I watched another utube about the Code Over Country book. About Seal team 6 and how illegal shit/war crimes crept into the Seals while in Afghanistan and Iraq.
War in Afghanistan/War in Iraq vs. Code Over Country.
I think after watching these videos, one should not let their country go to war, but always be ready for it.
With the occupation of Iraq by American forces, the special forces needed more people and then every government agency wanted into Iraq. Those agencies needed security in a place of constant guerilla warfare. Blackwater was one of many security companies, that the various US departments used over in Iraq and Afghanistan.
War criminals and torturers. Well a few bad apples can give the whole unit a bad name (watch that code over country video). The problem is that there is little time to enforce laws and regulations, when the next combat is expected within the next day. Another was weak/inexperienced leadership on the officer side to enforce rules etc. There is no doubt that war crimes happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will all of them be prosecuted, probably not. Iraq and Afghanistan are in the past. The thing about Iraq was the constant sniping and car bombings. You see a car coming at you, you wave for it to stop and it keeps coming, a good security guy/operator shoots first.
Erik Prince sold the company in 2010. Hence the name changes. Or maybe he still owns it under another company, who knows. I liked the interviews he did with Ryan. Although I would classify them both (prince and ryan) of seeking a smaller government, with alot more business competition Vs. big company monopolies/government corruption/interference. Too much red tape and loopholes to jump through, to start a business up etc.
Prince also talks about why the US lost in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Interesting. Mostly too many agencies had their fingers in the pie, and they weren't eliminating/identifying the opposing forces against them (sniping, ambushes, car bombs etc in both countries). What that marine shirt motto "Join the marines, go to other countries and meet interesting people, kill them, and let god sort them out.
Blackwater business model was to get things done. They also had cheaper prices then the other companies, but still did the job. It was why they expanded so fast since 2000. Like any niche, Blackwater got its "mercenaries" by word of mouth in the special forces organizations. Blackwater got all the training a special ops guy would need, in one spot. One stop shopping.
"Code over country", indeed. Looser controls in general, murky and greedy motivations, and maybe some personnel that joined because they are rapid thugs who would have been drummed out of a real military.
It is not that different than the "thing blue line" excuse that is made when some cops do bad things but other cops refuse to inform upon them, because of the pressure to never do something against your team (even if the offenses are things that hurt your team).
Blackwater expanded fast because the patronage of a Republican regime that wanted all sorts of wars (Project for a New American Century, look it up), but also ideologically believed in privatizing everything, even the primary functions of government: warfare, intelligence, policing, prison guarding. Hence the "security contractor" firms which sprouted up, no longer called "mercenaries" even though that is what they are - close cousins to hitmen, who kill for money not country. Well when you employ militarized hitmen in military & intelligence roles, as a government, you get to unleash war crimes, but have a measure of legal deniability for what they've done (what you allowed them to do) . You can say "well it wasn't us, it was bad apples in this private company".It's bullshit, nobody in places like Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria thought of them as anything other than yet more American soldiers. Look at Wagner group, the Russia-spawned version of Blackwater: does anyone in the west look at them and not see Putin & the Kremlin behind what they do and where they go? Nope. Perhaps even Russia's most effective force since they are not bound by the kind of top-down doctrines that [negatively] affect the Russian military. Mercenaries also have less protection from harm than soldiers, because the governments that sent them will disown them, and the ones who capture them know that. Old-school war rules are clear - soldiers belonging to a real country with an official army have POW protections; mercenaries and partisans/terrorists have none, and can be killed on the spot.
As for why "they" lost in Afghanistan & Iraq, they can dance around with all kinds of weak justifications, keep up the myth that it was bureaucrats or whatever, but nope. The real reason is (and I am going to avoid doing a long explanation):
In Iraq, they lost because they never should have been there in the first place. Everyone except the Kurds hated their guts, and was prepared to fight them endlessly. The world warned them not to, they ignored and even denounced those nations which told them no (even allies like Canada). They wrongly invaded a country, and while beating its official army in official battle was easy, trying to hold down a country by force which wants very badly to get rid of you proved much harder. Also their problems elsewhere multiplied as a result. That brings us too...
Afghanistan. The world understood America's need to get revenge for 9/11 (call it payback, or just not letting yourself look weak - they understand it perhaps more than the USA itself does). Initial success was gained smashing down the Taliban and Al Qaida with northern alliance help. Most Afghans were happy to see that regime gone, so things went well at first. But then the Bush government took its eyes of the AfPak theatre, downplayed the need to avenge 9/11 and kill Bin Laden, and concentrated on invading Iraq. Well that decision cost them basically all their goodwill in the muslim world, empowered every salafist jihadi group on earth with a huge propaganda win, allowed Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to rebuild the Taliban until it was strong enough to take over again. The US struggled on with their allies for many years, long after they had doomed their own efforts. Sure, they got Bin Laden eventually, rubbing Pakistan's nose in the shit, but 10 years after 9/11, and long after the rest of the world had stopped trusting them.
You cannot pacify a country that hates your guts. You cannot make someone else's culture what you want it to be. You can't hold the moral high ground around the world if how you fight includes atrocities and betrayals.
"Nation building"? Don't make me laugh. Every place the Americans have tried that in this century is more fucked up than it was before they arrived. Once again, no wins to be found when the situation itself is rotten from the get-go, or develops that way early on.
Did you ever watch that long documentary series about the Vietnam war? The really appalling thing is how early they knew it was not going to go their way, but they kept going and going for almost a decade after that, and most of the lives lost were for a cause which they basically already knew was lost.
These mercs should not be the ones to complain about Afghanistan or Iraq or the rest. They got a lot of work doing shady things for even shadier reasons, not just in these places, but everywhere else Uncle Sam stuck his nose in with some "privatized warfare".
