Former Blackwater CEO Claims He was a CIA Operative

December 3, 2009 6:58 PM

Blackwater (now known as Xe) has had a rough few years. The company, and its former CEO Erik Prince, have been the subject of allegations including murder, arms smuggling, child prostitution and wholesale massacre. Erik Prince has told Vanity Fair that he was a CIA operative and that someone has turned against him and "thrown him under a bus" by leaking his CIA associations to the public. He even compared his public outing to that of Valerie Plame. Mr. Prince has also been an outspoken and generous contributor to mostly-Republican political candidates. Previously on MeFi: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and many more.
posted by workerant (56 comments total)

Everyone who's surprised raise your hands.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:00 PM on December 3, 2009

I thought it was already an open secret that Blackwater was merely a CIA front.
posted by Avenger at 7:07 PM on December 3, 2009 [5 favorites]

For another barely-disguised CIA-owned "company", see DynCorp.
posted by Avenger at 7:09 PM on December 3, 2009 [4 favorites]

Prince claims he's been "thrown under the bus." He needs to be thrown in prison.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 7:10 PM on December 3, 2009 [10 favorites]

What ever happened to "defunding" these guys along with ACORN?
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:12 PM on December 3, 2009 [15 favorites]

Erik Prince is a mercenary. Fuck him.
posted by vibrotronica at 7:20 PM on December 3, 2009 [6 favorites]

Prince claims he's been "thrown under the bus." He needs to be thrown in prison.

I would support throwing him under a bus.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:20 PM on December 3, 2009 [25 favorites]

I would support throwing the phrase "thrown under the bus" under the bus of our collective lexicon.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 7:22 PM on December 3, 2009 [6 favorites]

The CIA and Blackwater won't ever be 'defunded' like ACORN because, simply put, they don't pose even 1/100th the threat to our nation that ACORN does.


*cough*


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

ACORN!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

Seriously though, kill that mother fucker over there.
posted by Bageena at 7:25 PM on December 3, 2009 [7 favorites]

Yeah, if you run a mercenary army I really could not give less of a shit what happens to you. You signed up for this, chuckles.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 7:26 PM on December 3, 2009 [10 favorites]

I would just like to point out that the letters in the name Erik Prince can be rearranged to spell both prick and pecker.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:34 PM on December 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Fuck him, the horse he rode in on, the horse's sire, the horse show judge, and the guy that gave the horse show judge a new job.

Using this guy's privates as a lightning rod would be too good for him, by half.
posted by notsnot at 7:40 PM on December 3, 2009 [7 favorites]

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:43 PM on December 3, 2009 [5 favorites]

And let's not forget that Prince is closely associated (related to) the Amway founders' families. I mean, surely he can be trusted to tell the truth and have a high level of moral turpitude.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 7:50 PM on December 3, 2009

I'm not here to make friends!
posted by hincandenza at 7:58 PM on December 3, 2009 [4 favorites]

amway and devos... hot damn... I did not know that....

/kicks self in butt for having head buried in the sand...
posted by HuronBob at 8:00 PM on December 3, 2009

Blackwater (now known as X͚̬̻̻̀̆ͥ̋ͬ̂̓̿͂͑̆̒ͮͤ̾̿e͈̝͎͓͙̝͉̰̘̹̥͈̪͍̝̲̥ͬ͑ͨ̾)

FTFY.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:22 PM on December 3, 2009

Douchbag commits douchbaggery, Film in 2012.
posted by Balisong at 8:27 PM on December 3, 2009

I'll believe he's been thrown under the bus when I see the tire tracks on his face.

More like the rats have all jumped ship and BushCo isn't there to provide cover any more.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:44 PM on December 3, 2009 [4 favorites]

and have a high level of moral turpitude

"moral rectitude"? Or did you flip the sarcasm switch in the middle of that?
posted by nicwolff at 8:46 PM on December 3, 2009

Boo fucking hoo.
posted by brundlefly at 8:56 PM on December 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

...the horse show judge, and the guy that gave the horse show judge a new job.

Look, it was neither President Bush' or Michael Brown's fault that a hurricane hit New Orleans.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:59 PM on December 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

LOLMULTIMILLIONAIRES
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:22 PM on December 3, 2009

Look, it was neither President Bush' or Michael Brown's fault that a hurricane hit New Orleans.

No, but it *was* their fault that the levee broke and the city flooded.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:48 PM on December 3, 2009 [3 favorites]

Yet another creepy aspect about Erik Prince and Blackwater is the ties to the Christian Dominionist movement. Sort of a modern day Crusades-like folk.
posted by zardoz at 10:02 PM on December 3, 2009 [2 favorites]

From the "thrown him under a bus" link:
Prince announced earlier this year that he would relinquish involvement in the company's day-to-day business as part of a management shake-up, and company spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke said Wednesday that Prince also plans to give up some of his ownership rights. He is considering becoming a high school teacher.
I... I... what? Lemme guess - social studies?
posted by zoinks at 10:14 PM on December 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

LOLSATAN
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:32 PM on December 3, 2009 [5 favorites]

Colonel Theodore S. Westhusing was found dead in Iraq shortly after reporting a litany of abuses committed by Private Military Contractors in Iraq. Witnesses reported the Colonel having a "very loud argument" with someone shortly before the incident, and his body was "discovered" by an employee of one of the contractors he was investigating.

His death was ruled a suicide.
posted by Avenger at 10:51 PM on December 3, 2009 [7 favorites]

Xe? They are calling themselves Xe now? Jesus Christ in a personal hovercraft! Who invents these monikers? You wanna remodel your corporate image, you say? Fine. Then change your despicable behaviour, you conscienceless fucks.

I can just envision the millions spent on focus groups, trial campaigns, etc; and imagine the meeting that resulted in just such a blatantly cynical renaming as this ...

Filthy Corporate Shill: "Now , the next slide shows the difference in consumer confidence in the brands Fluffy Happy Bunny Hutch Inc versus our current Troglodytic Death Camps LLPC. As you can see by the graph, the very strong metrics show that adopting the FHBHI brand will result in a 2.3% lowering of the chances of indictment for corporate officers, and an overall reduction of sentencing time of 4.67 months in cases of conviction ..."

Morally Bankrupt Corporate Controller: :" Yes, yes ... all very impressive, Todd. However , we will save $3.4 million annually on printing costs alone if we choose Xe instead. Not to mention the long-term cost reductions on personalization of coffee mugs, golf shirts, key fobs and stun-guns"
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:53 PM on December 3, 2009 [3 favorites]

And from the VF article:
For the time being, however, Prince contends that his plans are far more modest. “I’m going to teach high school,” he says, straight-faced. “History and economics. I may even coach wrestling. Hey, Indiana Jones taught school, too.”
RTFA, me.
Still... yeccchhh. Won't someone think of the children?
posted by zoinks at 11:13 PM on December 3, 2009

prince is considering becoming a high school teacher, says the linked nyt article.
take notice.
posted by krautland at 11:13 PM on December 3, 2009

I would support throwing the phrase "thrown under the bus" under the bus of our collective lexicon.

I've got the Reality Television Producers and Editors Union on line 2, for you. They sound angry.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:19 PM on December 3, 2009 [3 favorites]

prince is comparing the outing of blackwater to valerie plame? wtf?.

speaking up when something is wrong is different than outing a political enemy.
posted by Glibpaxman at 11:28 PM on December 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

If I found out this douchebag was allowed anywhere near my kids' school I'd get them into a different school no matter what it took. No responsible parent can let this guy speak to their children without a fight.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 11:33 PM on December 3, 2009 [5 favorites]

I'm sure ACORN's attorney must name various contractors like Blackwater/Xe as evidence that the Defund ACORN Act is a Bill of Attainder. Why can't that judge just say : Fine, defund all the other contractors named by ACORN that have committed felony's first.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:08 AM on December 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm curious if people can sue the federal government under the Defund ACORN Act. Imagine your family has been poisoned by operations of say Halliburton or Dow, who are both clearly subject to the Defund ACORN Act, operating under federal contracts. So you sue the government under the Defund ACORN Act seeking an injunction on funding the illegal contractor.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:20 AM on December 4, 2009

Don't forget, Facebook is another CIA front company. There are studies predicting the next Che Guevara will have an affinity for finding secret eggs in friend's raspberry patches during their teenage years. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 3:20 AM on December 4, 2009

Sure, you're all full of scorn and human rights now, but who's gonna run the Alien internment camps when their ship stalls over Johannesburg? Amnesty, Greepeace? I think not.
posted by signal at 4:30 AM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]

I love the new name Xe. It works so well as a future dystopian logo, plastered all over decrepit city buildings, on the screen of every televisor set, and on the side of each riot goon squad van.

The logo is red on black, nobody ever pronounces the name out loud, and David Warner gets to play Erik Prince (even though he looks more like Anderson Cooper in that WSJ stipple portrait.)

August release. It'll do decent business, but you wouldn't trust it with a July 4 or Labor Day weekend opening.
posted by Spatch at 5:24 AM on December 4, 2009 [4 favorites]

Reading about this stuff makes me feel like I'm reading some sequel to the Jason Bourne series. Only it's, y'know, reality. I'm just waiting for Carlos the Jackal to show up.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:12 AM on December 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

I hate to say it, but I feel like a total hypocrite on Defund Acorn. I was calling it a stupid bill of attainder over a manufactured issue, but if it can take money away from these d-bags, I'm all for it, especially if we get our acts together and start a new anti-poverty community organizing entity.

Of course, if they tweak the language of the bill so that it excludes defense contractors, chemical companies, companies that the Vice Presidents throughout history have worked for, and so on, they're just making a case for it being a bill of attainder. Hey, James O'Keefe and Hanah Giles! Go big or go home! Take down Xe, Halliburton, DynCorp and ACORN, or go back to moping about the tyranny of gender studies professors.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:54 AM on December 4, 2009

If he was actually a CIA operative, he would understand that if you get publicly caught doing dumb assed embarassing shit, you get thrown under the bus. There would be no whining about it, it isn't personal. So he wasn't; he was likely just some CIA groupie.

I do support a literal version of the term in this instance
posted by Bovine Love at 6:55 AM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]

The logo is red on black, nobody ever pronounces the name out loud

Rachel Maddow pronounces it "she"
posted by hippybear at 6:58 AM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]

Ah, yes, Blackwater Xe. I suppose another quote from the Prince is appropriate:

The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way.

posted by moonbiter at 8:02 AM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]

So, the government outsources its operations to private companies, because those private companies are supposed to be more efficient, but then the same private companies turn out to be run by the government? Is this some sort of carousel fraud or what?
posted by Skeptic at 8:28 AM on December 4, 2009

Rachel Maddow pronounces it "she"

What with the way X can be used in abbreviations, you could pronounce it "Christie" if you wanted to.
posted by Spatch at 8:38 AM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]

>
This goes deeper than we thought. They've thrown their weight around to take over New Jersey.

NOT FAT-IST

That said, learning that X is short for "Chris" was one of the coolest things I learned this year. I've always heard my Catholic grandfather bemoan how the holiday was becoming Xmas and thus they were taking "Christ" out of Christmas, and now I learn that they only embedded Christ deeper into the word. Fascinating.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:20 AM on December 4, 2009

The best thing about the name Xe is that it kind of seems like they got a great deal on the delapidated headquarters of Xerox and couldn't be bothered to change the mostly-fallen-off signage.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:48 AM on December 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

If he was actually a CIA operative, he would understand that if you get publicly caught doing dumb assed embarassing shit, you get thrown under the bus. There would be no whining about it, it isn't personal. So he wasn't; he was likely just some CIA groupie.

I completely agree. Considering the guy is still running his little mercenary army, and confirming his connections would make their services completely useless to any intelligence agency, there's no way talking about it makes sense. In fact, I'd be more inclined to believe his connections were real if he denied, denied, denied. It's far more Steven-Segal-as-CIA-groupie looking for an out than Valerie Plame.
posted by Amanojaku at 12:43 PM on December 4, 2009

“nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling”

Yorio is in much better shape (although why is nearly everyone I’ve met from Ohio or associated with Cincinnati a dick? I’ll have you know…)

I saw ‘Taken.’ Y’know, I’d react the same way, but I’d rather my daughter not, y’know, get abducted in the first place and be wise enough to prevent it. (Barring that be dangerous and resourceful enough to react properly when it happens and not depend solely on me to haul her ass out since life isn't the hour and a half jerk off piece that film was)

Guy just strikes me as tripping out on himself and can’t put the hardware down. There are SEALs doing other work man. Guys doing home inspections, stuff like that.
And being rejected by the CIA seems to be a big flag there. I get hard chargers. I understand that mindset. But man, some guys just use that as an excuse and never open up to the fact that there are things beyond your control and potential. I saw a guy operate on someone’s brain in dismal conditions and save their life. I actually looked into becoming a doctor and at some point it just struck me that it was never going to happen. Not that I couldn’t become a doctor. But that I was never going to be relevant in that way. I’d never capture that moment and be that guy there.

I wonder how many people’s politics are driven by that desire to feel relevant and the need to control things?

So I let go a while ago. Who wants to operate, or try to, at that level anyway? It’s not like I’m going to think of something no one else ever will. So without me maybe something I’m interested in shakes out 10 years later without me pushing it. Meh. I plan to die some day. I suspect the world will go on.

And yeah, going off to be a high school teacher with $600+ million in assets to your name. Naaaah, you’re not really going to be a teacher. Not the way a real teacher is a teacher. And the last thing the world needs is more dilettantes.
Which is what mercs are essentially anyway. If they were principled they’d fight for an ideal.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:58 PM on December 4, 2009 [3 favorites]

learning that X is short for "Chris" was one of the coolest things I learned this year.

It's short for "Ch", I guess. It goes back to Emperor/Saint Constantine; the first two letters of "Christos" (Christ) are Chi (Χ) and Rho (ρ) and he used those letters as a symbol. X has been sued as a handwritten abbreviation for Christ for at least a millennium.
posted by hattifattener at 6:58 PM on December 4, 2009

errr, used as a symbol. [Obligatory edit-window comment goes here]
posted by hattifattener at 6:59 PM on December 4, 2009

You think God* calls him Chris around heaven. In the kitchen maybe? And in high school or whatever the heavenly equivalent is he went through a phase where he wanted to be 'X' or something like that. The first draft of the Last Supper he's got that pouty " 'sup?" sneer look on his face like when teenagers take pictures of themselves and Da Vinci or whoever had to re-do it. And that's why he's buff on the cross, because Da Vinci drew him kind of chubby because when he went to Greece after high school and got people to call him "Christos" he put on weight, but he wanted to be ripped in his last representation on earth - especially since it's sculpture so he hit the gym hard in his last few months and laid off eating rich foods like lamb.
'Cos I think that totally happened.


*I mean the big bearded white robed guy here, not the contentious more seriously discussed God.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:17 PM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]

Not only was this motherfucker in charge of a murderous organization (nourished by Don Rumsfeld's GENIUS plan to outsource national defense) that trafficked in human slavery, he's also a religious fuckwit who believes in End Times and a genocidal cock who actively sought recruits who shared his vision of a New Crusade and wanted to go to Iraq expressly to kill muslims.

I don't believe in Hell, but they should invent one just for this piece of shit.
posted by psmealey at 2:45 AM on December 5, 2009

I don't believe in Hell, but they should invent one just for this sort of shit.

I'd settle for a Heaven full of bearded guys with turbans who'd greet him with "Salaam aleikum, brother. Turns out that you were wrong."
posted by Skeptic at 4:44 AM on December 5, 2009 [2 favorites]

Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A.
posted by homunculus at 7:18 PM on December 10, 2009