Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 233 - Blackwater and the US Private Military Industry

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

Blackwater. Now known as Academi. Once known as Xe Services. A private military company. One of many PMCs very active in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of this century. One of many employers of "security contractors" contracted by the Department of Defense, or State Department, or the CIA to work alongside - or sometimes in place of - active military personnel in war zones around the world. What, exactly, do companies like Blackwater do? Is it a good or bad idea to privatize the military? Are PMCs a new thing? When did they become part of the military-industrial complex? We explore these questions and more and also dig into the life of Erik Prince and his family. Erik launched Blackwater, and he and his family seem to be just as controversial as the PMC he ran. A LOT to unpack here today. Hope you find it as interesting as I do. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions give $12,500 this month to the USC Shoah Foundation. Click the link to learn more: https://sfi.usc.edu/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/etGJgW9ekTU Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

What is blackwater? It's the former name of a US private security contractor now known as Academy. A controversial organization working in the controversial space, a company operating and the frightening for some intersection of the public and private sector. Company that profits and dangerous scenarios. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Someone is needed to step into a disaster scenario. Isn't inherently wrong for them to make some money doing so.

Blackwater founder, former Navy SEAL, Eric Prince, has stated that someone has to be in the business of top 10 worst situations ever. And privately run businesses, not bound by bureaucratic red tape, can get people and resources to places where people need them much quicker than traditional options. Blackwater began as a training facility for law enforcement in 1997 in the swampy marshes of North Carolina.

They would soon expand to have many subsidiary companies, one of which was a private security company, very active in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s. And what they would do there, especially the 2007 shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians by black water employees, drew a lot of criticism. How much of that criticism has been fair? Subsequent lawsuits and FBI investigations would ask was Blackwater looking out for its own people at the expense of everyone else,

was shooting civilians justified. Blackwater would later evolve into a academy, part of a much larger company, a company no longer owned by Prince. Eric Prince, the person at the heart of the suck, quite the divisive character. Is he a free market military hero who saves people in need or someone who capitalizes on the worst days of people's lives

or both somewhere in the middle? And again, is the second part wrong? Someone has to do that, don't they? Should private companies or what are essentially private armies ever be used by governments as security forces or as troops themselves? Is that a slippery slope a dangerous one? How loyal can a profit-focused military be?

War never fought one, but studied a lot of them, they're always messy. The nature of warfare is and will forever be tied to tragedy. You can't always take the high road, not if you want to win, but the modern world does have rules of engagement. Does blackwater follow them? Or is the existence of private military contractors like blackwater a great way to sneak past these rules? So much to look into today.

On a military industrial complex as fuck, covert operations, destroy this message after reading an edition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to TimeSuck, your mistake to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, everybody. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, Praise Bojangles, glory be to Triple M. Yeah, rock.

It'll be in season here soon around the Suck Dungeon. Recording out of Cordelaine Idaho again today, location of the Suck Dungeon, I'm Dan Cummins, unofficial doobie brothers, Rodi, the master moshmouth, King of the Curious Sovereign of the Suckers, and you are listening to Time Suck. Couple very quick announcements

and then into so much show today, Richard Chase, the vampire of Sacramento, making it onto a hell-high yearbook T this week at BadMagicMarch.com and the store there there voted most likely to be scarier than an actual vampire, voted least likely to be a great babysitter. Their God that dude was so scary and so insane, literally so insane. Stored BadmagicProductions.com for an emerge related questions. The Badmagic Productions charity this month is the USC show a foundation. Guessing

will be given around $12,500, recording this suck in advance. So when we get paid from Patrons, I don't know the exact figure. Remind the 20% of all bad magic Patreon donations go straight to charity every month. SFI dot USC dot E.D.U. Link in the episode description if you want to learn more or donate more their mission statement is to develop empathy understanding and respect through testimony the usc show foundation has a huge archive of first hand atrocity testimony to make it so much harder to deny or forget you know terrible events like the holocaust Armenian genocide there are wand et cetera, keep in history alive to reduce the odds that we repeat terrible acts. Also, Texas suckers, we will be donating

to a Storm Relief charity next month. Sorry for the shit you are currently dealing with. And now, topic time, we have a very controversial topic today. Not only Blackwater and Eric Prince, but the whole idea of private military contracting in general. How will we, excuse me, be covering this topic today and Eric Prince, but the whole idea of private military contracting in general. How will we, excuse me, be covering this topic today in the most biased way is humanly possible.

And if you don't like it, you know what? You can go fuck yourself, snowflake. Hey, I checked. Hey, come on, gosh dang. Come on. No, that's probably a terrible way to cover it. Now we're going to cover by trying to present a thorough look into where the private military contracting is at today, where the industry is at today.

We'll look into the history of private militaries around the world and to better understand Blackwater, aka Academy, aka so many other names for the same company and so many other similar companies. And did you know to best understand the current role of PMCs and war zones and or hostile areas around the globe? First we'll briefly look into the history of hired guns and PMCs, AKA private military companies,

not just in the US, but also in the world at large. Then we'll take a look at the US military's recent use of and reliance on private military security contractors. Why do they exist at all? Also, when in their modern form did PMCs first start to be utilized? Why are private contractors operating in war zones and or internationally hostile areas? As opposed to, you know, additional soldiers and or additional Marines.

What does all this have to do with money? Hint? Why do bit? Most things end up seeming to have quite a bit to do with money. We'll also look under the hood at the multi-billion dollar industry of PMC's of which Academy, AKA Blackwater's just one contractor of many. How big is this industry? And what's the job like? How much does it pay versus being in the military? We'll also look at the life of Blackwater founder Eric Prince and the wealthy and pretty influential family he comes

from. And we'll jump into our timeline for most of that. Eric has led an interesting life. We're looking to how and why he founded Blackwater, how he grew the company, who's who's hired Blackwater and for what purpose. And of course, we'll look into some of the controversies they've been involved in, including what has been dubbed the infamous Nesor Square massacre of September 2007. And finally, I'll be doing some pontificating on the ethics of all of this throughout the episode. And I'll do my best to distinguish my opinions from actual factual information. So you'll know when to tell me to shove something up my ass

or shut the fuck up or whatever. I get it. If you find all this half as interesting as I do, I think you're gonna really like this suck. Now let's yip, yip, yaw on out of here and get into this shit. Come on, good boy, both jangles. Everyone knows you got a rock hard red rocket war boner for today's suck. Private military contracting.

In some form or another, it's been around since the dawn of civilization. There have been mercenaries since the earliest days of organized warfare, and I know there is a distinction between mercenaries and contractors. I'll get into that a little bit later, mention it. We've stuck quite a few dictators who've employed hired guns, Napoleon used them, so did Genghis Khan. One of the oldest civilizations in the world, we have extensive written information on ancient Greeks and the ancient Greeks, wrote of paid soldiers. As chronicle in the 5th BCE historian, Xenophon's historical work, Anabasis, the 10,000, they were a motley assortment of Greek warriors contracted by Cyrus the younger to help out

his brother, King Arthur Oboi, Artaercsies from the Persian throne. I love how it's Cyrus and artisercsies. Real easy with one name, real difficult with the other than that family. Hi, I'm Bob and this is my brother. Ha, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, tch, a soldier for hire. He was one of the 10,000's commanders. And in 401bc, these Hellenic private soldiers, many of them hardened Greek veterans of the Peloponnesian war fought alongside Cyrus and his rebel army in a clash with the King's forces near Baghdad.

While the 10,000 held their own in combat, Cyrus was killed in battle. And then the hired guns generals were double crossed and murdered while trying to negotiate a retreat under pursuit from artisers. These the seconds, we got to make sure to get the second the artisers. These the second troops and hostile natives alike the surviving members of the 10,000 had to fight the way out of enemy territory after electing xenophon as one of their new leaders the army of rogues embarked on a grueling nine-month Odyssey that took them from the heart of Babylonia all the way to the Greek Black Sea port at Trapises. Despite facing constant ambushes, ambushes, punishing weather and famine,

they arrived on friendly soil with nearly three-fourths of their remaining numbers still intact. There are struggles chronicled in the oldest written narrative we have regarding the adventures of a private army. To throw things back to the location and time of our Dante's in Fernosuck from two weeks ago, the white company was one of the most infamous of the so-called free companies of the Middle Ages. Bands of for-profit soldiers conducting the lion's share of warfare in 14th century Italy. This particular unit rose to prominence in the 1360s, falling under the command of Sir John Hockwood. It's a badass name. This particular unit rose to prominence in the 1360s, falling under the command of Sir John

Hawkwood, it's a badass name. Mr. Hawkwood, thank you very much in Englishmen who had been knighted for a service in the Hundred Years War with Hawkwood at the helm, classic Hawkwood, always running shit. With Hawkwood at the helm, the white company became known as one of the most elite mercenary armies in Italy. It's troops, a cultural hodgepodge of English, German, Breton, aka Western French peoples and Hungarian adventurers were renowned for their skill with the Longbow and the Lance, and they terrified opponents with their lightning quick surprise attacks and willingness to do battle during harsh weather or at night. In an era when Italy was splinter between warring city-st states and medieval lords,

the men of the white company made a killing, auctioning their services off to the highest better. Between 1360, pun, not intended back there. I just caught it myself. Between 1363 and 1388, they fought both four and against the Pope, the city state of Milan and the city state of Dante's Florence. And I love these guys fought for the papacy. We fight for the Christian glory of the one true gods living vessel here on earth. And then later when the money was right, we'd fight against the Vatican. How dare you try to buy our souls with gold, fight against the bishop of Rome? Are you mad? How much would you say you were going to pay us again? Oh, I've had it. I've misheard you Hodeo really disregard my previous statements. We fight against

the tyranny of the evil false prophet who misrepresents obviously the the one true God Money money talks. They're also the Vikings of the of the Verangian guard come on mouth Valhalla We fight for Odin Ufta and for Thor Hwangibongi, and so forth and whatnot. The descendants of Norsemen, who originally ventured south as pirates and traders, the Varenge and Guard were a band of Viking mercenaries, paid to serve as the personal bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperor.

The Guard first took up their post in the late 10th century, for the Emperor Basil II, who preferred the Axe-Wilding barbarians to his more easily corruptible countrymen. The unit immediately proved useful in putting down a rebellion and they went on to serve as the protectors of Constantinople for over 200 years. At first, the verangian guard was almost entirely composed of hard fighting, hard-drinking Vikings, but by the late 11th century their ranks began to be filled out by Englishmen, Normans, andes, winning entrance into this unit, no easy task. Initiates had to demonstrate their prowess in battle. They were forced to pay a small fortune and gold as an entrance fee.

These guys only wanted fierce and industrious men who could bring both wealth and might into the ranks. The gift showered on the verangians ensured that his members left extremely wealthy, and some even went on to achieve positions of immense power in Europe. One of the most famous guardsmen was Harold Hardrada, who claimed the throne of Norway later. If you are a veranjian, you made a shitload more money than the average soldier of your day, just like today, and often pays to go private.

Basically for as long as there have been wars, there have been soldiers paid to fight in those wars, it was just makes sense. If you were some ruler and you didn't have the manpower to defend your throne or to try to add your territory, but you did have the coin, the higher an army who could carry out your ambitions, why wouldn't you do that? The concept of soldiers for hire is anything but new. And it's happened in the US since the very beginning of the US the British hired 30,000 Hessian soldiers to try and squash the American rebellion and while Hessians weren't technically

you know mercenaries soldiers were hired they were hired guns. Technically they were auxiliaries. What's the difference? Hessian soldiers didn't join a private army. They were conscripted to serve the land grave, Frederick II, royal ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, principality of Heza, and then he loaned them out. Which they didn't really seem to mind. It was a good job.

They got paid well to be Hessian soldiers. As a source of funding throughout the 18th century, many German states regularly rented out the services of their troops to fight in wars in which they had no personal involvement. The French also hired soldiers to fight in the Revolutionary War to assist the Americans. Later in World War I, American former military men went to war as private contractors. On Monday, March 19, 1917, three Americans strapped into the cockpits of their single seat by planes on a French airfield and embarked on a reconnaissance mission. The US was weak so away from declaring war on Germany and entering World War I, but these

Americans natives of Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts sailed to France to aid the country in its conflict with Germany. The American trio, members of an elite squadron known as the Lafayette Eskidrill, 38 American pilots, also known as the Valiant 38 would be paid to fight in this squadron. Paid no more than any French soldier fighting for France, it seems, but still paid to fight for a country that was not their own. And many of these soldiers, there would be more that would join them later, would die fighting

for France, other Americans, you know, would be hired to fight in other French squadrons. World War II also featured hired American guns and would amounted to American mercenaries fighting as pilots in China against the Japanese before the US officially entered the war before Pearl Harbor. Officially known as the American Volunteer Group, the famed Flying Tigers

were a three squadron force of fighter pilots who fought with the Chinese against the Japanese in the very early days of World War II. The unit was first organized, you know, for America at least, early days. The unit was first organized in early 1941, in the months just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, eager to impede the Japanese takeover of China while still remaining neutral. President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed former US military officer Claire Chinalt to quietly recruit fighter jocks from the ranks of the US Army Air Force.

The risks were high, but so is the pay. While most Air Force pilots received a salary of about 260 bucks a month back then, Chinalt's mercenaries earned between 607.50 along with a $500 bonus for each Japanese aircraft they shot down. And they collected a lot of those bonuses. 19 different flying tiger pilots, real life top guns made at least $2,500 in bonuses for shooting down at least five enemy planes a piece. The squadron was credited with taking down 297 total enemy aircraft.

So much yippin' ya! And those brave sons of bitches, Bojangles is over in the corner shadow boxing, listening to I the Tiger right now. The shit gets him fucking bumped. And just over six months, the group of over 300 pilots was disbanded. And then they fought for the US military, and now that the US was officially in the war. While fighting in China, 14 were killed in action, captured, or disappeared during flying

Tiger combat missions. So they, you know, they shot down a lot of enemy aircraft in a short amount of time. Pretty cool history. I'd go, you know, back further, but it would, you know, or into it deeper, but it would take away from today's focus, which is black water. Just wanted to establish this soldiers for hire. I've been around for a long, long time.

You know, that they fought in American wars, that American military have been hired to fight in others wars long before black water. But the modern defense industry aka the military industrial complex is a lot different than it was back in the days of World War 2 and previous to that time. It's now a gigantic complex behemoth far bigger than it was back in that era. A lot more security contractors have been hired in recent decades than ever before by far. There is far more coordination coordination between the Department of Defense and private

military contracts, contractors than ever before. So while companies similar to Blackwater have existed for millennia, the way they're being used in today's modern American military is new. So let's now look at the US military's recent use of and reliance on private security contractors. Blackwater is actually, and can I just refer to it as blackwater instead of blackwater academy going forward? It's a name most people recognize. Blackwater is first and foremost a privately owned security force with contracts with the US military

and others to do a variety of military-ish work overseas. It's a PMC, a private military company. It's an independent corporation that provides armed combat or security services for financial game. PMCs refer to their staff as security contractors or private military contractors. Private military companies refer to their business generally as the private military industry

or as the circuit. The service is an expertise offered by PMCs, typically similar to those of governmental security military or police forces, most often on a smaller scale. They provide services like combat operations, strategic planning, intelligence gathering, risk assessment, operation support, combat training, and other technical skills.

And the services of private contractors are used around the world. PW Singer, author of Corporate Warriors, the rise of the privatized military industry, says in geographic terms, it operates in over 50 countries. It's operated in every single continent, but Antarctica. The growing industry. The 1990s are used to be 50 military personnel

for every one contractor. In recent years, the ratio estimated to be 10 to 1. And in active war zones from 2009 to 2016, the ratio of contractors to troops increased from 1 to 1 to 3 to 1. Then in 2019, there were 53,000 U.S. contractors working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, 50% more than the 35,000 U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East, that they were there to support. So that's pretty fucking wild. More contractors now than soldiers or Marines in US active military operations in the Middle East did not expect those numbers. And these contractors are not just

working as soldiers or as security, whatever you want to call it. Also according to a 2008 study by the office of the director of national intelligence, private contractors made up 29% of the workforce in the US intelligence community, and cost the equivalent of 49% of their personnel, personnel, budgets, again, surprised by those numbers. This is a big, big business. Let's briefly dig into the history of PMCs in modern times in the modern world to establish how this industry was built. Modern PMCs, this is shocking, can trace their origins back to Michael Landon. I don't know if you recognize that name. I definitely remember him growing up. Michael Landon, an actor best known for playing Little Joe in Bonanza, and then the dad Charles Ingles in a little house on the

Prairie TV series. And of course, Jonathan Smith in the unforgettable Highway to Heaven series. And long before Landon was an actor, he worked for the US military. First as a sniper in the Korean War, then as a CIA trained assassin in Central and South America. Landing was credited with 73 kills in Korea. And while the real info was classified, rumor to have killed over 500 people between 1960 and 1968 in Central South America, Southeast Asia. He also started in Bonanza. Most of those years were provided an amazing cover for what he was really doing. He was, you know, a highly trained killer, but most people thought he was just, you know, little Joe.

I'm going to get on my horse and I'm going to ride out of here. Mm-hmm. Like I said, I don't want any trouble. Okay. Little Joe does want trouble. What he will respond to it, don't try it, buddy. You don't know who your master is. You said, got him, I'm gonna have to kill you. Don't do it, don't do it, buddy.

You have no idea. Oh God! I know it! Mm-hmm, Lil Joe, you know, actually was a killer on screen too. Probably could have played a better role for that particular cover. Little Joe at the beginning of the Vietnam conflict, Vietnam, I got, uh, built up the PMC, the first big American one, Ronin Incorporated, and he and his band of expendables fought primarily in Southeast Asia during even following America's involvement in Vietnam.

Little House in the Prairie would give him, you know, great cover for most of those years. One day he's carrying out an assassination attempt in Burma. Two days later, he's on set, you know, just playing a good dad. But you only said you were sorry. We didn't have a good watchdog anymore. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, sometimes, sometimes people say things

they don't mean. Mm-hmm. I just couldn't find the words to say it was in my heart, Sometimes, sometimes people say things they don't mean. I just couldn't find the words to say it was in my heart, half-paint. Oh, half-paint. Hmm, hugging and bracing. Good day, I love you. Can I be cute? Haha, they love each other. Sometimes people say the things they don't mean, half pined, you know what? And sometimes people have to kill motherfuckers in the jungle to stop the red spread.

You know why you're fucking safe on the prairie half pined? You know I can sleep peacefully at night because I'm the motherfucker willing to do what the next motherfucker WOTE, YOU FEEL ME, HAPPY, YOU FUCKING FEEL ME! I'm dealt with by Michael and Bullshit though. Anyone still think that was true by the end? Come on, one person maybe? If the dad on the little house in the prairie, little Joe and Budanza was secretly a CIA trained assassin.

What's wrong with me? I'm gonna keep my shirt together for a while again now. Not forever, definitely not forever, but for a little while. Allow me to reset. Now for real, thinking about what my neighbors are thinking right now. Let's briefly dig into the history of PMCs in the modern world to establish how this industry was built. Modern PMCs can, I'm probably the only one that finds out that funny. I just love thinking about Michael

Landon running a PMC. Modern PMCs can trace their origins back to a group of British ex-special air services veterans, the SAS being British forces, who in 1965 under the leadership of the founder of the SAS, Sir David Sterling, and also under the leadership of SAS, Vett John Woodhouse founded Watchguard International as a private company that could and would be contracted out for security and military purposes. Sterling was afraid that Britain was losing its influence in the world after World War II and wanted to do something about it. Territory purposes. Stirling was afraid that Britain was losing its influence in the world after World War II and wanted to do something about it.

And paraphrase, Liam, mother fucking Niesin and taken. Stirling had a very particular set of skills. Skills he'd acquired over a very long career. Skills that made him a nightmare for whoever he was facing in a military contract, conflict. And he wanted to get paid, wanted to make that money using those skills. So watch guard, international, precursor to black water was formed.

Years after founding watch guard, Sterling would leave that company and found another PMC, KAS International. And Sterling's employees would participate in numerous military conflicts, primarily in the Middle East and Africa. He'd also help broker arms deals between British arms manufacturers and foreign armies. Following some of the success that David Sterling and John Woodhouse saw, more PMCs popped up with PMCs growing and number and size dramatically thanks to the Cold War. As Western governments increasingly began to rely on their services to bolster falling

conventional military budgets. Money, you know, part of the reason for this increasing reliance. It's hard to paint a proper financial picture for all of this since some of the information needed to do so is classified, but I'm still going to take a shot. And I think we'll be able to clearly understand the financial incentive to use these companies here. Think about this in the US here, the United States Undersecretary of Defense Robert Hale stated back in 2012 that the annual cost for one military personnel in Afghanistan was over $800,000 per

troop. That number projected to almost double in the near future. This is back in 2012. And holy shit, was he right? That figure would more than double very quickly. Back in 2014, it then cost the in average of $2.1 million for every US troop serving in Afghanistan. According to a report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, I can't find

more recent per troop costs, I trust, but there's no fucking way that number has gone down. That's just not how things work. More than doubled in roughly two years. How much has it gone up in the past seven? Plus in addition to the cost of sending troops overseas, there is the enormous cost of maintaining a standing army. As of 2014, the US military spent $99,000 per soldier per year. And to be clear, soldiers don't see all that money. Fuck, no, not even close. But that's how much it costs taxpayers per soldier. More on how much soldiers are actually paid versus private military contractors a bit later. So how much do private military contracts cost?

That info was a little harder to track down. There's the best estimate I could find back in February of 2019 it would cost anywhere from five hundred thousand dollars to one point five million dollars Per contractor per year depending obviously on the contract right right, to field these private contractors. Really expensive. The still a lot cheaper than $2.1 million per soldier back in 2014 prices. And when these contractors aren't working overseas, you don't have to pay them anything. You don't have to pay to maintain a standing army. There's a huge savings in that. The financial incentive to hire PMCs is made abundantly clear through those numbers.

While you'll still need an active military for shit like firing ballistic missiles, you know, having super expensive military equipment like aircraft carriers, you know, fleet of fighter jets, bombers, squadron tanks, et cetera, et cetera. If you only need some extra manpower, a squadron of, you know, maybe some choppers, armored vehicles, other equipment at that level, it appears that it is much cheaper to use contractors. And then there are the enormous political advantages of using PMCs. So much of politics is about how you can spin information and optics. PMCs provide great optics. When a politician,

say a president uses PMCs for international conflict, they can tell the voting public, for example, if the conflict is becoming politically unfavorable to still be in, but diplomatically they still need to be involved. They can tell the public that they're scaling back and that they are bringing the troops home. And then they can do that, but not really do that. In this scenario, they can replace troops with contractors. And therefore simultaneously, truthfully, you know, kind of tell the public

they're bringing troops home will actually not de-escalating the US military presence in the conflict at all. They could actually do the opposite. They could escalate it. Pretty convenient loophole there. And maybe even more politically advanced, advantageous, they can pass along

much lower casualty numbers to the media. Since when the media reports US military casualties, they are often not reporting contractor deaths and injuries. So again, for political optics, using PMCs can be fucking awesome. There are, there are also negatives, such as when scandals arise, or when a PMC commits some act that is not good for optics, we'll get into some of that in the timeline. But even then, a politician can throw the PMC under the bus and still keep their hands clean. Right? Oh, what?

They do what? Oh, man. Well, they're out of their fire now, you know? And this is exactly what Eric Prince claims the US government did to Blackwater. Years after Sir David Sterling and co showed that PMCs could be profitable and politically favorable in the aftermath of all that Eastern block slash end of the Soviet Union slash 1990s governmental reshuffling. When a huge number of discharge soldiers suddenly appeared on the marketplace, when a lot that Eastern block slash end of the Soviet Union slash 1990s governmental reshuffling.

When a huge number of discharge soldiers suddenly appeared on the marketplace when a lot of former Soviet arms dealers showed up with a lot of big inventories where PMCs could suddenly afford to buy and use a variety of international, you know, or buy and use a bunch of weapons and a variety of international armed conflicts. The timing was then right for the rise of a lot of PMCs. And with the relative powerlessness of the UN, the United Nations to act in many of these conflicts that were springing up all around the world, Blackwater Founder Eric Prince specifically was inspired largely by the lack of international military intervention in the Rwanda genocide. PMCs started getting bolder proposals to step into a variety of new armed conflicts. I know there was a lot of words, right?

Make sense. This all goes back again to optics. Some governmental leader might face a lot of political backlash for sending in their, quote, unquote, soldiers to a dangerous international conflict. But they found they could send in PMCs and not receive the same backlash and you know get some good diplomacy out of that maybe you know help an ally kind of under the table not get a lot of eyeballs on it necessarily not the same way and thanks to a never-ending stream of international conflicts in recent decades the US has become involved in conflicts the public wouldn't necessarily support becoming

too involved in a reliance on using more and more PMCs has grown and grown and grown into this behemoth. In 2019, the Pentagon spent $370 billion on contracting, more than half the total budget of $676 billion and a whopping 164% higher than it spent on contractors back in 2001. All right, now let's look at a few of the PMC's getting some of this money. Michael Ainden's Ronan Incorporated just one of the PMC's getting a bunch of that security money. Come on, give me the gun, though.

Give me the gun. You just want to save your next. No, he doesn't. Yours and Haas. Believe him, lady. That's right, I don't want to save our next. I don't want to save your next, too. Mm-hmm.

I don't believe you. Believe him! Ronan Incorporated is in the business of saving next by any means fucking necessary come on More like it you're damn right little Joe. I'm back again Real PMCs to talk about now blackwater slash academy just one of the many many PMCs getting some of those billions and billions Academy, just one of the many, many PMCs, getting some of those billions and billions. Academy, a huge military company that specializes in orders for military operations and escorts. Academy's revenue for 2018, 40.8 million, much lower than it was getting back over a decade

ago during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Those were the most profitable blackwater slash Academy years by far. I'll share that data in today's timeline. Academy has many different divisions that provide different services, in particular, subsidiaries like Blackwater Maritime Solutions, trained naval special forces, Blackwater Maritime Solutions, prepares them for service in countries like Afghanistan,

Azerbaijan, Greece, they also provide protection for diplomats in Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Bosnia, aviation worldwide services, which has three subsidiaries that mainly repair and maintain aircraft, bought by Blackwater in 2003. Aviation worldwide services collaborates with the US military and has added its disposable edis disposal. Several MD-5530 helicopters, as well as CASA to 12, several Boeing 767s used in the Iraq war, aviation worldwide services, also engaged in cargo transport, in Afghanistan,

Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and again, this is just a small part of Academy slash Blackwater. Do a lot of shit. Academy also includes Blackwater airships, the Raven Development Group, many others, these subsidiaries do everything from constructing armored vehicles to developing drones, to training law enforcement officers, canine dogs for service and much more. The center of Academy's operations, it's brain, so to speak, is Zwatch. Zwatch monitors the activities of all the corporate units. At one point, Academy was formerly known as ZServices before changing their name again to Academy. Zwatch monitors the activities of all the corporate units. At one point, Academy was formerly known as ZServices

before changing their name again to Academy. Zwatch also collects info about military conflicts, arms smuggling, and various other data. The official press release for Academy says that the organization provides logistical support as well as humanitarian support. In addition, the release says Academy staff helping establishing law and order in disaster areas.

Blackwater was contracted in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts to save survivors and protect residents from wallessness. I'll speak to that a little bit more later. Academy is one of the five companies that have been selected by the US government to supply equipment and provide services to combat drug trafficking and Academy aka Blackwater far from the only company to be paid by the US government to head to the Middle East. Back in 1997 when there was the US government to head to the Middle East. Back in 1997, when there was a lot more US involvement in the Middle East and there is now,

PMC, DineCorp was employing 24,000 people and getting 2.4 billion in annual contracts. DineCorp was involved in all sorts of shit, testing missile technology for the US military, developing vaccines, installing security systems and American embassies and on and on and on. Dying Corp received governmental contracts in the field of information technology as well. In 2003, about 50% of the company's business comprised IT services for the FBI and the CIA.

In 2018, Dying Corp made over 3.4 billion employing more than 10,000 people and working in areas like air operations, rehabilitation and development, maintenance and operation, intelligence training, and military security services. The corporation with the single largest presence in Iraq in the first decade of this century was KBR, which was the Halliburton Corporation subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root until early 2007. KBR provided logistical support to U.S. and Iraqi troops, held the single biggest contracts in Iraq employing nearly 14,000 U.S. workers. Other large U.S. PMCs are the Fort Defense Group Corporation, aka FDG Corp, MPRI, North

Bridge Services Group, and many others. In the UK, where this all started, still has some of the largest PMCs in the world, like G4S, which currently employs well over half a million people and specializes in multi-national security, one of the biggest private companies in the world. PMCs are big, big, global business. According to some estimates, the global private security services market will register a revenue of more than 257 billion by next year in 2022. So who do PMC's employ and how much can a security contractor make? According to analyzed

information from iCasualties.org, PMC contractors are predominantly white men, 86.4 percent. White men in their 40s specifically, who have chosen contracting as a second career. Most are veterans with significant military experience, only about 1.3% are female, compared to about 16.8% of females in the military. Among those veteran contractors, many are former officers and about half are special forces veterans. They're more likely to have a college degree than their active duty counterparts, but less likely than their fellow veterans in the general population to have that degree. So how much does a typical private military contractor make compared to their active duty military counterpart? A reliable and detailed stats are hard to find, mostly because

many private military contractors work for the CIA and all aspects of their agreements are confidential. It seems based on a variety of articles and firsthand accounts shared by former military and private contractors that most earn anywhere between 300 and 750 a day or between 9,000 and 22,500 per month. I've heard his low is 200 a day and I've heard his high is well over a thousand a day. All depends on the company and the contractor. The median amount seems to be somewhere around 500 bucks a day. And that's every day for the length of the contract. You know, it's not like five days on two days off out in the middle of nowhere. It seems like it's going to be, you know,

your day rate, the entire length of your contract while you're overseas. How is it in meals seem to be compensated generally? For a 30-day month, that's $15,000. And because of overseas IRS tax exemptions, most of that can be free, tax free, sorry, not free, tax free. Compare that to the 2020 active duty marine pay scale, a non-commissioned officer, E4 ranking, with less than two years of service, $2,262 per month, a staff non-commissioned officer, E9 ranking, with 10 years of service, $5,472 per month,

and 08 major general, $10,990, $10,11,000, it's like $0.50 less than $11,000 per month. Like with private contractors, those numbers don't include housing and meals, a portion or all of which are paid, you know, for depending on whether or not someone is on or off base or domestic or overseas. So the difference is pretty fucking clear. An average PMC security officer can make more, a lot more than an active duty marine major general. And think about the soldier or marine who retires after 20 years of active service.

Someone probably in their late 30s or early to mid 40s who is now collecting a pension has health insurance. Now they can go make 15K a month or sometimes much more on top of all this using skills they've spent two decades honing. Lot of incentive to do this. So just what does the job for the average security contractor in tail and a word danger? A lot of danger. Between 2001, 2020, an estimated 8,000 contractors for US companies died on duty in the Middle East.

That figure, a thousand more than the number of US troops killed in the same period. A study of US contractors working in Iraq found that they were more likely to be killed by enemy action than the American service members they worked alongside. Contractors apparently often lack the same protection and support from other units as their active duty counterparts, when they encounter unexpected threats, often less likely that backup support can arrive in time to mount and organize an effective response. The types of missions they carry out, for example, driving supply trucks to and from base seem to be inherently more dangerous than a lot of their act of military counterparts missions,

less protected, have routines, routes that can be detected by an enemy. Also should point this out, most contractors working for US PMCs aren't US citizens or even Westerners. A third of them in the Middle East are foreign nationals. Many of the 8000 contractors I referenced being killed earlier were foreign nationals. Many others veterans from other countries, not the US, Peru, Colombia, Fiji, Uganda, the PMC industry employees, former child soldiers from Sierra Leone, ex-Grile fighters from the revolutionary armed forces of

Colombia, Colombia's largest rebel group, whoever can do the job doesn't have to be former US military often is not. And what is the job? The job duties of a military contractor may include conducting counter drug operations, fighting terrorism, protecting oil rigs, guarding political dignitaries, pinching sassy bottoms, training security personnel and police forces, developing security plans for private organizations, providing operational and intelligence support, conducting intelligence analysis, carrying out Illuminati,

agenda 21 depopulation objectives, assisting in drone missions, organizing foreign armies, defeating rebel forces. I know many of those descriptions are pretty vague, and two of those were obviously fake. The job can entail a lot of different responsibilities. Now that we have our heads around the basics of PMC's, let's meet Eric Prince, then jump back, or jump back, jump in too. A black water timeline, and then I'll share more info on PMCs and thoughts, you know, my thoughts on all this at the end. Eric Prince, the former US Navy SEAL officer, founder of Blackwater, a divisive figure. Just as controversial as the company he founded. Speaking in broad strokes, it appears digging into the comment sections of various videos of him being interviewed on the web.

Some people really, really fucking hate this guy. They feel he's an evil war profiteer, a murderous monster. Many others think he's either at worst a necessary evil or at best a really great dude, a true patriot willing to do whatever dirty work needs to be done to defeat tyranny around the globe. A guy who understands the war is both unavoidable and ugly, and that there's nothing wrong with getting paid and paid well for doing some really dangerous work. Politically, he's become a very divisive figure. Let me at least address a current scandal.

His name is mentioned in, so those of you familiar with it, don't think I just skipped over it. Have you heard of Project Veritas? Here's how the founders of this organization described themselves on the about section of their website. James O'Keefe established Project Veritas in 2011 as a nonprofit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private

institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society. Sounds pretty good at first glance. Who would be against exposing corruption? In this instance, Project Veritas focuses or at least is accused of focusing only on exposing corruption on the left. They've been accused of breaking a lot to do so. How does Eric Prince fit into this? Prince leans pretty heavily, you know, right to center

between 1998 and 2007 donated more than $200,000 to Republican and third party causes. And in 2016, Prince contributed 250 grand to Donald Trump's presidential campaign and 100 grand to make America number one a Trump aligned super PAC. So what's the problem? I mean, donate to whoever you fucking want to, right?

That is your right as an American citizen. The problem for some is that Prince is accused of using his private military force and CIA surveillance techniques to illegally further the campaigns he donated to. Numbers media outlets began reporting in October of 2020 and continued to report that they believe Prince recruited former American and British spies or secretive intelligence gathering operations. Operations that included infiltrating democratic congressional campaigns, labor unions, and other groups considered hostile to Trump's re-election campaign. The allegations center around operations launched by Project Baratoss that used hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on liberal leaning organizations.

And Prince may have been using former spies to train project veritas operatives in espionage tactics going back to the 2016 presidential campaign. Reaching out to several intelligence veterans, Prince is alleged to have said he wanted the project veritas employees to learn skills like how to recruit sources, how to conduct clandestine recordings

among other surveillance techniques. And to these allegations, I gotta say say if all of this was illegal fine charge me if you have the evidence but if not if the problem is just that he's conservative who wanted to gather intel on liberals to help his side win elections that i'm not bothered by what he did getting dirt on rivals come on who doesn't want to do that

that shit been going on since the dawn of politics by conservatives and liberals and everyone in between. That's how the games play. If you're liberal and mad about what Prince may have done, would you still be mad? If a democratic group was doing the same thing to conservatives, would you be mad if some former spy unearthed dirt on Trump through either maybe legal

or even illegal trickery would you be outraged? Or would you just be happy to have the corruption exposed Personally if I was in direct competition with someone and I truly believed that the country would be worse off if they won And then I would also be much better off if I won and then some prince dude approached me and was like hey, hey I think so and so Bride is Yahoo or head and a fair or so and so or snoded coke off and under age girls I asked what jeffery upstein on an island back in 2012. And we'd like to set up a secret camera,

send in some spies, get them to admit that I'm tape, and then release that tape to the fucking everyone. But this is kind of legal. Do you still want in? Fuck, fuck you, bro! You kid me, you had me in Epstein, get that tape! Green light! Let's burn it all down.

I mean, come on, you wouldn't. Almost all the outlets who have really honed in on project veritas seem to be very liberal outlets. It seems like people are less mad about what may have happened than they are about liberals being the target of spying by conservatives. I could be wrong. It's a story that's still developing.

I only include it today because it's been in the news a lot and because I think it points to a lot of people's fears regarding PMCs. Private military operatives are being paid together intelligence. On American citizens, a military-esque operation could a PMC be tasked with carrying out other military operations on American citizens, like arresting them, detaining, killing them. That's worst-case scenario for PMC that it could be used to turn on the citizens of its own nation. Actually worst case scenario is that it turns on its own nation with a fighting force stronger than said nation's military.

Hypothetically, a PMC could be awarded so many contracts by a government that it ends up having more security contractors on the payroll than the nation awarding those contracts actually has fucking soldiers, active military personnel. And that scenario wouldn't the head of that company in a way be more powerful than the political leader of the nation they worked for. You know, what if they then turned against that nation? What if contractors had to choose between listening

to their boss or listening to their head of state? That's a scary thing to think about. Especially considering guerrilla military forces have overthrown governments time and time again in various coupes around the world. All right, recent Eric Prince headlines addressed. Let's dig in, learn about his life, where he came from, and the name changing company he created in this week's TimeSuck timeline.

Right after today's sponsor break. Thank you for listening, Meat Sacks. Thanks for listening, so we can continue to have sponsors. Timeline Engage. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-sub-time line. In 1965, the Prince Corporation is founded in Holland inside a windmill by wooden shoe wearing execs, then celebrate by knocking back some hines and smoking so much weed and then riding their bicycles to a brothel in Amsterdam's Red Light District.

Oh, no wait, wrong Holland. No, 1965, the Prince Corporation is founded in Holland, Michigan, commonly known as the less fun Holland by Edgar Prince, father of future black water CEO, Eric Prince. Edgar Prince was an engineer, developer, industrialist, who become very wealthy in an industry generally not known for a high degree of profitability, auto parts manufacturing.

We got the right clients, made and sold them the right product, worked his ass off to make a lot of money. Edgar married Elsa's Weep. Oh, it's Weep. That's not the best name. That's a, hey, you know if you have it, that's fine. Oh married Elsa's weep. That's not the best name. That's a, you know, if you have it, that's fine. Uh, all else is weep. Mr. Miss weep. And together they had four children, three daughters and a son Eric, their daughters are Elizabeth. You might

know her as Betsy DeVos, a former secretary of education under the Trump administration. And I know she's a very politically divisive person, but Betsy's story is not relevant to telling the story of Blackwater. So I'm just going to go ahead and save myself some emails and step over that landmine. If you don't know, Betsy has married to Richard Marvin Dick, the, uh, DeVos, junior, old Dick Jr. That's great. A multi-billionaire heir to the Amway fortune who ran Amway's parent company Alta Kour from 1993 to 2002.

Betsy and Dick Jr. bowing down and praying to the good God Amway! Maker of fine and affordable self-care products like the new artistry signature, select brightening buddy cream. Next, him, cult, a sub-call back there. If you're very confused right now. Edgar and Elsa's other daughters, Eric's sisters, Eileen, and Emily, not really the public eye. Edgar Prince born in Holland, Michigan, 1931. Edgar's father was Peter Prince, owner of a produce company that supplied stores

in the Western Michigan area, including Holland and Grand Rapids. The produce company was called the Tulip City Produce Company. Eric Prince, entrepreneurship in his blood. And it's good to talk about his dad a little bit here to show where he comes from. It's I think it's relevant. As a child, Edgar accompanied his father, Peter on his daily delivery route. Edgar's mother Edith was a seamstress. When Peter suddenly died of a heart attack in 1943, Edgar became the man of the house. Eric would rate or would later write that his young father sought no

government handouts, no charity from the church, not even money from family. Edgar, who had two sisters, was the man of the house now. He would provide for them. He was 12, very proud of his debt. Twelve-year-old Edgar's first job was for a local painter. He was paid a few cents an hour to scrape in sandhouses. Man, if only you could support a family of several people painting right now. When he was 13, he took a job with the local Chrysler Plymouth dealership.

They paid him 40 cents an hour. He'd learned a lot about cars there, how to take them apart, how to diagnose problems, how to sell them. This knowledge would eventually make him a fortune. By the age of 16, Edgar was running the dealership when the owner was away. He saved enough money to put himself through college,

hard working kid, grandson of immigrants, classic American success story shaping up here. Ed here was an engineering major at Michigan Technological University where he earned a reserve officer's training core ROTC scholarship. He served two years as an Air Force photo reconnaissance officer at bases in South Carolina in Colorado.

Then he returned to Holland, the boring one. After his service, took a job as a diecaster at the local bus machine works, working his way up to chief engineer. Following graduation, he made his future wife back in his mother country, Holland, the fun one, where he had a lot of family, local school teacher named Elsa Sweep.

Oh, sexual Sweep! 1965 Edgar Prince and two of his fellow bus machine works colleagues founded their own machine manufacturing firm. Edgar did this by remorging his house and borrowing $10,000 from his mom. Took a big gamble on himself. I love it. Edgar was convinced that nearby manufacturers would soon need to service his firm, could

and would provide die casting. Now what is die casting? It's how you level up and dunges and dragons. You silly goose. You wanted to feed the chaotic evil demi-gorgon. Well, you got to roll those attack die, baby, and you have to roll them well. It has a natural armor class of 15. It's not fucking around. Did I mention regeneration abilities? Pull your head out of your ass and listen up, paladin. The demi-gorgon regains 10 hit points at the start of each and every turn. And you better have

some hot defensive die casting. That big fucker's gonna throw it on nothing but triple melee attacks. One with his bite, two with his claws, those claws, two die eight, plus three, piercing damage each. Hope your hit points are up, dickweight. This isn't some bullshit giant fire beetle you're facing. Grow up!

This is the Prince of Demons. Sorry, that was actually the wrong kind of die casting. Unfortunately for storytelling purposes, Prince's family has nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons. experiments. Sorry. That was actually the wrong kind of die casting. Unfortunately, for storytelling purposes, Prince's family has nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons. Die casting in the less exciting manufacturer, manufacturing world is an efficient way to mass produce a wide variety of engineered metal parts. Typically, they use high pressure to force molten metal into mold cavities or dies or the metal cools and hardens into its final form. Usually, manufacturers use metals like zinc, aluminum, or dyes, or the metal cools and hardens into its final form.

Usually manufacturers use metals like zinc, aluminum, lead, copper, or tin. There's no demigorgans, you know? Edgar claims he'd gotten the idea to go into die casting while taking Elsa to the opera. During their date nights at the opera grand rapids, you know, the opera in grand rapids, Michigan, Edgar was often so bored that he spent the entire time pondering new ideas for die-casting machines. And I love it. And I can relate. Oppers not really my thing either. I went once, not as younger. I respect the talent it takes to do it, just like I do with figure skating. And you know, the orchestra, but it just doesn't really speak to me. And I end up just doing a

lot of expensive daydreaming. If I buy a ticket to a show like that. Between clapping, when I hear everyone else clap, I don't even know why people are clapping, I just zone out and think about, you know, something generally related to work. When Edgar got the idea, he took it to his workshop where a staff of six worked around the clock to construct some 600 ton die casting machines. When all in, he was right about there being a lot of demand for what he was building,

just a few months after it's found and Prince filled its first order for Honeywell International, which needed a pair of these die-cats and machines to manufacture military ordnance. Ornance. There we go. There's not an eye in there. Soon Honeywell returned for three more machines, then 15 more.

Then General Motors started buying them, manufacturing each of its new engine blocks with Prince Machines. By 1973, when young Eric was a toddler of four or so, the Prince company employed hundreds of employees in its several divisions selling all kinds of shit. Edgar's gamble paid off big time. They're making a lot of money. Edgar Prince quickly became one of the wealthiest men in Michigan, and I say, good for him. We're tired as a kid, learned to valuable trade because of his understanding of that trade, because of the reflective time he spent creating a vision to see what would soon be needed. He saw a need. He felt he could fill. and then he bet his ass on putting his money where

his mind was and being able to fulfill that need better than the next meat sack. And he did exactly that. And in the process of making himself rich, he increased the US GDP, pushed the manufacturing industry forward and gave a lot of people really good jobs. The Prince company expanded making new products with their own die cast machines, namely auto parts. The Prince Company expanded, making new products with their own diecast machines, namely, auto parts. And then as early as 1970s Edgar Prince began to worry about his longevity, considering

the early death of his father, who died at the age of only 36. In 1972, a heart attack almost killed Edgar when he was 42. After that heart attack, Edgar became much more religious, much more health conscious. He became a serious exorciser, tried to avoid the effects of too much stress. Even decided to get his employees involved in exercise and he built an extensive facility for use by his employees as part of their company's headquarters. By 1980, Prince Manufacturing had several plans, over 550 employees rising to 1500 employees in 1997. And then despite his health health related efforts edger with die young

at only sixty three so a lot better than his dad uh... he achieved a great deal over the course of his life is candle may have not of burn the longest but it seems to have burned real bright little more and edger uh... even though he just passed away in our timeline just like how a lot of people find black water controversial and air prince controversial

uh... a lot of people also find his dad edger controversial a lot of people find black water controversial and Eric Prince controversial. A lot of people also find his dad Edgar controversial, a lot of people not big fans. Why not? Primarily because of his involvement and then Eric Prince would also become involved in this in the Family Research Council. The Family Research Council is a fundamentalist Christian organization that with the help of a lot of money from the Prince family has published a lot of PAN research, quote unquote, I put the quotes around research about the LGBT community based on heavily discredited beliefs about homosexuality. The Family Research Council argues that homosexuality is a type of perversion that's definitely a choice in 1999 and FRC staffer wrote, gaining access to children

has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement. So that's, you know, pretty fucking troubling to assert that homosexuality is akin to pedophilia. This is very ignorant. People should be pissed about derogatory slander like that or that they're trying to like, you know, even if they're not trying to with that assertion, say that they're like pedophiles or saying that they're trying to turn the kids gay.

There's no homosexual movement. Just like there is no heterosexual movement, right? Like that's just such a weird thought that all the homosexuals they get together and they fucking plan their movement and the heterosexuals get together and what plan their movement. If there is a heterosexual movement,

I'm not getting my invites. Where are my invites for the heterosexual men meetings? Bojangles, are you eating some of my mail? What's going on here? What would go on at one of those meetings? Till, like a heterosexual men's meeting. Thank you for attending. Another heterosexual movement, men's chapter meeting gentleman. I'm your chairman, Dale Mufflover. Today's topic is the same topic we discuss at all previous meetings. Pussy, we love it. Do we not?

How do we access more of it? How many different ways can we get it? Mustache rides, Dale? Excellent contribution, Jimmy. Yes, offering free mustache rides is an excellent way to access pussy. Hitting it from behind Dale. Excellent suggestion, Jamal. Yes, Hitting it from behind is a great way to enjoy pussy. Devil penetration, Dale. Excellent suggestion, Jamal. Yes, headed it from behind is a great way to enjoy Pussy. Uh, Devil Penetration, Dale?

Excellent suggestion, Pedro. Tag teaming is a great way, a wait! Wait, wait, wait! Devil Penetration involves two different dicks, inside the same woman at the same time, does it not? Oh, God! That means that two naked dudes are involved in the same sexual situation, which means those two dicks can and properly will touch, which is pretty gay, Pedro. Get out. Even banished from

the heterosexual movement. Your devil's trying to love and traitor. Is there a homosexual movement trying to get up to the youth or are there numerous scientific studies pointing to sexuality not being binary, but rather existing on a continuum with extreme heterosexuality on one end, extreme homosexual on the other end end and we're all living somewhere in the middle just looking for some love Moving along the Eric Prince now Eric Prince is born on June 6th 1969 in Holland, Michigan The youngest of four Prince children is upbringing one of high living and heavy religion He was raised to value hard work on to pernurship justice and to keep his eyes peeled for the homeless actual agenda.

1973, Prince Corporation begins marketing a lighted sun visor to car companies. This little product manufactured by the millions nets the company so much money. It's billions of dollars over the years. Paving the way for Eric's cushy upbringing, I love shit like this. Make the right product, right?

Create the right patent. Your bank account just keeps going up and up and up like a kid setting new high scores on a arcade game. Eric grows up raised by people who not only make a lot of money, but use that money to further their own ideologies. Eric is mother, Elsa prints another polarizing Prince family figure. She's been one of the biggest contributors

to campaigns to ban same-sex marriage in the country in the US working against the civil rights issue in California, Michigan, and elsewhere. What's more, it's alleged that both Edgar and Elsa Prince have advanced this cause of theirs using what many of call backhanded tactics. For instance, the Prince Foundation has tried to evade lobbying restrictions by reclassifying their lobbying efforts as prayer warrior networks. In other words, the princes have claimed that they just ask politicians to pray for

particular policies, as opposed to actually lobbying policy makers for those policies. And because they're asking politicians to pray, the same lobbying restrictions don't apply, even when they are for sure lobbying. So, you know, finding loopholes, something else ambitious people have been doing since the dawn of civilization i don't love it but i get it i can see myself doing the same thing to advance my own agenda i wonder what kind of prayers they were praying regarding banning same-sex marriage i uh... had way too much fun

thinking about this i want to i want to play some music for this one then we'll get on to back to military stuff They have only father who ought to heaven Please pass us legislation Forbidden one man getting married to another man And thereby destroying the sanctity of marriage when the first man sticks his penis into the second husband man's behold. In the house they both own together legally in defiance of your will.

And dear righteous lord, please do not let that first man within the confine to the legal marriage put the second husband man's balls in his mouth and stroke the second man's penis with his right hand while simultaneously sticking the middle finger of his left hand in the same husband man's behold and the Lord. Humbled in King of Kings, please with an illegal marriage as to find for tax purposes. Do not allow the first Sotomite to set that second Sotomite in a sex swing face up gently

but firmly elevating his hips and place the second man's legs over his shoulders both men staring passionately into one another's eyes while the first out of my rhythmically thrust his penis into the husband man's beehull while the second side of my juxtaposed penis with his right hand while squeezing his own balls with his left until he climaxes and shoots his seed not into a married wife's womb which is your divine will, O Lord God, what's instead into his own beddy, possibly onto his chest or even face, depending on stroke velocity and current hydration level, O Lord God, first congress to stop that sin, in the name of, at least in a legal manner, amen. You get it.

Bringing this up to A, hopefully make you laugh a little bit, this is ridiculous, and B established that Prince was raised to do everything he could to further what he considered to be right, what he considered to be the best way to live. Do I agree with his belief in opposition to same-sex marriage? No, I definitely do not. Do I have a problem with work in the system

to push an agenda that you do believe is best for all? No, I also do not. I mean, I respect the message, but I respect the hustle, the commitment to the cause. While we don't have a lot of info on who Eric was as a little kid, other than for a while he wanted to be a fireman, a lot of little boys do. We do have some info about Eric's high school years.

Eric's high school years couldn't have been more different from his dads. And apparently insisted that Eric not get a job until he graduated. Wanted him to enjoy his teenage years. Eric was on a basketball. He was on the basketball soccer track and wrestling teams at Holland Christian High School. Senior year, he was on the team that won the Class B Soccer Championship. Edgar flew in from wherever he was in the world

on business to watch Eric soccer matches that season. Eric claims he wasn't very popular in high school. He didn't drink or smoke or party at all. While he had a social group from athletics, he didn't have very, you know, a few, or didn't have very many close friends. So nerd. Eric's words, I was never sure whether people saw me as my own person, or simply as the

son of Holland's largest employer. That would be weird. I spent endless hours discussing politics with dad and thinking about my future. I became heavily involved with his parents and church, I also learned to fly, earned his private pilot's license at the age of 17. I loved history as a teen, particularly military history and his interest in history was further engaged by old Edgar. Took him on trips to famous places in European history, the two, the two toured, the dock

cow concentration camp in Germany. They checked out Berlin, divided Berlin at that time, the battlefields in Normandy, many other places. And all this would leave quite the impression on Eric. He returned to school from these vacations equipped with facts. He would take delight in arguing with teachers and classmates. He wrote, once in class, I challenged a teacher who called then President Ronald Reagan's cold war military build up a waste of tax peridolars.

I countered by rattling off every strategic defense initiative weapon system we needed to counter various Soviet threats. I'd analyzed Reagan's Star Wars, the way my classmates picked apart the University of Michigan's football roster, I wanted to battle the Soviets myself. So this dude didn't go on to form black water on a whim. He put a lot of thought into global politics and military history. His grandpa once got a good feel for the auto industry before figuring out a way to offer a new highly in demand service within that field and Eric will do the same thing in the military field, the US military industrial complex. On July 1, 1987, 18 year old Eric joins the Navy.

He'd been an early and avid sailor and Edgar encouraged him to join the Navy, saying that his own time in the ROTC had helped him develop leadership qualities and it would do the same for Eric. Edgar made it clear that Eric was expected to work hard, forge his own path. After college, Eric was not to work at Prince Corporation. He would not be getting the trust fund. Fly, baby bird, fly. I love it. On July 1, 1987, he reported to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Almost immediately, he learned that the Academy was not the right fit for him. He wasn't sure what he could learn started to wonder whether the Academy created great leaders

or great leaders just happened to enroll there and endured it and then got out with a new credential. He left after three semesters and then returned to academics. He chose Hillsdale College a liberal arts school of about 1400 students in Southern Michigan about 25 miles north of the Ohio border. At Hillsdale, he learned about libertarian free market economics. Love it! And courses anchored in the ideologies of the Austrian School of Economics which puts front and At Hillsdale, he learned about libertarian free market economics. Love it. And of course, it's anchored in the ideologies of the Austrian School of Economics, which puts front and center long-term

law-to-fair policies without government intervention. Small government guy. Also, don't get, don't get, been out of shape. You know, government worker, meat sack. I know many government jobs like law enforcement, military, firefighters, educators, et cetera, center of very need. And I appreciate what you do. Prince was an economics major in a political science minor. Many government jobs like law enforcement, military, firefighters, educators, etc., etc., very neat.

And I appreciate what you do. Prince was an economics major in a political science minor. He also realized his childhood dream of becoming a firefighter at this time. I got to volunteer as one. Around the same time, Eric met his soon-to-be wife, Joan. He met her in January of 1989 when a friend called with extra tickets for the Youth inaugural ball for incoming president, George H. W. Bush. So he finds another,

you know, conservative counterpart. He convinces a friend of a friend to bring Joan. Joan was from upstate New York near Saratoga, was studying at Penn State University. Eric was impressed by her smarts and intrigued that she didn't seem to know anything about him or his family. As far as she knew, he was simply an ex-Midshipman two years her junior. In 1988, Eric Prince interns at the Family Research Channel we talked about earlier, of course he does. All right, he's young. I'm sure a strong family pressure to do so.

1990 after his junior year at Hillsdale, Eric applies to be an intern at the White House still under the administration of George H.W. Bush. Eric was slowly but steadily beefing up his political activism and donations in the tradition of his parents. A few months before his internship, he donated $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which came from investment income from stocks his parents had bought for him.

Jones was working in DC too, and the two spent all their free time together. And as he fell in love with her, Eric fell out of love with national politics. He'd idealistically expected to find a bastion of selfless service to the nation in DC. Instead, he found career politicians and bureaucrats who largely only served their own interests. The rubber hit the road. The blind optimism of youth met the often cold reality of experience. He worked at the office of Public Liaison and what was then called the old executive office building, an ornate building that houses most of the White House staff, staff and working there allowed Eric to run into congressman Dana Rohrbacher.

Rohrbacher had helped create the Reagan doctrine and aggressive military policy that publicly supported anti communist insurgencies. Ojangles just howled and pumped his pothest. Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few Reagan said during the 1905 state of the Union address Rohrbacher helped write. It is the universal right of all God's children. These words have been very inspiring to Eric. Rohr Bacher offered Eric an internship. Eric jumped at the chance to learn from him and he met Paul Barons, another Rohr Bacher staffer. Barons, then a marine reserve major who would later retire as Lieutenant Colonel in 2005 conducted fact finding missions for the House International Relations Committee, he was

big and deformed policy and national security and he and Eric got along well. Eric noticed that Paul ducked out of the office every day at lunch, didn't say where he was going. Later Eric learned he was going to mass. Paul was ultimately one of the people that got Eric into Catholicism. March of 1991, Eric and Robert Bocker staff visit the Creeb to meet with Croatian leaders as they discuss plans to break away from Yugoslavia.

The next month, he accompanies Baron Snikaragua to investigate reports of mass graves in the countryside there. The Nicaragua Association for Human Rights believes that Daniel Ortega, a Marxist who'd come to power with his win his militant group, Frentei, Sennanista, De Libra, Liberation, National, uh, over through the Nicaragua government in 1979.

And, uh, they'd been murdering civilian dissenters in Managua, Prince and Barons, head to Shaker surveillance tale from Insan Deneista and a Soviet-made Lada, 90 minutes north of town, farmers led them to a secluded role in hillside, and grim evidence of the atrocities. They found the remains of dozens of peasants who have been bound at the wrists, shot in the head, and thrown into pits. And these images will haunt Prince, and he would think how can I help others avoid this

same fate? On April 27, 1991, eight days after he returned from Nicaragua, Eric and Joan stand at the altar of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia. He was 21. She was 23. They were surrounded by friends and family, and then they fucking got it on! So much fucking, I don't know if they did it or not. But they probably did.

Someone's congressional internship ended soon after. Joan and Eric took their honeymoon, and this honeymoon was a nerdy military activist dream honeymoon. It was not a Hail Luciferina-type honeymoon. They started with what they called their Baltic Liberation Tour, traveling first through Poland, gross. Okay. And then they went through Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.

From there, they had its stops in Belgrade, Sarajevo, in Bosnia, Herzegovina, even looped across North Africa before the return to Michigan, where Eric finished his senior year at Hillsdale. Eric was loving life in 1991. He was getting to do some firefighting. It was getting all sorts of new political knowledge. He just taken this tour of all these, you know, political hot spots, Eastern Europe, a lot of military action would soon be going on. He was married to the woman of his dreams.

Now he had a degree. So what was he going to do with the rest of his life? He wanted something that gave him a real purpose. 1992 Eric Prince earns a commission in the US Navy. He applied to the officer candidate school just before graduating from Hillsdale. Wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I remember wanting to do the same thing when I was younger.

Right around the time I saw Charlie Sheen's 1990 film, Navy SEALS, it looked awesome. And then I remembered that I just watched a movie. And I heard about what the training consisted of in real life. And I remembered how scared of drowning I was at that time. And how much I struggled to do crunches or even run one mile in PE. And I was like, maybe you should definitely not do that and embarrass the shit out of myself and get sent home for being a huge crybaby. There were eight operational seal teams in the US, each comprising six platoons when Eric signed up.

Within the platoons, there were 16 seals, two officers, one chief, and 13 enlisted men. And apparently, Charlie Sheen was not ever one of those Navy seals despite playing one on a movie. I don't know why he wasn't Navy Seale. He seems like he would have been a great one. Yeah, I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it once, you will die.

Your face will melt off and your trotter will weep over your exploded body. You're dealing with a Vatican assassin. Sorry. What does that mean? You're wondering what at racism? The joke. God, remember how crazy it was? It was so fun.

How was that guy? Not really a Navy seal. Weird. Once accepted into OCS, Eric threw himself into training, swimming hours a day. Seals had to be experts at combat, swimming, high altitude, parachuting, navigation, demolitions, a host of other skills. He didn't even attend his own graduation, reporting immediately to OCS in Newport, Rhode Island. It's like, fuck, school.

I got seal stuff to do. 16 weeks later, Joan and Eric relocated again to Coronado, California, for his BUD slash S or basic underwater demolition slash seal training at the Naval Special Warfare Center. In total, buds lasted six months, but it's the initial basic conditioning phase that this stuff of legend timed two mile swims, four, six or 14 mile runs and soft sand, no thanks, and even worse feats of physical endurance. Eric would describe it as the worst workout of your life every day for seven weeks. As the Navy describes it, because of its particularly challenging requirements, many candidates began questioning their decision to come to Buds. Yeah, I bet Charlie Sheen, though, I bet he would not have questioned his decision had

he joined. Are you kidding me? This fucking Highlander? I'm different. I just have a different constitution. I have a different brain. brain of a different heart. I have a different you know, I get tiger blood man I'm I'm a two-sparked to smart lengthen. I cured my brain. That's happy Your one I was on made synodrome flin jagger Richard's all of them just look like you know Drew B.I.d armless children. He got tiger blood and all the other weird shit. He just said How does how does tiger blood not automatically make you a seal?

And all the other weird shit he just said, how does how does tiger blood not automatically make you a seal? Well the sixth week of Eric's training was called hell week 132 straight hours of mud cold and pain Traini's ran more than 200 miles suffered through physical training for 22 hours a day. What? Oh, thanks They would get some four hours of sleep total and five and a half days They would consume 7,000 calories a day, and that still didn't stay off weight loss. When Eric got home from hell week, his parents sent him an interesting gift. A bronze statue of a cowboy.

The artist had inscribed, it's the unwritten laws of the range, the work ethic still exists. When you sign for an outfit, you ride for their brand. True commitment takes no easy way out. I had to be raising to be tough. Eric was proud to become a Navy SEAL as he should have been. What an honor. But Eric's time in the SEALs would be brief. 1994, Eric is deployed to Haiti as part of the package.

President Bill Clinton sent out general Raoul Sedras from power. SEALs were responsible for mapping land beaches and performing special reconnaissance. His first hand taste of the kind of work he'd later privatize. On December 22nd, 1994, Joan and Eric's daughter, Sophia is born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, one of four kids they'd have together. Then on March 2nd, 1995, a death in the family shakes things up. Edgar Prince left the executive dining room at his company's headquarters, stepped in

the elevator, suffered a massive heart attack. Eric's father, hero, and best friend were gone. And now there was a question of who would take over and how that person would run Edgar's empire. Eric's mom Elsa calls a family meeting. Eric takes time off from search and rescue training in Fallen Nevada. Eric would not be chosen to run the company. The family company would be sold to Johnson controls for $1.35 billion. Nice little chunk of change. When the sale goes through the following year, that money will be split between Edgar's business partners, employees stockholders, and the family including Eric. For now, Eric returns to his sealed duties. In late 1995, when Yugoslavia breaks apart into

warring states, Princess Seal team 8 deploys to Bosnia, Herkissovina, or Herza-Govina. They shatter buildings, sometimes I try and sheen that word. I just say Herza, and then I just try and save something quick. Herkissovina. It's a Kassavina, Kaya. The Shatter Buildings of War-Torn Streets

were a far cry from the peaceful communities he'd once seen with his wife, while on their honeymoon, the Performing Combat Search and Rescue for down pilots took direct action against radar sites. And maybe 1996, tragedy strikes the Prince family, while pregnant with their second child, a boy they'd name Christian, Eric's wife Joan finds a lump in her breast. She's only 29.

Eric finishes out the year with the seals and returns home, leaves the seals to care for his two young children with his wife who is facing a cancer battle. On July 22, 1996, the sale of Prince Automotive to Milwaukee based John to Controls for 1.35 billion goes through. The family retains Prince machine as well as Lumer Corporation, Edgar's real estate operation, and Wing Span leasing, which leased airplanes. Eric receives a large inheritance. Don't know the exact amount, but I do know that he will use this opportunity to jump into business for himself. And late 1996, Eric reads and reflects on entrepreneurs are made not born.

Lloyd Sheffke's chef skis, book of business advice from pioneers like Bill Gates, the guys behind Ben and Jerry's ice cream, it glorifies risk taking and define conventional wisdom. And after wrapping up his year with the seals, Eric tells his teammates, he's wanting to build now a world-class training facility, a one-stop shop near the seal base in Norfolk, where special operations personnel get the best of everything they needed.

He dreamed of a facility that would draw seals Virginia State Police, Marines, NIPER, some Quantico, CIA officers, SWAT teams. He wanted to encourage the ethos of the seals that the man was the weapon, not the technician who operates the weapon. To him, it made sense that in an era of dramatic defense spending cuts,

smaller, better prepared groups would see greater action and that their training would become a high priority. Using his inheritance at the young age 26, he sets about trying to build a training facility for less than a million dollars. Eric knew that launching his own business would require a tight team of skilled personnel. And the first three people he brings on are Templeton Face Peck, a swav smooth talking scrounger able to get his hands on just about anything you could get.

He'll arrange for supplies, equipment, sensitive information. He gets chopper pilot HM Howling Mad Murdock, a man who could fly anything, a man willing to go wherever in the world there was action no matter what the danger. And finally, Bosco Albert, BA, Barakas, BA was a highly skilled mechanic and master at arms, proficient in any and all handheld weapons. 5 soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can fight them, maybe you can hire the AT. Come on! Get pumped!

Oh, check it, gots dead! Come on. That was the Metemi hired. I just set up 1983's to 18. You have to think that's dumb, you have to admit, pretty good song. No. Perfect place to throw it in. Fuck yeah.

Come on. Princess Real Life 18 was Al Clark, Jim DeHeart and Kevin Vieira. And excuse to throw to the 18. Al Clark was a senior weapons steel instructor Virginia Beach in the early 90s, shared Eric's vision for this facility. Eric and Al then convinced Jim DeHeart, a man who spent 15 years designing shooting ranges for the military to create shoot houses for their facility. He understood drafty and schematics, electrical engineering, even plumbing.

Jim had phenomenal ideas and just as important to figure out how to make them into reality without blowing their budget. Ken Vieira, former seal who'd led numerous missions worldwide had been Eric's training officer with team eight agreed to be the general manager. With the founding team selected, Eric then chose the location of their facility

with a map and a compass. Marking off circles with the radius of four hours driving distance from key surrounding military bases. About three months after Eric's retirement, on December 26, 1996, Blackwater Lodge and Training Center Incorporated is officially opened in Delaware. Well, I'm sorry, officially incorporated in Delaware, not quite open. In explaining Blackwater's purpose, Prince stated we are trying to do for the National Security apparatus what FedEx did for the Postal Service.

Now, he knew what Nietzsche thought he could fill. The stated idea behind Blackwater was to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training. And just like there had been a need for his father's vision, there would be a need for Erics as well. Erick and his business partners needed to be specific about the location for their facility because they wanted to be physically and metaphorically in the middle of the intersecting organizations that made up the military industrial complex. When they connected all the dots, they ended up purchasing more than 4,000 acres in Curituck County, North Carolina.

Outside of 10,000 person town known as Mooyak on the eastern edge of the Great Dismiss Swamp, the cost of the land was $756,000. They also purchased nearly 1000 additional acres in Candon County for $616,000, not under the million dollars, you know, he's trying for it, but still under 1.5 mil, which is still real cheap for that much land. Mostly because outside of a military training facility who wants to fucking swamp land. I'm guessing swamp land would not protect as wetlands, always pretty cheap. Right, not a lot of townhouses, condos

or commercial developments being built in swamp. Not a lot of prospective investors, looking for some of that swamp. You know what they say about real estate? Location, location, location. We are really hoping to buy some swamp. We did some research and there are no Starbucks in any of America's swamps.

And we think there's a lot of money to be made in Starbucks and swamps, or if you will, Swamp Bucks. Oh, so myself up. The idea for the original Blackwater location was essentially to create a cross between a shooting range and a country club for special forces personnel, clients would be able to schedule all manner training course in advance and the gear and support personnel will be waiting when they arrived.

They'll be, they'll be seven shooting ranges with high gravel berms to cut down noise and absorb bullets as well as a grass airstrip, special driving, track to practice high speed chases and defensive driving, stuff that happens when someone's convoy is ambushed. A bunkhouse would sleep 70 nearby. The main headquarters would have the feel of a hunting lodge with timber framing and high stone walls where people could, you know, have a long day as they construct, as they

started construction, the group found themselves slogging through charcoal colored mud. Each new hole they dug was swallowed by swampy, dark water. Now let's talk about speed of dark water, how black water got its name. While building their training facility in the swamp, Prince and others, I guess we're putting on the 1974 Dubie Brothers classic album, what were once vices are now habits on repeat.

And two of the tracks on that album would be number one singles, including the track that would give them their name, Blackwater. Blackwater will keepwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling.

Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Blackwater keep on rolling. Keep on knowing, huh? When you keep on shining on me. Yeah. Yeah, keep on. Oh, come on. That's a fun one.

Remember that one part of the song? Everybody gets together for that big harmony piece. I like to hear some funky, dixie-land pretty mama come and take me by the hand. By the hand, hand, take me by the hand pretty mama. It's with your daddy all night long. I'd like to heat some good dick to the left. Pretty mama, come and take me by the hand.

You get it? It's fun. Pretty mama, come on. Ah, man, I'm telling Logan Poppin' in here. That was so fun. You know who would join the dubies in 1975? Michael Motherfucking McDonald's. You know that?

And what was his first hit with that band? 1976 is taking street to the streets No more need for running Come on, nice! What should I get to sing as good as Joe Orlogan? All that was true except the part about Eric Prince taking the black water name from a Dubie Brothers song. Now, the swampy dark water that they dug through to build the first facility that water

gave the facility and company its name Blackwater. It made me more sense, yes. They took their logo from the bears that wandered around the area, bear pass, rounded by the crosshairs of a riflescope. The last piece of the Blackwater puzzle was Gary Jackson, a Navy SEAL veteran, 10 years Eric Senior, who also happened to be a computer expert and was also on the 18th wish. Jackson among many other things designed the rudimentary black water website, 1997 Eric Prince Joan the family moved back to Michigan to be closer to other princes. After clearing away all the swamp land on May 15, 1998,

black water now officially opens for business. It opens as the largest shooting facility in the US. The only 1200 yards shooting 1200 yard shooting range on the east coast a heavy steel building with movable interior doors and walls Allowed for the trainers to constantly change layouts scenarios the trainers could observe their trainees from an observation deck above They even dug a 20 acre lake to practice maritime special operations, allowing personnel to practice boarding ships from port side by helicopter from underwater. By mid 1998, the property had practically doubled in size to 6,000 acres, nearly half the size of Manhattan. Eric had now invested more than 6 million of his own money, and that investment saw a quick return. Not a big return, initially initially, a quick return. They got their first contract right away,

a small one training seal team one from California, a deal worth 25 grand, navy paid with credit card. 25 large was not enough to make payroll, and soon they were sending hourly workers home early. They tried drumming up business at gun shows, but they got booted because they couldn't afford a booth. Soon the wives of the founders chipped in at headquarters, helping them manage the book,

seems a real tight for a little while. They offered firearms, firearms safety courses to local hunters to bring in some cash. Blackwater only saw around $400,000 in revenue that first year, mostly through training nearby law enforcement and FBI SWAT teams.

After expenses, they were operating at a huge loss. Meanwhile in Michigan, Eric took over as chairman at Prince Machine. He could use some Prince company money now to keep Blackwater float, and he regularly flew his single engine bush playing back to North Carolina

to oversee Blackwater's development. All this is still going on. Joan is battling cancer still. She goes to cancer surgery, then chemotherapy, then radiation, all while she is pregnant, all while she is helping to found blackwater, these are tough folk. April 20th, 1999, the Columbine massacre happens at Columbine High School, just south of Denver in Colorado.

Two deranged dipshit students, murder 13 people before killing themselves, it will be defining moment for law enforcement and it would boost blackwater's profile and embroil them in controversy for the first time. The blackwater staff saw how poorly the law enforcement reaction was to this high profile school shooting. Within six weeks, they put together the RU Ready High School training program, complete with 16 room mock school building, complete with A, excuse me, 16 room mock school building for officers to train, screaming alarm sounds, explosions, a space where live gunfire was allowed.

The course has even had shooters hide among the students to lie and wait for the police. There were actors playing students covered in fake blood screaming for help. Once word got out, critics thought this training course was callous and sensitive and opportunistic. Prince responded by saying somebody has to be in the business of worst case scenarios. And I don't disagree. I mean, how is a culture supposed to react to that? Just what? Do nothing.

Maybe try and wish away. Another attack? I am consistently amazed by what people choose to be outraged over. More and more SWAT units are being sent to be trained in this program now. Soon officers are being sent from all over 50 states, as well as Haiti, Canada, Belgium, England, Blackwater is growing. February 1st, 2000, Blackwater wins its first federal contract for $204,000 for what? Not totally sure, maybe classified. In 2000 also, Blackwater entered into

the General Services Administration contracting database for government approved goods and services, enabling it to now compete for larger long-term federal contracts. Tragedy strikes on October 12th, 2000, when suicide bombers attack the guided missile destroyer USS SS, why didn't I throw another S in there? The USS SS SS SS SS SS. Cool, no, USS Cole. In Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 more. In a subsequent investigation, Navy found that it was largely their own outdated policies and training procedures, as well as their rules of engagement that contributed to the success

of the attack. They thought a solution might be found in the private sector. And black water would be the company that would check all the boxes for the Navy to upgrade as procedures. At this point, black water only has 30 employees and hasn't yet trained 3,000 people in total. Now they get a big two-year deal, or $7 million, and the contract goes well. After the two years are up, the Navy would make a five year deal

with Blackwater to train sailors, hiking up the price to almost 40 million. They would end up training roughly 70,000 sailors by 2008, busing them in from Norfolk daily to train on a replica ship. Blackwater now expands their original facility to over 7,000 acres. Backing up to 2001, in January of 2001, Joan and Eric moved their growing family to Virginia as things are really picking up at Blackwater.

They chose McLean, Virginia, in a moment of sad for shadowing Joan mentions that there were excellent medical facilities in the region to Eric in case they needed them. In the hustle and bustle of moving, Joan thought she'd pulled a muscle only to find out that her cancer had metastasized, I'd spread throughout her spine and pelvis. Fuck, doctors give her just two and a half years to live. And then eight months later, another tragedy takes place.

September 11, 2001, Tara's Common Deer flights headed to New York and Washington killing nearly 3000 Americans. These attacks dramatically expand the US market for security services offered by Blackwater and similar companies. On October 7, 2001, the wake of the 9-11 attacks, Operation Enduring Freedom marks the beginning of the Afghanistan War. It begins with a volley of 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from land-based bombers, two dozen strike aircrafts, and U.S. and British ships and submarines. These forces quickly destroy much of Afghanistan's air defenses and advance of the American bombers

to come, and Blackwater will become heavily involved in operation enduring freedom. Prince applies to work in the Special Activities Division of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, the agency's most elite and secretive paramilitary wing. He goes through the vetting process, which includes a polygraph, standard tests of his loyalty, and a battery of psychological examinations, and they reject him. They reject him on the basis of not having enough field experience. Nonetheless, more people than ever in the US defense program

are now learning Eric Prince's name and seeing how a private business like Blackwater can serve as an asset to the government's military and intelligence services. In 2002, Blackwater Security Consulting is founded, moving the company into the private security business in addition to the training business. Also in 2002, Blackwater wins a no bid contract, worth what many have reported was $5.4 million from the CIA.

All this wouldn't be a lot of money by defense industry standards and not even as much as some of Blackwater's previous contracts, it did elevate Blackwater status in DC. Put them in contact with people who would pay them much, much more in the future. Make a lot of CIA money in the future. The CIA set up bases in Afghanistan after the US military had blasted the Taliban into shadows for a time, and Blackwater was now tasked to protect CIA personnel in the US base in Kabul. In May of 2002, Eric flies to Afghanistan himself to help expand his company's

operations there. The relationship between the CIA and Blackwater partially stemmed from a long friendship between Prince and Alvin Busy Crongard. The CIA's executive director, Prince formed another part of the Blackwater group, Blackwater Security Consulting, collaborating with former CIA operative Jamie Smith. And his old friend Crongard would provide this new firm with one of its first government contracts. In 2006, Crongard, you know, CIA once. In 2006, Crongard explained black water got a contract because they were the first people

that could get people on the ground. The only concern we had was getting the best security for our people. If we thought Martians could have provided that or could have provided that, I guess we would have gone after them. After the first Afghanistan deployments, Kronger makes repeated visits to the blackwater headquarters in North Carolina, even brings his kids along to use blackwater's fire and range, getting real chummy. Though he was denied a spot the CIA,

Eric would now receive a green badge, a green badge access to most CIA stations around the world. So what he was doing now, arguably better than working for the CIA. He has CIA access, but a successful business owners paycheck. Kronger will later join black waters board board of directors in 2007 on March 20, 2003, the US invades Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein's regime, ushering in an unprecedented demand for US military or US private military security contractors on the Middle East battlefields. Only a few months later on June 14, 2003, Joan Prince sadly passes away at the age of just 36, leaving Eric and their four kids behind.

Obviously, obviously so tragic. In the midst of so much career success, he loses his biggest supporter best friend, mother of his kids. Eric will soon marry Joanna Ruth Hauke, the kids nanny, the following year in 2004. No rebound for this guy, no dating even, doesn't even leave the house to find a new wife. It will stay married for eight years, divorcing in 2012. He's now married to Stacey DeLuke, a former Blackwater spokesperson, throwing this info out now since we won't be spending much time, well, any time, get to know either of these women.

On March of 2004, Blackwater announced that it has now won a contract to train Azerbaijani, maritime commandos. Azerbaijan, considered by the US, to be a crucial ally in the oil and gas rich caspian region. Also a CIA program to kill and capture al-Qaeda leaders is terminated and then revived under a new code name and secretly outsourced to Blackwater. The public would not learn about this until 2009. So Blackwater getting all kinds of work now, taking over even a CIA mission and training at non-US military forces.

Key officials leave the CIA's counter-terrorist center, which had run the CIA program to kill and capture Alcatel leaders to now go work for Blackwater. A retired intelligence officer intimately familiar with the assassination program would later say that outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong, right? Exactly. Great example of the political optics I talked about earlier. The same people are basically running the same mission now,

but US politicians can now distance themselves from it a lot more effectively if anything goes wrong. Blackwater has given operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders, including planning and surveillance and has awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry. It's still unclear and probably was left purposefully unclear, whether Blackwater's role is merely for training and surveillance or if Blackwater employees were slated to actually carry out kidnappings and assassinations. To try and keep Blackwater's role in all this as secret as possible, Blackwater didn't have an official contract with the CIA, instead individual executives, including Eric Prince,

were given contracts with the agency. When Congress is later briefed on all this, a lot of people are concerned. In 2009, former CIA agent Robert Baer writes, it's one thing, I'll be it often misguided for the agency to outsource certain tasks to contractors. It's quite another to involve a company like Blackwater and even the planning and training of targeted killings, akin to the CIA, going to the mafia to drop a plan to kill Fidel Castro.

Baer believed that the Blackwater contracts were more about building the US taxpayer than killing Osama bin Laden or any other al-Qaeda leaders. As soon as CIA money lands in Blackwater's account, it's beyond accounting and is good as gone. That's what he would say. Bear also claimed that Blackwater was involved in several highly questionable operations, including the apparent murder of several Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

Now our bear's criticisms valid here, maybe, but I do question his motive in saying all this, right? Prince is his competition. Essentially at this point, while Blackwater is working with the CIA, they are also competing with the CIA for work. Former CIA officers left the agency to go work with them and Blackwater has been contracted to do the work the CIA had been doing. Are his accusations of civilian deaths valid?

I bet they are. But how many civilians have the CIA killed over the years? Right? Tough to say, since that info is mostly classified, but I have to believe it is many thousands, thousands and thousands and thousands. So is it really any worse to have blackwater carry out classified missions than it is for the CIA to carry them out? As long as they're accountable to someone back in DC, I don't think so necessarily. Have you no skin in the game? I feel like this is an example of the pot

calling the kettle black here. March 31, 2004, another tragedy will put the name black water firmly in the minds of millions and millions of Americans and others around the world thanks to extensive news coverage. Four men from black water team November 1, arrive at the army's camp, Tajji, located 12 miles north of Baghdad. The men 48 year old West Battleona 32 year old Jerry Zovko 38 year old Mike Teague all

former army Rangers as well as 38 year old former Navy SEAL Scott Helvinson. Helvinson. They were on a mission transporting an ESS employee essentially a Haliburton employee from Baghdad while driving through the area on their way to Camp Tajhi, two local boys approached their vehicles, used to this to menacing the boys want candy or other goods, but not this time. The boys were being used by local insurgents to lure the contractors into a death trap. Five gunmen with AK-47s emerge from hiding, riddle the vehicle with bullets. Battleona stomps the gas in the lead SUV,

ahead the road has been blocked. Battleona wrenches the steering wheel to the left, barely and over the median, destroying one of the Mitsubishi's rear tires as he makes a U-turn. Now facing Eastbound, the men meet a new blockade of stop cars. And then there is a hail of machine gun fire.

The car slams into a stop car, then comes to arrest, Battleona's body slumps over into the passenger seat, Zofko's head rolls back. The entire assault, over in seconds, they'd been ambushed. The ESS truck drivers were allowed to leave them because they weren't Americans. What happened to these men next would make the world wonder what the fuck is going on over in Iraq. Insurgents burned and mutilate, four bodies of the contractors. Then drag one of them to the streets, string up the two others from a bridge that span the Euphrates, crowds of people beat the bodies, including kids. Their chanting, Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans.

Everybody's fucking super excited, super happy. The desecrations go on for hours. Nurses from the nearby hospital reportedly try to remove the bodies from the bridge and then the gunmen threatened to kill them as well. I watched a bunch of footage of all this from a couple different news outlets. It's fucking super disturbing stuff. Two of the attackers carried video cameras recorded the entire thing. They hoped the western news outlets would spread it like wildfire. They did. The first ambush, or this first ambush was one of the factors leading to the first battle of Fallujah, where the US military sought to take over the city. It also got a lot more people

in the Western world talking about black water and private security contractors. On April 4, 2004, partly in an active revenge for the contractor's deaths, US Marines lay siege to Fallujah. Meanwhile, to the South and the Jaff Blackwater operations or operators defend the coalition provisional authorities headquarters from a METI Army attack. On May 1, 2004, the U.S. withdrawals from Fallujah. 27, excuse me, U.S. servicemen have been killed during the siege. Early reports stated that a total of 800 Iraqis died in the battle, as well of which 572 to 616 were civilians and 184 to 228 military operators, holy shit, right? That is so much collateral damage, so many civilians. And actually that estimate, the US estimate might be real low.

Rackies civilians and medical workers later estimated between 4,000 and 6,000 dead most of them civilians. Now, how can those deaths be justified? What happened? Very hard to say. According to some Iraqi sources, most of the civilian deaths came from quote indiscriminate American bombing which hit civilian houses. There are many children and old people killed because of this indiscriminate shelling. That quote comes from Bissam Abdel Kader, who is an assistant to a doctor working in Fallujah. Cator said he'd been making trips from Fallujah to Baghdad to bring back medicine to the

city. The U.S. military strongly denied this charge and others like it. U.S. general John Abazade, head of U.S. forces in Iraq at the time, said in response, we've been attacking to secure the city of Fallujah. And we're running into active resistance. It is very clear where we're taking fire from and where we're taking fire from. We're applying the appropriate proportionate combat power

to eliminate that resistance. We are being very deliberate and precise in the application of that combat power to prevent any wounding or injury of non-combatants in the area. I do have to say, I do like general obisade, watch an interview with myself. Third generation Lebanese American speaks Arabic, seems to be very pro-winning hearts and

minds kind of guy. Very into not fucking over the locals. US military spokesman Brigadier general Mark Kimit said in surgeons in the city we're using a raki civilians as human shields. And firing weapons at US forces from inside schools, mosques, and hospitals. Urban warfare so fucking ugly. So lucky our streets and suburbs aren't being bombed and riddled with automatic weapons fire

and light explosives. So lucky not to live in a perpetual war zone. Back to Blackwater now. January 5th, 2005, families of the four contractors killed in Fallujah file a wrongful death suit against Blackwater, claiming the company failed to provide the protection of promise. The family claimed that the company broke their contract by cutting corners on

security costs in order to turn a greater profit. They cite evidence that the convoy that the blackwater employees were driving lacked both armor for protection and a rear gunner, making it extremely easy for just a few Iraqi gunmen to kill them. Even more, they had four men per vehicle instead of the usual six, and they claimed there was an alternate path around Fallujah that the contractors could have taken, but they didn't because according to the plaintiffs, Blackwater didn't conduct the proper risk assessment of the area, which they were contractually obliged to do. This case would be settled in 2012 with the families receiving a confidential settlement amount.

Eric Prince wrote that he found the trial sad and painful on every front. Now did Blackwater cut corners here? I don't know enough about war zone procedures to speak intelligently to that. Some sources say they did not. A few others say they did. I will say that a big fear with privatizing military operations is that, you know, these companies are going to put corporate profit ahead of human life. That an incentive for profit will take precedence,

overspending more money to keep contractors safe as safe as humanly possible. Our private security contractors, given less firepower, less protection in the form of less effective defensive equipment, less armored vehicles, et cetera, than their active military counterparts. I can't find a good source that speaks intelligently to that.

No solid data providing, you know, comparing contrast that I can find. Based on a lot of opinions, it seems that private contractors are not being given inferior equipment. If they are, they're sure isn't a lot of press about that. I mentioned earlier that private contractor deaths are currently higher than active military deaths, but, you know, they do have greater numbers. And it seems, you know, they may be given dangerous assignments, more dangerous assignments, more often. In February of 2005, Cofur Black, the former chief of the CIA's Counter Terrorist Center joins Blackwater.

What a great CIA name, by the way. Cofur Black. Sounds made up. Maybe it is. Guys, mysterious. You can't find this guy's birthday online anywhere, which is odd for someone who in political circles is pretty well known. Agent, cofer, black. That's a, that's what you want running CIA counterterrorist center, you know, the guy with that name instead of say agent, whiffler, dinkle. Man, you don't put agent whiffler, dinkle, and charge of anything important. You put that guy in charge of recreation. Agent, dinkle, I need your producer and inventory report on lawn d in charge of recreation. Agent Dinkle, I need you to produce an inventory report on lawn darts and volleyballs.

Sir, yes, sir, what'd it be possible, sir, for me to work with Agent Black on creating new terrorist location profiles, sir? Fuck no, Agent Dinkle. I have a, other, more important work for you. I need you to buy a new set of balls for the billionth table. Nothing cheap, right?

Get some runs with centenials, tournament stuff. Anyway, agent black, not agent whiffler, dinkle becomes a company's vice chairman of black water, more controversy, more people are wondering, how close are the CIA and black water? How okay is it for so many CIA officers who obviously know a lot of sensitive shit to be working now in the private sector on April April 21, 2005, seven Blackwater contractors killed in two incidents in Iraq. The company's worst single day of casualties to that point. May of 2005, Blackwater own company called Greystone Limited is incorporated in Barbados. Among other services, it offers proactive engagement teams to conduct stabilization efforts, asset

protection and recovery and emergency personnel withdrawal. Clients are also offered training in defensive and offensive small group operations. More people are now starting to throw around the term mercenary to describe these contractors. A term seen as inflammatory, but also what is the real difference? Oh, I'll tell you, a mercenary is a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army. A private security contractor can be a professional soldier as well, but one be hold into a corporation, not a country. A lot of people do not find this distinction reassuring. Also in May of 2005, Blackwater worldwide, one of several Blackwater companies

deploys CS nerve gas on a crowded green zone checkpoint. They released the gas from a helicopter and an armored vehicle. Army captain, Kinsey Clark documents and reports the incident. The Army lawyers would claim that the use of riot control agents required the approval of the military's most senior commanders. Commanders were worried that the incident would be used as propaganda by the opposition. Black water in turn claims the contract to provide security for American officials in Iraq with the coalition provisional authority did not address the use of CS gas.

When the contracts for Blackwater, Dine Corp and Triple Canopy were renewed after this incident, these contracts do now forbid the use of CS gas. What is CS gas? Very similar to tear gas. In fact, the defining component of tear gas is commonly referred to as CS gas. It's a non-lethal, right control agent. The only thing they were dumping mustard gas, something on people. On June 25, 2005, Blackwater Guard shoot and kill an Iraqi man on the side of the road,

South of Baghdad. The guards failed to report the incident, which a U.S. State Department memo describes as the random death of an innocent Iraqi citizen. When details like this leak, many PMC critics wonder how many other random citizen deaths are occurring, fair to wonder. This is very troubling. August 29th, 2005, and the US hurricane Katrina strikes the Gulf Coast. One of the worst natural disasters in US history. Katrina caused an estimated $161 billion in damage. In New Orleans, Katrina breaches levees, floods 80% of the city, and total it affected more than 15 million people directly who had to evacuate or lose property or who lost property All the estimates of the number people killed by hurricane Katrina range from 1245 to 1833

Katrina created a new market for blackwater security services blackwater operators operators arrive with an hour, strapped with weapons and combat gear. According to Prince, a number of hit pieces were then put out during this time about Blackwater. New York Times journalist Chris Hedges wrote the piece, Blackwater, what if our mercenaries turn on us? Pictures of the heavily armored and armed men spread throughout the media,

making Blackwater's first foray into the US domestic security market, a controversial one. Aaron Prince unsurprisingly was proud of his company's efforts. The more than 100 men from black water that arrived within 36 hours of Katrina's landfall moved 11 tons of supplies, rescued 121 stranded people. They provided food, fresh water, other supplies, all Prince claims at their own cost aside from fuel, which was paid for by the Coast Guard. After the initial chaos, with much of the area facing blackouts and looting, the operation became one of security again. James Ridgeway, in a Blackwater critical mother Jones article said, the Blackwater operators described their mission in New Orleans as securing neighborhoods as if they were talking about St. or City. Ten days after the storm, the New York Times

reported that although the city had returned to order and looting, there was no longer taking place. Black water was still treating it like a war zone. The local police superintendent ordered all weapons, including legally registered firearms confiscated from civilians. But as the Times noted, that order didn't apply to the hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. Also, highly doubt any motherfuckers intending to loot, rob, and kill turned their weapons over to authorities either. All right, I mean, come on, let's get real. This whole situation makes a lot of people real nervous.

Why are private contractors being called into police in U.S. City? I get that anxiety. A lot of people get nervous when martial law is declared and the military is sent into secure in area two, and I get that anxiety as well. The real question regarding today's topic is should it make you more nervous to have a private military patrol in your streets after a local police superintendent asked guns to be confiscated from citizens than the US military doing the same thing. Both of those patrols would make me equally nervous. I don't want the military or a private security force trying to take anyone's legal guns.

How about fuck both of those options? September 21st, 2005, Rob Ricker or Richard, formerly the deputy head of the CIA's directorate of operations joins Blackwater, more CIA and Blackwater crossover. He becomes vice president of intelligence. According to journalists, Ken Silverstein, this guy joins Blackwater immediately after leaving the agency. He was a big get for Blackwater, had ties to Jordan's King Abdullah. After being hired, he helps Blackwater land a lucrative deal with the Jordanian government to provide the same sort of training previously offered by the CIA. Right? Blackwater again, competing with the CIA for work was crazy. Also, in September 2005, Blackwater

receives a no bid contract to provide more security for government facilities in New Orleans, Q more nervousness. When details like this leak out, a lot of people are bothered by no bid contracts. Why is the government not letting anyone else bid on these contracts? And what I can tell, looking around online,

no bid contracts are usually given out when there are security issues surrounding the contract. Essentially, it's not a job they feel like opening up to various bidders because they don't want to share those details with various contractors, which does make sense. They want to keep the details somewhat classified and they want to give the work to whoever they trust the most.

Does the classified part make sense? Like if you're bidding on a job, you need to know obviously what the job is. How much work are you gonna be doing? What costs are going to incur doing that work? Where will you be working on what exactly? And when you can't know that, when the information is sensitive, when it's classified,

then how the fuck are you supposed to make a proper bid? It's not like the, you know, makes sense in that situation. It's not like the CIA can just put it up on, you know, pin the details on the wall of a local coffee shop. On November 28th, a black water convoy collides with 18 cars while driving to and from a meeting at the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, this is 2005 still. Investigators later determined that operators accounts

of the incident are invalid, inaccurate, and at best dishonest reporting. According to one Blackwater operator, the Convoys Tactical Commander openly admitted, giving clear direction to primary driver to conduct these acts of random negligence for no apparent reason. Ultimately, two Blackwater employees are fired, sounds like they should have been. Acts like this are not just starting to concern the public, they're pissing off a lot of active military members in the Middle East.

Military commanders are concerned that contractors, individual, private missions are often not in line with their military objectives. This is a problem, you know, with PMCs, and these need to be resolved. For example, contractors do an escort duty, are going to be judged by their corporate bosses, solely on whether they get their client from point A to point B. Not whether they win Iraqi hearts and minds along the way. And star a former coalition provisional authority advisor described the difference between private escort and military escort when she traveled with the US military escort and

with guards from black water and another state department contract to 30 firm dine court. While the uniform soldiers kept her safe, they also did such things as playing cards and drinking tea with local Iraqis. The private contractors had a different focus. She said, quote, what they told me was, our mission is to protect the principal at all costs. If that means pissing off the Iraqis too bad, all right?

This obviously is troubling. This protection first and last mentality has led to many common operating procedures or practices that clearly enraged locals. For good reason, in an effort to keep potential threats away, contractors drive convoys up the wrong sides of the road, they will ram civilian vehicles, they will toss smoke bombs, they will fire weaponry as warnings, all the standard practice, which is super fucked up.

There are several disturbing videos online of blackwater contractors that I've watched smashing into Iraqi civilians cars. In one case, actively fucking run it over to civilian. And then they just keep on driving to get their target safely to the destination. Clearly not a good look. After a month spent embedded with black water contractors and bagdad, journalist Robert Young Pelton said they're famous for being very aggressive. They use their machine guns like car horns.

US officers and Iraq, such as Colonel, uh, hummus were worried that while contractors may have been fulfilling their contracts, they were also making enemies each time they went out. US Army Colonel Peter Mansour, one of the leading experts on counterinsurgency, similarly noted in January 2007 that if they push traffic off the roads, or if they shoot a pacar that looks suspicious, whatever it may be, they may be operating within their contract to the detriment of the mission, which is to bring the people over to your side. I would much rather see basically all armed entities in a counterinsurgency operation fall under a military

chain of command. This to a non-military never served, never been to the Middle East, random podcaster like my eyes seems to be a very valid concern regarding PMCs. If say a group of security contractors is beholden to the CIA or the State Department, whoever is paying the contract and not to say to US Army, then they can simultaneously accomplish their contract goals while also really fucking up overall military objectives. And that of course is not good, just like it's not good to treat random foreign civilians like fucking speed bumps, is not good. It's just like it's not good to treat random foreign civilians, you know, like fucking speed bumps, you know, like the enemy.

I also think this is an issue that could be pretty easily resolved, at least on paper. Soldiers have rules of engagement. Contractors are giving corporate policies to follow, and those policies can be reshaped, right? They could end up following the same rules of engagement, perhaps. I don't know. I'm not over there.

But why aren't people, you know, ramming civilian cars indiscriminately being immediately fired? Why are they allowed to do that? What better oversight procedures can be put into place to fix that problem? Something. I'm sure it can be done. Finally, the close of 2005 Blackwater's federal contracts now total $352 million. In April of 2006, Blackwater Vice Chairman Cofer, Cofer Black suggested Blackwater

troops be deployed to areas around the world facing humanitarian crisis. One of them being the Dharfer region of Sudan, where though the second Sudanese civil war had ended in 2005, Maskers are still taking place. Cofer Black takes this idea of the special operations, forces, exhibition in Jordan, where he claims that Blackwater wants to contribute to the common good. He argues that big military operations tend to get myard in NATO's bureaucracy, and the Blackwater could easily send a brigade-sized peacekeeping unit of about 5,000 troops for a fraction of the cost of NATO operations.

And on paper, I gotta say, with the proper oversight, of course, I like this idea. How many lives could be saved through effective PMC intervention in situations like Darfur? The closure 2006 blackwater was revealed to have yet another great year. They had another great year working for Uncle Sam. Federal contracts had now gone up to $593 million for the year.

Documents released by the state and defense departments on April 24, 2007 revealed that private contractors paid by US firms now outnumber US troops in Iraq. At this point, over 180,000 civilians, including Americans, foreign citizens and Iraqis, are working under US contracts in Iraq compared to about 160,000 soldiers in several thousand civilian government employees stationed in Iraq. On September 16, 2007, Blackwater guards on a state department convoy opened fire in Nisr Square and Baghdad killing 17 Iraqis and wounding two dozen others. Their actions this day would bring the most intense criticism to date of Blackwater.

And rightfully so, an FBI investigation found that at least 14 of the shootings were not justified. The widow of one of the 17 civilians, Um Tassin, would say of Blackwater, those people are a group of criminals. What they did was a massacre. Pushing them out is the best solution. They destroyed our family. Blackwater guards claimed that the convoy was ambushed. They're convoyed.

And they fired at the attackers in defense of their convoy. The Iraqi government and Iraqi police investigator, Ferris Saadi Abdul stated that the killings were unprovoked, and the next day Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in Iraq is temporarily revoked. It'll be permanently revoked before long. In December of 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice would announce it was filing criminal charges against five of the Blackwater employees and ordered them to surrender to the FBI. Five were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter, and a weapons violation.

In April of 2015, a federal district judge would sentence one of these blackwater men to life in prison, while the other three guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison each. Charged against the other man were dropped. Prince would claim in his 2013 book, Civilian Warriors, the inside story of blackwater and the unsung heroes of the war on terror, that it was easy to think about what his men could have done

after the fact, but being in the line of fire was different. It declares that he will not second guess the split the split second decisions of his employees. But many others would and did. Critics were quick to point out that Blackwater shootings overall were more than the combined number by Dine Corp and Triple Canopy, the other two companies on the same contract with Blackwater. What was going on? There was a lot of talk about Blackwater contractors running wild in Iraq and being way too trick-or-happy.

About them showing a callous disregard for Iraqi civilian safety, a very much a shoot-first ask questions later mentality. But Prince says this view lacks context. He says blackwater carried more security details than the other contractors. That they carried out 16,000 personal security detail missions in Iraq over the same two year time frame, more than Dine Corp and Triple Canopy did during that time frame.

So of course, there would be more shootings attributed to them. And he points out that, you know, 195 incidents that were the amount reported by Blackwater personnel, where shots were fired, were only 1.2% of their total missions. So he claimed that nearly 99% of the time their missions were completely peaceful. The big question with the knee sewer square massacre is does it represent the overall ethos of Blackwater or was it an isolated incident? I cannot speak to that answer. Despite a lot of negative press over these shootings in 2007, black water's federal contracts totaled $1 billion now and make more and more money every year

as are other PMCs. Overseas military efforts are becoming more and more outsourced, privatized. Following fall another issue with Blackwater and PMCs in general arises. US privately trained military contractors start to work for the enemy. This is just a wee bit troubling. Between August and October of 2008, former Afghan national police who were trained by US forces,

including security companies like Blackwater, start to defect to the Taliban, according to Al-Jazera. The channel reports that around 70 former police in the province of Harat have joined the Taliban in the past two months. Recruits featured in a video report carrying weapons provided by the Afghan government and certificates for weapons training from the U.S. Some of these fighters openly display their blackwater issued IDs. One Taliban recruit Abdul Rahim says he received training from Blackwater for 45 days.

He explains, I can use the training to save my life in these mountains and I can also use it to fight them. Our soil is occupied by Americans and I want them to leave this country that is my only goal, says another former Blackwater employee, Stouleymann Amiri, who had 16 men under his Taliban command. More questions are raised. Should PMC's be training for nationals? I mean, that is scary that they will defect the Taliban. If you know anything about the Taliban, not a good group of people. Not big on women's rights, for example, far worse than the princes when it comes to homosexual rights. January 28, 2009, more bad press for black water. This day, the Iraqi government informs US Embassy in embassy in Baghdad that it will not issue a new operating

license to Blackwater worldwide. In effect, the decision forces Blackwater to cease operations in Iraq. Many Blackwater employees are accused of using excessive force while protecting U.S. diplomats and State Department personnel. Those Blackwater employees, not accused, not accused of improper conduct, may continue working as private contractors in Iraq as long as they quit blackwater and work for other firms. The new rule states that blackwater must leave Iraq as soon as a joint U.S. Iraq committee finalizes guidelines for the conduct and liability of private contractors.

Under earlier agreements, blackwater and other U.S. contractors had been entirely immune from prosecution under Iraqi law. You know, which's pretty crazy. Now the Iraqi government wants these contractors under their authority, which is a valid thing to want. I mean, would you want private security contractors operating in your nation with impunity, not be holding, not be holding to your government? I sure as fuck wouldn't.

However, my government, despite all of its flaws, way more stable than Iraq's government. If I lived in Iraq, I might not want my government to be regulating anything. Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman, Major General Abdul Karim Khlaaf, says that when the committee finalizes the process, those companies that don't have licenses such as Blackwater should leave Iraq immediately. On February 13, 2009, Blackwater Worldwide announces that it is changing its name to Z services, time for a rebrand. Eric would say about the decision that Z was a reference to the chemical element Z-N-On,

a colorless, odorless gas found in trace amounts in the Earth's atmosphere. It represented a new, understated direction for the company. They were going back to their training center routes, expand the instructional programs, and fade into the background. More rebranding follows in 2010, the company renames itself to Academy. It's acquired by the investor group, USTC, holdings for about $200 million. And Eric Prince removes himself from operations. He's no longer Mr. Blackwater.

The Academy seems to have shifted focus away from security details and back to training. It has many, many training bases as to suppose to now, not only in the US, but also abroad, where more than 40,000 people train annually. They still work primarily for Uncle Sam, about 90% of their profits come from contracts with the US government. December 15, 2011, the war in Iraq officially ends. The conflict in Afghanistan officially ends three years later on December 28, U.S. contractors do continue to operate in both places as do active military. There are today, roughly, 2500 U.S. service members in Iraq, 2500 additional in Afghanistan. It's the lowest number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan since operations started there in 2001. There are an estimated 18,000 U.S. security contractors now in Afghanistan

and another approximately 4700 in Iraq, I think. The number is constantly fluctuating. And who knows how many are there on assignments that have not been publicly disclosed. December of 2020, Nicholas, Slatton, Paul, Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Hurd, the four blackwater contractors convicted for 14 deaths in the Nisour Square massacre in 2007 are pardoned by President Trump putting the blackwater name back in the Nesauro Square massacre in 2007 are pardoned by President Trump putting the black water name back in the media and raging many around the world, more controversy. And that controversy will bring us to the end of today's time suck timeline.

Good job, soldier. You made it back. Barely. Back, barely. A lot of info. Before I recap and share some final thoughts on all of this, where is Eric Prince now? He's been busy. Since he sold black water, he's pursued various projects across the globe from the United Arab Emirates and Somalia to Hong Kong. Prince is deputy chairman on the board of yet another private security company, another

PMC, this one called Frontier Services Group, Incorporated in Hong Kong. FSG has several contracts with the People's Republic of China for what Prince has termed purely logistics and construction support in the Xinjiang province of Western China. I'm not sure if I believe that, that's all they're doing. He also was the focus of an investigation for Lion De Congress during the House Intelligence Committees investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. He was accused of meddling to help Trump's election there in 2017. He met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war

entirely using contractors and lieu of American troops to Matt Mattis, Secretary of Defense, the time who rejected the idea. So, you know, he's still working in the same kind of field he was working in before. Just different people in different company. Let's recap, talking about some pros and cons with Blackwater and PMCs in general now. Pros, right? PMCs.

Seeing this having inherent advantages over militaries with regards to cost, flexibility, responsiveness, we laid all of that out already. It's cheaper to use PMCs. Also they are not bound by the same international laws that militaries are. They're not tied up with the same red tape. They have political advantages as well, better optics, easier for politicians to distance themselves from them than it is from national militaries.

Another pro contractors make a lot more money than their active military counterparts. Shouldn't soldiers be offered the chance to make more money? Who doesn't want to get paid more for what they do and who deserves to get paid more than people doing some of the most dangerous work on the planet? Cons, military policy experts say contractors are taking the jobs of active military service men, also that they can do damage like we stated to overall military objectives. They're not under the control of military officers serving in the same areas. That's problematic not having control of your team, not often a good thing in wartime.

Retired Army General and Reconstruction expert William Nash said that it's dangerous for the US military to not have control of all coalition guns. And I rack because little statistical info is out there. There are a lot of remaining questions about PMC's. We just don't have answers for our contractors better or worse than service members and achieving a country's political ends abroad. Don't know. Is the US using them effectively, making the most of what they do well, mitigating the areas where they fall short? I don't know. Finally, groups like Blackwater have received a lot of negative press over the years, but is that really fair?

Are they being scapegoated? Eric Prince thinks that absolutely has been the case. Prince claims that Blackwater was made into a scapegoat for the public's fury over the Bush administration's actions in the Middle East. Far from not having control of their PMC's, Prince insists that the government was actively instructing them how to operate You know to do what they were doing and then later when things, you know Got out in the press that were not very good for optics

Capital Hill made it seem like PMCs were just running rogue like black water So that the government wouldn't have to take accountability take responsibility for their part and some of these incidents Says erud prints I was strong opposite of the politicians confined indignation and pretend my men hadn't done exactly what they had been paid to do. So, you know, fucking optics, fucking politics. I don't doubt for a second there's a lot of truth to this.

I know there are good politicians out there. I'm not one of those who thinks that they're all bad, but as a group, I literally can't think of another group I trust less. Like the stereotype of politicians in general being untrustworthy as fuck did not get pulled from thin air. Would Bush as Prince has said or any other president throw these groups under the bus and throw them fast and hard if it was politically advantageous to do so?

You bet you sweet ass. All part of the game that maybe does, I don't know, just have to be played. What a crazy topic. Yes, all part of the game that maybe does, I don't know, just have to be played. What a crazy topic. Still so many unturned rocks on this one, such a vast subject. Blackwater, one of many PMCs, one of many parts, uh, once at the heart of a mega trillion dollar geopolitical soap opera, so many PMCs still at the heart of this giant military industrial complex should companies like Blackwater be used more or less or not at all going forward?

Well, they seem to be unavoidable. I'm not sure after all this, that there are any strong reasons not to use them. If they're cheaper to use, if the soldiers working for them get paid more, if they can accomplish objectives as well as their active military counterparts, well, then what's not to like?

Our PMC's war profiteers, maybe, but as long as they're not starting wars, is that really such a terrible thing? If a war has to be fought, and wars have always been fought, you know, then within reason shouldn't those who help fighting them, who help win them, get fucking paid? I don't know, seems fair to me. Let's head to today's top five takeaways. Time, suck, top five takeaways. Time, shock, top five takeaway. Number one, black water is the most recognizable name in the world of private security contractors,

but they were one of many, many names. Many PMCs work with the US government and other governments to this day. Number two, the Prince family outside of PMC's pretty polarizing bunch. Hopefully, like many other modern Christians, they can relax, let go of their anti-LGBTQ stance and accept that our culture won't actually collapse and fall into decay. If two dudes or two ladies get married. Number three, Prince sees his industry as being in the worst case scenario business. And when you're dealing with worst case scenarios, you're bound to get some bad press, shit is bound to go wrong sometimes.

Blackwater contractors have for sure done some really fucked up things, but how many lives have they also saved? Do they really deserve all the negative press they received? Number four, never put agent Whiffler-Dinkle in charge of anything more important than cataloging lawn darts. And number five, new info. Eric Prince has been back in the news recently. The United Nations probe has found that Eric broke a Libya arms embargo to aid a rebel

commander there. Prince still very active in the PMC world allegedly ran an $80 million scheme that involved delivering two armed gunboats, three attack helicopters and at least one military drone to Libya in 2019, as well as potential plans to create an assassination team to kill certain Libyan military commanders Princess categorically denied doing any of this According to the report Christian Durant a former business partner and friend of princes traveled to a mom or a mom To purchase three us made age

1f cobra helicopter gunships from the Jordanian government team also obtained electronic warfare equipment to jam enemy communications in a mobile command center. The cobras were packed in shipping containers ready to be loaded onto Russian-built cargo planes before other Jordanian authorities intervened blocking the transfer. Aman requires US government permission to resell American-made military hardware and no formal permission had been granted according to the UN investigation. Members of the mercenary team reportedly told Jordanian authorities that they had received green light from the highest levels of the u.s. government but calls placed to wash them did not support that assertion the u.n. reported well of course it didn't now they get in fucking trouble they're not going to say this goes back to optics again

they're not going to be like no what oh yeah no no yeah we did that we authorize prince absolutely for sure i bet they authorized him come on i, I can see IA trained this guy. This IA does, you like this all the time around the world. Libya has been operating on some level of pretty fucked, seriously fucked for decades. Don't hear about them in the news as much, but still a lot of turmoil over there. And again, yeah, did the US authorized

a deal, prints the cues of, that's what's something. Something to the Trump administration gave it the green light. And now, you know, when some PMC hands get slapped, people in DC again act like they don't know what's going on. I don't believe it. PMC's not going anywhere. Too many advantages to using them, and I think the biggest ones are political. Time, suck, tough, five take away. Blackwater has been sucked! I found the world of PMC is incredibly interesting. I definitely did more revisions of these notes than quite a few of the past sucks. We've been doing a lot of heavier ones. A lot of ones that are stretching my brain muscles.

Hope I did okay. Hope you enjoyed it. Ojangles loved it so much. He took a job with a PMC. He left the suck dungeon. He's headed out somewhere in the middle east right now apparently Best of luck. Good boy. What jangles Thanks to the bad magic productions team for all the help and making time suck Queen of bad magic Lindsey Cummins Reverend Dr

Jill Paisley the script keepers act flannery Sophie Faxorster is Evans Biddelixer Logan the art warlock Keith running bad magic merch Dotcom working on socials with Liz Hernandez. Again, the new and improved customer service email store at badmagicproductions.com. Thanks to all those who joined the cult of the curious private Facebook group over 26,000 curious members chatting that up making new friends posting outrageous memes forming a shit ton of subgroups etc. I love it. Thanks again to Liz and her all seen eyes running the cult of the curious Facebook page Megan Howell Ellie Darling Danny Ryan Robbie Erickson, Jacob Carey, Kaylee Fitzpatrick, Jeffrey Bistrin, Adam Gustafason, Gustafson, I think Kathleen Saller, Shelley, and Anonen,

and Ensen. Oh, boy. Ensen, Ensen, there we go. I even wrote out phonetics and I'm still like, what? Thanks to everyone having fun on Discord as well. Thanks to all of your space, all of you space, Lerid's playing time so trivia on the time so cap, Boate 210 currently in the round eight lead with 5,772 points close close race this month. New round starts a few hours after this episode drops on March 1st. Next week, we return to another cult, cult, cult, kind of. We dive into the Alon school

and the horrors of the troubled teen industry. Founded in 1974 by Joe Richie, the Alon school was a place where individuality and happiness went to die. Parents paid upwards of $50,000, more than a year's tuition to Harvard. For their child, some as young as 12 to be kidnapped in the middle of the night

brought to a crumbling campus in the middle of fucking nowhere main. Once they are the student will be required to live by the Alon schools, draconian rules, which included punishments for not smiling and punishments for smiling too much. They were told to write down their guilt, things they'd done wrong, and then were blackmailed. They were encouraged to rat out other students. They were required to physically fight each other in a horrifying event the school simply called the ring. All this was supposedly therapeutic. It was were encouraged to rat out other students. They were required to physically fight each other in a horrifying event. The school simply called the ring. All this was supposedly therapeutic.

It was intended to cure them, heal them, put them on the right track, spoiler alert, it did not fucking traumatize them. Though the Alon school was not a cult per se. Its methods were very cult like and only shut down in 2011. Even now thousands of teens each year are sent to similar boot camps, wilderness survival camps, conversion therapy, places where they're isolated from their families. Many of these programs do have their origins in something that was definitely a cult, a rehab center by the name of the synonym or by synonym of the name synonym.

Shut down in 1991, commonly called the synonym cult, a rigorous schedule, physical exercise, therapy, learning the value of responsibility can help put a misguided person back on the right track, for sure. But the Alon School did not do that for the kids trapped there. What terrifying shit happened within the walls of the Alon School? Tune in to Time Suck next week to find out. And now let's head on over to this week's time-sucker updates. Updates? Get your time-sucker updates!

Gonna open with a real quick observation. From confused sucker Oz Oz. Oz Oz writes, okay seriously, still catching up. Just finish the suck on the church's statement. How the fuck are you able to speak Latin perfectly? And not be able to pronounce Genome or nuclear, which is I know Genome. You don't have to look it up.

Fair, I was out, I wish I knew. Maybe I can donate my brain to science. Now after I die, they can be like, oh, there's a problem. There's an empty space where part of a brain is supposed to be. Yeah, full disclosure, I had to look up how to say the Genome, Genome, I had to look up how to say the genome. Genome, Jesus Christ, for this update.

Cause I still default in my brain to genome. I don't know, I don't know. I, yeah, I definitely don't do any of that intentionally. I don't play it up. Just like, oh, some people I get, I just, mispronounce words more. If you ever wanna like look at my notes, go to the Times Look app, and you can download a PDF

right off the app of any of the shows, and just look at how many fucking phonetic spellings I put in every episode, it's preposterous. And still, I see the phonetics and I'm like, God, I don't remember those phonetic things mean. God damn. I've made it my own little phonetic list. I just like, I do like rhymes with this word,

that kind of stuff. Now for an entertaining ostrich update, from not an Aussie sucker, but a Kansas sucker, Alexis Johnson, not an EMU update, but damn close. Alexis writes, dear canned dummies, King of the Curious, sovereign of the suckers, Duke of the dummies. For a little backstory during the 80s,

Kansas has many EMU and ostrich farms due to the price of meat and products. Sometimes during the late 80s the market fell apart feeding and housing and became too expensive, so farmers started just to let them go. In the late 90s, 97 I think, the department my dad worked for got a call about a loose EMU on the interstate. A co-worker of his responded tried catching the burbot that luck because it was running in and out in and out of 80 mile per hour traffic he decided to use daily force.

So I guess this is an EMU and ostrich update. Some PETA loving Karen witnessed this and caused some issues for the department. From that point on they had to receive permission to euthanize a wild loose animal in public. Fast forward a few years my dad gets put out on a call for a loose EMU out in the county. He goes looking and sees it in a field of horses. He pulls up and approaches it only to realize it is a juvenile ostrich. It's not an emu, but close. He manages to get it cornered in a barn. He goes to the house to ask the owner if the ostrich belongs to him, or if he knows who it might belong to. He's told that he doesn't. He doesn't belong to this guy,

he doesn't know who it could be. My dad proceeds to tell the man that he himself doesn't have the authority to shoot the animal, but the man does. If it's harassing his livestock, he calls a chief to tell him the details and his chief tells him he will get back with him on how to proceed. Meanwhile, my dad goes to see if he can wrangle that monster bird. The ostrich starts chirping at him so he decides to churt back. After this goes on for a bit, it's quite a scene. My dad becomes frustrated, tries grabbing the bird's neck. Without any success, he decides to start voraciously yelling at the bird.

Frightened, the bird now tries to bury its head in the ground. But since Kansas is dry and not sandy, he just manages to stun himself long enough. My dad to grab his neck struggled enough to end up straddling this thing. At this point, the chief radio is in tells him he has to go ahead to euthanize the animal. He manages to radio back something along lines of no go. I have him in custody. At some point, the homeowner joins him in the barn. They manage to get a burlap sack over this thing's head, put it in the back of the patrol truck. The homeowner then says, oh yeah,

while I was inside, I remembered my neighbors down the wayhab ostriches. They then managed to return the great beast to his home, lucky for both my dad and the ostrich, they came out unscathed. Star for the long message, but I thought it was fun to share. Three out of five stars, keep on stocking. PS Star for any mistakes. I'm a welder, not an English major. Alexis. Well, Alexis, you did a great job. You must have paid good attention in English class. That's crazy.

That thing stunned itself, slamming its head into the ground. I looked up some info. It ostriches one thing faster than emuse. They can hit speeds of up to 45 miles per hour, which is ridiculous. Also contrary to popular belief, they do not bury their heads in the sand, but they will try to get their bodies as flat as possible, and they will lay their heads very flat in the ground and become completely still. They want to look like a lump of dirt or debris that throw off their predators. And random ostrichive, they can kick hard enough to literally kill a line. Doesn't happen often, but I guess it has happened. So good thing your dad did not get ostrich-vandammed.

Maybe that thing slam at his head in the ground, was just, you know, part of the chaos of some interspecies UFC match that your dad was fighting it. Thanks for sending that message, Lexus. Aussie, Aussie sucker. Scott Finley now gives me a lingo update on last week's EMEU Suck. Scott writes, good I am assed to suck a fucker abba of all things linguistic.

Just finish listening to episode 232 on the great EMEU war as a 40 year old western Australian man. Just want to say thank you for informing of this as almost everyone I've asked had no fucking idea this ever happened. It's hilarious to me that many Americans think we ride kangaroos to school over here, but then you pull out a crazy bunch of Aussie history. Educators on something we knew nothing about. And I just wanted to congratulate you on the plantations you did pretty well. I want to thank our boarder ask you to try and pronounce Aussie correctly. You say Aussie is in Aussie Osborne.

Love the show along with STD and as we damn can I give a shout out to Ben Croft over here in Western Australia. You put me on the suck and also to my American pen pal Nathan can brown And his family I'm a ton of Facebook page. You actually gave me a shout out to you in the 13x suck It's your head out there. So this gets to read out. That would be awesome. He's got the great workbed magic team all the best Fuck yeah, Scott. You fucking can't you fuck I can't keep the accent up anymore. It's probably doing terribly. I know, I've been saying Aussie all the time now. I always thought it was Aussie.

I've seen it, Aussie, Aussie, I also like saying fuck with and dickweed, yeah, fucking dickweed. Love Aussie swear words. Glad we have some WA suckers, joined some WA history. Now for a shout out request, some good advice coming up from Sweet Sacka, J.E.B.A.R He Berry. What if I just started that so annoying all the time. Just do the lame Australian accent const neighbor show. Hey, hello, I'm so

here. Hi, I'm Neymar. Hey, Lucifer. Hey, praiseable, giant. It's Laura B to Michael, mother, facahmic Donald, facah, and Kant's fucking dickweed. Hey, Dan, my name is Jackie. I've written a few times. I wanted to write it and tell you how thankful I am for the time to podcast. Thank you. My little sister, Rena, recently made a mistake and nearly took her life. She's had the hardest year this year,

losing her first marriage, or losing her marriage, sorry, fighting for the custody of her youngest child, struggling with medical issues, financial problems, left and right, just turned the young age of 21 in December. I introduced her to your podcast over a year ago. It has been something we have had in common since then. She and I have not always gotten along. There have been a lot of times when we haven't spoken

because it's stupid little disagreements. Ah, family. When my mom told me about what happened, all I could think was, why wasn't I there for her? I've reached out since then. We've talked pretty much every day. She's still got some of my nerves, a little sister's due, which is my baby sister.

I couldn't imagine my life without her in it. One of the main things we talk about is you and your podcast, both love it so much, have so many dark and hilarious conversations about it. Love it. Give us something else to talk about. In a connection we had lost over the years. Just wanted to say thank you for that. And if you read this on the show, could you give a shout out to my little shithead sister, Reena, Re, you drive me nuts.

And I know we don't always see eye to eye, but you, you're my cycle of sister. I love you always. You're never alone in life. Even when you think I won't be there, I will always be. I will forever be your older sister and sorry loser, but there's no returns. And to anyone who feels alone and feels there's no way out, please don't do it. You matter, and the only way to go from the bottom is up. Yeah, only place to go from the bottom is up.

If you know someone struggling with mental illness, please be there, even when it's hard, because they need to know they're never alone. Thanks again, suckuck Master Supreme. May the great God amway. Bless you're always with cheap soaps and MLM products. Sincerely, you are forever sucker, Jackie B. Well, thank you, Jackie B.

So glad, Bonnie, over some silliness helps you and your sister find some joy, helps cement the relationship between you two. Life is short, cram it as much fun as you can. The good God amway. It is pleased by what's going on with you too. And now, I'm going to end today on some cool info inspired by the Dante's and Fernos Suck, Knowledgeable Meat Suck, Jordan Brumwrights, Hayden Longtime Comedy and Podcast fan here.

Don't change the thing. Three out of five stars. Listing to the Dante's and Fernos Suck, the part about vellum took me back to history class, one I had a few months ago. And I thought you in the gang may appreciate these tidbits. The Bible, one of the original texts put to skin, took about a whole herd of cattle to produce, and was often more expensive than the church in which it sat. Also concerning medieval illiteracy, priests were the original professors, so named because

they were allowed to teach the common man to read only under the condition that they profess their faith while doing so. I did not know that. I hope the cult finds this as interesting as I did, continue forth with that in Sakage Malod. Jordan, well thank you, Jordan, a whole herd of cattle. Ah, man, more expensive than the church sometimes. God, how lucky are we now to live in an era

where you can just grab books digitally for free, oftentimes? Amazing times we live in, amazing times. Hail Nimrod, everyone, thank you for those updates. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Thanks for the recent ratings and reviews everyone. Three out of five stars, jokes still going strong.

I love it. I love how confusing it is for so many people. More bad magic productions, content throughout the week if you're interested. Chills with scared to death late Tuesday nights. Last, what is we done Wednesdays at noon these times, Pacific. The secret suck on Thursdays for spaces are it's only. If you're going to launch a PMC this week, don't hire agent with her dinkle to run it. Aw, half pint. You get Michael Motherfucking landed.

Or, you know, is ghost, I guess. And you keep on sucking. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, Here at the Sucked Engine, we have our very own AT. We have Joe, Bonzucco, Jo Paisley! Do in the audio engineering, do in making posts of things of cool pictures. Yes, making laughs with the As We Dump. And we also have somebody. I'm the only one here. Just you, of an eye, buddy. And I'm here too.

Yeah. Did some things. We got the... The P team. With Paisley. That's about it.