I live in Loudoun County, and the counties surrounding Washington, D.C., have the highest per-capita income in the country. Not because they create wealth, but because they suck wealth from the rest of the country, and that system needs to be shaken up.
Erik Prince
Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.
Readiness is an oft-mentioned - but frequently ignored - necessity.
I can relate to ranchers and roughnecks and professional game guides and farmers and homemakers.
Developing good investments in Africa is by and large the best for the people of Africa that have a job, that have electricity, that might have clean water, that might have those things that we in the West take horribly for granted.
I believe there is significant overreach by the NSA in how it monitors American citizens.
We're trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the postal service.
I'm a business guy just trying to make - provide great services to the customers that need us.
Troops fighting for their lives should not have to ask a lawyer sitting in air conditioning 500 miles away for permission to drop a bomb.
America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Whether it's allowing the NSA to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should.
Since United States military operations in Iraq began in 2003, I have visited Iraq at least 15 times. But unlike politicians who visit, the question for me has never been why the U.S. got into Iraq. Instead, as the CEO of Blackwater, the urgent question was how the company I head could perform the duties asked of us by the U.S. State Department.
Everyone says they support our troops and thank you for their service, if they really want to support their troops, demand better. Demand that their sacrifice not be wasted. That we not just muddle along as some of the generals have called for.
In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.
My dad built his business by providing products he figured the customers would want.
Our failed population-centric approach to Afghanistan has only led to missed opportunities, which is why Afghanistan depends on donors for 90% of government revenues. A smarter, trade-centric approach will boost Afghanistan's long-run viability by weaning it off donor welfare dependency.
I loved being a SEAL. I loved working with those kind of guys and a sense of mission, and Blackwater was started to continue that sense of mission.
Our nation has endured and flourished because people of goodwill adapt and innovate productive solutions to our nation's problems - not because of top-down dictates.
You pretty much remove the entire political texture from Blackwater when you come to China. What they look at is our 100 per cent success rate.
I never intended to be a defense contractor in the first place.
I wish we had been doing diplomatic security in Benghazi. I can tell you that Benghazi would not have happened if Blackwater were on the job there.
We have kind of turned our back on the fact that hard work, sacrifice, risk-taking, innovation, is what made America great.
Blackwater's work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked. In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.
If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad?
We have no George Pattons anymore. We have no Ulysses S. Grants. We have none of the swashbuckling generals that actually made things happen.
We have the finest officers in the world, but it seems like once they become generals it is a self-licking ice cream cone of who gets promoted and who gets approved to join that club. No one thinks outside the box.
Unfortunately, I kind of split between Virginia and living in an airplane. I travel a lot.
I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.'s disposal for some very risky missions. But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.
President Trump should appoint a special presidential envoy and empower them to wage an unconventional war against Taliban and Daesh forces, to hold the corrupt officials accountable and to negotiate with their Afghan counterparts and the Afghan Taliban that are willing to reconcile with Kabul.
I identify with Wyoming, I love the state of Wyoming, I love the people. It's a fantastic state - people that live in rugged conditions and who make their living doing things in the outdoors.
I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, but you don't have to be Catholic, you don't have to be a Christian to work for Blackwater.
C'mon now, I'm not going to make it easy for the terrorists to get me.
When someone needs copper, or wood or an ag product, and they invest capital somewhere to make that happen, and people get jobs from that, and that good gets introduced to the world stage and it gets traded and moved, the whole world benefits.
In Iraq, State Department civilians and U.S. soldiers have been operating in the same location in an active war zone. While the troops have been facing insurgents, the State Department civilians have been working to rebuild institutions and infrastructure. Blackwater's role in this war evolved from this unprecedented dynamic.
It's amazing how many countries run their embassies as commercial outposts to promote businessmen from their country.
The left wants to protect social programs, the right wants to protect defense and intelligence spending and all the rest. I say the defense and intelligence world will be better off with a smaller budget. They would be less encumbered by bloat and able to maneuver the way they used to be able and not trip over themselves.
I've done dumb things.
I would rather deal with the vagaries of investing in Africa than in figuring out what the hell else Washington is going to do to the entrepreneur next.
I don't know if I want to live in a country where lone wolf and random terror attacks are impossible 'cause that country would look more like North Korea than America.
The Janjaweed is a truly unfettered bully. No one has stood up to them. If they were met by a mobile quick reaction force of African Union soldiers, the Janjaweed would quickly learn their habits were not sustainable.
The failings in Afghanistan don't fall on the shoulders of the American service personnel trying to complete their mission. The failure falls on military leadership unable to adapt to irregular warfare, and a Congress that blindly continues to fund failure.
Any time you employ thousands of people, some people do dumb things.
Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time.
Afghanistan is an expensive disaster for America.
I'm not sure whether a person can really gauge the quality of his work by the enemies he's made, but if I somehow upset Hamas and the Taliban and Henry Waxman, I must have done something right.
If I could send a message back to my younger self, it would be: Do not work for the State Department at all.
We now know that gun-free zones, though well intentioned, do not prevent attacks.
I'm not a huge believer that government provides a whole lot of solutions.
When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.
Very few people know someone who would voluntarily go into a war zone to protect a person he has never met. I know 1,000 of them, and I am proud that they are part of our team.
Every individual who has worked for Blackwater in Iraq has previously served in the U.S. military or as a police officer. Many were highly decorated. And from the beginning, these individuals have been bound by detailed contracts that ensure intensive government direction and control.
