Erik Prince, America’s most notorious mercenary, is lurking in the shadows of the incoming Trump administration. A former senior U.S. official who has advised the Trump transition told The Intercept that Prince has been advising the team on matters related to intelligence and defense, including weighing in on candidates for the Defense and State departments. The official asked not to be identified because of a transition policy prohibiting discussion of confidential deliberations.
On election night, Prince’s latest wife, Stacy DeLuke, posted pictures from inside Trump’s campaign headquarters as Donald Trump and Mike Pence watched the returns come in, including a close shot of Pence and Trump with their families. “We know some people who worked closely with [Trump] on his campaign,” DeLuke wrote. “Waiting for the numbers to come in last night. It was well worth the wait!!!! #PresidentTrump2016.” Prince’s sister, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s nominee for education secretary and Prince (and his mother) gave large sums of money to a Trump Super PAC.
In July, Prince told Trump’s senior adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon, at the time head of Breitbart News, that the Trump administration should recreate a version of the Phoenix Program, the CIA assassination ring that operated during the Vietnam War, to fight ISIS. Such a program, Prince said, could kill or capture “the funders of Islamic terror and that would even be the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East, and any of the other illicit activities they’re in.”
Prince also said that Trump would be the best force to confront “Islamic fascism.” “As for the world looking to the United States for leadership, unfortunately, I think they’re going to have to wait till January and hope Mr. Trump is elected because, clearly, our generals don’t have a stomach for a fight,” Prince said. “Our president doesn’t have a stomach for a fight and the terrorists, the fascists, are winning.”
Prince founded the notorious private security firm Blackwater, which rose to infamy in September 2007 after its operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians, including a 9-year-old boy in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Whistleblowers also alleged that Prince encouraged an environment in which Iraqis were killed for sport. At the height of the Blackwater scandals in 2007, another prominent Trump backer, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, praised Prince, who once worked in his congressional office. “Prince,’’ Rohrabacher said, “is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was.’’
Ultimately, Prince sold Blackwater and now heads up a Hong Kong-based company known as Frontier Services Group. The Intercept has previously reported on Prince’s efforts to build a private air force for hire and his close ties to Chinese intelligence. One of his latest schemes is a proposal to deploy private contractors to work with Libyan security forces to stop the flow of refugees to Europe.
Prince has long fantasized that he is the rightful heir to the legacy of “Wild Bill” Donovan and his Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. After 9/11, Prince worked with the CIA on a secret assassination program, in addition to offering former SEALs and other retired special operators to the State Department and other agencies for personal security.
Blaming leftists and some congressional Democrats for destroying his Blackwater empire, Prince clearly views Trump’s vow to bring back torture, CIA-sponsored kidnapping, and enhanced interrogations, as well as his commitment to fill Guantánamo with prisoners, as a golden opportunity to ascend to his rightful place as a covert private warrior for the U.S. national security state. As we reported last year, “Prince — who portrays himself as a mix between Indiana Jones, Rambo, Captain America, and Pope Benedict — is now working with the Chinese government through his latest ‘private security’ firm.” The Trump presidency could result in Prince working for both Beijing and the White House.
The Blackwater founder has also endorsed some of Trump’s overtures to Russia, saying: “Think about it: If FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, can deal with Stalin to defeat German fascism in World War II, certainly the United States of America could work with Putin to defeat Islamic fascism. We don’t have to agree with the Russians on everything, or even on a lot, but we can at least agree that crushing ISIS in the Middle East is a very good idea.” Prince described Democrats as “anti-Catholic, anti-Evangelical,” saying the DNC hacks and leaks revealed “the disregard, the disdain they have for the average American voter and citizen.”
Prince has a close relationship with Breitbart News and Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior counselor and chief strategist. Prince has appeared frequently — and almost exclusively — on Breitbart Radio. In August, Prince offered praise for Trump’s candidacy, telling Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos: “I even like some of his projects that have gone bankrupt, because people that do things, and build things, and try things, sometimes fail at doing it, and that’s the strength of the American capitalist system.” Prince added: “We have kind of turned our back on the fact that hard work, sacrifice, risk-taking, innovation, is what made America great. Washington did not make America great.”
In September, Prince backed Trump’s proposal to commandeer Iraq’s 2 million barrels of daily oil output. “For Mr. Trump to say, ‘We’re going to take their oil — certainly we’re not going to lift it out of there and take it somewhere else, but putting it into production, and putting a tolling arrangement into place, to repay the American taxpayers for their efforts to remove Saddam and to stabilize the area, is doable, and very plausible,” Prince said on Breitbart Radio.
Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s nominee for education secretary and she has all but vowed to embark on a crusade to push a privatization and religious agenda in education that mirrors her brother’s in military and CIA affairs. Prince has long been a contributor to the campaign of fellow Christian warrior Mike Pence, and he contributed $100,000 to the pro-Trump Super PAC Make America Number 1. Prince’s mother, Elsa, pitched in another $50,000. That organization, run by Rebekah Mercer, daughter of billionaire hedge funder Robert Mercer, was one of the strongest bankrollers of Trump’s campaign.
According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in December Prince attended the annual “Villains and Heroes” costume ball hosted by Mercer. Dowd wrote that Palantir founder Peter Thiel showed her “a picture on his phone of him posing with Erik Prince, who founded the private military company Blackwater, and Mr. Trump — who had no costume — but joke[d] that it was ‘N.S.F.I.’ (Not Safe for the Internet).”
Not even Trump is brazen enough to give Prince a public post in his administration. But Prince is operating in the shadows, where he has always been most at home.
Top Photo: Erik Prince listens during an interview in Washington on Jan. 31, 2014.
Scahill misses the point, focusing on personalities instead of systems. And some of those commenting here are being just as ridiculous, sniping over the characterization of Bannon as a white supremacist. Why are any of you invested in defending the reputation of a member of this new ruling class, who, by the way, doesn’t give a crap about you? Good grief. This is false consciousness overload.
What is the Phoenix Program really about? This is the story that absolutely all of you are missing. You’d think the Intercept’s editors would see this mention as an important jumping-off point for an important discussion about this method of political and psychological control, but apparently not. What Erik Prince is talking about with the “recreation” of the Phoenix Program (which is disinformative as well because Phoenix never went away and since Vietnam has been deployed in various countries around the world including the US) is the application of the CIA’s psywar techniques and massive coordination of the security, intelligence, media and civic services for the worldwide suppression of dissent via implicit and explicit terrorism. You think this might be important for people to know instead of focusing on this petty personality-based nonsense?!
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1248-douglas-valentine-on-the-resurrection-of-the-phoenix-program/
Try harder, Jeremy.
What a bunch of nonsense !!!! grow up.
do not judge anyone by their relatives ,
democrats THE SKY IS FALLING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ass’es all o f you !!!
I agree with the comment below. I clicked here from google to read about this, because I strongly dislike the war welfare industry.
Made it to the third paragraph — “Trump’s senior adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon” — and it’s like, oh well, another useless article voiced by an unreliable narrator.
Discursively slipping politically-motivated garbage into one’s writing doesn’t just discredit a single sentence or paragraph, it calls the truth and motivations of the entire article into question.
This has been the fatal flaw in Trump-related “reporting” all the way back to 2015, and it’s why fewer and fewer people are willing to believe even 100% truthful negative reports about the man.
if you don’t agree that bannon is a white supremacist than you are deluded.
The report has some sketchy info – Bannon is not a white supremacist – but does point to areas of concern with DeVos ties to the worst war profiteer ever. The chilling idea that this guy might actually be passing failed ideas (political assassinaton as practiced by both the US & Russia) to those close to the president and some considering it ingenuis or even as a plausible solution is enough to make you scream. You cannot “drain the swamp” if you take counsel from the worst war profiteer ever. If the author would focus on fact and not character assassination and hyperbole there is real meat here that would disturb many Americans, but Jeremy missed the mark and so many will throw the baby out with the bath water. He has done good work in the past let’s hope he cleans it up.
yes stop the character assasinations and start writing facts that are true
Finally some capable people running this country. Back to your safe spaces to cry, weenies!
C
I bet Trump likes him all special-like, because his name is ‘Prince’. Kinda like his ‘Baron’ obsession only less obvious.
I’m slightly looking forward to how much of this disgusting mess the Rs in Congress decide to put up with before they start the impeachment process of BOTH the P(p) and the VP.
L
European thugs have no stomach to fight Russia thats why they brought trump to power. These cowards can only kill or maim little babies in colonies from where these gutless shameless european cowards are leeching trillions of dollars every year.
O
Sounds like an accurate description of our activities in Viet Nam
Perhaps DeVos appointment is connected to Prince, who will be chosen to run Trump’s version of the Stasi, to take down opponents when needed including the occasional assassination, and to direct Trump’s personal torture unit, replacing the CIA.
Trump would probably consider Prince an asset, as he wages his Trumpian war against just about everybody in the world who is perceived as a threat, which is just about everybody.
W
I stopped reading at “White Supremacist Steve Bannon”. You are a joke.
Yea you stopped reading because you are used to your delusions of grandeur!
N
We can expect more nuttiness from our emperor in chief. I’ve watched some of the weirdness surrounding Betsy De Vos’ nomination for Secretary of Education, and aside from Trump’s utterly weird proclivity for nominating people who actually hate the institutions to which they are being nominated, apparently “draining the swamp” means filling it up first with some of the nastiest, sodden scum Trump can dredge up. Betsy De Vos. What has she done for public education? Not a single thing. However, De Vos has basically ruined the entire Michigan schooling system with her pipe dream of shoving crazy evangelicalism down every living throat–and look at Eric Prince’s obsession with maiming, murdering, killing for sport, torturing and worse…for Jesus.
Where do reptiles such as Prince usher up from? Unfortunately for America, our emperor in chief associates power with violence, domination and control. When he rants about illegal immigration, what he’s doing is projecting his own fearfulness in regard to himself, and in his narcissistic world, everything turns around to him.
That’s not leadership, that’s brutishness. Sooner he’s gone, better for the entire world.
S
“Trump’s senior adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon,” – that’s a mischaracterization. But it is obvious Prince is not on the side of The Prince of Peace and is no angel.
You’re right its a mischaracterization. It should be alt-right Steve Bannon.
Working class people voting for republicans is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. Trump voters???
Erik needs to advize Trump because Obama seeks to create chaos before Trump takes office
Here we go again with the film reels of the hammer&sickle flying across europe and clanging into countries to stir Americans into handing over their children to die for profits in war perpetrated by the whores of the dumb&dumbers club (like Nixon whose sould should be quite crispy by now) for the benefit of their profiteering thieves of wallstreet.
The dumb&dumbers just cant seem to get their lost souls away from the flames of theft fraud and war.
A laughable comment. Here we have, instead of a democracy versus communism dichotomy of crazy, a conservatives versus democrats dichotomy of crazy–because a mass movement such as the conservative mass movement cannot exist without some kind of deathly enemy. So what if Putin ascended to the presidency of Russia by duplicitous means? So what if Putin is known to have ordered the murders of rivals, critics, journalists and innocent Russian citizens and citizens of other nations? So what if a name-change does not mean the USSR ever changed from its totalitarianism?
As for the “dumb and dumbers” who “just can’t seem to get their lost souls away from the flames of theft, fraud and war”, how about putting an end to the inverted totalitarianism of managed democracy in which the real power base isn’t the American citizenry but a politicized economic ideology in which profit is everything and loyalty and honor amount to little?
Of the dozens of dumb wars the U.S. has gotten into since World War II, the U.S. has not won a single one. Why? Because war is not to be won. Rather, war is a means to the end of enriching fools who never know when enough money is enough.
There’s your crazy. And Trump is one of them.
good to get a laff of some things.
Here is another one –
just recently Rachel Maddow determined that if Trump calls the troops back from Poland and Norway then Trump is doing what Putin wants him to do and if that is the case then Trump is doing so because Putin has the goods on him and is blackmailing him. That is what Rachel said.
that’s the biggest laff of all. Since when did she start playing the skin flute?
I guess my comment about current Podesta Group employee and former senior communications advisor to the Republican House Majority Leadership, Lauren Maddox has been relegated to the TI multi-link black hole.
Lee Fang revealed via twitter that Ms. Maddox – did I mention she’s employed by HRC ally John Podesta of recent password fame? – has been advising Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearings for Secretary of Education Destruction.
Ms. Maddox also is a former Sallie May/for profit college lobbyist according to Mr. Fang. Well, Sallie May, the countries largest student loan provider, is now being sued by the government, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be specific, for “issues” with the services it provides to some of our most indebted citizens, young people who want an education.
If Mr. Podesta’s employee does a better job for Betsy DeVos than she did for Sallie May, then we can probably expect more of the same from an education department that hasn’t really been about education for a very long time now.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/government-sues-americas-largest-student-loan-company?utm_term=.djMVQZ4z08
Give it a rest Jeremy:
“Obama has authorized the continuation or re-emergence of two of the most contractor-dependent wars in U.S. history. As noted previously, there are roughly three contractors (28,626) for every U.S. troops (9,800) in Afghanistan”
“During the next five months you will read a lot about the Obama doctrine, in particular the supposed “light” military footprint he endorses. However, you will not read about the far larger numbers of war-zone contractors.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/18/private-contractors-are-the-silent-majority-of-obamas-military-mercenaries-iraq-afghanistan/
“the Obama administration has decided on its hired guns of choice: Triple Canopy, a Chicago company now based in Virginia. It may not have Blackwater’s thuggish reputation, but Triple Canopy has its own bloody history in Iraq and a record of hiring mercenaries from countries with atrocious human rights records. ”
“The Obama administration may have traded Blackwater for Triple Canopy in Iraq, but it is likely that some of Blackwater’s operatives, too, will simply jump over to Triple Canopy.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/134594/obama's_blackwater_chicago_mercenary_firm_gets_millions_for_private_%22security%22_in_israel_and_iraq
First of all, just because Obama did it doesn’t mean it was a bright idea. And it doesn’t mean it not be called out no matter who does it.
Second, you need to understand that the Gov outsourcing military contractors is different, MUCH DIFFERENT, than having the contractors setting the agenda and giving strategic advice.
Third, you need to do some serious reading up on Erik Prince. There’s no comparison.
Prince wants to assassinate even the billionaire funders of Islamic radicalism? Did he just say he wants to kill the al-Saud family? I’m assuming he’s excluding the US deep state….
Hopefully! Sadly it seems Tillerson is (Surprise surprise) a fan of the oil royals.
Jeremy Scahill is a bad-ass, pure and simple!
Here’s his 2009 article on Erik (killa) Prince.
https://www.thenation.com/article/blackwater-founder-implicated-murder/
Governance over decades has delivered a rogues gallery of individuals that put their success and interest even belief system above the rule of Constitutional law. Good money for the few a poor payoff for the many. Too many We the people slept though this act. Trump will by design or accident pull back the curtain on a real wake-up call. Perhaps this “Dorian Gray” view will cause some real change. Pray we get and work towards a better future.
For those who think things would have been better under a Clinton administration I offer this:
The Podesta Group, founded by John “Password Management” Podesta and his brother – employs Lauren Maddox. What is Lauren Maddox known for? She is a former communications adviser to House Republican leadership who lobbied for the for-profit college industry. What is she doing now? She’s helping Betsy DeVos become our next Secretary of Education.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/821550818914697216
Well, but what about the future? Surely the democrats will learn from the 2016 election and work toward electing better candidates. We’ve heard rumors that Cory Booker might have aspirations….
Wait, what? Booker was on the board of Betsy DeVos’s anti-union, pro-charter, pro-voucher Koch/Walton/Olin-funded organization?
https://twitter.com/JoshuaMound/status/802957616439853056
But that was back when he was only an “Honorable” mayor. Surely he’s learned to be better than that. Right? I mean, now that he’s a Senator he can really start working to give the proles what they need to have a better life? Right?
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139825/cory-booker-not-friend
The democrats offer nothing but frills around the shitpile that is only different from the republicans in terms of volume. The fact that they hide their shit better than republicans – who relish throwing it directly in peoples’ faces as opposed to the dems smearing it on everything they touch so they can pass it along without it actually being seen in their dirty little hands – is meaningless in the end. Both parties intend to bury this country in oligarchy, suffocating everyone but themselves in drudgery and the hellish details of mere survival to the point where we accept that as our natural state. We can accept that or we can fight but we can no longer afford to tell ourselves lies about what all of these people truly represent.
Yep. Certified. Done. Perfect. Nation run by a criminal class. Unless it was a total, complete fabrication on the part of MSM, we built Trump and Prince Et Al in concert and aggregate, from at 2 generally UN-acknowledged coups and a slow, steady and probably quite calculated Pledge Of Allegiance to Empire At Any Cost, a continuation of The Crusades for at least a thousand years. And a gently, NeoLiberally Corporo-Facist international “diplomacy”… serving Money Printers, primarily. And a “reasonable” gently militarized, quite brainwashed, actually, First World public lapped that shit up… blaming any easily identifiable “other” as the cause of any deep, socialized fears and problems… and extolled the virtues of racism, bigotry, a-religious and economic discrimination… And genocide with enthusiasm… Quite buried in a yesterday’s (1-17-17) front section of an over-the-wire news publication is the OXFAM suggestion that 8 persons, “8 men have as much wealth as half of globe’s population”…
Hey… Ya gotta have some serious firepower on your side to maintain that kind of bent disparity in perception, or reality. Thus Hillary tittering at Qadaffi’s demise, Obama’s Kill-List Meetings, 9-11 as a False Flag event along with many others, nuking Japan as a message to Russia – and the rest of us – to name only a very select FEW of the carefully planned and executed planned events leading us to now, leading to assassinations of and jailing of truth-tellers, and to the ilk of Eric Prince, Brennan, Alexander, Trump etc… Credit where credit is due. Look in the mirror. And hey! Remember: It’s never too late for healing…
Snowden has not been pardoned and Eric Prince both roams free and profits. In a just world, Prince would be GITMO inmate praying for its closure.
Seems to me that Eric was canoodling with the Communist Chinese gov’t a couple of years ago.
Last decade, when I heard about mercenaries “helping” in Afghanistan, I did a LOTE to my local conservative rag in Canada, the Calgary Sun, in which I proposed that the Canadian military’s Rules of Engagement be updated to require our soldiers to shoot mercenaries, like Blackwater a-holes, on sight, as they were more of a hazard to us than the Taliban. Needless to say, our “free speech!” rag did not print it, nor, I believe, appreciate it.
Fake news people. Be alert and aware. Greenwald is about the money. Don’t be fooled. You will not see the important reporting needed that doesn’t give him enough CASH.
Prince probably qualifies as a modern day pirate or privateer. Although he may end up going too far like Captain Kidd. He needs to make sure he has his “letter of marque and reprisal” in order as per Article I of the US constitution.
His diddling about with foreigners may merely be a “flag of convenience.” Which is common among pirates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque
An’…an…Dirty Harry, Gunny Highway, and The Terminator were REAL PEOPLE…
It’s only eight months until International Talk Like A Pirate Day
HAARRRRRR!!!!!
http://squackle.com/10264/chat-logs/10264-sweet17-bloodninja/
Jeremy – Tell your readers what you really know. Don’t be a coward. How about who killed Seth Rich, Monica Peterson and the tens of other murders. No, you are just interested in going along and making money. Hack.
WHERE IS YOUR REPORTING ON DYNACORP? What a weak coward this writer? is . Where is your reporting on Dynacorp and absolute horrors much worse than Blackwater? You are not credible and making yourself irrelevant slowly but surely. Americans aren’t buying what you are selling.
I agree this author is totally focused on bashing Blackwater and Mr. Prince when there were many other companies and some of them had bad incidents as well. I worked for both Blackwater and Dyncorp (not Dynacorp, just FYI :). We worked in a dangerous place doing dangerous work. That doesn’t excuse those who did wrong, but the media should not blow things out of proportion or only focus on one high profile case to damn all contractors.
So you admit being a terrorit thug and a mercenary but wont get busted because you are protected by state sponsored thugs and mafia operators?
Your labels and misspelled insults are amusing to me. If you want clarification I was paid to protect US diplomats and their interests in a hostile war-time environment. Mercenary has both a negative and neutral definition. In my case I was a professional soldier, paid by the US Government to use my set of skills in service to my country. I operated under a set of rules of engagement established by agreement between the US State Department and the host country. I followed the rules but a small minority of my counterparts did not. These the the atrocities you speak of and seem to want to lump all contractors into a group of “thugs” as you say. Well, that is really just your problem and shows your lack of intelligence and access to actual facts.
Prince has been encouraged in his blood money schemes
by republicans and democrats alike.
He has continuously receive contracts under Bush and Obama,
The main difference between the administrations is that
the Obama administration had to pretend that it was
challenging some of his schemes while Obama and Hillary Clinton
continued to give him funding.
The democrats have helped to bring about this situation.
Trump, Prince, and the rest of this perversity have benefited
enormously by the Hillary Clinton’s actions over the years
and it was the democrats choice of her as their candidate which
secured this outcome.
Wow. Who didn’t see this coming?
A ferocious and belligerent Christian he-man hiding in Trump’s malignant shadow? His family motto should be, “You bleed, I win. Praise Jesus.”
I suppose tomorrow someone will write with outrage about those secret Republican ties with arms dealing corporations.
I’ve always felt Trump lied with his “Make America Great Again” horseshit.
The more accurate slogan when putting Republicans in charge:
Release the Kracken!
Or maybe the simple bur elegant party platform should prevail: “Fuck you, poor people.”
Don’t be mad, milt’mellow. What was I supposed to do … vote for Hillary! %^)
I did.
The rest of you can celebrate Trump’s inauguration Friday.
Tell one another how relieved you are to have a white fascist in the White House rather than a corporatist Democrat.
As you gently pet the crocodile, remember that it sees your hand as meat no matter how warmly you feel towards reptiles in general.
Uh, your corporate WARHAWK “We Came, We Saw, He Died” candidate, as was Obama and NATO, pushing for war with Russia…for years. On Nov 8th, the USA chose between a meth lab & a crack house; the meth lab won.
I always said the choice was between a clown and a criminal..but I like yours better
“I love war.”
“I’d do a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
“Take out their families.”
“Let it be an arms race.”
“If we have them [nukes], why can’t we use them?”
“when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.”
Moron.
Well, “moron”, the left is, basically, anti-war. They had no one to vote FOR.
Almost half the eligible stayed home…in this election. Usually the more wealthy & educated vote faithfully, while the poor & minorities do not…due to, on one hand, right wing voter suppression, on the other, the Democratic Party…which aided in defunding ACORN.
Almost 1/2 the country sat down, or was denied. It was the only election I’ve ever seen where “None of the Above” would have been a viable choice. “Not Trump” was not on the ballot.
If you want to see a moron, search Martha Coakley, who lost TED KENNEDY’s seat in Massachusetts…twice. Then HRC, loser in 2008, did it again in 2016.
Too bad you didn’t get your pony.
Have this sack of pony shit instead.
Sorry about the pony Nete :-(
Funny I haven’t seen very much of the Anti-War left since Obamas inauguration.
On Nov 8th, the USA chose between a meth lab & a crack house; the meth lab won.
I think a better analogy might be a choice between a meth lab and a legal meth lab, aka the Pharmaceutical Industry.
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-speed-of-hypocrisy-how-america-got-hooked-on-legal-meth
But your analogy holds. I don’t blame milton for being bitter. I’m bitter too. I’m bitter that the democratic party has been so consistently stupid and short-sighted that it hasn’t seen what’s happening in society. I’m bitter that they didn’t recognize what Sanders campaign represented and couldn’t set aside their hubris for humility to adopt what their natural constituency was telling them they wanted. I’m bitter that they remade themselves into a lukewarm copy of the republicans. I’m bitter that people who worked their asses off during the primary to try to effectuate change in a system designed to suffocate such efforts are being blamed for the results of an election that ignored, then fought against, then demonized them.
I won’t be celebrating anything Friday and I’m insulted that someone who should know better still can’t resist taking a slap at my, and others’, face. But if it somehow makes the bitterness a tiny bit easier to take, I guess I’m strong enough to take it. But while the Clinton voters are gnashing their teeth and fashing themselves and everyone else within reach, I’ll be helping my elderly mother because that’s really more important than fighting against people who believe in and want most of the same things I do in this country.
Then I’m going to come home and get on my local DSA group’s website, mark down the dates of their meetings and start doing something besides bitterly bitching online to try to start building something to stand up to Trump and all the other rich assholes – democratic AND republican – who think they own all of us. Because I don’t believe they have the right to tell us what we have to settle for. That small thing, that tiny belief, is what keeps me from being just as bitter as some of the folks I see all around me because it means I haven’t given up fighting, it means I don’t accept being told where my place is and exactly what tiny portions I’m allowed to have.
Giving up is what makes people bitter. Accepting the role of serf and letting them convince you that no one can ever have anything different or better is what makes people bitter. Fuck that. I’m tired of bitter, it rots your soul and takes away your humanity.
You slip on your Clinton-voter diss like a comfortable old pair of shoes.
Read these headlines (one is fake — can you tell which one?)
Who writes this shit?
The press lies, you can’t believe anything the Democrats say, the press lies, Democrats blame everyone but themselves, the press lies some more, Russia is innocent, Assange is being persecuted, they’re all out to get us, Remember Brexit, they don’t listen to us, the Deep State wants Clinton, Fake news, McCarthyites … is that you Donald?
This crap sounds like something from Trump Central. If Jonah Goldberg, Steve Bannon, or Bill Kristol bylines were attached to this shit I would bother reading it.
Instead I’m wondering if this an audition for Fox? The Washington Times? The Wall Street Journal? Newsmaxx? The Drudge Report? Breitbart? RI? CATO? The Heritage Foundation? Pravda? An Instruction Manual for Libertarians? The American Spectator?
Now go read the comments.
You’re insulted because I should know better? I’m bitter because of the election?
I’m sick of people who should be my allies, people I respect and admire, becoming so incredibly stupid and biased.
Gloria Steinem says Trump will radicalize more women than she ever could. Great. The opposite seems to be the case at The Intercept.
Something must change. Immediately. Nothing changes when otherwise decent people repeat the Republican narrative almost ver batim. But if someone is going to repeat the Republican narrative, they should at least be upfront about it … particularly in the comment section.
If you think I have a point, great.
If you think not, fine.
It’s not personal; i don’t know why you try to make it so. As you say, if criticizing me helps you to cope, consider these many opportunities my gifts to you.
” What was I supposed to do … vote for Hillary! %^)
—– I did.”
And you wonder why you are having difficulties … after voting for Hellary …
I’d say that you have identified your source of irritation.
Trust me, you would be feeling better about yourself if you had not cast your token to a crack whore.
Yeah, I blame Obama for that too. .. the greatest waste of political talent I’ve ever seen.
*didn’t know incoming Ed Sec. Betsy ‘sex conversion’ DeVos was Princes’ sister, but just assumed she must be a billionaire. .. it’s a small world, as they say.
And why not?
When you hear the calliope, there must be a bandwagon you can hop aboard.
And why not what?
We must be talking cross-purposes again, milt’mellow. ..when it comes to blaming Obama, especially about U.S. ‘contractors’ like Prince ‘operating in the shadows’, you’re singing to the choir.
*don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame Obama ‘for’ people like Prince … just allowing them to ‘operate in the shadows’.
It feels like I’ve been repeating myself endlessly since the election — particularly on this site where stupid and strident seem to have merged a virulent version of quislingitis.
Losing is NEVER a winning strategy.
Blaming the loser for losing is like blaming your own leg for breaking.
In an article about Erik Prince, blaming Obama is nothing more than piling on … a favorite form of navel gazing on here.
You didn’t see Prince lurking in the shadows during Obama’s term. You did see the Nisour Square murderers prosecuted.
Yet you blame Obama?
Blame the bank robber for robbing the bank. When you blame the chief of police for what the bank robbers did, you give the bank robbers the chance to steal the entire city.
Which is what recently happened in America.
Yet YOU sputter on as if Obama had no responsibility for anything!
It was the reponsibility of the Democratic Party to put up a viable candidate to vote FOR.
They failed.
The Democrats based their campaign on who one should vote AGAINST.
They failed.
They called voters trailer trash, uninformed and deplorable. VOTERS!
They failed.
And Trump succeeded.
You should be ashamed — ashamed for yourself for your support, ashamed for the country that voted for him and ashamed for the entire human race that allows this bit of verminous flesh anything but repudiation and disdain.
Yet you gloat.
What’s the matter with you?
As usual, you feel no responsibility for blindly backing a crap candidate in 2016.
Blame everybody else.
The DNC can do no wrong.
“You should be ashamed of yourself” You certainly have no shame whatsoever.
1. You have no idea what I feel.
2. I voted for Sanders in caucus, Clinton in general
3. Voting for president is like voting for a garden. The people accompanying the head gardener — the who select, plant, water, weed and harvest count more than the gardener — instead of Loretta Lynch, you get Jeff Sessions, instead of Merrick Garland you get Son of Scalia, instead of John Kerry you get ExxonMobil, instead of General NATO you get the bloody Prince.
If you voted for Trump, you voted FOR this garden of evil.
What I feel is deep resentment towards all you posturing ninnies.
And, yet, here he is … Prince* now “Advising” Trump.
Just like when Obama closed Gitmo … but there it is: still open for business too.
*On January 6, 2012, Blackwater (aka Prince) settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of six of the victims for an undisclosed sum.
It is true that several Blackwater lower level contractors were eventually convicted of manslaughter in the Nisour Square massacre after initially being acquitted during Obama’s tenure.
Like boutique opinions, elections have consequences.
Had Clinton won, your “here he is” comment wouldn’t be so. Prince would be nowhere near the Oval Office. Indeed, Blackwater had to change its name several times because it had such a repugnant reputation. Now Prince can hide in the repugnant shadow of Trump and the Republicans as he tries to figure new ways of turning disputes into profitable bloodbaths.
Life isn’t a box of fucking chocolates.
You knew exactly what you’d get with Trump.
Don’t blame Obama.
This man is pure evil. Just a killer for money. Nothing more.
In what astral plain are you on to not understand that this assasination programme has and will always exist?
Do you really think rendition, tourture etc etc have ceased under Barry?
Oh, how naive.
Jesus.
Why would anyone take your word for anything? The question is rhetorical. No one would.
THANK YOU for telling folks who remember the CIA’s failed Phoenix program what they already know. We would NEVER have guessed, otherwise.
Then, like now, we criticize it, while quitters accept it.
Breaking news on CNN: Missing in this article is the secret and not yet verified but highly plausible 2-page addendum to briefing reports of the US intelligence services that Prince is an agent of Putin.
no doubt
signed by clapper himself and areed to by all 17 agencies
“In July, Prince told Trump’s senior advisor and white supremacist Steve Bannon, at the time head of Breitbart News…”
LOL
This fake news site is amusing and all but you should be aware that you can be sued for putting out libelous claims like that
JUST BE grateful that you cant be sued for being a total dummy.
Well, Bannon IS a white supremacist, and he WAS the head of Breitbart News.
Bring it!
“In July, Prince told Trump’s senior advisor and white supremacist Steve Bannon…”
Did you really need to add “white supremacist” into this article? We come to The Intercept for (we hope) impartial, objective and fact-based journalism. A purely subjective assertion like this about Bannon undermines all of that.
not sure where this fits in to the bigger picture, but it is a piece of the jigsaw and fits somewhere
https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/373730-us-report-russian-hacking/
Real purpose of the intelligence report on Russian hacking with Abby Martin and Ben Norton
there is a battle going on, wallstreet lies, msm lies, US gov lies and is quite corrupted, cia lies, Seth Rich murdered, 911 not reconciled, MSM lies, WMD fraud, wallstreet fraud, WF fraud, US financing terrorists and supporting israeli genocide, and calling Putin the most dangerous man.
American foreign policy is crazy. US is loosing migrant populations upon europe – How is it that calling Russia evil, just for the sake of holding the bloat of NATO, that big of a deal to American tutes? wtf?
You are reading RT, the Russian State-run media’s propaganda arm… for information on Russia hacking scandals of the US? Seriously?
WOW.
sure beats listening to MSM liars.
sure beats supporting the whores for wallstreet wars
sure beats dyin for the dumya’s lyin
sure paying up for the prices of wallstreet thieves
sure beats the fools for consumer credit foolishness
sure beats murdering palestinians for their land
I read the actual report. You can get it on Cryptome.
Actually NO it doesn’t beat listening to MSM liars. AT LEAST those liars are held to some small account and they can be fact checked.
But listening to the Kremlin? Not so much.
Erik Prince is a textbook psychopath.
In what way?
Be specific
Really? This moron and his people kill for money – plain and simple. He doesn’t care who, where or why. You could be next and he would not have to have a reason except $$$$$.
Maybe this gentleman is there to help quietly thwart the possible a la maidan type of insurrection by the Marxists and Antigua. After all like Putin said they got practice not the Ukraine why not try it in DC… so there those who see it coming … and gonna head of at the pass lol
We await translation…
How are you gonna just throw in there that Steve ban on is a white supremacists without any actual facts to back it as a side note, like it’s some kinda indisputable truth. This article is failed piece of garbage!
More garbage. If you know so much where in the hell is Obama’s sealed records? Where were you when he was running. Where is your expose on evil Hillary?
BOOOOO HISSSSS. If it is this bad, it will be fixed.
Love your work! I’d like to see more stories on the attitudes of some wealthy people and how the narcissistic mindset can cause so many problems when it’s tantrums are amplified with this insecurity and wealth “for action”. I haven’t seen any definitive proof of Bannon’s “white supremacy”… I’ve seen crusading capitalism worship, but at least he says he wants to make capitalism more judeochristianish and dare I say, moral. Share identity, pride, and honor for peace. Hoard them for conflict.
Maybe that’s why Mr. Trump wants Betsy in his cabinet – Mr. Trump seems to favor family ties.
I could be a nihilist, but there is a part of me that is really excited about this crew of gargoyles parading around in public view in the Trump administration. They can do a lot damage from the shadows, but brought out into the light and performing in full view: I predict a lot of very entertaining public flame-outs.
Betsy deVos and her brother Erik Prince hate people. They really do. They can’t keep that fact out of their flinty little eyes. Watching them crumble in public office (or, in Prince’s case, visibly close to it) is going to be satisfying, I suspect.
Scary. Real. Selfish. Dumb
Jeremy Scahill is a White Supremacist. See how easy it is to call someone something they are not. Let’s try that again everyone: JEREMY is a RACIST. Fact.
Frightening. With people like this in control it is hard for me to see any future for the human race. Just a downward spiral towards extinction.
You lost me once you called Steve Bannon a white supremacist because there’s no proof of that.
go read the comment section of every article on his website.
Well, I was thinking, what makes someone merit the title of ‘white supremacist’? I would like some direct quotes of Bannon’s that the author can verify or at least supply. When I hear the words “white supremacist” I imagine that someone is a member of a white supremacist group like the KKK. Or is ‘white supremacist’ simply a synonym for racist?
Also, what is a “mercenary” as used in the context of this article? A soldier of fortune? A businessman or entrepreneur of shady international dealings?
I have to say it’s a rather murky, even paranoid, article. Seems to imply that anyone with an ideology or methods contrary to those of the author is guilty of something nefarious.
And this: “Betsy deVos and her brother Erik Prince hate people. They really do. They can’t keep that fact out of their flinty little eyes.” Gee, what great investigative reportage. Kee-rist!
Okay, I screwed up. That quote at the end of my post was a major error. I thought it was part of the article, when in fact it was in another poster’s comment. Sorry ’bout that.
Damn, I wish there was an edit feature in comments.
It seems you’ve found the only alternative, proofreading your post after you’ve published your mistake, and publishing your corrections.
S’allright, given the circumstances…
Jeremy probably knows more about blackwater than any politician and is well versed on the matter. If you want “great investigative reportage” you should read his book or documentary regarding blackwater. They are the definition of mercenaries and exceed that.
Read the included private air force link to see what is meant by “mercenary”.
Same. The Fakestream News calls Bannon a white supremacist, but they are casting unsubstantiated aspersions and accusations around like they mean nothing these days. I expected better from The Intercept. You don’t say it unless you can back it up.
Bannon is not a white supremacist. Breitbart is mostly garbage, but come on, man.
Yeah, no proof of that at all. Just a garden variety anti-semite (according to his ex-wife) and *SMART* racist (instead of the thuggy kind): http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/steve-bannon-racist-lets-find-out.
So, when Peter Thiel invents his own Gawker Media and merges Breitbart with Stormfront, you’ll still want proof, right?
“Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe,” Bannon told Mother Jones in August. “Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that’s just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements.”
IOW but we’re not as bad as THEM! Notice that Bannon also provides no examples with his last sentence…he just spews.
I agree that it damages credibility when you reach like that. Stick to solid ground- journalism is a dying profession. If you want to label the guy that way, you need to provide more backing other than echoing MSM labels. And it’s a tangential point to the article anyway. Breitbart seems more ‘tabloid’ than anything else- just willing to spout ‘edgy’ crap that certainly has nasty elements for clickbait more than to espouse a principle. I did enjoy the insights how some of these dirtbags are family, what a charming echo of the nepotism that is very common in the current establishment. Sick of the highly placed journos and bureaucrats who ‘just happen’ to be somebody powerfull’s kid.
remembering my youth, it looks to me like the morphing of the White House into a Tammany Hall .
And. Remembering the movie 1900 ; AS OUR FATE.
Just when you think it can’t get worse, you find out that Trump is listening to international criminals now.
So, this crazy is working for China and advising Trump. Does Trump have any concern for the security of the US? I guess not. Sell out to Putin; attack China and let US secrets be leaked through his adviser, Prince? Outrageous.
Start by denying his crazy sister access to our education system. Then, run this guy out of the country. Blackwater was a terrible disgrace in Iraq. That was Prince’s doing. And now it will be Trump’s doing.
Excellent work, Jeremy. Thanks.
Hi from Berlin/Germany and allow me a reference to German history:
It was in the early sixties, when a trumplike defence secretary (Strauß) caused a severe state crisis: by lies, and, finally throwing a journalist of the investigating SPIEGEL into jail. Sounds familiär? Strauß was forced to resign. – This “Affäre” changed our whole country towards more democracy.
– Yes, it was an ecourraged newspaper, “DER SPIEGEL” that turnend post-Nazi Germany into a modern state. So, good luck and best wishes for THE INTERCEPT!
From what I have read, Erik Prince is one of those profound enemies of the Earth that is talked about in the Bible.
I don’t understand how the US govt allows him to operate?
SHUT HIM DOWN!
Comon !!! We are talking billions in gun running here . It’s the ECONOMY stupid !!~~!
This quote from the movie, Lord of War, could have come right out of Erik Prince’s mouth, and will answer your question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZ4Rvxhx5w
And some of the vile sadistic dictators are sitting on big pools of oil and minerals. . . Of course, even without the Erik Prince types, we have Israel to fulfill the same role in Africa and elsewhere, aka “plausible deniability.”
A “necessary evil” for warmongers and gun runners, profiteers, carpet baggers and slimy politicians. The so-called “elite” are surrounding the Trump administration like vultures upon a corpse, and ironically, before the man is even sworn in. (or dead) Eric Prince, a true “deplorable”.
Are you kidding? Did you miss the Reagan administration? Prince fits right in–ignorant, arrogant, and prone to violence. And, of course, making a shitload of money while he’s at it.
AND, the favorite soldier of Fox News from the Raygun era, Oliver North?
No surprise that Prince likes Trump and would delusionally bring up this theme, given that Prince also received multimillion-dollar inheritance from his father…
These guys are all scum (just like Prince’s sister, btw) and all should have their heads chopped off.
Not surprised. The CIA and much of the intelligence services have been doing the same activities since the 1950s.
The US government overthrew a democratic government of Iran and installed the Shah, an 18 year old kid in 1952 The US did secret bombing of Cambodia. The US government overthrew Chili’s Aillende govt in 1972 and installed Pinochet, an Admiral as dictator. The US under Obama oversaw the overthrow of the Honduran government and is now a dictatorship. The US secretly supported the so called freedom fighters in the early 80s that became the taliban and Alquida. During the height of the cold war, the us trained and equipped latin American governments through dictatorships from Brazil to mexico. These soldiers were trained in the School For the Americas. During the 80s, the US secretly funded the Contras in the fight against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua under Colonel Oliver North….
I could go on.
Reminds me of the Olly North affair. Great, a family of like minded people who have so much mammon that they decided it is their God given right to rule this country politically. Forcing the rest of us to accept their twisted, obscene interpretation of being a Christian, and the dumb republican simple-minded folks fall for it every time. these players ferocious egos make them sub-human. They have no scruple to destroy this Republic for their own personal gain.
All I can say having been in the medical profession all my adult life, this soulless lot have the same bodily function like every human on earth, but they think that their excrement’s do not stink. But when terminal illness hits all the wealth, all the power is reduced to a bundle of pain and misery, just like the next man. Death is the great equalizer of all mankind.
One has to feel sorry for all the ignorant, trusting people who brought Trump and Co. to power. Very few will ever read this article or have the slightest inkling that their hope and Trump’s promise of cleaning the swamp just became a sea.
Wasn’t Mr. Prince the one smuggling prostitutes, and underage ones at that, on his company planes?
Who better to advise him on THE WAR CRIMES OF NATO?
Reported elsewhere “[NATO has] operated in illegal wars in Syria, illegal wars in Libya and elsewhere,” Rickard said.
The globalists headed by their funding bankster thieves want to run the planet for guaranteed profits for their war economy. Is Hell rising?
I have been waiting for this. I have followed every word on Prince’s Christian Supremacy….his sister will make the charter system in his vision. Keep writing. We are listening. Thank you for writing BlackwAter and continuing to report.
Fuck that war criminal!!!
Erik Prince and his sister, Betsy DeVos, are both mercenary. Erik’s kills military combatants. Betsy kills civilian public school children.
It is so disgusting how evangelical Christianity, war, militirazation, torture and money are so intertwined in this country. Pure and unadulterated evil.
“Steve Bannon head of Brietbart and white supremacist” lol I’m glad someone says it how it is.
Your reporting is fantastic, Jeremy Scahill.
Erik Prince is a scary, dangerous fanatic and there are too many Princes (a Barron, an autocrat, and a half dozen or so pluto/kleptocrats) standing around.
Please the BoingBoing article on anodyne anonymity andsilent state by Cory Doctorow:
https://boingboing.net/2017/01/08/how-to-think-critically-about.html
+1 all those sentiments. Anodyne immunity and the silent state will be key concepts under this regime:
“But sometimes, it’s is a person’s job to talk to the press without being named: they are manipulating the press into publishing official statements, while making the actual officials unaccountable for them. This is anodyne anonymity: the routine practice of insisting that spokespeople, speaking on the record, giving out official positions, not be named. It’s how we have arrived at the silent state, through which government officials are able to knowingly lie outright, with fatal consequences for millions of people, without ever paying the price for it.”
Glad that you agree.
We should all write letters to our editors, including this one.
If you read her article (silent state), the journalist named names and nobody died.
So you two do work together. I wondered and wanted to ask Matthew after the SEAL Team 6 article he worked on for two years – as it overlapped some of your Dirty Wars years. Cool.
Erik Prince’s presence with Trump indicates we probably made a mistake – if we thought we’d already seen Executive sanctioned war crimes like dirty war death squads, or private mercenary armies – being unleashed to tear it up for empire. More’s coming.
Wouldn’t it be something if because of Trump a bunch of old-guard CIA / NSA establishment suddenly saw The Intercept and Wikileaks as the enemy of their enemy? Even that still wouldn’t be as weird as Trump getting elected though.
Consider the strange fate of Michael Hastings
White supremacist? I thought when starting to read this column that it was going to be hard news/insight. Not opinion mongering.
Just FYI: Obama commuted Pvt. Manning’s sentence; she gets out in May.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html
It’s a commutation; nothing more. I’ve found nothing where it changes her guilty verdict or the rest of the sentence, the dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of pay and allowances. She’s getting cut loose with a felony conviction, no funds, no VA care, considerable mental injuries from her treatment in custody, and an interrupted gender transition.
She might very well have gotten her verdict quashed; military appellate courts can be unforgiving up breaches in due process. Maybe the administration realized that.
Dude, given the alternative, 35 years total custodial sentence, being cut-loose as you describe sounds preferable!
It’s so very good to see you here coram. I’ve missed your contributions to such discussions.
You bring up aspects to Chelsea’s release I wasn’t aware of. It does sort of look like a win-win for Obama and the military. I can only hope that the people who’ve done their best to keep her spirit up during her long incarceration will also step up and help her through the next steps until she’s healthy and happy again. I know I’m willing to contribute to that and I’m sure I’m not alone.
While you may be right about her getting her verdict quashed, the fact that she attempted suicide weighs more heavily in my mind. I can only imagine the things she was exposed to on a daily basis that made her feel that ending her life was the lesser of all evils. Restoration of her military privileges means nothing if the choice is release or death.
I hope life’s been treating you well. It does my heart good to *see you again. :-)
Another bit of what I consider good news amongst all the bad and fake: Chelsea Manning’s sentence has been commuted by Obama.
She will be released in May of this year.
Although I do appreciate the journalism of Glenn Greenwald (not the author of this article); however, I am now discontinuing my follow of The Intercept because of biased phrases such as “white supremacist Steve Bannon.” The article could do without that garbage. Couldn’t read any more. I don’t appreciate being manipulated like that.
More like a white nationalist. He believes that white christians will go to war with other civilizations in the near future, and calls upon his fellow white christians to join the fight. That’s white nationalism to me.
Bye, Peggy.
After starting up with claims of being an independent journalistic enterprise dedicated to adversarial reporting on state and corporate power, the Intercept switched over to running a very large amount of MSNBC-style partisan political advocacy, ; but you still get the decent article now and then from people like Greenwald or Lee Fang. But this one, with primary reliance on “senior U.S. officials”, well, it’s hard to believe anything those people say. File under “unreliable claims made by Soviet-style apparatchiks and functionairies.”
That’s a bigger problem than referring to Steve Bannon as a “white supremacist”; which in turn is rather like referring to Hillary Clinton as a “Wall Street prostitute.”
Hey, maybe both descriptions have a ring of truth to them? Neither phrase is likely to help with the professional journalist image, though. And one can find counter-examples for each case, i.e. Steve Bannon seems to respect Tusli Gabbard, who is from a multicultural/ethnic family, and Hillary Clinton, ah, well. . . She went on a speaking tour with Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren?
I have to agree with the gist of your point regarding “…the decent article now and then..” and highlighting Glenn Greenwald, but i think the quality is still pretty high and rewarding to the reader. As an aside I don’t always agree with GG, but at the very least i feel challenged in my own views.
I think the problem is the business side of things. Like any website fighting for relevance day to day, The Intercept needs content. Investigative journalism is a slower turn than simply plugging a headline onto an Associate Press story. So I think they’ve had to hire a number of journalists to generate that content and part of the challenge for G.Greenwald and co. is to let those journalists operate w/o looking over their shoulder too much. GG certainly has a high degree of journalistic integrity and my guess is that it will sharpen the editorial pen of those on his team. Glenn is the culture. Cultures matter. I think The Intercept will get better and better.
Btw, Propublica.org is quite good also. Stylistically different, but good.
On some level I have to agree with your disapproval of “biased phrases”. They taint an otherwise valuable piece of journalism – that being the connection of Erik Prince to Trump and the fact that Princes sister is Betsy DeVos the chosen Sec.of Ed. Some of the ground work was laid out a few weeks ago regarding Prince, his past and present activities……..proclivities if you will. And whereas I believe a government may need a few individuals willing to operate in the shadows and at times a necessary evil, I don’t think they should be in a position to influence policy decisions or get a seat at the table simply because they contributed $.
That said, stuff like “white supremacist” and “..Prince’s latest wife..”, an unnecessary cheap shot (1st sentence/2nd paragraph), exposes a bias that allows people to discredit the meaningful content.
Still valuable journalism. I felt i learned something worthwhile.
You’re right about the “latest wife” business–I noticed that immediately. Scahill is a very good journalist, and I think, with his very acute knowledge of Prince, he let his emotions get the better of him there. I understand that, though I wish he wouldn’t have done that. (Prince’s first wife died from cancer, I believe, and this is his second or third wife. Maybe the current wife is the result of a divorce over something unsavory? I don’t know. Anybody? I don’t feel like trolling the internet to find out.)
Stacy DeLuke is Prince’s third wife. As you note, his first wife died of cancer and he and his second wife divorced in 2012. His wikipedia page, where I found that information is interesting in that, while the family section mentions all of that and has been updated to include mention of his sister, DeVos as nominee for Sec of Education, it does NOT have a single word about his third wife, neither at the top in the brief bio, nor in the section on family, which I find a bit strange. :-s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince#Family
Ah, a bit of further digging reveals that she was a spokesperson for Blackwater/Xe at some point. Other than that, there seems to be very little about her out there on cursory examination.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Stacy-DeLuke
It’s not a cheap shot to mention something like ‘Prince’s latest wife’ when you’re talking about someone who embraces a radically fundamentalist christian ideology and seeks to impose it on a democratic society but doesn’t actually adhere to its commandments in his own personal life because they don’t , you know, work for him exactly. Just another of the endless examples of his pathological hypocrisy. Akin to ‘thou shalt not kill.’
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck…
What’s your problem Peggy.
Keep it real out there in internet land, Peggy.
Jeremy Scahill literally wrote the book on Erik Prince and Blackwater, and he’s been following the Prince family ever since. It’s worth reading what he has to say about this.
I hope the source for this story wasn’t the CIA’s James Woolsey, who just quit the Trump transition team:
http://theweek.com/articles/671483/cia-not-trusted
Anonymous “senior U.S. officials” fall into the jailhouse informant and corrupt police officer category when it comes to reliable information, that’s one thing we can learn from history.
Shame on the intercept for falsely pushing the long disproved notion Steve Bannon is a white supremacist. I’m seeing a disturbing trend among left wing intercept writers of smearing people they don’t like.
As for Prince I hope Trump isn’t interested is letting the Intel community run the fight against Isis as they are making plenty of mistakes and are showing an inability handle sensitive materials.
Hillerysghost : “the long disproved notion Steve Bannon is a white supremacist”
I know the guy and I hope you are being sarcastic.
Mr. Trump has gathered the most extreme and the most corrupt group of individuals in one place. He is not a dummy! The soon to be president is setting up the infrastructure needed for transfering the little wealth left in the middle class to him and his cronies. Once we are all slaves, America will be great again.
The “woosh” you are hearing is not the swamp draining. It is the woosh you hear at the end stages of the fall of an empire.
Never say never. Trump doesn’t exactly seem to be one for adhering to norms or giving a flying fig what anybody thinks about his nominations.
Another’s arrogance can be an incredibly opportunity for an opponent. Assuming the opponent isn’t the Democratic party, which if the last couple of decades of their history is any indication only knows two tricks–rolling over onto their backs and peeing into the air in submission, or barking that everyone’s in league with the Putin and the Russians.
Neither of those tricks are ones I consider effective, unless your 65 years of age or older, and that cohort is going to start dropping like flies in America.
And Trump supporters were so concerned that Hillary could start another war. Kudos to them for choosing an even worse warmonger.
No, that was just a smoke screen. There never was any essential difference in belligerence between the two, just differences in style. Trump wanted to reinstate torture, ban Muslims from entering the US, bomb Syria and Iran, and help the Israelis persecute Palestinians. As for Hillary, she wanted to reinstate the cold war with Russia, continue and escalate our numerous covert wars in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, and help the Israelis persecute Palestinians. Both hate Ed Snowden and anyone else who blows the whistle on the war crimes of our corporate state.
Over the next four years it will be useful to keep in mind that Trump is not worse than Clinton, only different.
Exactly so. Different and worse in a different way. Looking forward to seeing the Clintons at their old friend’s inauguration. I’m only sixty, thank God. You know, RR, I can go to Truthdig and comments there can be edited well after the fact–this is, after all, 2017. Why can’t we get that here? How tough is it? I say this because I know typos in your stuff drive you nuts, as it should.
I bet that family dinner table is a hoot.
Good grief. Is that a swamp I smell?
Trump hasn’t even been sworn in yet and i feel that an artistic expression of the executive branch could be a collage using soiled toilet paper.
I’m not sure if I should thank the author of this article Jeremy Scahill for opening the window on this stink-fest, but i will. Thank you.
Bannon is not a white supremacist . That was Fake News, which makes me question everything about this article.
are we capitalizing “fake news” now?
You guys really took the ball and ran with that one
Fake News
. . .
Fox News
Get it?
I’ll say it again..if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck…
I did not have sex with that woman…
I am not a crook!
I am not a bimbo…
The accepted premise is that everyone is always leveraging silly old Trump for their needs. I know why people are tempted to think Trump is stupid, and I won’t attempt to explain the many ways in which they’re wrong, but I will say this: Trump is not George W Bush.
Trump is very capable of making people think they’re getting what they want, until they don’t, and the only person who ends up benefitting is Trump.
In this case, it would be quite refreshing for the US government to get behind the idea of eliminating ISIS instead of lying to the public about bombing them, when they’re not, and propping them up as an irritant to Assad.
It’s also Hillary’s fault that Europe is experiencing the worst refugee crisis in modern history. Gaddafi warned them what would happen when he lost control of his borders, and she and Obama didn’t much seem to care, so actually propping up Libyan border security wouldn’t be such a terrible idea.
There’s no indication that Trump wants to revive Phoenix. There is however plenty to indicate that the people around Trump, including Erik Prince, won’t get everything they want.
Note for the web guys — maybe use a font for names which displays at least the characters which are available on an US English iPhone keyboard, eh? …I’d expect lack of unicode from Breitbart.
What i am not getting here is how you can contribute to any sort of political effort from the profits of government contracts. Aside from that, i too would be asking Eric for a second opinion.
And the week was going so well otherwise…
LOL!