Erik Prince: Trump’s friend who has privatized the war

03/18/2021 World



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A hard copy of Dagens Nyheter, 2021-03-18 20:43

Original article address: https://www.dn.se/varlden/erik-prince-trumps-van-som-har-privatiserat-kriget/

Erik Prince is strictly religious and has compared his criticized mercenaries to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah,


Erik Prince has become a billionaire in delivering soldiers to wars around the world. When his subordinates kill civilians, they are pardoned by Donald Trump.

DN Middle East correspondent Erik Ohlsson tells the story of how the son of a right-wing Christian father, Erik Prince, became king of the world’s mercenaries.

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General Khalifa Haftar, 77, leads the Libyan National Army (LNA), a separatist army that wants to seize power in Libya. Erik Prince has wanted to link Haftar closer to the US Khalifa Haftar, a US citizen, believes that the internationally recognized government of Libya is too lenient towards Islamists. It now has the support of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, among others, and also, blatantly, the Islamist Madkhali-Salafists movement.

Photo: Mohammed El-Sheikhy

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Erik Prince poses with the Blackwater logo, a bear paw framed by a binocular sight. In 2008, when the photograph was taken, Blackwater was on the verge of losing its gold contract with the US state due to criminal suspicions.

Photo: Gerry Broome / AP

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Erik Prince appeared in the so-called Mueller investigation, which investigated suspicions that Donald Trump’s election campaign had ties to the Russian government. Here, Prince addresses a congressional intelligence committee hearing in November 2017.

Photo: Jacquelyn Martin / AP

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The star flag flies outside Blackwater’s headquarters in the small community of Moyock, North Carolina. In the surrounding swamp area, Erik Prince taunted his mercenaries.

Photo: Gerry Broome / AP

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Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the demand for private security contractors grew. At most 100,000 armed security guards worked in the country. Here, a group from Blackwater pose on a rooftop in Baghdad.

Photo: PATRICK BAZ / AFP

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One of the few images from Black Sunday in September 2007 when a convoy of armored vehicles with Blackwater employees opened fire on civilians in Baghdad. 17 people died, including women and children.

Photo: ABC NEWS / AP

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A tattooed Blackwater employee in front of a court in Washington where four of his colleagues are accused of a massacre of civilians in Baghdad. When the verdicts against him fell in 2014, Erik Prince changed the name of the company and then sold it.

Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP

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A Blackwater helicopter patrols Baghdad in the fall of 2007. After the massacre of September 17 of the same year, the company’s operations in Iraq were called into question and eventually also banned.

Photo: KHALID MOHAMMEDAP

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With his tux and blonde hair, Erik Prince is strikingly similar to James Bond actor Daniel Craig. But that doesn’t impress the protesters who show up in front of the Yale Club in Manhattan. They are harassing Prince for his association with Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon.

Photo: JEENAH MOON / Reuters


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