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Battlefield Leadership

by

Lt Gen Harold G. Moore, US Army (Retired)


ONCE YOUNG SOLDIER BRUCE CRANDALL RECEIVES MEDAL OF HONOR
Monday, February 26, 2007
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Feb. 26: President Bush bestows the nation's highest military honor on Bruce Crandall.
WASHINGTON Bruce Crandall was a soldier once ... and young. As a 32-year-old helicopter pilot, he flew
through a gantlet of enemy fire, taking ammunition in and wounded Americans out of one of the fiercest battles of
the Vietnam War, Army records say.
Now, a week after his 74th birthday, Crandall received the nation's highest military honor Monday in a White House
ceremony with President Bush.
"I'm still here," he said of his 41-year-wait for the Medal of Honor. "Most of these awards are posthumous, so I can't
complain."
Crandall's actions in the November 1965 Battle at Ia Drang Valley were depicted in the Hollywood movie "We Were
Soldiers," adapted from the book "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young."
At the time, Crandall was a major commanding a company of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division
(Airmobile).
"We had the first airmobile division ... the first one to use aircraft as a means of transportation and sustaining combat,"
Crandall said. His unit was put together earlier that year to go to Vietnam and "wasn't as thought out as things are today."
He didn't have gunners for his aircraft. That's why he flew unarmed helicopters into the battlefield.
He didn't have night vision equipment and other later technology that lessens the danger of flying.
The unit had "minimum resources and almost no administrative people" thus the lack of help to do the reams of
paperwork that had to be sent to Washington for the highest medals, Crandall said.
Generals in-theater could approve nothing higher than the Distinguished Flying Cross, Crandall said in a phone interview
from his home near Bremerton, Wash, so he received that award. Through the years, he was able to get that upgraded to
a Distinguished Service Cross and now to the Medal of Honor.
Crandall was leading a group of 16 helicopters in support of the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment
the regiment led by George Armstrong Custer when he met his end at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, or "Custer's
Last Stand."
Without Crandall's actions, the embattled men at Ia Drang would have died in much the same way "cut off, surrounded
by numerically superior forces, overrun and butchered to the last man," the infantry commander, Lt. Col. Harold Moore,
wrote in recommending Crandall for the medal.
Moore, now a retired three-star general, later wrote the book about the battle along with Joseph L. Galloway, a former war
correspondent now with McClatchy Newspapers.
"This unit, taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, out of water and fast running out of ammunition, was
engaged in one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam war against a relentlessly attacking, highly motivated, vastly superior
force," said U.S. Army documents supporting Crandall's medal. The U.S. forces were up against two regiments of North
Vietnamese Army infantry, "determined to overrun and annihilate them," the documents said.
The fighting became so intense that the helicopter landing zone for delivering and resupplying troops was closed, and a
unit assigned to medical evacuation duties refused to fly. Crandall volunteered for the mission and with wingman and
longtime friend Maj. Ed Freeman made flight after flight over three days to deliver water, ammunition and medical
supplies. They are credited with saving more than 70 wounded soldiers by flying them out to safety, and Freeman
received the Medal of Honor in July 2001.
Paperwork and other parts of the process delayed Crandall's medal until now, officials said.
Thinking back to the Vietnam battle, Crandall remembers the first day was "very long ... we were in the air for 14 and a
half hours." He also thinks of how impressive and calm the unit on the ground remained, saying Moore and his
commanders were "solid as rocks" throughout the fight.
And of course, Crandall says, he's also proud of his own performance.
"I'm so proud that I didn't screw it up," he said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254726,00.html#ixzz1ERLfCJFM

These are some comments, based on my limited experience, on a Leader's:


- Preparations for battlefield leadership
- My own philosophy on the conduct of a leader in battle

Preparations: Could fill a book. Only a few items:

1. Read military history. Read small unit actions. Personality of a big battle is often
formed by a small unit action
2. Visit historic battlefields with maps, books in hand.
3. Install the WILL TO WIN in your unit. No 2nd place trophies in trophy cases.
4. Build unit discipline, teamwork. A team of fighters
5. Prepare your unit for your death (or being gravely wounded and evacuated) and for
your subordinate leader's loss also. A Squad Leader must be ready to command a
platoon or the company. PRACTICE THIS!
6. Squad leaders and Fire Team leaders must know how to adjust artillery/mortar fire.
Live fire is not always necessary. You can do this with marbles and a sandtable; or
golf balls and a small piece of ground.
7. Prepare for wounded men yelling for "Medic" or screaming for "Mom". Practice
reducing the enemy fire and neutralizing it BEFORE going out for the wounded.
Train for this. It will happen.

Next, Conduct in battle, Four Principles:

1. The first is "Three strikes and you're NOT out!". Two things a leader can do.
Either contaminate his environment and his unit with his attitude and actions, or he
can inspire confidence.
o Must be visible on the battlefield. Must be in the battle. Battalion
Commander on down - Brigade and Division Commander on occasion. Self
confident. Positive attitude. Must exhibit his determination to prevail no
matter what the odds or how desperate the situation. Must have and display
the WILL TO WIN by his actions, his words, his tone of voice on the radio
and face to face, his appearance, his demeanor, his countenance, the look in
his eyes. He must remain calm and cool. NO fear. Must ignore the noise,
dust, smoke, explosions, screams of the wounded, the yells, the dead lying
around him. That is all NORMAL!
o Must never give off any hint or evidence that he is uncertain about a positive
outcome, even in the most desperate of situations.
o Again, the principle which must be driven into your own head and the heads
of your men is:
Three strikes and you're NOT out!

2. And the corollary principle which is inter-reactive with that one is:
o There is always one more thing you can do to influence any situation in your
favor - and after that one more thing - and after that one more thing, etc.,
etc.
o In battle, I periodically detached myself mentally for a few seconds from the
noise, the screams of the wounded, the explosions, the yelling, the smoke
and dust, the intensity of it all and asked myself"

"What am I doing that I SHOULD NOT be doing, and what am I not


doing that I SHOULD BE DOING to influence the situation in my
favor?

3. The third principle is: "When there is nothing wrong - there's nothing wrong except
- THERE'S NOTHING WRONG! That's exactly when a leader must be most alert.

4. And finally #4. "Trust your instincts." In critical, fast moving battlefield situations,
instincts and intuition amount to an instant Estimate of the Situation. Your instincts
are the product of your education, training, reading, personality, and experience.

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

When seconds count, instincts and decisiveness come into play. In quick-
developing situation, the leader must act fast, impart confidence to all around him,
must not second guess a decision - MAKE IT HAPPEN! In the process, he cannot
stand around slack-jawed when he's hit with the unexpected. He must face up to
the facts, deal with them, and MOVE ON.

My Hub
People

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Corporate
Inspiration: The 10 Leadership principles from Dick Winters
Submitted by Jan Hirsch on July 2, 2008 - 7:52am.

From BEYOND BAND OF BROTHERS: The War Memoirs of Major Dick


Winters (commander and leader of WWII 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st
Airborne Division)

By: Major Richard Dick Winters with Colonel Cole Kingseed


Berkley Caliber Publishing Group, New York

Leadership at the Point of the Bayonet


Ten Principles for Success

1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage.

2. Lead from the front. Say, Follow me! and then lead the way.

3. Stay in top physical shape--physical stamina is the root of mental toughness.

4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and
expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork.

5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their job. You cant do a
good job if you dont have a chance to use your imagination and creativity.

6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Dont wait until you get to the
top of the ridge and then make up your mind.

7. Remain humble. Dont worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority
go to your head.

8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask
yourself if you did your best.

9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. They key to a successful leader is to
earn respect--not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character.

10. Hang Tough!--Never, ever, give up.

mici forever>requiem for a soldier (band of brothers)


Requiem For A Soldier (Band Of Brothers)
Amici Forever
You never lived to see
What you gave to me
One shining dream of hope and love
Life and liberty
With a host of brave unknown soldiers
For your company, you will live forever
Here in our memory
In fields of sacrifice
Heroes paid the price
Young men who died for old men's wars
Gone to paradise
We are all one great band of brothers
And one day you'll see we can live together
When all the world is free
I wish you'd lived to see
All you gave to me
Your shining dream of hope and love
Life and liberty
We are all one great band of brothers
And one day you'll see - we can live together
When all the world is free
We were Soldiers-Sgt.MacKenzie

Send "Sgt. McKenzie" Ringtone to your Cell

Song by Joseph Kilna McKenzie

Original Scottish Version


Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

When they come a wull staun ma groon


Staun ma groon al nae be afraid

Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear


Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Ains a year say a prayer faur me


Close yir een an remember me

Nair mair shall a see the sun


For a fell tae a Germans gun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon


Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon


Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun


English Translation
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone

When they come I will stand my ground


Stand my ground Ill not be afraid

Thoughts of home take away my fear


Sweat and blood hide my veil of tears

Once a year say a prayer for me


Close your eyes and remember me

Never more shall I see the sun


For I fell to a Germans gun

Lay me down in the cold cold ground


Where before many more have gone
Lay me down in the cold cold ground

Where before many more have gone

Where before many more have gone


In memory of Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie
Seaforth Highlanders
Who along with many others gave up his life
So that we can live free

We will remember them


NEWS

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HOME / NEWS / LOCAL /

The Battle of Ia Drang: Joe Galloway's first-hand


account
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Credit: Courtesy Joe Galloway and the Hal Moore family

Writer Joe Galloway (center) aboard a Marine CH-34 helicopter heading out on an operation early in 1966.

By Joe Galloway | Special to the Opelika-Auburn News


Published: November 14, 2010

0 Comments | Post a Comment

Sunday. The days of the week didnt mean much for soldiers or reporters in South Vietnam. They
dawned hot and clear or hot and rainy, depending on the season. The only reason I knew it was
Sunday, Nov. 14, 1965, was because the day before was my 24th birthday a birthday I spent in a
small foxhole dug under a tea bush at the Catecha Plantation, temporary headquarters of the Third
Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division.
The headquarters had come under attack the night before. A company had been called in to protect
against any repeat, although it seemed unlikely given the bloody beating the enemy had taken in
that attempt. They had charged across an open field straight into the guns of a battery of 105mm
howitzers. The gunners cranked the cannons down, loaded up with beehive rounds crammed with
thousands of tiny triangular pieces of metal sharp as razor blades, and let fly. They are horrifically
effective against targets like charging Infantrymen.
The brigade commander, Col. Tim Brown, briefed me on the plans for the day. He was sending Hal
Moores 1st Battalion 7th U.S. Cavalry on a search-and-destroy mission. His 450 men would be
airlifted into a clearing Moore had personally chosen in a fly-by earlier that morning. Brown told me
to hang around his headquarters and, if anything came of it, he would give me a ride out there. He
said it was more likely going to be a hot walk in the sun with no contact.
Before 11 a.m., the radios in Browns tent went crazy. Just as the second lift of about 100 of
Moores troops were landing, the battle had begun. This was no walk in the sun.
When Brown headed toward his command helicopter, I fell in behind him. We flew the 17 miles to
the battleground. It was easy to find: Smoke was rising thousands of feet into the air over LZ Xray.
Moore had been given only 16 Huey helicopters to lift his battalion into Xray, and at this point, he
had less than half his men on the ground. It was a commanders worst nightmare. Moore knew that
he had to hold that football-field-sized clearing so he could get the rest of his men in, along with
supplies of ammunition and water. He knew he would also need the helicopters to get his wounded
to medical care in the rear. He ordered the troops to push out from the clearing toward the mountain
and hold the enemy off the landing zone.
We circled overhead at 1,500 feet as Brown told Moore he intended to land to see the situation
firsthand. Moore replied that if he landed that command chopper with its unusual array of radio
antennae, the enemy would shoot it full of holes and Brown might lose his ride home. That may
have been so, but it was certain that Moore did not want his boss looking over his shoulder as he
fought this battle.
Brown reluctantly ordered his pilot away from the battlefield. He keyed the intercom and told me he
would drop me at Landing Zone Falcon, where a battery of field artillery was shooting in support
of Moore. I could get a ride to Xray from there, he said.
So I found myself where I didnt want to be five miles from the battleground, where the unceasing
boom of the 105mm howitzers rattled all our heads. Worse yet, there were no rides heading to Xray,
and the few incoming helicopters brought in five or six other reporters, including my nemesis Peter
Arnett of The Associated Press. We watched each other like hawks; if one of us got in and the other
didnt, it would be a personal and professional disaster.
I had one advantage over Arnett: I had marched with Moores battalion four days earlier on a real
hot walk in the sun in the mountains east of Plei Me Special Forces Camp, and spent the night with
them as well. Late that Sunday afternoon, I spotted Capt. Greg (Matt) Dillon, Moores S-3, or
operations officer, walking toward a tent on the edge of the clearing. I slipped away from the other
reporters and grabbed him: Matt, I need a ride to the fight. He told me that he was going in as
soon as it was dark with two Hueys full of ammunition and water, but he couldnt take me
unless Moore said so. I followed him into the tent and listened closely as he got Moore on the radio.
He reported on his plan and who and what he would be bringing, and then added: Oh yeah.
That reporter Galloway wants to come in with me. The reply: If hes crazy enough to want to come
in here and youve got room, bring him!
Then it was a waiting game. I hid behind that tent and watched the other reporters. As night drew
near, they gave up the chase and caught a chopper back to Pleiku. When it was good and dark, I
stepped onto a Huey piloted by Maj. Bruce Crandall, aka Old Snake, and got a ride into Hell, and
into the pages of history.
The two Hueys were blacked out as we flew into the valley, and as we prepared to drop down to
treetop level for the final approach, I spotted a snaking, long line of tiny lights flickering in the
darkness. At first, I thought it was muzzle flashes and the enemy was shooting at us. Then it was
clear that these little lights were being used by enemy reinforcements coming down the mountain to
join the fight.

Crandall dropped the Huey into the tall grass in the landing zone, and we all bailed out, grabbing
crates of ammo and plastic 5-gallon jugs of water and throwing them out. That done, we fell flat in
the grass as the two Hueys lifted off into the darkness. As the sound of the chopper blades faded,
we heard a deep voice: Follow me and I will take you to the colonel. Watch where you step
theres a lot of bodies around here, and theyre all ours.
We had just been welcomed to the battle by Sgt. Maj. Basil L. Plumley, a legendary paratrooper
who had made all four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne in World War II Sicily, Salerno,
Normandy and Holland and one combat jump in Korea with the 187th Regimental Combat Team.
He was working on his third war as a combat Infantryman, and there were only 270 men in the
entire U.S. Army who could claim that distinction.
After a brief welcome by Lt. Col. Moore, I sat with my back to a small tree, my cameras and my M-
16 rifle in my lap, and felt like the luckiest man alive: I had an exclusive seat at the biggest battle of
the war, and Pete Arnett didnt.
Day two:
That first night passed slowly in LZ Xray, punctuated with small North Vietnamese probes around
the perimeter in attempts to force American machine guns to open up and thus reveal their
positions. The experienced sergeants, and Lt. Col. Hal Moore, warned the troops not to fall for such
an old trick. Fire discipline held for the most part. Hand grenades are the best answer for such
probes.
Lt. Col. Bob Barkers battery of 105 mm howitzers in LZ Falcon kept us warm that night, firing H&I
(harassment and interdiction) missions out in front of the thin American line around the grassy
clearing and on the nearby slopes of the Chu Pong Massif, which loomed over Xray and ran some
10 miles into Cambodia.
The fate of Lt. Henry T. Herricks platoon weighed heavily on Moores mind. Herrick, now dead, had
led his 29 men on a chase after two North Vietnamese they spotted as they were moving up to
join Bravo Company on the right flank Sunday afternoon. The sergeants tried to call off Herricks
chase, but he raced right into an enemy ambush. Within the first hour, Herrick had been fatally
wounded, as were two sergeants. A 21-year-old buck sergeant, Earnie Savage of Birmingham, was
suddenly in command of the Herrick platoon.
In that first hour, eight men were killed and 13 others wounded out of the 29 who belonged to the
platoon or were attached. Savage grabbed Herricks radio handset and began calling artillery fire
down around them as close as possible. For the next agonizing 26 hours, that small band
of Americans was trapped by a ring of hundreds of enemy fighters determined to kill them all. Two
men Sgt. Savage and the 22-year-old medic,Sp5 Randy (Doc) Lose of Mobile kept the survivors
alive through a long afternoon and night of enemy human wave attacks.
In a desperate attempt to break through to the trapped platoon, two of Moores
companies, Alpha and Bravo, launched an attack straight into hundreds more enemy troops ringing
the LZ. Dozens of Americans were killed; more were wounded. Lt. Walter J. (Joe) Marm earned a
Medal of Honor in that attack, personally taking out a North Vietnamese machine gun position with
hand grenades and his M-16 rifle.
Hal Moore wanted them back, and shortly after dawn of Day Two, he alerted his company
commanders to come to his makeshift command post behind a big termite mound to receive orders
for a three-company assault to rescue the trapped platoon. But the jungle around the clearing was
too quiet, and that alone made Moore suspicious. He asked all the companies to send out small
patrols to scout forward of their positions.
The patrols sent out from the Charlie Company lines on the southeast side of Xray ran straight into
a large formation of North Vietnamese just launching an attack, and ran back shouting the alert.
That side of the clearing literally exploded. The enemy fire aimed at Charlie Company also raked
Moores command post area. I rolled away from my little tree and went flat on my belly. We had no
foxholes. The red dirt near the termite hill was hard as concrete.
Things were a lot worse for Charlie Company. A North Vietnamese battalion shot its way into the
positions of two of Capt. Bob Edwards platoons, killing or wounding a majority of both. Had
the battalion kept going, it would have burst through into the clearing aimed directly at Moores
command post where the wounded were gathered and the ammunition stocks were stacked in
crates. But the enemy soldiers paused to shoot the wounded and loot the fallen Americans of their
watches and wallets, and that was a fatal move, as our artillery began to fall on them, blunting the
attack.
As I lay there on the ground wondering if I had done the right thing joining the 7th Cavalry Col.
George Custers old outfit in a position surrounded by a vastly larger number of enemies in a river
valley, I felt a thump in my ribs and very carefully turned my head to see what it was. What I saw
was a large combat boot on the foot of Sgt. Maj. Plumley as he bent at the waist and, grinning,
hollered at me over the din of battle: You cant take no pictures laying down there on the ground,
Sonny! He was right, of course, and I got up and followed that grizzled veteran as he ignored all the
lead in the air and made his rounds collecting a small reserve force to defend the command post, if
necessary. He walked up to the battalion surgeon, Capt. Robert Carrara, and the medical
platoon Sgt. Thomas Keeton and, drawing his .45-caliber pistol, jacked a round into the chamber
and yelled: Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!
When the attack began, Moore ordered Capt. Dillon to bring down all the artillery and airpower he
could pull the chain on. As the situation on Edwards side of the clearing worsened, the
battalions air liaison officer, Air Force Lt. Charlie Hastings, keyed his mike and made a desperate
call: Broken Arrow! Broken Arrow! That call translated to: American unit in danger of being
overrun! Send all air assets to its relief. Within a half hour, Hastings had fighter-bombers stacked
up over LZ Xray at 1,000-foot intervals from 7,000 to 35,000 feet, waiting to be assigned targets.
It was not yet 8 a.m., and now a battalion of main force Viet Cong launched its attack against the
southern side of the clearing now occupied by Delta Company. Almost anywhere else would have
been a better choice for the enemy. Delta Company had its own six M60 machine guns plus another
three picked up on the battlefield. Each gun had a four-man crew and 6,000 rounds of ammo. They
were loaded for bear. In one foxhole, Sp.4 Will Parish, 24, had one of those M60s, and when the
enemy rose out of the grass and came at him in waves, Parish used all his machine gun ammo and
then stood with a .45 pistol in each hand and fought on until what was left of the attackers fell back.
Parish earned a righteous Silver Star that morning after more than 100 dead enemy soldiers were
found heaped in a broad semi-circle around his position.
Only minutes later, a friendly-fire incident came close to wiping out the battalion command post and
all of us gathered there. We had moved behind the termite mound to put some cover between us
and the hail of bullets coming from the south and southeast. I suddenly heard Moore shouting at Lt.
Hastings: Call that SOB off! Call him off! I saw a pair of F-100 Supersabre jets making a run
directly at us. The lead plane had just released two napalm canisters. Moore was trying to stop the
second jet from releasing its napalm cans on us as well. Hastings was screaming into his mike: Pull
Up! Pull Up! The second plane pulled up and away, but it was clear we would have to eat the two
cans already inbound, loblollying end over end. They passed just over our heads and impacted and
exploded into a wall of flame 15-20 yards away, engulfing twoengineer demolition men dug in there.
Instantly those men PFC Jimmy D. Nakayama and Sp5 James Clark were dancing in the fire,
screaming. I jumped up and ran into the burning grass. Someone shouted for me to grab
Nakayamas legs and help haulhim to the aid station. Across the clearing, Sp4 Thomas Burlile was
running to help when an enemy sniper shot him. Burlile, who had turned 23 four days earlier, died in
the arms of his company commander.
The medics hit both the badly burned soldiers with the maximum dose of morphine, but their
screams rang out over the noise of battle for what seemed like an eternity. They were evacuated,
but Nakayama died two days later, on Nov. 17. His wife, Trudy, gave birth that same week to their
only child, a daughter, Nikki.
In the fall of 2002, Jimmy Nakayamas widow and daughter came to Washington, D.C., during one
of our Ia Drang reunions. The three of us sat for over three hours talking, laughing and
crying. Jimmy and Trudy had been high school sweethearts back in Rigby, Idaho. Nikki, then 37,
had two young sons of her own.

Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley


In 1965, the grade of "Command" Sergeant Major did not exist.

Plumley was one of the senior Sergeants-Major in the Army. He


and Moore served together as Sergeant-Major and Commander for
over two years at Fort Benning and in Vietnam.

Plumley made all four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne in
World War II and one in Korea. One of a handful of living men to
receive three awards of the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the list
of his awards and decorations, starting with two Silver Stars, fill
half a page - typed single space.

When the Department of the Army created the rank of Command


Sergeant Major, the first promotion board reviewed the eligible
population of Sergeants Major in three increments with a
promotion list being published at the conclusion of each
increment. CSM Plumley was on the promotion list published at
the conclusion of the third increment and promoted 1968.

To this day, there are veterans of the 1/7 CAV who are convinced
that God may look like CSM Plumley, but HE is not nearly as
tough as the Sergeant Major on sins small or large.

For more information on the history of the NCO in the US Army,


visit NCOhistory.com
So Paulo, segunda-feira, 21 de maro de 2011

Texto Anterior | Prximo Texto | ndice | Comunicar Erros

ANLISE OBAMA NO BRASIL

Segurana oficial e simpatia do casal


roubam ateno
At camisa do Flamengo, cujo campo foi usado pelo helicptero
de Obama, foi considerada ameaadora

JANIO DE FREITAS
COLUNISTA DA FOLHA

O segundo ato importante de Barack Obama no Brasil, sendo o


primeiro sua conversa reservada com Dilma Rousseff, esperava-
se ser o discurso pblico previsto para a Cinelndia e reduzido a
discurso reservado a convidados no Theatro Municipal.
Se a plateia correspondeu ao privilgio do convite, com os
aplausos apropriados, o papel de Obama no exige muito rigor
para ser descrito assim: um discurso de churrascaria.
Salvou-se uma frase, talvez, pela retrica: "Quando se acende
uma luz de liberdade, o planeta fica mais iluminado". Ao que,
dada a seleo dos convidados, no houve um maldoso que
indagasse: "Por isso, tome de luzes com bombas e foguetes?" No
mais, Barack Obama parece ter utilizado o ato no Municipal para
oferecer uma sntese da motivao perceptvel de sua visita:
"Vejam como eu sou simptico".
Para uma visita que devesse dar novo sentido s relaes de
Brasil e Estados Unidos, no por causa de duas ou trs
contrariedades causadas Casa Branca por Lula, mas por sempre,
a misso de Obama fez muito pouco. Se fez algo, no divulgado
at agora das suas conversas com Dilma Rousseff.
Do que se sabe, o melhor ficou com a presidente. Pela
objetividade com que destacou, j que o palavrrio visitante
tanto se referia a relaes de colaborao, o tratamento
prejudicial dado pelo governo dos Estados Unidos a um punhado
de produtos da exportao brasileira (tratamento discriminatrio
mesmo em desobedincia a julgamento da Organizao Mundial
de Comrcio).
A frase mais repetida a respeito de Barack Obama, nos meios de
comunicao brasileiros, a que o define como "o homem mais
poderoso do mundo". possvel.
Mas a suave Patrcia Amorim -uma lio feminina de como dirigir
com honestidade e competncia um grande clube de futebol- no
poderia sequer presentear Obama, cujo helicptero usou o
campo do Flamengo, com uma camisa do time.
A "segurana" de Obama tinha considerado a camisa to
ameaadora quanto uma pessoa ter qualquer coisa na mo, ao se
aproximar do presidente. Patrcia foi vestida com a camisa.
o homem mais poderoso ou o mais frgil? (Em tempo: Patrcia
Amorim no respondeu, como poderia, que, se a camisa e mesmo
ela so to perigosos, Obama que baixasse em outro lugar, no
mais no Flamengo).
O pior da "segurana" em propores estpidas que os locais a
tomam como eficincia em nvel mximo e exemplar.
H anos, se um avio com o presidente brasileiro est em voo, o
trfego areo alterado, como se tambm aqui o avio
presidencial estivesse sob risco de ataque da Al Qaeda.
De uma visita que fez tantos esperarem tanto, com as pretensas
antecipaes de numerosos tratados, o "esquema de segurana"
foi o que mais atraiu ateno.
E, claro, a simpatia do casal. qual o "glamour" da jovem senhora
d, esta sim, uma boa segurana.

Prdio de complexo residencial do ditador Muamar Kadafi foi atingido por mssil
TRPOLI - A fora de coalizo retomou nas ltimas horas ataques sobre Trpoli, capital da
Lbia, e um dos alvos foi o complexo residencial do ditador Muamar Kadafi, no distrito de
Bab el Aziziya. Segundo informou a agncia de notcias AFP, um prdio administrativo foi
parcialmente destrudo por um mssil.
Foto liberada pelo exrcito americano mostra momento em que embacaro dispara mssil Tomahawk contra alvos na
Lbia
Foto: AP
A bomb from an allied aircraft exploded among vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi during an
airstrike Sunday.
A rebel emptied the pockets of a dead African soldier who had been fighting with Qaddafi's forces

An injured captured soldier loyal to Col. Qaddafi is interrogated by a rebel soldier at the Jalaa hospital in Benghazi.
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SCANDAL

Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy


Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as
head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation,
bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month.
Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy SEAL takes the author inside his operation in the U.S.
and Afghanistan, revealing the role hes been playing in Americas war on terror.
By Adam Ciralsky

January 2010

Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater security firm (recently renamed Xe), at the companys Virginia
offices. Photograph by Nigel Parry.
I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.s disposal for some very risky missions, says Erik

Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North
Carolina. But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.
Princethe founder of Blackwater, the worlds most notorious private military contractoris
royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent.
Erik Prince has an image problemthe kind thats impervious to a Madison Avenue makeover.
The 40-year-old heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, and a former navySEAL, he has had the
distinction of being vilified recently both in life and in art. In Washington, Prince has become a
scapegoat for some of the Bush administrations misadventures in Iraqthough Blackwaters
own deeds have also come in for withering criticism. Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights
groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue
fighting force capable of toppling governments. His employees have been repeatedly accused of
using excessive, even deadly force in Iraq; many Iraqis, in fact, have died during encounters
with Blackwater. And in November, as a North Carolina grand jury was considering a raft of
charges against the company, as a half-dozen civil suits were brewing in Virginia, and as five
former Blackwater staffers were preparing for trial for their roles in the deaths of 17 Iraqis, The
New York Times reported in a page-one story that Princes firm, in the aftermath of the tragedy,
had sought to bribe Iraqi officials for their compliance, charges which Prince calls lies
undocumented, unsubstantiated [and] anonymous. (So infamous is the Blackwater brand that
even the Taliban have floated far-fetched conspiracy theories, accusing the company of
engaging in suicide bombings in Pakistan.)

In Hollywood, meanwhile, a town that loves nothing so much as a good villain, Prince, with his
blond crop and Daniel Craig mien, has become the screenwriters darling. In the film State of
Play, a Blackwater clone (PointCorp.) uses its network of mercenaries for illegal surveillance
and murder. On the Fox series 24, Jon Voight has played Jonas Hodges, a thinly veiled version
of Prince, whose company (Starkwood) helps an African warlord procure nerve gas for use
against U.S. targets.
But the truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction. For the past six
years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwaters
C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.s bidding, helping to
craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into denied areas
places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetratingto assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda
members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been
working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than
$1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009by acting, among other things, as
an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officialsPrince became a Mr.
Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his
indefatigable ambitionthe very attributes that have galvanized his criticsalso made him
extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence. (Full disclosure: In the 1990s, before
becoming a journalist for CBS and then NBC News, I was a C.I.A. attorney. My contract was not
renewed, under contentious circumstances.)

But Prince, with a new administration in power, and foes closing in, is finally coming in from
the cold. This past fall, though he infrequently grants interviews, he decided it was time to tell
his side of the storyto respond to the array of accusations, to reveal exactly what he has been
doing in the shadows of the U.S. government, and to present his rationale. He also hoped to
convey why hes going to walk away from it all.

To that end, he invited Vanity Fair to his training camp in North Carolina, to his Virginia
offices, and to his Afghan outposts. It seemed like a propitious time to tag along.

Split Personality
Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind aroundan amalgam of contradictory
caricatures. He has been branded a Christian supremacist who sanctions the murder of Iraqi
civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in
Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing
political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a
practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusiveHoward Hughes
without the O.C.D.he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach
running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.

The common denominator is a relentless intensity that seems to have no Off switch. Seated in
the back of a Boeing 777 en route to Afghanistan, Prince leafs through Defense News while the
film Taken beams from the in-flight entertainment system. In the movie, Liam Neeson plays a
retired C.I.A. officer who mounts an aggressive rescue effort after his daughter is kidnapped in
Paris. Neesons character warns his daughters captors:
If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I dont have money. But what I do have are a very
particular set of skills skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you [dont] let
my daughter go now I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Prince comments, I used that movie as a teaching tool for my girls. (The father of seven,
Prince remarried after his first wife died of cancer in 2003.) I wanted them to understand the
dangers out there. And I wanted them to know how I would respond.

You cant escape the impression that Prince sees himself as somehow destined, his mission
anointed. It comes out even in the most personal of stories. During the flight, he tells of being in
Kabul in September 2008 and receiving a two a.m. call from his wife, Joanna. Princes son
Charlie, one year old at the time, had fallen into the family swimming pool. Charlies brother
Christian, then 12, pulled him out of the water, purple and motionless, and successfully
performed CPR. Christian and three siblings, it turns out, had recently received Red Cross
certification at the Blackwater training camp.

But there are intimations of a higher power at work as the story continues. Desperate to get
home, Prince scrapped one itinerary, which called for a stay-over at the Marriott in Islamabad,
and found a direct flight. That night, at the time Prince would have been checking in, terrorists
struck the hotel with a truck bomb, killing more than 50. Prince says simply, Christian saved
Charlies life and Charlie saved mine. At times, his sense of his own place in history can border
on the evangelical. When pressed about suggestions that hes a mercenarya term he loathes
he rattles off the names of other freelance military figures, even citing Lafayette, the colonists
ally during the Revolutionary War.

Princes default mode is one of readiness. He is clenched-jawed and tightly wound. He cannot
stand down. Waiting in the security line at Dulles airport just hours before, Prince had delivered
a little homily: Every time an American goes through security, I want them to pause for a
moment and think, What is my government doing to inconvenience the terrorists? Rendition
teams, Predator drones, assassination squads. Thats all part of it.

Such brazenness is not lost on a listener, nor is the fact that Prince himself is quite familiar with
some of these tactics. In fact Prince, like other contractors, has drawn fire for running a
company that some call a body shopmany of its staffers having departed military or
intelligence posts to take similar jobs at much higher salaries, paid mainly by Uncle Sam. And to
get those jobs doneprotecting, defending, and killing, if requiredPrince has had to employ
the services of some decorated vets as well as some ruthless types, snipers and spies among
them.

Erik Prince flies coach internationally. Its not just economical (Why should I pay for business?
Fly coach, you arrive at the same time) but also less likely to draw undue attention. He
considers himself a marked man. Prince describes the diplomats and dignitaries Blackwater
protects as Al Jazeeraworthy, meaning that, in his view, bin Laden and his acolytes would
love to kill them in a spectacular fashion and have it broadcast on televisions worldwide.

Stepping off the plane at Kabuls international airport, Prince is treated as if he, too, were Al
Jazeeraworthy. He is immediately shuffled into a waiting car and driven 50 yards to a second
vehicle, a beat-up minivan that is native to the core: animal pelts on the dashboard, prayer card
dangling from the rearview mirror. Blackwaters special-projects team is responsible for
Princes security in-country, and except for their language its men appear indistinguishable
from Afghans. They have full beards, headscarves, and traditional knee-length shirts over baggy
trousers. They remove Princes sunglasses, fit him out with body armor, and have him change
into Afghan garb. Prince is issued a homing beacon that will track his movements, and a cell
phone with its speed dial programmed for Blackwaters tactical-operations center.

Prince in the tactical-operations center at a company base in Kabul.Photograph by Adam Ferguson.

Once in the van, Princes team gives him a security briefing. Using satellite photos of the area,
they review the route to Blackwaters compound and point out where weapons and ammunition
are stored inside the vehicle. The men warn him that in the event that they are incapacitated or
killed in an ambush Prince should assume control of the weapons and push the red button near
the emergency brake, which will send out a silent alarm and call in reinforcements.

Black Hawks and Zeppelins


Blackwaters origins were humble, bordering on the primordial. The company took form in the
dismal peat bogs of Moyock, North Carolinanot exactly a hotbed of the defense-contracting
world.
In 1995, Princes father, Edgar, died of a heart attack (the Evangelical James C. Dobson, founder
of the socially conservative Focus on the Family, delivered the eulogy at the funeral). Edgar
Prince left behind a vibrant auto-parts manufacturing business in Holland, Michigan, with
4,500 employees and a line of products ranging from a lighted sun visor to a programmable
garage-door opener. At the time, 25-year-old Erik was serving as a navy SEAL (he saw service in
Haiti, the Middle East, and Bosnia), and neither he nor his sisters were in a position to take over
the business. They sold Prince Automotive for $1.35 billion.

Erik Prince and some of his navy friends, it so happens, had been kicking around the idea of
opening a full-service training compound to replace the usual patchwork of such facilities. In
1996, Prince took an honorable discharge and began buying up land in North Carolina. The
idea was not to be a defense contractor per se, Prince says, touring the grounds of what looks
and feels like a Disneyland for alpha males. I just wanted a first-rate training facility for law
enforcement, the military, and, in particular, the special-operations community.

Business was slow. The navy SEALs came earlyJanuary 1998but they didnt come often, and
by the time the Blackwater Lodge and Training Center officially opened, that May, Princes
friends and advisers thought he was throwing good money after bad. A lot of people said, This
is a rich kids hunting lodge, Prince explains. They could not figure out what I was doing.

Blackwater outpost near the Pakistan border, used for training Afghan police. Photograph by Adam Ferguson.

Today, the site is the flagship for a network of facilities that train some 30,000 attendees a year.
Prince, who owns an unmanned, zeppelin-esque airship and spent $45 million to build a fleet of
customized, bomb-proof armored personnel carriers, often commutes to the lodge by air,
piloting a Cessna Caravan from his home in Virginia. The training center has a private landing
strip. Its hangars shelter a petting zoo of aircraft: Bell 412 helicopters (used to tail or shuttle
diplomats in Iraq), Black Hawk helicopters (currently being modified to accommodate the
security requests of a Gulf State client), a Dash 8 airplane (the type that ferries troops in
Afghanistan). Amid the 52 firing ranges are virtual villages designed for addressing every
conceivable real-world threat: small town squares, littered with blown-up cars, are situated near
railway crossings and maritime mock-ups. At one junction, SWAT teams fire handguns, sniper
rifles, and shotguns; at another, police officers tear around the worlds longest tactical-driving
track, dodging simulated roadside bombs.
In keeping with the companys original name, the central complex, constructed of stone, glass,
concrete, and logs, actually resembles a lodge, an REI store on steroids. Here and there are
distinctive touches, such as door handles crafted from imitation gun barrels. Where other
companies might have Us Weekly lying about the lobby, Blackwater has counterterror
magazines with cover stories such as How to Destroy Al Qaeda.

In fact, it was al-Qaeda that put Blackwater on the map. In the aftermath of the groups October
2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, in Yemen, the navy turned to Prince, among others, for help
in re-training its sailors to fend off attackers at close range. (To date, the company says, it has
put some 125,000 navy personnel through its programs.) In addition to providing a cash
infusion, the navy contract helped Blackwater build a database of retired military menmany of
them special-forces veteranswho could be called upon to serve as instructors.

When al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. mainland on 9/11, Prince says, he was struck with the urge to
either re-enlist or join the C.I.A. He says he actually applied. I was rejected, he admits,
grinning at the irony of courting the very agency that would later woo him. They said I didnt
have enough hard skills, enough time in the field. Undeterred, he decided to turn his Rolodex
into a roll call for what would in essence become a private army.

After the terror attacks, Princes company toiled, even reveled, in relative obscurity, taking on
assignments in Afghanistan and, after the U.S. invasion, in Iraq. Then came March 31, 2004.
That was the day insurgents ambushed four of its employees in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. The
men were shot, their bodies set on fire by a mob. The charred, hacked-up remains of two of
them were left hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates.

It was absolutely gut-wrenching, Prince recalls. I had been in the military, and no one under
my command had ever died. At Blackwater, we had never even had a firearms training accident.
Now all of a sudden four of my guys arent just killed, but desecrated. Three months later an
edict from coalition authorities in Baghdad declared private contractors immune from Iraqi law.

Subsequently, the contractors families sued Blackwater, contending the company had failed to
protect their loved ones. Blackwater countersued the families for breaching contracts that forbid
the men or their estates from filing such lawsuits; the company also claimed that, because it
operates as an extension of the military, it cannot be held responsible for deaths in a war zone.
(After five years, the case remains unresolved.) In 2007, a congressional investigation into the
incident concluded that the employees had been sent into an insurgent stronghold without
sufficient preparation, resources, and support. Blackwater called the report a one-sided
version of a tragic incident.

After Fallujah, Blackwater became a household name. Its primary mission in Iraq had been to
protect American dignitaries, and it did so, in part, by projecting an image of invincibility,
sending heavily armed men in armored Suburbans racing through the streets of Baghdad with
sirens blaring. The show of swagger and firepower, which alienated both the locals and the U.S.
military, helped contribute to the allegations of excessive force. As the war dragged on, charges
against the firm mounted. In one case, a contractor shot and killed an Iraqi father of six who
was standing along the roadside in Hillah. (Prince later told Congress that the contractor was
fired for trying to cover up the incident.) In another, a Blackwater firearms technician was
accused of drinking too much at a party in the Green Zone and killing a bodyguard assigned to
protect Iraqs vice president. The technician was fired but not prosecuted and later settled a
wrongful-death suit with the mans family.

Those episodes, however, paled in comparison with the events of September 16, 2007, when a
phalanx of Blackwater bodyguards emerged from their four-car convoy at a Baghdad
intersection called Nisour Square and opened fire. When the smoke cleared, 17 Iraqi civilians
lay dead. After 15 months of investigation, the Justice Department charged six with voluntary
manslaughter and other offenses, insisting that the use of force was not only unjustified but
unprovoked. One guard pleaded guilty and, in a trial set for February, is expected to testify
against the others, all of whom maintain their innocence. The New York Times recently
reported that in the wake of the shootings the companys top executives authorized secret
payments of about $1 million to Iraqi higher-ups in order to buy their silencea claim Prince
dismisses as false, insisting [there was] zero plan or discussion of bribing any officials.

Nisour Square had disastrous repercussions for Blackwater. Its role in Iraq was curtailed, its
revenue dropping 40 percent. Today, Prince claims, he is shelling out $2 million a month in
legal fees to cope with a spate of civil lawsuits as well as what he calls a giant proctological
exam by nearly a dozen federal agencies. We used to spend money on R&D to develop better
capabilities to serve the U.S. government, says Prince. Now we pay lawyers.

Does he ever. In North Carolina, a federal grand jury is investigating various allegations,
including the illegal transport of assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in dog-food
sacks. (Blackwater denied this, but confirmed hiding weapons on pallets of dog food to protect
against theft by corrupt foreign customs agents.) In Virginia, two ex-employees have filed
affidavits claiming that Prince and Blackwater may have murdered or ordered the murder of
people suspected of cooperating with U.S. authorities investigating the companycharges
which Blackwater has characterized as scandalous and baseless. One of the men also asserted
in filings that company employees ran a sex and wife-swapping ring, allegations which
Blackwater has called anonymous, unsubstantiated and offensive.

Meanwhile, last February, Prince mounted an expensive rebranding campaign. Following the
infamous ValuJet crash, in 1996, ValuJet disappeared into AirTran, after a merger, and moved
on to a happy new life. Prince, likewise, decided to retire the Blackwater name and replace it
with the name Xe, short for Xenonan inert, non-combustible gas that, in keeping with his
political leanings, sits on the far right of the periodic table. Still, Prince and other top company
officials continued to use the name Blackwater among themselves. And as events would soon
prove, the companys reputation would remain as combustible as ever.

Prince at a Kandahar airfield. Photograph Adam Ferguson.

Spies and Whispers


Last June, C.I.A. director Leon Panetta met in a closed session with the House and Senate
intelligence committees to brief them on a covert-action program, which the agency had long
concealed from Congress. Panetta explained that he had learned of the existence of the
operation only the day before and had promptly shut it down. The reason, C.I.A. spokesman
Paul Gimigliano now explains: It hadnt taken any terrorists off the street. During the
meeting, according to two attendees, Panetta named both Erik Prince and Blackwater as key
participants in the program. (When asked to verify this account, Gimigliano notes that Director
Panetta treats as confidential discussions with Congress that take place behind closed doors.)
Soon thereafter, Prince says, he began fielding inquisitive calls from people he characterizes as
far outside the circle of trust.

It took three weeks for details, however sketchy, to surface. In July, The Wall Street
Journal described the program as an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to
capture or kill al Qaeda operatives. The agency reportedly planned to accomplish this task by
dispatching small hit teams overseas. Lawmakers, who couldnt exactly quibble with the
missions objective, were in high dudgeon over having been kept in the dark. (Former C.I.A.
officials reportedly saw the matter differently, characterizing the program as more aspirational
than operational and implying that it had never progressed far enough to justify briefing the
Hill.)

On August 20, the gloves came off. The New York Times published a story headlined CIA SOUGHT
BLACKWATERS HELP TO KILL JIHADISTS. The Washington Post concurred: CIA HIRED FIRM FOR
ASSASSIN PROGRAM. Prince confesses to feeling betrayed. I dont understand how a program this
sensitive leaks, he says. And to out me on top of it? The next day, theTimes went further,
revealing Blackwaters role in the use of aerial drones to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders: At
hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan the companys contractors assemble and load
Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft,
work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.

E rik Prince, almost overnight, had undergone a second rebranding of sorts, this one not of

his own making. The war profiteer had become a merchant of death, with a license to kill on the
ground and in the air. Im an easy target, he says. Im from a Republican family and I own
this company outright. Our competitors have nameless, faceless management teams.
Prince blames Democrats in Congress for the leaks and maintains that there is a double
standard at play. The left complained about how [C.I.A. operative] Valerie Plames identity was
compromised for political reasons. A special prosecutor [was even] appointed. Well, what
happened to me was worse. People acting for political reasons disclosed not only the existence
of a very sensitive program but my name along with it. As in the Plame case, though, the leaks
prompted C.I.A. attorneys to send a referral to the Justice Department, requesting that a
criminal investigation be undertaken to identify those responsible for providing highly classified
information to the media.

By focusing so intently on Blackwater, Congress and the press overlooked the elephant in the
room. Prince wasnt merely a contractor; he was, insiders say, a full-blown asset. Three sources
with direct knowledge of the relationship say that the C.I.A.s National Resources Division
recruited Prince in 2004 to join a secret network of American citizens with special skills or
unusual access to targets of interest. As assets go, Prince would have been quite a catch. He had
more cash, transport, matriel, and personnel at his disposal than almost anyone Langley would
have run in its 62-year history.

The C.I.A. wont comment further on such assertions, but Prince himself is slightly more
forthcoming. I was looking at creating a small, focused capability, he says, just like Donovan
did years agothe reference being to William Wild Bill Donovan, who, in World War II,
served as the head of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the modern C.I.A.
(Princes youngest son, Charles Donovanthe one who fell into the poolis named after Wild
Bill.) Two sources familiar with the arrangement say that Princes handlers obtained provisional
operational approval from senior management to recruit Prince and later generated a 201 file,
which would have put him on the agencys books as a vetted asset. Its not at all clear who was
running whom, since Prince says that, unlike many other assets, he did much of his work on
spec, claiming to have used personal funds to road-test the viability of certain operations. I
grew up around the auto industry, Prince explains. Customers would say to my dad, We have
this need. He would then use his own money to create prototypes to fulfill those needs. He took
the If you build it, they will come approach.

According to two sources familiar with his work, Prince was developing unconventional means
of penetrating hard target countrieswhere the C.I.A. has great difficulty working either
because there are no stations from which to operate or because local intelligence services have
the wherewithal to frustrate the agencys designs. I made no money whatsoever off this work,
Prince contends. He is unwilling to specify the exact nature of his forays. Im painted as this
war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile Im paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support
American national security, out of my own pocket. (His pocket is deep: according to The Wall
Street Journal, Blackwater had revenues of more than $600 million in 2008.)

Clutch Cargo
The Afghan countryside, from a speeding perch at 200 knots, whizzes by in a khaki haze. The
terrain is rendered all the more nondescript by the fact that Erik Prince is riding less than 200
feet above it. The back of the airplane, a small, Spanish-built EADS CASA C-212, is open, revealing
Prince in silhouette against a blue sky. Wearing Oakleys, tactical pants, and a white polo shirt,
he looks strikingly boyish.

A Blackwater aircraft en route to drop supplies to U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan in September.Photograph by
Adam Ferguson.

As the crew chief initiates a countdown sequence, Prince adjusts his harness and moves into
position. When the go order comes, a young G.I. beside him cuts a tether, and Prince pushes a
pallet out the tail chute. Black parachutes deploy and the aircraft lunges forward from the
sudden weight differential. The cargoprovisions and munitionsdrops inside the perimeter of
a forward operating base (FOB) belonging to an elite Special Forces squad.

Five days a week, Blackwaters aviation armwith its unabashedly 60s-spook name,
Presidential Airwaysflies low-altitude sorties to some of the most remote outposts in
Afghanistan. Since 2006, Princes company has been conscripted to offer this turnkey service
for U.S. troops, flying thousands of delivery runs. Blackwater also provides security for U.S.
ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his staff, and trains narcotics and Afghan special police units.

Once back on terra firma, Prince, a BlackBerry on one hip and a 9-mm. on the other, does a
sweep around one of Blackwaters bases in northeast Afghanistan, pointing out buildings
recently hit by mortar fire. As a drone circles overhead, its camera presumably trained on the
surroundings, Prince climbs a guard tower and peers down at a spot where two of his
contractors were nearly killed last July by an improvised explosive device. Not counting civilian
checkpoints, he says, this is the closest base to the [Pakistani] border. His voice takes on a
melodramatic solemnity. Who else has built a FOB along the main infiltration route for the
Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden? It doesnt quite have the ring of
Lawrence of Arabias To Aqaba!, but you get the picture.

Going Low-Pro
Blackwater has been in Afghanistan since 2002. At the time, the C.I.A.s executive director, A. B.
Buzzy Krongard, responding to his operatives complaints of being worried sick about the
Afghans coming over the fence or opening the doors, enlisted the company to offer protection
for the agencys Kabul station. Going low-pro, or low-profile, paid off: not a single C.I.A.
employee, according to sources close to the company, died in Afghanistan while under
Blackwaters protection. (Talk about a tight-knit bunch. Krongard would later serve as an
unpaid adviser to Blackwaters board, until 2007. And his brother Howard Cookie Krongard
the State Departments inspector generalhad to recuse himself from Blackwater-related
oversight matters after his brothers involvement with the company surfaced. Buzzy, in
response, stepped down.)

As the agencys confidence in Blackwater grew, so did the companys responsibilities, expanding
from static protection to mobile securityshadowing agency personnel, ever wary of suicide
bombers, ambushes, and roadside devices, as they moved about the country. By 2005,
Blackwater, accustomed to guarding C.I.A. personnel, was starting to look a little bit like the
C.I.A. itself. Enrique Ric Prado joined Blackwater after serving as chief of operations for the
agencys Counterterrorism Center (CTC). A short time later, Prados boss, J. Cofer Black, the
head of the CTC, moved over to Blackwater, too. He was followed, in turn, by his superior, Rob
Richer, second-in-command of the C.I.A.s clandestine service. Of the three, Cofer Black had the
outsize reputation. As Bob Woodward recounted in his book Bush at War, on September 13,
2001, Black had promised President Bush that when the C.I.A. was through with al-Qaeda they
will have flies walking across their eyeballs. According to Woodward, Black became known in
Bushs inner circle as the flies-on-the-eyeballs guy. Richer and Black soon helped start a new
company, Total Intelligence Solutions (which collects data to help businesses assess risks
overseas), but in 2008 both men left Blackwater, as did company president Gary Jackson this
year.

Prince in his Virginia office. His company took in more than $1 billion from government contracts during the
George W. Bush era.Photograph by Nigel Parry.

Off and on, Black and Richers onetime partner Ric Prado, first with the C.I.A., then as a
Blackwater employee, worked quietly with Prince as his vice president of special programs to
provide the agency with what every intelligence service wants: plausible deniability. Shortly
after 9/11, President Bush had issued a lethal finding, giving the C.I.A. the go-ahead to kill or
capture al-Qaeda members. (Under an executive order issued by President Gerald Ford, it had
been illegal since 1976 for U.S. intelligence operatives to conduct assassinations.) As a seasoned
case officer, Prado helped implement the order by putting together a small team of blue-
badgers, as government agents are known. Their job was threefold: find, fix, and finish. Find
the designated target, fix the persons routine, and, if necessary, finish him off. When the time
came to train the hit squad, the agency, insiders say, turned to Prince. Wary of attracting undue
attention, the team practiced not at the companys North Carolina compound but at Princes
own domain, an hour outside Washington, D.C. The property looks like an outpost of the landed
gentry, with pastures and horses, but also features less traditional accents, such as an indoor
firing range. Once again, Prince has Wild Bill on his mind, observing that the O.S.S. trained
during World War II on a country estate.

Among the teams targets, according to a source familiar with the program, was Mamoun
Darkazanli, an al-Qaeda financier living in Hamburg who had been on the agencys radar for
years because of his ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998
bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa. The C.I.A. team supposedly went in dark, meaning
they did not notify their own stationmuch less the German governmentof their presence;
they then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where
they would take him down. Another target, the source says, was A. Q. Khan, the rogue Pakistani
scientist who shared nuclear know-how with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. The C.I.A. team
supposedly tracked him in Dubai. In both cases, the source insists, the authorities in
Washington chose not to pull the trigger. Khans inclusion on the target list, however, would
suggest that the assassination effort was broader than has previously been acknowledged. (Says
agency spokesman Gimigliano, [The] C.I.A. hasnt discusseddespite some
mischaracterizations that have appeared in the public domainthe substance of this effort or
earlier ones.)

The source familiar with the Darkazanli and Khan missions bristles at public comments that
current and former C.I.A. officials have made: They say the program didnt move forward
because [they] didnt have the right skill set or because of inadequate cover. Thats untrue. [The
operation continued] for a very long time in some places without ever being discovered. This
program died because of a lack of political will.

W hen Prado left the C.I.A., in 2004, he effectively took the program with him, after a short

hiatus. By that point, according to sources familiar with the plan, Prince was already an agency
asset, and the pair had begun working to privatize matters by changing the teams composition
from blue-badgers to a combination of green-badgers (C.I.A. contractors) and third-country
nationals (unaware of the C.I.A. connection). Blackwater officials insist that company resources
and manpower were never directly utilizedthese were supposedly off-the-books initiatives
done on Princes own dime, for which he was later reimbursedand that despite their close ties
to the C.I.A. neither Cofer Black nor Rob Richer took part. As Prince puts it, We were building
a unilateral, unattributable capability. If it went bad, we werent expecting the chief of station,
the ambassador, or anyone to bail us out. He insists that, had the team deployed, the agency
would have had full operational control. Instead, due to what he calls institutional
osteoporosis, the second iteration of the assassination program lost steam.
Sometime after 2006, the C.I.A. would take another shot at the program, according to an insider
who was familiar with the plan. Everyone found some reason not to participate, says the
insider. There was a sick-out. People would say to management, I have a family, I have other
obligations. This is the fucking C.I.A. They were supposed to lead the charge after al-Qaeda and
they couldnt find the people to do it. Others with knowledge of the program are far more
charitable and question why any right-thinking officer would sign up for an assassination
program at a time when their colleagueswho had thought they had legal cover to engage in
another sensitive effort, the enhanced interrogations program at secret C.I.A. sites in foreign
countrieswere finding themselves in legal limbo.

America and Erik Prince, it seems, have been slow to extract themselves from the assassination
business. Beyond the killer drones flown with Blackwaters help along the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border (President Obama has reportedly authorized more than three dozen such hits), Prince
claims he and a team of foreign nationals helped find and fix a target in October 2008, then left
the finishing to others. In Syria, he says, we did the signals intelligence to geo-locate the bad
guys in a very denied area. Subsequently, a U.S. Special Forces team launched a helicopter-
borne assault to hunt down al-Qaeda middleman Abu Ghadiyah. Ghadiyah, whose real name is
Badran Turki Hishan Al-Mazidih, was said to have been killed along with six othersthough
doubts have emerged about whether Ghadiyah was even there that day, as detailed in a
recent Vanity Fair Web story by Reese Ehrlich and Peter Coyote.

And up until two months agowhen Prince says the Obama administration pulled the plughe
was still deeply engaged in the dark arts. According to insiders, he was running intelligence-
gathering operations from a secret location in the United States, remotely coordinating the
movements of spies working undercover in one of the so-called Axis of Evil countries. Their
mission: non-disclosable.

Exit Strategy
Flying out of Kabul, Prince does a slow burn, returning to the topic of how exposed he has felt
since press accounts revealed his role in the assassination program. The firestorm that began in
August has continued to smolder and may indeed have his handlers wondering whether Prince
himself is more of a liability than an asset. He says he cant understand why they would shut
down certain high-risk, high-payoff collection efforts against some of Americas most
implacable enemies for fear that his involvement could, given the political climate, result in
their compromise.

He is incredulous that U.S. officials seem willing, in effect, to cut off their nose to spite their
face. Ive been overtly and covertly serving America since I started in the armed services,
Prince observes. After 12 years building the company, he says he intends to turn it over to its
employees and a board, and exit defense contracting altogether. An internal power struggle is
said to be under way among those seeking to define the direction and underlying mission of a
post-Prince Blackwater.
He insists, simply, Im through.

In the past, Prince has entertained the idea of building a pre-positioning shipcomplete with
security personnel, doctors, helicopters, medicine, food, and fueland stationing it off the coast
of Africa to provide relief with teeth to the continents trouble spots or to curb piracy off
Somalia. At one point, he considered creating a rapidly deployable brigade that could be farmed
out, for a fee, to a foreign government.

For the time being, however, Prince contends that his plans are far more modest. Im going to
teach high school, he says, straight-faced. History and economics. I may even coach wrestling.
Hey, Indiana Jones taught school, too.
Keywords
Politics,
Features,

George W. Bush,

Business
BLACKWATER ERIK PRINCE
Entrada X

Responder

mostrar detalhes 20 mar (2 dias atrs)

Celso Chini

para Celso, sarrafado

http://www.thenation.com/blog/secret-erik-prince-tape-exposed
Blogs > Jeremy Scahill

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Jeremy Scahill
Secret Erik Prince Tape Exposed
Jeremy Scahill

May 3, 2010

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Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts

to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks. On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying

to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the "Tulip Time Festival" in his hometown of Holland, Michigan.

He told the event's organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media

associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks.
Despite Prince's attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a

recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public

consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities

of Blackwater. The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company

that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government.

In the speech, Prince proposed that the US government deploy armed private contractors to fight "terrorists" in Nigeria, Yemen,

Somalia and Saudi Arabia, specifically to target Iranian influence. He expressed disdain for the Geneva Convention and described

Blackwater's secretive operations at four Forward Operating Bases he controls in Afghanistan. He called those fighting the US

in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan "barbarians" who "crawled out of the sewer.

" Prince also revealed details of a July 2009 operation he claims Blackwater forces coordinated in Afghanistan to take down

a narcotrafficking facility, saying that Blackwater "call[ed] in multiple air strikes," blowing up the facility. Prince boasted

that his forces had carried out the "largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history." He characterized the work of some

NATO countries' forces in Afghanistan as ineffectual, suggesting that some coalition nations "should just pack it in and go home.

" Prince spoke of Blackwater working in Pakistan, which appears to contradict the official, public Blackwater and US government line

that Blackwater is not in Pakistan.

Prince also claimed that a Blackwater operative took down the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W Bush

in Baghdad and criticized the Secret Service for being "flat-footed." He bragged that Blackwater forces "beat the

Louisiana National Guard to the scene" during Katrina and claimed that lawsuits, "tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills" and

political attacks prevented him from deploying a humanitarian ship that could have responded to the earthquake in Haiti or

the tsunami that hit Indonesia.

Several times during the speech, Prince appeared to demean Afghans his company is training in Afghanistan, saying Blackwater
had to teach them "Intro to Toilet Use" and to do jumping jacks. At the same time, he bragged that US generals told him the

Afghans Blackwater trains "are the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan." Prince also revealed that he is writing a book,

scheduled to be released this fall.

The speech was delivered January 14 at the University of Michigan in front of an audience of entrepreneurs, ROTC commanders

and cadets, businesspeople and military veterans. The speech was titled "Overcoming Adversity: Leadership at the Tip of the Spear"

and was sponsored by the Young Presidents' Association (YPO), a business networking association primarily made up of

corporate executives. "Ripped from the headlines and described by Vanity Fair magazine, as a Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier and Spy,

Erik Prince brings all that and more to our exclusive YPO speaking engagement," read the event's program, also obtained by

The Nation. It proclaimed that Prince's speech was an "amazing don't miss opportunity from a man who has 'been there

and done that' with a group of Cadets and Midshipmen who are months away from serving on the 'tip of the spear.

'" Here are some of the highlights from Erik Prince's speech:

Send the Mercs into Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria

Prince painted a global picture in which Iran is "at the absolute dead center... of badness." The Iranians, he said, "want that nuke

so that it is again a Persian Gulf and they very much have an attitude of when Darius ran most of the Middle East back in 1000 BC.

That's very much what the Iranians are after." [NOTE: Darius of Persia actually ruled from 522 BC-486 BC]. Iran, Prince charged,

has a "master plan to stir up and organize a Shia revolt through the whole region." Prince proposed that armed private soldiers from

companies like Blackwater be deployed in countries throughout the region to target Iranian influence, specifically in Yemen,

Somalia and Saudi Arabia. "The Iranians have a very sinister hand in these places," Prince said. "You're not going to solve it

by putting a lot of uniformed soldiers in all these countries. It's way too politically sensitive. The private sector can operate there with a

very, very small, very light footprint." In addition to concerns of political expediency, Prince suggested that using private contractors

to conduct such operations would be cost-effective. "The overall defense budget is going to have to be cut and
they're going to look for ways, they're going to have to have ways to become more efficient," he said. "And there's a lot of ways

that the private sector can operate with a much smaller, much lighter footprint."

Prince also proposed using private armed contractors in the oil-rich African nation of Nigeria. Prince said that guerilla groups

in the country are dramatically slowing oil production and extraction and stealing oil. "There's more than a half million barrels a day

stolen there, which is stolen and organized by very large criminal syndicates. There's even some evidence it's going

to fund terrorist organizations," Prince alleged. "These guerilla groups attack the pipeline, attack the pump house to knock it offline,

which makes the pressure of the pipeline go soft. they cut that pipeline and they weld in their own patch with their own valves

and they back a barge up into it. Ten thousand barrels at a time, take that oil, drive that 10,000 barrels out to sea and at $80 a barrel,

that's $800,000. That's not a bad take for organized crime." Prince made no mention of the nonviolent indigenous opposition to

oil extraction and pollution, nor did he mention the notorious human rights abuses connected to multinational oil corporations in

Nigeria that have sparked much of the resistance.

Blackwater and the Geneva Convention

Prince scornfully dismissed the debate on whether armed individuals working for Blackwater could be classified as "unlawful combatants

"You know, people ask me that all the time, 'Aren't you concerned that you folks aren't covered under the Geneva Convention

in [operating] in the likes of Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan? And I say, 'Absolutely not,' because these people, they crawled out of

the sewer and they have a 1200 AD mentality. They're barbarians. They don't know where Geneva is, let alone that there was

a convention there."

It is significant that Prince mentioned his company operating in Pakistan given that Blackwater, the US government and the

Pakistan government have all denied Blackwater works in Pakistan.

Taking Down the Iraqi Shoe Thrower for the 'Flat-Footed' Secret Service

Prince noted several high-profile attacks on world leaders in the past year, specifically a woman pushing the Pope at Christmas mass
and the attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, saying there has been a pattern of "some pretty questionable security lately

" He then proceeded to describe the feats of his Blackwater forces in protecting dignitaries and diplomats, claiming that one of his men

took down the Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at President Bush in Baghdad in December 2008.

Prince referred to al-Zaidi as the "shoe bomber:"

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Use United States WarYemen forward lawyer

"A little known fact, you know when the shoe bomber in Iraq was throwing his shoes at President Bush, in December 08, we provided
diplomatic security, but we had no responsibility for the president's security--that's always the Secret Service that does that.

We happened to have a guy in the back of the room and he saw that first shoe go and he drew his weapon, got a sight picture,

saw that it was only a shoe, he re-holstered, went forward and took that guy down while the Secret Service was still standing there

-footed. I have a picture of that--I'm publishing a book, so watch for that later this fall--in which you'll see all the reporters looking,

there's my guy taking the shoe thrower down. He didn't shoot him, he just tackled him, even though the guy was committing assault

and battery on the president of the United States. I asked a friend of mine who used to run the Secret Service if they had a

written report of that and he said the debrief was so bad they did not put it in writing."

While the Secret Service was widely criticized at the time for its apparent inaction during the incident, video of the event clearly

showed another Iraqi journalist, not security guards, initially pulling al-Zaidi to the floor. Almost instantly thereafter, al-Zaidi was

swarmed by a gang of various, unidentified security agents.

Blackwater's Forward Operating Bases

Prince went into detail about his company's operations in Afghanistan. Blackwater has been in the country since at least April 2002,

when the company was hired by the CIA on a covert contract to provide the Agency with security. Since then, Blackwater has won

hundreds of millions of dollars in security, counter-narcotics and training contracts for the State Department, Defense Department and

the CIA. The company protects US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and

other senior US officials, guards CIA personnel and trains the Afghan border police. "We built four bases and we staffed them and

we run them," Prince said, referring to them as Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). He described them as being in the north, south,

east and west of Afghanistan. "Spin Boldak in the south, which is the major drug trans-shipment area, in the east at a place

called FOB Lonestar, which is right at the foothills of Tora Bora mountain. In fact if you ski off Tora Bora mountain, you can ski down

to our firebase," Prince said, adding that Blackwater also has a base near Herat and another location. FOB Lonestar is approximately

15 miles from the Pakistan border. "Who else has built a [Forward Operating Base] along the main infiltration route for the Taliban

and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?" Prince said earlier this year.
Blackwater's War on Drugs

Prince described a Narcotics Interdiction Unit Blackwater started in Afghanistan five years ago that remains active. "It is about a

200 person strike force to go after the big narcotics traffickers, the big cache sites," Prince said. "That unit's had great success.

They've taken more than $3.5 billion worth of heroin out of circulation. We're not going after the farmers, but we're going after

the traffickers." He described an operation in July 2009 where Blackwater forces actually called in NATO air strikes on a target

during a mission:

"A year ago, July, they did the largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history, down in the south-east. They went down, they hit

five targets that our intel guys put together and they wound up with about 12,000 pounds of heroin. While they were down there,

they said, 'You know, these other three sites look good, we should go check them out.' Sure enough they did and they found a

cache--262,000 kilograms of hash, which equates to more than a billion dollars street value. And it was an industrialized

hash operation, it was much of the hash crop in Helmand province. It was palletized, they'd dug ditches out in the desert,

covered it with tarps and the bags of powder were big bags with a brand name on it for the hash brand, palletized, ready to go into

containers down to Karachi [Pakistan] and then out to Europe or elsewhere in the world. That raid alone took about $60 million out of

the Taliban's coffers. So, those were good days. When the guys found it, they didn't have enough ammo, enough explosives,

to blow it, they couldn't burn it all, so they had to call in multiple air strikes. Of course, you know, each of the NATO countries

that came and did the air strikes took credit for finding and destroying the cache."

December 30, 2009 CIA Bombing in Khost

Prince also addressed the deadly suicide bombing on December 30 at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost,

Afghanistan. Eight CIA personnel, including two Blackwater operatives, were killed in the bombing, which was carried out by a

Jordanian double-agent. Prince was asked by an audience member about the "failure" to prevent that attack.
The questioner did not mention that Blackwater was responsible for the security of the CIA officials that day, nor did Prince

discuss Blackwater's role that day. Here is what Prince said:

"You know what? It is a tragedy that those guys were killed but if you put it in perspective, the CIA has lost extremely few people

since 9/11. We've lost two or three in Afghanistan, before that two or three in Iraq and, I believe, one guy in Somalia--a landmine.

So when you compare what Bill Donovan and the OSS did to the Germans and the Japanese, the Italians during World War II

and they lost hundreds and hundreds of people doing very difficult, very dangerous work--it is a tragedy when you lose people,

but it is a cost of doing that work. It is essential, you've got to take risks. In that case, they had what appeared to be a very hot asset

who had very relevant, very actionable intelligence and he turned out to be a bad guy... That's what the intelligence business is,

you can't be assured success all the time. You've got to be willing to take risks. Those are calculated risks but sometimes it goes badly.

I hope the Agency doesn't draw back and say, 'Oh, we have to retrench and not do that anymore,' all the rest. No. We need you

to double down, go after them harder. That is a cost of doing business. They are there to kill us."

Prince to Some NATO Countries in Afghanistan: 'Go Home'

Prince spoke disparagingly of some unnamed NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan, saying they do not have the will for the fight.

"Some of them do and a lot of them don't," he said. "It is such a patchwork of different international commitments as to what some

can do and what some can't. A lot of them should just pack it in and go home." Canada, however, received praise from Prince.

"The Canadians have lost per capita more than America has in Afghanistan. They are fighting and they are doing it and so if you see a

Canadian thank them for that. The politicians at home take heavies for doing that," Prince said. He did not mention the fact that

his company was hired by the Canadian government to train its forces.

Prince also described how his private air force (which he recently sold) bailed out a US military unit in trouble in Afghanistan.

According to Prince, the unit was fighting the Taliban and was running out of ammo and needed an emergency re-supply.

"Because of, probably some procedure written by a lawyer back in Washington, the Air Force was not permitted to drop in
an uncertified drop zone... even to the unit that was running out of ammo," Prince said. "So they called and asked if our guys would do

it and, of course, they said, 'Yes.' And the cool part of the story is the Army guys put their DZ mark in the drop zone,

a big orange panel, on the hood of their hummer and our guys put the first bundle on the hood of that hummer.

We don't always get that close, but that time a little too close."

Blackwater: Teaching Afghans to Use Toilets

Prince said his forces train 1300 Afghans every six weeks and described his pride in attending "graduations" of Blackwater-trained

Afghans, saying that in six weeks they radically transform the trainees. "You take these officers, these Afghans and it's the first time in

their life they've ever been part of something that's first class, that works. The instructors know what they're talking about, they're fed,

the water works, there's ammunition for their guns. Everything works," Prince said. "The first few days of training, we have to do

'Intro to Toilet Use' because a lot of these guys have never even seen a flushed toilet before." Prince boasted: "We manage to take

folks with a tribal mentality and, just like the Marine Corps does more effectively than anyone else, they take kids from disparate

lifestyles across the United States and you throw them into Parris Island and you make them Marines. We try that same mentality

there by pushing these guys very hard and, it's funny, I wish I had video to show you of the hilarious jumping jacks. If you take

someone that's 25 years old and they've never done a jumping jack in their life--some of the convoluted motions they do it's comical.

But the transformation from day one to the end of that program, they're very proud and they're very capable." Prince said that when

he was in Afghanistan late last year, "I met with a bunch of generals and they said the Afghans that we train are the most effective

fighting force in Afghanistan."

Prince also discussed the Afghan women he says work with Blackwater. "Some of the women we've had, it's amazing," Prince said.

"They come in in the morning and they have the burqa on and they transition to their cammies (camouflage uniforms) and

I think they enjoy the baton work," he said, adding, "They've been hand-cuffing a little too much on the men."
Hurricane Katrina and Humanitarian Mercenaries

Erik Prince spoke at length about Blackwater's deployment in 2005 in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, bragging that

his forces "rescued 128 people, sent thousands of meals in there and it worked." Prince boasted of his company's rapid response,

saying, "We surged 145 guys in 36 hours from our facility five states away and we beat the Louisiana National Guard to the scene.

" What Prince failed to mention was that at the time of the disaster, at least 35% of the Louisiana National Guard was deployed in Iraq.

One National Guard soldier in New Orleans at the time spoke to Reuters, saying, "They (the Bush administration) care more about

Iraq and Afghanistan than here... We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq.

" Much of the National Guard's equipment was in Iraq at the time, including high water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators.

Prince also said that he had a plan to create a massive humanitarian vessel that, with the generous support of major corporations,

could have responded to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis across the globe. "I thought, man, the military

has perfected how to move men and equipment into combat, why can't we do that for the humanitarian side?" Prince said.

The ship Prince wanted to use for these missions was an 800 foot container vessel capable of shipping "1700 containers,

which would have lined up six and a half miles of humanitarian assistance with another 250 vehicles" onboard. "We could have gotten

almost all those boxes donated. It would have been boxes that would have had generator sets from Caterpillar, grain from

ADM [Archer Daniels Midland], anti-biotics from pharmaceutical companies, all the stuff you need to do massive humanitarian

assistance," Prince said, adding that it "would have had turnkey fuel support, food, surgical, portable surgical hospitals, beds cots,

blankets, all the above." Prince says he was going to do the work for free, "on spec," but "instead we got attacked politically

and ended up paying tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills the last few years. It's an unfortunate misuse of resources because

a boat like that sure would have been handy for the Haitian people right now."
Outing Erik Prince

Prince also addressed what he described as his outing as a CIA asset working on sensitive US government programs.

He has previously blamed Congressional Democrats and the news media for naming him as working on the US assassination

program. The US intelligence apparatus "depends heavily on Americans that are not employed by the government to facilitate

greater success and access for the intelligence community," Prince said. "It's unprecedented to have people outed by name,

especially ones that were running highly classified programs. And as much as the left got animated about Valerie Plame,

outing people by name for other very very sensitive programs was unprecedented and definitely threw me under the bus."

Jeremy Scahill

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/4/headlines#9 BLACKWATER SEARCH


Blackwater Wins Portion of $10B State Department Contract
Wired.com has revealed a shell company run by Blackwater has won a piece of a five-year,
$10 billion State Department contract to provide security services to diplomatic missions around the world.
The shell company, International Development Solutions," is at least the thirty-fourth front company formed by
Blackwater to help it win government contracts.

news

Erik Prince Selling Blackwater with Bank of Americas Help


By DJ Pangburn Friday, December 17, 2010

The crusading founder of Xe (formerly Blackwater) is selling the company and stepping down from

leadership duties to ensure future defense contracts.


According to the New York Times, Erik Prince has secured a deal with a group of investors to keep Blackwater,

or Xe (or whatever name the mercenary group is calling itself today) working into the 21st century for

the American people.

Princes life and the creation of Blackwater was investigated thoroughly by Jeremy Scahill in his explosive book

Blackwater: The Rise of the Worlds Most Powerful Mercenary Army. In 2009, Scahill reported that

civil lawsuits had been filed against Blackwater by two former employees. John Doe #1 gave sworn testimony

about Blackwater misdeeds, adding that he feared retaliation for doing so and that one or two persons who gave

information against Prince and Blackwater have been killed in suspicious circumstances.

He added that Blackwater management had threatened him with death and violence.

John Doe #2, a former Marine, swore in an affidavit that he worked for Prince and Blackwater for four years,

and in that time worked for a web of companies created by Prince to obscure and hide wrongdoing,

fraud and other crimes. According to John Doe #2, Blackwater engaged in money laundering and

tax evasion through a company called Greystone.

John Doe #2 added in his sworn testimony, Mr. Prince is motivated to engage in misconduct by two factors:

First, he views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminatingMuslims and the Islamic faith from the globe

Second, Mr. Prince is motivated by greed.


That two former employees have come forward with these allegations is telling. Perhaps they have an axe

to grind after a perceived wrong done to them by Prince and Blackwater. But, the two are not benefitting

monetarily from the allegations nor are they becoming famous for battling Prince.

Yet, despite these allegations and past wrongdoings by the Princes mercenary group (defense contractors),

investors still see potential profitability in Xe.

According to the New York Times, those involved in the deal include Jason DeYonker of Fort Capital Advisors

(a friend of Prince and former financial advisor to the family), Manhattan Growth Partners and Bank of America,

which helped finance the transaction. Apparently Bank of America doesnt mind some additional bad press before

WikiLeaks drops financial documents into the public sphere.

What is amazing about this deal is that even considering the shady dealings and questions of excessive force in

Xes past, Princes company is valued at about $200 million.

Apparently Xe wants to rework its business into an organization that trains foreign as well as U.S. forces.

That Obamas State Department would even consider this arrangement is insulting to just about everyone

in the world. It does not seem likely that Prince will just simply disappear from the mercenary business.

Someone like Erik Prince, a true believer, doesnt just walk off into the sunset with blood-stained dollar bills

spilling out of his pocket. He will be involved in Xe on some level with the help of investors and Bank of America.

So much for Obamas commitment to ethics in banking and investment.

No related posts.
CELSO CHINI VAI TRANSITAR POR AQUI.....TAL QUAL A
METODOLOGIA DO MR. PRINCE.....

---------- Mensagem encaminhada ----------


De: Maria Lucia <mlucia@sercomtel.com.br>
Data: 23 de maro de 2011 00:00
Assunto: Muitos Ministrios
Para: Celso Chini <celsochini@gmail.com>

segunda-feira, 21 de maro de 2011 | 13:28


Jamais na Histria deste pas houve tantos ministrios (38). Ao invs de
criar novas pastas, a presidente Dilma deveria extinguir as aberraes
inventadas por Lula, como o Ministrio da Pesca.
Carlos Newton

Ao que tudo indica, a presidente Dilma Rousseff vai entrar no Livro Guinnesse de recordes
com titular do governo com maior nmero de ministrios no mundo. Acaba de criar mais um, a
Secretaria de Aviao Civil, com status de ministrio e poderes para transferir iniciativa
privada o direito de explorar os aeroportos.

Vinculada Presidncia, vai esvaziar o Ministrio da Defesa, que deixar de comandar a Anac
(Agncia Nacional de Aviao Civil) e a Infraero (que administra os principais aeroportos). E a
presidente decidiu mandar a Medida Provisria ao Congresso mesmo sem ter o nome do titular
da pasta. A nova secretaria-ministrio ter 129 cargos entre o gabinete, a secretaria-
executiva e outras trs secretarias ainda no definidas. Alm disso, MP cria 100 vagas efetivas
para controladores de trfego areo e permite a prorrogao, at 2016, dos contratos de 160
controladores hoje temporrios, que seriam dispensados em maro.

Fica faltando criar mais um ministrio, o da Micro e Pequena Empresa, que Dilma Rousseff
anunciou em fevereiro. Ns temos que incentivar o surgimento de pequenos e mdios
empresrios vitoriosos, disse a presidente ao falar sobre essa nova pasta, que ir enfraquecer
ainda mais o Ministrio do Desenvolvimento, Indstria e Comrcio, que j fraco pela prpria
natureza. A presidente Dilma adiantou que uma das funes da nova pasta ser incentivar
arranjos produtivos locais, em parceria com o prprio Ministrio do Desenvolvimento, atravs
do BNDES, esquecendo que essa poltica est adotada pelo banco desde a revolucionria
gesto de Carlos Lessa e Darc Costa, em 2003.

Alis, o BNDES j pratica tambm polticas especiais para pequenas e mdias empresas, e
essas linhas de financiamento realmente esto funcionando, com liberao de crdito barato
(juros de 1% ao ms) e sem burocracia. E quem libera o financiamento nem o BNDES, e sim
o gerente do banco comercial com o qual a pequena ou mdia empresa j opera normalmente.
A presidente, alm disso, fala em implantar uma secretaria para tratar de irrigao, dentro da
estrutura do Ministrio de Integrao Nacional. Animada, chegou a anunciar que a futura
Secretaria de Irrigao cuidaria principalmente da Regio Nordeste. Queremos recuperar
reas j irrigadas e ampliar outros permetros, disse ela, acrescentando que o governo
pretende criar um programa de acesso individual gua, com obras pontuais de construo de
cisternas, o que tambm no representa nenhuma novidade desde que foi criado o velho
DNOCS (Departamento Nacional de Obras Contra Seca), h quase 100 anos, ainda no tempo
do Imprio

A criao de ministrios e secretarias um grande desperdcio de recursos pblicos,


especialmente quando o governo se queixa das dificuldades em cortar despesas de custeio. O
inchao da mquina administrativa comeou no governo Lula, em 2003. Ele recebeu 26
ministrios do governo FHC, mas entregou 37 presidente Dilma. Braslia virou vitrine desse
fenmeno de gastana descontrolada: so dezenas de imveis alugados fora da Esplanada
dos Ministrios para acomodar o inchao da mquina administrativa.

Levantamento do jornal Estado de S. Paulo mostra que prdios e salas, s do primeiro


escalo do Poder Executivo, pagam pelo menos R$ 9 milhes mensais de aluguel. A
chamada Esplanada oculta custa, no mnimo, R$ 100 milhes por ano, dinheiro
suficiente para construir cerca de 2.700 casas do programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida.

O caso mais evidente desse descompasso o Ministrio da Pesca e Aquicultura. A


pasta da ministra Ideli Salvatti (PT) gasta R$ 575 mil por ms, num contrato de R$ 7
milhes por ano. Esse o aluguel de um luxuoso prdio espelhado de 14 andares, onde
374 servidores esto lotados. A ministra e 67 assessores nem ficam l do expediente
no prdio do Ministrio da Agricultura, para ficarem mais pertos do Planalto.

Nos oito anos dos dois mandatos de Lula, os recursos da Pesca aumentaram mais de 70
vezes, de R$ 11 milhes para R$ 803 milhes, mas a produo nacional de pescado
continuou em 990 mil toneladas. O ministrio um tremendo fracasso. S serve para dar
emprego a desocupados.

=======================================================================

A MARIA LCIA.....ME LEMBROU DA DONA LCIA!! MINHA QUERIDA SEGUNDA


ME!!

A QUEM DEVO RESPEITO PROFUNDO POR TER SEMPRE AJUDADO OS MEUS


FILHOS...DA MESMA FORMA A MINHA IRM...E A MINHA ME....

SEMPRE DE FORMA INCONDICIONAL, E A DONA LCIA DEU TODO O DINHEIRO


DELA, DA SEGURANA DA VELHICE DELA PARA ME AJUDAR E AOS MEUS
FILHOS....

POR ELA PRINCIPALMENTE EU VOU DAR TUDO DE MIM PARA VENCER!!

ASSINADO

CELSO CHINI 23 de Maro de 2011 HOME 08:45 hs.


OU DO MORENO ESCURO.....COMO VI NA NOTA DE UM JORNAL DE UM DEPUTADO SE DIRIGINDO A
UM MINISTRO!!

Em 22 de maro de 2011 22:30, Maria Lucia <mlucia@sercomtel.com.br> escreveu:


- Ocultar texto das mensagens anteriores -

Meu caro amigo,

Esses princpios no vingam nem aqui nem no restante da Amrica Latina. Questo
de embriogenia defeituosa. Viceja nessas plagas a mentalidade do atraso.

De: Celso Chini [mailto:celsochini@gmail.com]


Enviada em: tera-feira, 22 de maro de 2011 20:32
Para: Maria Lucia Victor Barbosa
Assunto: AMERICA DO NORTE USA! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

MEU AMIGO TRADER AMERICANFILO.....O PAI DELE SEMPRE VIAJOU E CONHECEU O FREE TRADE
COMMERCE.....E TIVE COM ELE A HONRA DE APRENDER BASTANTE O OUTRO LADO......ANGLO SAXNICO
.......

EU TAMBM SOU FIEL ADMIRADOR DA AMRICA DO NORTE USA ....A MINHA FACULDADE FGV FUNDAO
GETLIO VARGAS TEM ORIGEM EM PROJETO AMERICANO........EU ME FORMEI ESTUDANDO OS CASES DE
HARVARD....

EU TAMBM, QUANDO EM DEPRESSO PATRITICA, COMO ESTOU HOJE ATRAVESSANDO, SEMPRE RELEIO
E REVEJO OS PRINCPIOS DOS MARINES....O CORPO DE COMBATE MAIS LIMPO E DEVOTADO PTRIA QUE
EU CONHEO.....

fiquei arrasado vendo na tv a DILMA criticando os bombardeios na libia E EM SEGUIDA


pedindo para o brasil entrar NA ONU como membro PERMANENTE.....

ABAIXO, EM INGLS, SORRY MOTHER, OS PRINCPIOS USMC QUE SE FOSSEM APLICADOS POR AQUI
SERAMOS OUTRA NAO......
VALE A PENA SONHAR.............IN MY DREAMS!!!

The 11 Principles of
Leadership

Know yourself and seek self-improvement.


Be technically and tactically proficient.
Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your
actions.
Make sound and timely decisions.
Set the example.
Know your soldiers and look out for their well being.
Keep your subordinates informed.
Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates.
Ensure the task is understood, supervised and
accomplished.
Build the team.
Employ your unit in accordance with its capabilities.
PRAIA GRANDE, 25 DE MARO DE 2011
08:19 HORAS ... AT HOME....
Na cena abaixo cpia de um email from myself O CRUEL E
REAL RETRATO DA ELITE BRASILEIRA/ESTADO
BRASILEIRO...o exerccio do poder podre contra uma
populao excluda por ser de origem negra, e que se atreveu a
reclamar de um direito de cidados......

ESTOU CHOCADO E COM A MINHA CABEA E MENTE


REVIRANDO INTERNAMENTE.....ESTOU COM O SACO CHEIO
DE MEDIDAS PESSOAIS PALIATIVAS....NO VOU TER NADA
OU CONSEGUIR ALGUMA COISA SEM O EXERCCIO
CONCRETO DA VIOLNCIA, SEJA NO PLANO FSICO OU NO
MENTAL/MERCADO........

ESTOU ENOJADO DO BRASIL E DA SOCIEDADE


BRASILEIRA....PRINCIPALMENTE DO PEDAO
EMPRESARIAL/POLTICO....ONDE DEGENERADOS/OGROS
COM E SEM CULTURA SE UNEM PARA ROUBAR E
PERPETRAR AS BARBARIDADES DA FOTO ABAIXO, A PONTA
DE MUITOS ICEBERGS DO MAL FLUTUANDO NOS MARES DO
PLANETA TERRA............

SEM PALAVRAS...........UM COVARDE FILHO DA PUTA AUTORIDADE?! QUE DEVE SER


EXPULSO DA CORPORAO ATACANDO UMA CRIANA DESPROTEGIDA, PELO FATO DE
ELA SER NEGRA E ESTAR EXIGINDO UM DIREITO DE CIDAD......TER ONDE MORAR!!

O MAIS CRUEL AINDA SE NOTAR QUE OS NEGROS FORMAM UMA FAMLIA


ESTRUTURADA, ESTO BEM ARRUMADOS E A ME TEM UMA POSTURA DIGNA....

NO SO MEROS HOMELESS VAGABUNDOS OU EXCLUDOS!

HORROR!!!!!! MUNDO CRUEL!!!


ERIK PRINCE ...."THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF EVIL IN THE WORLD"

E VEM A PERGUNTA............. EU FICO DEBAIXO DA PONTE? OU....COM A


COBERTURA DE FRENTE PARA O MAR?!

Por RRodrigo
Protestos no Morro do Bumba

(pelo atraso no pagamento do auxlio-desabamento pela prefeitura de Niteri)

http://oglobo.globo.com/rio/fotogaleria/2011/14140/

nota para o flagra do PM e seu spray de pimenta disparado contra uma criana

http://oglobo.globo.com/rio/fotogaleria/2011/14140/23_ghg_rio_bumba4.jpg

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