insight on the Iraq Wars. Indeed, Prince must be somewhat biased. He bluntly shares his philosophy on the importance, and sometimes noble cause, as a private security provider. It may sound unconvincing to some, but surprisingly again, I buy his words to a degree! Maybe it could be called a necessary evil in wars? I have no idea. What I know is war is always a dirty job. War never changes.
November 14, 2023
Just like everything in life, there is always two sides to the story. Somewhere in the middle is the truth.
For years we had the media and Congress telling us how bad Blackwater was. Now we have the founder's side.
Of course, one has to take this all with a grain of salt because obviously Erik Prince is going to put his former company in the best light possible. At the same time, one also has to acknowledge that anything coming from a member of Congress has an agenda behind it. Additionally, as we have unfortunately learned over the past several years, the media if far from unbiased anymore. Much of that also comes with an agenda. Add of another layer for contractual requirements not to disclose anything and you have a pretty much one-sided fight for years.
With all that being said, I did find the book very compelling. While Prince's animosity towards Congress and much of the media, he does layout factual arguments about why his company was unjustly targeted. At the end of the day, the amount of time, effort and resources that were put into prosecuting Blackwater, the government again and again came up very short.
On top of all of that, time and again the US government renewed Blackwater's contracts. There were times they ever went to Blackwater when other options were available. Given how a bureaucrat's most basic instinct is to protect his or hers own career above all else, do people really believe that someone who put their name on a contract with involved a company with Blackwater's alleged reputation? I seriously doubt it.
At the end of the day, Blackwater filled a void that our government created with its inept planning and handling for post-invasion of Iraq. Add that you literally had the State and Defense Departments operating with little to no coordination and sometimes completely contradictory to each other, it is amazing that things for security personnel were not even worse than they were.
By the end of the book, the reader will realize that Blackwater was a convenient punching bag for those with their own agendas, in and out of government. To me, the best proof was the sheer amount of lawsuits and prosecutions that were throw at Blackwater and by the end how little came of them.
All I can recommend is that one reads the book with an open-mind.
For years we had the media and Congress telling us how bad Blackwater was. Now we have the founder's side.
Of course, one has to take this all with a grain of salt because obviously Erik Prince is going to put his former company in the best light possible. At the same time, one also has to acknowledge that anything coming from a member of Congress has an agenda behind it. Additionally, as we have unfortunately learned over the past several years, the media if far from unbiased anymore. Much of that also comes with an agenda. Add of another layer for contractual requirements not to disclose anything and you have a pretty much one-sided fight for years.
With all that being said, I did find the book very compelling. While Prince's animosity towards Congress and much of the media, he does layout factual arguments about why his company was unjustly targeted. At the end of the day, the amount of time, effort and resources that were put into prosecuting Blackwater, the government again and again came up very short.
On top of all of that, time and again the US government renewed Blackwater's contracts. There were times they ever went to Blackwater when other options were available. Given how a bureaucrat's most basic instinct is to protect his or hers own career above all else, do people really believe that someone who put their name on a contract with involved a company with Blackwater's alleged reputation? I seriously doubt it.
At the end of the day, Blackwater filled a void that our government created with its inept planning and handling for post-invasion of Iraq. Add that you literally had the State and Defense Departments operating with little to no coordination and sometimes completely contradictory to each other, it is amazing that things for security personnel were not even worse than they were.
By the end of the book, the reader will realize that Blackwater was a convenient punching bag for those with their own agendas, in and out of government. To me, the best proof was the sheer amount of lawsuits and prosecutions that were throw at Blackwater and by the end how little came of them.
All I can recommend is that one reads the book with an open-mind.
December 26, 2013
‘Blackwater’—the name evokes evil in the context of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is associated with war for profit, and mercenaries, the antithesis of American patriotism. In Civilian Warriors, Eric Prince, the founder of Blackwater, challenges these perceptions about his company. In doing so, he restores some balance to the debate over public versus private security in war zones and provides a compelling case that Blackwater’s growth and success resulted from the nexus of critical unmet Department of State (DoS) security requirements, Prince’s entrepreneurial acumen, and the existence of skilled Americans, most former military, who answered Blackwater’s and their nation’s call for help.
Prince opens the book by taking us through his early life. We learn of his entrepreneurial father, who built a multi-million dollar business from scratch. Prince tried many things while growing up, a reflection of his own nascent entrepreneurial bent. He attended the United States Naval Academy, but didn’t stay. Instead he went to a private college, joined the Navy SEALs and began his own education about how the U.S. military worked and how military training could be improved. Prince left the Navy following his stint as a SEAL. In June 1997 he purchased five square miles of swampland in North Carolina and created his own military and law enforcement training center, Blackwater. The initial lack of clients rapidly changed following the Columbine school shooting and the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. Law enforcement training and teaching U.S. Navy sailors marksmanship burgeoned. Following 9/11 and the initiation of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Blackwater’s growth exploded, government contracts became plentiful and Blackwater soon was providing thousands of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) to meet U.S. Department of State security requirements, particularly in Iraq.
Prince makes a strong case that Blackwater’s success resulted from fulfilling an immediate and critical need—security for DoS civilians in war torn Iraq. It is widely acknowledged that the Bush administration’s preparation for the war’s aftermath was horribly inadequate. As the security situation eroded following the end of the invasion in mid-2004, no military forces were available to provide security for civilians—the military could barely provide for its own security. Blackwater filled this gap with trained and for the most part, patriotic Americans who abided by DoS rules of engagement. They were involved in over 100,000 missions and were overwhelmingly successful in completing these missions.
Later critics of Blackwater failed to provide full context for Blackwater’s operational environment in Iraq and for the political environment at home as the war tumbled out of control and public opposition mounted. This context must also include these observations. Iraq was in the midst of a civil war. Blackwater provided personnel security. Its employees were contracted by the U.S. government to protect civilians. They had to abide by strict defensive rules of engagement. They did not undertake offensive operations. They operated in an amorphous, dynamic, and exceedingly dangerous war zone with violence and the enemy lurking around every corner. Life or death was a stream of split second decisions. Unfortunately, but understandably, innocent people were injured and killed. Without the legal protections afforded the military, Blackwater soon became overwhelmed by lawsuits and Congressional scrutiny, eventually becoming a convenient whipping post for the public’s war fatigue and frustration. Prince found himself in a fight to preserve his company and his reputation.
To be fair, Prince is not perfect, nor was Blackwater. He admits this. There is no evidence, however, that Prince did other than what he was asked to do by his government. Yes he made money, but as a private businessman that is expected. Prince did not profiteer. Instead, he shows how the wages he supposedly paid were inflated by his critics, who also failed to acknowledge that Blackwater employees were at-will, had minimal benefits, worked in deadly environments and were frequently praised for the work they were doing.
The purpose of Civilian Warriors is not to show how fighting America’s wars has dramatically changed. Nevertheless, we are forty years downstream from being a nation of conscripted citizen armies. The domestic divisiveness of the Vietnam War destroyed those armies. Today’s expensive all-volunteer force gives Presidents and Congress a military that is distant from the people. Life, death and military sacrifice are foreign experiences to most Americans. This gives the government a virtual blank check when employing the military, a check the government is not bashful about cashing. When we win wars rapidly without much cost, as in the First Gulf War, this system works. However, the Iraq War slogged on for eight bloody years. Contracted civilians filled critical gaps in the volunteer military’s capability. At the height of the war the number of PMCs in Iraq equaled the number of military personnel. This fact remained largely unknown to most Americans. A critical political cost was the escalating requirement to fund the war; a critical political challenge—fingering individuals and organizations to take the heat for a fight gone bad.
It is almost inevitable that Blackwater became a convenient target for blame. Prince was inhibited from using all information at his disposal to publicly defend Blackwater by the very DoS contracts that he lived by. While the Legislative branch was publicly castigating him, his ability to defend Blackwater was simultaneously being censored by the Executive branch. In the end none of this mattered. The Iraq government refused to allow Blackwater to operate in country. Other security companies soon filled the vacuum created by Blackwater’s departure and Prince eventually sold what was once Blackwater. Today, the U.S. military is out of Iraq but a PMC presence equivalent to the size of an Army division remains. What is undeniable is that Blackwater protected those it was paid to protect. Blackwater employees worked for and died with honor for their country, far from family and far from home. The fact that they were paid more than soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen was not their call.
What kind of homecoming have these different kind of American patriots received? What recognition, other than a paycheck, have they been given for their bravery and valor? Who pays to treat their visible and invisible wounds? What also remains unknown is the personal stories of these Americans. The public should know who these people were, what they did, how they did it, what they accomplished, and the personal and professional sacrifices they made on behalf of their country. Until this happens, Blackwater and its employees' reputations will be unfairly tarnished. Today anyone who wears a uniform is considered a hero/heroine. This stands in stark contrast to how those who worked for Blackwater—who served their country in a different way—are generally and ignorantly viewed.
Prince opens the book by taking us through his early life. We learn of his entrepreneurial father, who built a multi-million dollar business from scratch. Prince tried many things while growing up, a reflection of his own nascent entrepreneurial bent. He attended the United States Naval Academy, but didn’t stay. Instead he went to a private college, joined the Navy SEALs and began his own education about how the U.S. military worked and how military training could be improved. Prince left the Navy following his stint as a SEAL. In June 1997 he purchased five square miles of swampland in North Carolina and created his own military and law enforcement training center, Blackwater. The initial lack of clients rapidly changed following the Columbine school shooting and the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. Law enforcement training and teaching U.S. Navy sailors marksmanship burgeoned. Following 9/11 and the initiation of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Blackwater’s growth exploded, government contracts became plentiful and Blackwater soon was providing thousands of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) to meet U.S. Department of State security requirements, particularly in Iraq.
Prince makes a strong case that Blackwater’s success resulted from fulfilling an immediate and critical need—security for DoS civilians in war torn Iraq. It is widely acknowledged that the Bush administration’s preparation for the war’s aftermath was horribly inadequate. As the security situation eroded following the end of the invasion in mid-2004, no military forces were available to provide security for civilians—the military could barely provide for its own security. Blackwater filled this gap with trained and for the most part, patriotic Americans who abided by DoS rules of engagement. They were involved in over 100,000 missions and were overwhelmingly successful in completing these missions.
Later critics of Blackwater failed to provide full context for Blackwater’s operational environment in Iraq and for the political environment at home as the war tumbled out of control and public opposition mounted. This context must also include these observations. Iraq was in the midst of a civil war. Blackwater provided personnel security. Its employees were contracted by the U.S. government to protect civilians. They had to abide by strict defensive rules of engagement. They did not undertake offensive operations. They operated in an amorphous, dynamic, and exceedingly dangerous war zone with violence and the enemy lurking around every corner. Life or death was a stream of split second decisions. Unfortunately, but understandably, innocent people were injured and killed. Without the legal protections afforded the military, Blackwater soon became overwhelmed by lawsuits and Congressional scrutiny, eventually becoming a convenient whipping post for the public’s war fatigue and frustration. Prince found himself in a fight to preserve his company and his reputation.
To be fair, Prince is not perfect, nor was Blackwater. He admits this. There is no evidence, however, that Prince did other than what he was asked to do by his government. Yes he made money, but as a private businessman that is expected. Prince did not profiteer. Instead, he shows how the wages he supposedly paid were inflated by his critics, who also failed to acknowledge that Blackwater employees were at-will, had minimal benefits, worked in deadly environments and were frequently praised for the work they were doing.
The purpose of Civilian Warriors is not to show how fighting America’s wars has dramatically changed. Nevertheless, we are forty years downstream from being a nation of conscripted citizen armies. The domestic divisiveness of the Vietnam War destroyed those armies. Today’s expensive all-volunteer force gives Presidents and Congress a military that is distant from the people. Life, death and military sacrifice are foreign experiences to most Americans. This gives the government a virtual blank check when employing the military, a check the government is not bashful about cashing. When we win wars rapidly without much cost, as in the First Gulf War, this system works. However, the Iraq War slogged on for eight bloody years. Contracted civilians filled critical gaps in the volunteer military’s capability. At the height of the war the number of PMCs in Iraq equaled the number of military personnel. This fact remained largely unknown to most Americans. A critical political cost was the escalating requirement to fund the war; a critical political challenge—fingering individuals and organizations to take the heat for a fight gone bad.
It is almost inevitable that Blackwater became a convenient target for blame. Prince was inhibited from using all information at his disposal to publicly defend Blackwater by the very DoS contracts that he lived by. While the Legislative branch was publicly castigating him, his ability to defend Blackwater was simultaneously being censored by the Executive branch. In the end none of this mattered. The Iraq government refused to allow Blackwater to operate in country. Other security companies soon filled the vacuum created by Blackwater’s departure and Prince eventually sold what was once Blackwater. Today, the U.S. military is out of Iraq but a PMC presence equivalent to the size of an Army division remains. What is undeniable is that Blackwater protected those it was paid to protect. Blackwater employees worked for and died with honor for their country, far from family and far from home. The fact that they were paid more than soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen was not their call.
What kind of homecoming have these different kind of American patriots received? What recognition, other than a paycheck, have they been given for their bravery and valor? Who pays to treat their visible and invisible wounds? What also remains unknown is the personal stories of these Americans. The public should know who these people were, what they did, how they did it, what they accomplished, and the personal and professional sacrifices they made on behalf of their country. Until this happens, Blackwater and its employees' reputations will be unfairly tarnished. Today anyone who wears a uniform is considered a hero/heroine. This stands in stark contrast to how those who worked for Blackwater—who served their country in a different way—are generally and ignorantly viewed.
February 13, 2024
A true insider's account of the military contracting industry, US bureaucracy (which is particularly prescient due to the inefficiencies of the US gov at the present time) and an inside look at the Iraq & Afghanistan conflicts from someone "behind closed doors"
Prince's perspective is not pro-war per-se, and definitely not pro US-gov. He's a businessman in the sense that his motivation is to create a superior product, even if the cost or means is extreme.
The strong point were the anecdotes played into the greater picture of the ultimate demise of Blackwater, which turned into a mess of lawsuits, bad PR, and political deadlock. In short, a well-crafted narrative.
However there were a few contradictory statements - the most egregious of which that no one was killed under Blackwater protection - disputed in the afterword - where the US embassy Benghazi was under Blackwater protection during the bombing.
This had me wondering what else was being left out, this being a biased perspective
Overall, Prince is an extremely dynamic and visionary person. With several of the most relevant companies of today -- Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril -- being US gov contractors, military and otherwise, it's a particularly relevant topic.
Prince's perspective is not pro-war per-se, and definitely not pro US-gov. He's a businessman in the sense that his motivation is to create a superior product, even if the cost or means is extreme.
The strong point were the anecdotes played into the greater picture of the ultimate demise of Blackwater, which turned into a mess of lawsuits, bad PR, and political deadlock. In short, a well-crafted narrative.
However there were a few contradictory statements - the most egregious of which that no one was killed under Blackwater protection - disputed in the afterword - where the US embassy Benghazi was under Blackwater protection during the bombing.
This had me wondering what else was being left out, this being a biased perspective
Overall, Prince is an extremely dynamic and visionary person. With several of the most relevant companies of today -- Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril -- being US gov contractors, military and otherwise, it's a particularly relevant topic.
August 21, 2017
This book is outstanding. If you are prior or current military in any capacity, you will hardly be able to put it down, but nothing will surprise you. If you are not, you maybe surprised. Some jobs don't seem worth it in the long run; they destroy families, businesses, careers, reputations, planned retirement, and the individuals attempting to complete their work safely and well. Just as being a police officer puts you and your family at risk of losing everything if you make one mistake, so does contracting for the US government. Although politicians are known to find scapegoats more often than local policing communities. Remember that next time u wonder if they're getting paid too much; they're not getting paid enough for the risks they take and the sacrifices they make, but without them, we would probably have terrorists everywhere constantly on the loose, even on US soil. We can't see them, but they are blocking and guarding the back doors of our country and the countries of many others. And with all of the military cutbacks over the past 30 years, there is no other resource to draw from that can do many of the very special skills jobs they are doing.
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