Speaker 1: Mmm, Hello Internet, and welcome back. I am Robert Evans,
Speaker 1: and this is Behind the Bastards, the show where we
Speaker 1: tell you everything you don't know about the worst people
Speaker 1: in history. Today, our subject is a little guy named
Speaker 1: Eric Prince. Miles, what do you know about Eric Prince?
Speaker 1: I know they started black Water, Okay, I know he's
Speaker 1: the brother of Betsy Devas, right, uh. And I just
Speaker 1: know about like how generally black Water is evil and
Speaker 1: there's some Funcker involved. But aside from that, I just
Speaker 1: know Eric Prince equals Blackwater, equals military contractors equals war crimes. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good that's a good basic basic line. Well,
Speaker 1: Eric was born on June SI. Yes, but nine, so
Speaker 1: the summer D Day of the Summer of Love. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm obsessed with D Day. It's a
Speaker 1: good it's a good day. Yeah, it was, I think
Speaker 1: Private Ryan actually yeah. Uh. I was born in Holland, Michigan.
Speaker 1: His father was Edgar Prince, an entrepreneur who built a
Speaker 1: billion dollar company, the Prince Machine Corporation, from the ground up.
Speaker 1: His company built like a type of illuminated mirror that's
Speaker 1: common in cars today, so his family got super rich
Speaker 1: weight off what do you mean an illuminated like a
Speaker 1: like a back lit mirror exactly, so that like you
Speaker 1: can see it in the mirror at night or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're living off that invention. Basically that that's how his
Speaker 1: family got rich. So his his dad was like a
Speaker 1: legitimate started making forty cents an hour and like created
Speaker 1: a business, got super rich. Uh, and then you know,
Speaker 1: with his money, decided he should do some good in
Speaker 1: the world. But his version of good was founding the
Speaker 1: Family Research Council. You know what the Family Research Council does.
Speaker 1: The I know they were spreading some kind of really
Speaker 1: bad misinformation back in the day, back in the now too. Um.
Speaker 1: One of their staffers wrote in nine gaining access to
Speaker 1: children was a long term goal of the homosexual movement. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's that kind of like anytime there's family mean facts, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I shout out to the Family Research Council for their Wow.
Speaker 1: So that was his version, okay, that he wanted to spread.
Speaker 1: That's what he wanted to do with his money. Full
Speaker 1: fucking conspiracy. Okay. Yeah. Eric's mother, Elsa, donated seventy dollars
Speaker 1: to a campaign to stop same sex marriage in two
Speaker 1: thousand four clearly worked. Uh at, Elsa and Edgar also
Speaker 1: formed the Prince Foundation so that they could use their
Speaker 1: families wealth to advance general right wing causes like abstinence
Speaker 1: only education, state sponsored prayer in the fight against abortion UM.
Speaker 1: In order to get around restrictions on lobbying, the Princes
Speaker 1: reclassified their lobbying as prayer warrior networks. So basically they said, like,
Speaker 1: we're not lobbying politicians. We're asking them to pray over
Speaker 1: certain issues. So we're not saying vote against abortion. We're
Speaker 1: saying pray against abortion, and that's different. So we can
Speaker 1: spend our money with less restrictions. So they were they
Speaker 1: were registered as lobbyists before, uh yeah, and there's more
Speaker 1: restrictions on how lobbyists conspinue, so they were like, we're
Speaker 1: not lobbyists. Were prayer warriors? Do? They just kind of
Speaker 1: do that thing where a lot of people dark money
Speaker 1: groups just become five oh one C four's Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was something like that, like those nonprofits that don't have
Speaker 1: to disclose any of their origins of their money so
Speaker 1: they can do whatever. Yeah. Yeah, they found a shady
Speaker 1: way to make themselves less accountable with the billions or
Speaker 1: millions of dollars that they were spending on garbage. Um,
Speaker 1: you obviously heard that Eric's sister is Betsy Divace. Um,
Speaker 1: it's probably won't surprise you to know that he grew
Speaker 1: up religious, conservative and rich. No, he donated fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to the Republican Party when he was nineteen. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, fifteen thousand dollars when he was well, so
Speaker 1: he's a normal guy. Yeah. I know, for a second,
Speaker 1: I've I forgot that. You said he grew up rich,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what fucking job did you have
Speaker 1: in high school that he had? That with twenty But
Speaker 1: you're rich, So his job was being a rich kid.
Speaker 1: Or you know, his parents just used him to make
Speaker 1: as much of a max out donation to the party.
Speaker 1: They love to do that, just like get the kids
Speaker 1: to donate and we can give you a lot of money,
Speaker 1: donate a lot of money. Yeah, nineteen year old has
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars. Yeah, but he was he was. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, a normal, down to earth kid like most people.
Speaker 1: He got his pilot's license before he got his driver's license,
Speaker 1: you know that that old canard. Uh. He attended a
Speaker 1: Christian high school in Holland. But but halland Michigan, not
Speaker 1: the cool halland that the Netherlands. Yeah. Uh. He went
Speaker 1: to the Naval Academy, but according to one of his professors,
Speaker 1: he did not think it was conservative enough, so he
Speaker 1: left to attend Hillsdale College. That the military wasn't conservative.
Speaker 1: The Naval Academy is a bastion of left wing job
Speaker 1: and hippies with long hair. Like that almost seems like
Speaker 1: he's trying to impress someone. But I mean, like, oh,
Speaker 1: the Navy wasn't conservative enough for me, so I had
Speaker 1: to leave like that. Well, Eric denies that that's why
Speaker 1: he left the Navy. One of his professors is the
Speaker 1: one saying he was piste off because we, the Navy professors,
Speaker 1: weren't conservative enough for him. Oh got you that? Yeah right,
Speaker 1: He didn't want people to expand his way of thinking. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's what it seems like. Um, so, do you
Speaker 1: know anything about Hillsdale College. No, I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about college. Hillsdale College is like one of the rightest
Speaker 1: wing colleges in the country. Um. They basicallyly worship the
Speaker 1: economic theories of Vine rand Um for some sort of
Speaker 1: color on what the schools. Like in two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: their school chaplain sent this email out to students and faculty. Hey, friends,
Speaker 1: exclamation point uh, just to give you a heads up.
Speaker 1: Ugly things are happening in the Supreme Court right now.
Speaker 1: Justice Anthony Kennedy is seen as the quote swing vote,
Speaker 1: and if that is the case, he will have the
Speaker 1: power to legalize same sex marriage all caps nationwide. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do not even think we can imagine the effects
Speaker 1: this would have in our nation, the church and families.
Speaker 1: So we are praying for God to give the justices
Speaker 1: and the courts wisdom, courage, and discernment, for evil to
Speaker 1: be revealed and destroyed, and for a heart of love
Speaker 1: and sound mind. So we want to destroy the gays
Speaker 1: with a heartful of love. I love when conservatives like
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, sound the war drums of
Speaker 1: like the gays might be able to have rights, and
Speaker 1: like I'm always curious how they play that out in
Speaker 1: their head that leads to exactly what, Like I really
Speaker 1: want to know if they have a very clear vision
Speaker 1: of what that looks like. When you know, the LGBTQ
Speaker 1: community has like nuh disturbed rights, Like do they think
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean it always seems like very
Speaker 1: aggressive what they think will happen. Well, if we let
Speaker 1: gays mary, then we could wind up with a country where,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, the president sleeps with porn stars
Speaker 1: and pays them a hundred and thirty thou dollars, And
Speaker 1: that would be just It would be a post morality America. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Where is Hillsdale College. It's in Michigan. So he's not leaving.
Speaker 1: He's a Michigan boy. Uh. Well, at least he was
Speaker 1: a Michigan boy, right, So he's all about his comfort zone.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, at this point in his life. That's kind
Speaker 1: of where Eric is. Um And yeah, so in in
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, he uh gets a sweet job becoming an
Speaker 1: intern in George H. W. Bush's White House. Um, which
Speaker 1: you think would be like this kid's dream job, you know,
Speaker 1: super conservative president uh not considering to work for him. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Eric gets piste off that George H. W. Bush's administration
Speaker 1: is not conservat of enough. Quote. I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of things. I didn't agree with homosexual groups being invited
Speaker 1: in the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what the fun I understand What that means is
Speaker 1: that like his sort of like you know, big government philosophy,
Speaker 1: is that what he's sort of Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: Clean Air Act is anti business because it wants people
Speaker 1: to be able to breathe, and like, right, it's better
Speaker 1: for business if people can't breathe. I mean, that's basic capitalist.
Speaker 1: Christ professed his love for capital, hated air, hated air
Speaker 1: because he didn't need it. He's Christ, yeah, exactly, so
Speaker 1: why should anyone else? Like that's I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: more like Christ and not breathe there tupping your lungs upright,
Speaker 1: walk on some water. Um. After his time as an intern,
Speaker 1: Eric got a gig as a volunteer firefighter fighter. Uh
Speaker 1: so that's nice until he joined the Navy Seals. Um.
Speaker 1: He was apparently good at his job. He was deployed
Speaker 1: to Bosnia Haiti in the Middle East, but tragically for Eric,
Speaker 1: his service came during a time of unprecedented peace and
Speaker 1: prosperity and he never saw combat. Oh he didn't know.
Speaker 1: That's the shittiest kind of Navy seals, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, you don't even have a fucking good
Speaker 1: story at a bar when something like yeah, man, what
Speaker 1: did you see have you seen g I Jane, I
Speaker 1: went to Haiti. You did some fund up ship and Haiti. No,
Speaker 1: we kind of did a lot of push ups. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of just moving potable water around. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh wow. That really that must have been heartbreaking for
Speaker 1: him because he seems like somebody who really like a
Speaker 1: war bonner. Right. No, but he's he just I mean basically,
Speaker 1: if you're a Navy seal and you don't fight, you're
Speaker 1: just a really good swimmer. Yeah, and like future fitness instructor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure in fairness to Eric, he's I'm sure
Speaker 1: he's a great swimmer. Oh this this dude can tear
Speaker 1: up and that pool. No matter what your politics are,
Speaker 1: your your body and your your your physical fitness is
Speaker 1: at another level as a Navy seal. Yeah and and yeah,
Speaker 1: I have the body of just a harbor seal. So um.
Speaker 1: So Eric leaves the Navy Seals early in because his
Speaker 1: dad dies of a heart attack and he's got a
Speaker 1: deal with that deal with the family money they sell
Speaker 1: the company and they make like one point three billion
Speaker 1: gets split up between him and the rest of his
Speaker 1: family members. Uh. He gets hit with a second tragedy
Speaker 1: when his wife gets breast cancer. She was able to
Speaker 1: have two kids, but she died not that long after. Um.
Speaker 1: But Eric, you know, settled down to a quiet life
Speaker 1: of being incredibly wealthy, and he started a six thousand
Speaker 1: acre training facility for security operators. Uh. He named this
Speaker 1: space Blackwater. Um Um. It was a place where you know,
Speaker 1: you could go if you were a military unit or
Speaker 1: a police unit, a swat team and do training. They
Speaker 1: had like a fake high school there, um so that
Speaker 1: you could practice like dealing with a Columbine situation where
Speaker 1: they had like recorded one or perpetrating one. Right, this
Speaker 1: is a crisis actor conspiracy theory. Thinking he'll drop on
Speaker 1: us Miles like Robert, when you're on my podcast, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about crisis acting. It's called Inside the Crisis Actor's Studio,
Speaker 1: talk about the craziest conspiracies and once a crisis act. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not no, I don't mean to cast his persons
Speaker 1: on that person. But yeah, wait so black Oh so
Speaker 1: in a way, he was just kind of like, I
Speaker 1: want to create like the gym for cops and military
Speaker 1: people to beef up there. It's not an unreasonable thing
Speaker 1: to do, Like people who's are in SWAT teams and
Speaker 1: whatever need like fake schools to practice and because that's
Speaker 1: the thing they might have to do. So he's providing that.
Speaker 1: So far, relatively reasonable. Um. But over the next couple
Speaker 1: of years, Print shifted black Water from a training facility
Speaker 1: to a company that also provided security personnel for the
Speaker 1: US government. UM. One of Blackwater's first contracts was actually
Speaker 1: in China guarding North Korean defectors that the government was
Speaker 1: afraid the Chinese would abduct to send back to North Korea.
Speaker 1: So they didn't want to put US soldiers or CIA
Speaker 1: guys on these guys because that could be a diplomatic incident.
Speaker 1: So they have private security to get them out of
Speaker 1: the country and stuff that they were extracting them from China. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I understand was was sort of the situation
Speaker 1: UM at that point. So again, not an unreasonable thing.
Speaker 1: The government always needs a couple of kind of deniable
Speaker 1: asset of course, that stuff with so pretty low level,
Speaker 1: low key. Um, that's kind of what he's moving into.
Speaker 1: But it's not it's not total darkness yet, but I'm
Speaker 1: starting to see the sun start to go down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sun's definitely setting right right now, we're past four pm here. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know nine eleven happens after that? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: what was the nine eleven? Uh? Oh um, I feel
Speaker 1: like we should stop and pull a Wikipedia page. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: let's can we pull something up? Oh that, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm on board. Also, jet fuel can't melt steel beams.
Speaker 1: Yeah you say that a lot. Hey, look what happened
Speaker 1: to Building seven? That's my question anyway, So nine eleven
Speaker 1: goes great for Eric Prince. Uh. He's on the billow
Speaker 1: Riley Show not that long after, and he notes that
Speaker 1: his phone is ringing off the hook. Uh. He attempts
Speaker 1: to join the CIA, but he fails to pass their
Speaker 1: polygraph test. Whoa, yeah, what do you know what kind
Speaker 1: of stuff they ask? You know? I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: in general polygraph test, but I don't know what the
Speaker 1: CIA was asking him. Well, clearly it's not must not
Speaker 1: be good to be hooked up to a truth machine
Speaker 1: and tell lies to the CIA. Although polygraph tests have
Speaker 1: been kind of there, people to say they're dubious a
Speaker 1: little right now, they're supposed to be pretty sketchy. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know, I'm not here defense, but yes, right. Yes,
Speaker 1: he tries to get into the CIA, and the CIA
Speaker 1: is like, you're a little too shape for us. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go continue to smuggle crack into the inner cities. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Um so, uh, Eric isn't gonna let the little thing
Speaker 1: like the CIA stop him from living out his dream
Speaker 1: of walking around with guns in foreign countries. Uh. He
Speaker 1: forms Blackwater Security Consulting, and he moves his company into
Speaker 1: the business of selling mercenaries to the government. His hope
Speaker 1: was that Blackwater would quote do for national security apparatus
Speaker 1: what FedEx did for the Postal Service. Hold on, let
Speaker 1: me process this. That what that he wants to do
Speaker 1: for the national security apparatus? What FedEx did for the
Speaker 1: postal service. Wow, Like, let me take a little burden
Speaker 1: off you and also do it in a crazy aggressive way.
Speaker 1: I want to be the FedEx of shooting people. Yeah, right, exactly. Like, Look,
Speaker 1: of course the US didn't kill those people, you know,
Speaker 1: just US contractors did. Okay, Okay, Yeah, so that's where
Speaker 1: we're going visionary. Start to see the vision. So two
Speaker 1: thousand one, black Water has a total about seven hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty thousand dollars in federal contracts, right, so kind
Speaker 1: of small beans at this point. Uh. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: less than a year into the Iraq war, they had
Speaker 1: forty eight million dollars in contracts. By two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: they'd made more than a billion dollars in federal contracts
Speaker 1: by two thousand seven. Yeah, wait, when did it started?
Speaker 1: Two thousand one is when he started, and then two
Speaker 1: thousand seven he turned that into a billion dollars, So
Speaker 1: pretty good rate of return. Yeah. How do I invest
Speaker 1: in black Water? Um, you probably don't getting into it now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two thousand one was the time. Yeah, you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand was that? Yeah, that was the August of two
Speaker 1: thousand one, September t was really the time you wanted
Speaker 1: with money into mercenaries. Yeah. Um. So after the invasion
Speaker 1: of Iraq, Eric volunteers to provide the government with hundreds
Speaker 1: and eventually thousands of contractors. Has been carried guns and
Speaker 1: guarded high value government officials and convoys. Since they were
Speaker 1: private civilians who regularly got into gunfights and war zones
Speaker 1: for money, some people call Blackwaters contractors mercenaries. This makes
Speaker 1: Eric very angry. Here's a quote from a Newsweek article
Speaker 1: titled profile Blackwaters. Eric Prince quote, that's a slanderous term,
Speaker 1: an inflammatory word they used to malign us, says Prince. Mercenaries,
Speaker 1: he says, are professional soldiers who worked for a foreign government.
Speaker 1: Blackwaters men are Americans working for the American government. Okay,
Speaker 1: semantics man, Yeah, okay. Yeah. So that's the Eric's point
Speaker 1: of view on the mercenaries. He's providing the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government you're not mercenaries because they're American and so is
Speaker 1: the government. You're still a cell sword though. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: still I mean selling your ability to kill people for money, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And in a way it's like shittier because like it's
Speaker 1: like you couldn't even make the real team, like could
Speaker 1: be like an actual military personnels. It's like I guess
Speaker 1: they'll do the mall cop version of being a cop,
Speaker 1: which is a blackwater guy. Yeah. It's like one of
Speaker 1: the things that's respectable about the military is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you're not making that much money,
Speaker 1: like you get there's got to be some degree I
Speaker 1: like something you want to do or like there's some
Speaker 1: degree of idealism as opposed to like, no, I'm making
Speaker 1: a quarter of a million bucks a year to go
Speaker 1: shoot people yeah, because you can. So you can argue
Speaker 1: that someone in the military like they're sort of north
Speaker 1: stars being patriotic or being nationalistic or whatever, yeah, versus like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're black Water, Like I'm here for the check and
Speaker 1: to be and I get to shoot people for a
Speaker 1: lot more money than I did when it was not honorable.
Speaker 1: But I'm making eight times as much money to do
Speaker 1: the same job, and I don't have to follow the
Speaker 1: rule because a lot of their guys are are ex military, right, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So a guy can't just be like, hey, I'm here
Speaker 1: to I'm here for the black Water tryouts. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that a little. Um so in actuality, because he
Speaker 1: was just saying, you know, an Americans working for the
Speaker 1: American government. In actuality, many of Prince's employees in Iraq
Speaker 1: were from Pakistan, Yemen, in other countries collectively known as
Speaker 1: not America. A State Department investigation found that these quote
Speaker 1: third world nationals were often forced to live in horrifying
Speaker 1: conditions three people to a tiny room with no better
Speaker 1: Erican to um so. This actually speaks to a big misconception.
Speaker 1: When we think of black Water, we think of like
Speaker 1: big burly mercenaries with beards and machine guns. They have
Speaker 1: those guys. That's a big part of what they do.
Speaker 1: But they also and all of the contracting companies in
Speaker 1: Iraq and Afghanistan, most of the people they provide are
Speaker 1: like poorly paid foreigners from Southeast Asia or the Middle
Speaker 1: East to like run the kitchens and drive trucks and
Speaker 1: convoys to transport food and ammunition. Um and so, like
Speaker 1: those guys are doing horribly dangerous jobs and a lot
Speaker 1: of them die. But if they die, the US government
Speaker 1: doesn't have to say anyone died. So it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: six Bangladeshi's died driving m R. E S two troops
Speaker 1: in this base. Nobody needs to know. No US soldiers died. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no Americans die. So that's a lot of what Prince
Speaker 1: is doing. So and even then he's even hiring people
Speaker 1: in like not combat roles necessarily, but just to do
Speaker 1: sort of other leg work. Yeah, but they're going to
Speaker 1: get shot and they're not in armored vehicles and they're yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it's it's really messed up. Um. So,
Speaker 1: black Water Armed contractors, who were the guys who made
Speaker 1: the company famous, were good at protecting their clients. They
Speaker 1: never lost a client in iraq Um, but they were
Speaker 1: bad at the winning hearts and minds thing. So one
Speaker 1: of their favorite tactics was to drive on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the road as fast as they could and
Speaker 1: shoot above any vehicle that didn't drive away fast enough,
Speaker 1: which they said protected their convoys and which Iraqi said
Speaker 1: was fucking terrified. They drove in the opposite direction of
Speaker 1: traffic and shot above the cars that were coming towards them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if anyone got too close, they would shoot above them
Speaker 1: to be like, get the funk out of the way,
Speaker 1: wrong of the road. Yeah, this is black water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now in a little bit of fairness to blackwater. So
Speaker 1: like one of the traffic is really bad, Well it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not entirely unheard of an Iraq to direct traffic
Speaker 1: with guns. When I was there last time, I kind
Speaker 1: of made friends with a guy, an Iraqi army guy
Speaker 1: who was directing traffic at this checkpoint in Mosle, and
Speaker 1: whenever he'd get in to an argument with somebody, he
Speaker 1: would shoot next to their head with his M sixteen.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what do you That seems really
Speaker 1: messed up. Really was like, well yeah, but like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm doing this twelve hours a day, and if I
Speaker 1: yell at everybody, I'm not gonna have a voice. And
Speaker 1: I gotta be out here all the time. So it's
Speaker 1: just easier to shoot next to him, just sucking shots
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, he said he put spent about a
Speaker 1: dred and eight rounds a day doing that, just like
Speaker 1: pop rather than talking. Yeah, I'll just squeeze off shots. Well,
Speaker 1: just one or two at a time. But I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of people will come right yeah. Um, but
Speaker 1: black Water, you know, it's the driving on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the road thing that's that's the most controversial thing. Um.
Speaker 1: So here's what one bad dead housewife told a French
Speaker 1: journalist about them. Uh, they sail off the roads and
Speaker 1: drive on the wrong side. They simply kill That Newsweek
Speaker 1: profile and Eric quoted an advisor for the Coalition forces
Speaker 1: who had traveled with both Blackwater guys as her guards
Speaker 1: and American soldiers as her guards, and she said the
Speaker 1: black Water guys that explain their attitude towards the iraqis
Speaker 1: as our mission is to protect the principle at all costs.
Speaker 1: If that means pissing off the iraqis too bad. So right.
Speaker 1: In September two six, the black Water convoy, driving down
Speaker 1: the wrong side of the road, struck an Iraqi car
Speaker 1: and sent it careening into a telephone pole. The car
Speaker 1: caught fire, black Wire drove without rendering aid, and the
Speaker 1: driver died. It's not the only time that happened. That's
Speaker 1: just a time that happened, right, because they're just always
Speaker 1: driving on the other side of the road super fast,
Speaker 1: shooting at people right there, Like you don't even know
Speaker 1: what the right side of the road is. We just
Speaker 1: know the black Water side. Yeah, here's another quote from
Speaker 1: a Bagdad could traffic cop. They're impolite and do not
Speaker 1: respect people. They bump other people's cars to frighten them
Speaker 1: and shout at anyone who approaches them. Two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: guards of a convoy open fire randomly and that led
Speaker 1: to the killing of two policemen. Uh so Yeah. Another
Speaker 1: journalist who spent a lot of time with them, Robert
Speaker 1: Young Pelton, noted that they used their machine guns like
Speaker 1: car horns. So, wow, Eric, you've got to You've got
Speaker 1: a great group of employees here. Yeah. It's funny because
Speaker 1: I only just know of like isolated incidents here or there.
Speaker 1: Or that I was familiar with, like during the Iraq
Speaker 1: War about hearing about black Water and the kind of
Speaker 1: ship they did. But like when you when you really
Speaker 1: start to, like as you're revealing it to me, now
Speaker 1: realize like they're like frat bros in a war zone.
Speaker 1: It's great, did you bring up frat Bros. We've got
Speaker 1: a break for commercials, But once we come back, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about black Waters drunken shenanigans in Iraq, and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna move on to Eric Prince's new job
Speaker 1: in China. So all that after some ads, uh, and
Speaker 1: we're back and we're about to talk about the frat
Speaker 1: bro aspect of Blackwater's history. I feel it. I can
Speaker 1: feel it. I could feel it coming. I do want
Speaker 1: to note I found a lot of these quotes in
Speaker 1: a really good Brookings Institute article called The Dark Truth
Speaker 1: about black Water. So if you're looking for more info
Speaker 1: on these fox, uh, that's a good source. Um Two
Speaker 1: Blackwater one an exciting new contract to help deliver kitchen
Speaker 1: equipment in Fallujah. Uh. They were eager to impress the
Speaker 1: immoratic company that hired them, and they rushed the delivery.
Speaker 1: Now I don't know if Prince was eager to impress
Speaker 1: this company, but he was the guy running the whole
Speaker 1: company at this time. So somebody from Blackwater top side
Speaker 1: said get this kitchen equipment to its source as quick
Speaker 1: as possible. And the people whose job it is to
Speaker 1: determine how to do things, we're like, okay, well, we
Speaker 1: need at least six armed men and they should all
Speaker 1: be in armored vehicles. And whoever was in charge of
Speaker 1: the mission was like, no, we'll have four guys and
Speaker 1: we'll drive normal cars. Four guys in a VW bus
Speaker 1: And Um, they were supposed to let the U. S.
Speaker 1: Marines who were in charge of Fallujah at the time,
Speaker 1: know that they were going to be there in case
Speaker 1: they needed back up. It's containing to let the Marines
Speaker 1: know that someone might be operating that they need help. Okay,
Speaker 1: they didn't. Uh So these four guys get ambushed and killed. Um,
Speaker 1: and a quote enraged mob drags their burnt bodies through
Speaker 1: the streets and hangs their corpses from a bridge. Remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. Um. That whole incident sparked the Battle of Fallujah,
Speaker 1: which is one of the bloodiest fights of the entire
Speaker 1: Iraq War. Around a thousand or so civilians died, it's
Speaker 1: hard to say, along with nine U S. Soldiers. Wow,
Speaker 1: the kitchen equipment was never delivered. Yeah, someone's got a
Speaker 1: nice kitchen though, somebody's got a great kitchen or it
Speaker 1: all got burnt. Um. I don't think Blackwater impress the company, No,
Speaker 1: not at all, I guess. And they really did try
Speaker 1: and do their FedEx thing where also were there and
Speaker 1: at their record time because they'll be poor so understaffed. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've lost cant of how many times I've
Speaker 1: ordered something through FedEx and their employees been ambushed and
Speaker 1: hung from a bridge and sparked a brutal month long
Speaker 1: siege of the city. Yeah, that's why I don't order
Speaker 1: from Cranton Beryln. Yeah, they use FedEx. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just too many deaths. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, tragic.
Speaker 1: So um. The high profile murder of four employees did
Speaker 1: not exactly lower Blackwater's tempo in regards to flipping out
Speaker 1: in any Iraqis who came near them. Uh. In two
Speaker 1: thousand five, the Brigadier General responsible for Security and Bagdad
Speaker 1: noted that in two months, contractors were involved in twelve
Speaker 1: shootings that resulted in at least six civilian deaths. On
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve two thousand six, of Blackwater employee got ship
Speaker 1: faced and started wandering around the Green Zone. He staggered
Speaker 1: up to the Iraqi Vice President's house, got into an
Speaker 1: argument with his bodyguards, and shot one of them to death.
Speaker 1: What the This brave patriot ran back to a checkpoint
Speaker 1: guarded by another group of contractors and told them he'd
Speaker 1: been in a firefight with Iraqis. He was clearly drunk
Speaker 1: and waving a gun around. They disarmed him and tried
Speaker 1: to question him, but he was just way too hammered
Speaker 1: to be questioned. Um So Blackwater fired the man, flew
Speaker 1: him home, and paid fifteen thousand dollars to the family
Speaker 1: of the dead guard. It was a tragic incident, but
Speaker 1: not they assured a sign that their employees were a
Speaker 1: bunch of irresponsibly violent cowboys. Holy ship, how is that
Speaker 1: not an indication that there are a bunch of irresponsible cowboys?
Speaker 1: You know what? The guy he got fired, and you
Speaker 1: know it took him mean thousand dollars to that family.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it that in Iraq, that could
Speaker 1: be a lot of money. So that's like that that
Speaker 1: that maybe that's the going rate that Blackwater deems is
Speaker 1: like you know, consolation pay, but well it's in a
Speaker 1: really messed up area. But like the initial amount the
Speaker 1: US government suggested they give the family was two hudred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand. But then other people within the government,
Speaker 1: so this is in Blackwater, we're like, well, if we
Speaker 1: give that much money to the family that broke well,
Speaker 1: no people are going to get their relatives old to
Speaker 1: get money from us. That was their fear, not that
Speaker 1: that ever happened, because I don't know that it like,
Speaker 1: but of course it's like how all people think when
Speaker 1: you're talking about destitute communities, like, well, they're gonna find
Speaker 1: a way to take advantage of and they learned how,
Speaker 1: and they'll self murderer and you know, frame less and
Speaker 1: their kids murdered for cast ship and that was the government.
Speaker 1: That's not on right. I mean the murders on black
Speaker 1: Water absolutely um. But you know, you'll be happy to
Speaker 1: know that the employee he was fired, he was sent
Speaker 1: back to the US and it took him two months
Speaker 1: to get another job at a private security firm and
Speaker 1: wind up in Kuwait with a gun. Jesus right, back.
Speaker 1: You can only fail up, yeah, or at least laterally.
Speaker 1: And now I think he's Ryan Zinky right. The Interior Secretariat.
Speaker 1: In August seven, the State Department decided they should investigate
Speaker 1: Blackwater because of everything Naturally said so far. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: came up with a bunch of fun incidents once they
Speaker 1: started asking around. One of the things they found is
Speaker 1: that several Blackwater employees had gotten hammered as fuck and
Speaker 1: stolen a hundred and thousand dollar armored vehicle and driven
Speaker 1: it to a party where they accidentally crashed it into
Speaker 1: a concrete wall. Wow, what the fuck? It's so weird
Speaker 1: to like hear this, right, because like, on one side,
Speaker 1: it's just like deeply troubling, evil, tragic ship that they do,
Speaker 1: and the other side is not that it's funny, but
Speaker 1: it's so reckless that you can't believe that. Well, I
Speaker 1: guess you can, because I've never you know, I feel
Speaker 1: like all the things we hear about how the United
Speaker 1: States operates outside of this country is just in a
Speaker 1: very uh sort of haphazard way or irresponsible way. So yes, okay,
Speaker 1: go on, let this uncomfortable laughter continue. So, the investigation
Speaker 1: did find that Blackwater had been cutting corners um. They
Speaker 1: regularly reduced the number of their men guarding high profile
Speaker 1: people without actually charging for fewer guards. Automatic weapons were
Speaker 1: found stored in private residences, which not supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Blackwater employees were found to drink heavily, party with prostitutes,
Speaker 1: and regularly failed to qualify on weapons. They were also
Speaker 1: found to carry weapons like grenade launchers that they were
Speaker 1: not certified to use. What wait, so they're drunk as
Speaker 1: fun and then they'll be like, Yo, where did you
Speaker 1: get that M two or three grenade launcher? They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I just I bought on eBay. Use it over here
Speaker 1: in two oh three. I think we're talking about like
Speaker 1: the automatic grenade launchers that you mount on the top
Speaker 1: of a vehicle, like big like uh sort of murder canons. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think it's called like an m K.
Speaker 1: I don't look at someone. I've seen him shoot a
Speaker 1: couple of times. They're definitely fun looking, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a qualified weight. So how are they getting it though?
Speaker 1: Do you know, like are they self supplying it? And
Speaker 1: they're just simply like you're actually not supposed to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Blackwater has is able to as one of these companies,
Speaker 1: they're able to buy that sort of equipment to use
Speaker 1: in these war zones. Um It's just that there are
Speaker 1: certain standards that like the military has for anyone who's
Speaker 1: going to be using that ship in a war zone,
Speaker 1: Like if you're carrying that weapon in your a marine
Speaker 1: or whatnot, you've done certain things. These guys are quired
Speaker 1: to qualify on those weapons too, if they're going to
Speaker 1: carry them in war zones, and they're not. Blackwater is
Speaker 1: basically not holding its people to the same standard as
Speaker 1: the military, right, and they're treating it like, Yo, I
Speaker 1: just put rims on my dad's fucking navigator. Let's take
Speaker 1: it up for a spin, except this time it's a
Speaker 1: it's a rocket launcher and you're in a war zone exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So, in response to this, uh so, the State
Speaker 1: Department you know, does this investigation and finds out black
Speaker 1: Waters fucking up all over the place. The State Department
Speaker 1: investigator you know, sitting down and talking to the guy
Speaker 1: Eric Prince, appointed to run Blackwater's operations in Iraq, uh
Speaker 1: and this conversation turns heated, and the Blackwater guy threatens
Speaker 1: to murder the State Department investigator and says, quote, no
Speaker 1: one could or would do anything about it as we
Speaker 1: were in Iraq. That's the State Department guy what we're
Speaker 1: calling the conversation. It's basically like, I'm gonna murder you
Speaker 1: if you don't stop investigating Blackwater, and we're in Iraq,
Speaker 1: so nobody's going to give a ship in space. No
Speaker 1: one can hear you scream in Iraq. I can murder,
Speaker 1: you know, undisturbed, and no one could and you know
Speaker 1: I can because you just investigated all the times by
Speaker 1: companies murdered people here without any kind of repercussion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would expect all of us to have some consequences.
Speaker 1: Um but the US military, while government mainly, was kind
Speaker 1: of in a bind when it came to Blackwater and
Speaker 1: other contractors. So in two thousand seven there were at
Speaker 1: least a hundred and sixty thousand contractors in Iraq. This
Speaker 1: means they equalled and perhaps, since they weren't required to
Speaker 1: disclose their true numbers, perhaps exceeded the numbers of the
Speaker 1: US military in the country. Um So wow. Eric Prince's
Speaker 1: pitch at the start of the whole fighting thing, which
Speaker 1: the Bush administration had bought hook line and sinker was
Speaker 1: that contractors would allow the government to vastly increase their
Speaker 1: presence in the country without paying a political price for it.
Speaker 1: So Bush can say, we only need a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty thousand troops to keep her acts safe, but thanks
Speaker 1: to contractors that they've got three hundred thousand plus guys
Speaker 1: in the country. Um. The government also left contractors and
Speaker 1: needed them because their deaths were easy to ignore. By
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, at least a thousand contractors had been
Speaker 1: killed and thirteen thousand wounded, nine per day were dying
Speaker 1: at the height of the surge. Any of those people
Speaker 1: were the Third World nationals we talked about earlier, probably
Speaker 1: because we don't actually know how many contractors died, it
Speaker 1: could be even higher, and we don't know where any
Speaker 1: of them came from, because none of that is required
Speaker 1: to be reported to anybody, and none of those deaths
Speaker 1: go on the official tallies of US losses in the
Speaker 1: War on Terror. So the government knows Blackwater is fucking
Speaker 1: up and they're ruining the hearts and minds thing, which
Speaker 1: is a critical part of being an insurgency. But also
Speaker 1: they can't function the way that they've come used to
Speaker 1: functioning in Iraq without these guys because they're most of
Speaker 1: the effort now, right right, right, and so so a
Speaker 1: lot of these people who are saying who were like
Speaker 1: the third world nationals, are they coming with any kind
Speaker 1: of military training? Most of them aren't doing. I mean,
Speaker 1: so most of are those who are getting are getting
Speaker 1: killed in sort of non combat role exactly. Whenever you've
Speaker 1: got the military occupation, like when the U S militaries
Speaker 1: in Iraq, there's a hundred and sixty service members in Iraq.
Speaker 1: Most of them aren't kicking indoors and getting into gunfights.
Speaker 1: Most of them are maintaining vehicles and doing you know,
Speaker 1: built putting up communications equipment and all that stuff. It's
Speaker 1: the same with the contractors. Most of them are driving
Speaker 1: trucks or cooking for people, or maintaining building spaces. What
Speaker 1: do you think that how does that percentage you think
Speaker 1: or what's the ratio to like, I'm going to guess
Speaker 1: most of the people dying or driving trucks because there's
Speaker 1: constant streams of trucks all throughout right, and those guys, yeah,
Speaker 1: those trucks aren't armored, right because Funckett, we don't have
Speaker 1: to do anything because their third world nationals, who are
Speaker 1: just a digit on a paper or spreadsheet. If they die,
Speaker 1: it doesn't hurt us politically. Bush isn't being asked to
Speaker 1: account for dead you know, uh, foreign national contractors. How
Speaker 1: many Bangladeshis were killing exactly? I don't know, You're not
Speaker 1: going yeah. Um So, despite the rough patches, the first
Speaker 1: four years of the Iraq War went pretty well for
Speaker 1: Erik Prince. It is possible that some of this went
Speaker 1: to his head. In mid two thousand seven, he gathered
Speaker 1: a bunch of contractors at Blackwater's headquarters in North Carolina
Speaker 1: and aman did they swear an oath of allegiance? Um? Okay.
Speaker 1: I think the text of the oath said a lot about,
Speaker 1: you know, swearing to fight war on terror and you know,
Speaker 1: loyalty to the principles of America and stuff. But a
Speaker 1: former employee, an actual Blackwater armed contractor, told The New
Speaker 1: York Times, it kind of felt like pledging allegiance to Eric.
Speaker 1: That's how a lot of us interpreted it. Wow. Yeah, he,
Speaker 1: I mean, he has such a weird origin story to
Speaker 1: like to not watch it. Starting off as like rich
Speaker 1: kid who for whatever reason was like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know whatever reason it, probably his upbringing was hyper
Speaker 1: conservative and now turned into like this sort of demi god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: many little dictator in his own little fiefdom army thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So, a couple of weeks after he has them
Speaker 1: all pledged loyalty, disaster strikes when Blackwater employees freak out
Speaker 1: and start firing machine guns and grenade launchers into a
Speaker 1: crowd at back Dad's Nissoire Square. They killed at least
Speaker 1: seventeen people, wounded dozens more. And one of the people
Speaker 1: they killed was a nine year old boy. He was
Speaker 1: like burnt to the bodies of his parents in a car.
Speaker 1: It was horrible. Uh. Blackwater's immediate response to the masser
Speaker 1: was to take down their website and refuse all interviews.
Speaker 1: The company spokesperson sent out an email in English only
Speaker 1: two Americans that said the civilians reportedly fired upon by
Speaker 1: Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies. This contrast with
Speaker 1: the opinion of the US military, who found no evidence
Speaker 1: of insurgent activity in the square that day. But that's
Speaker 1: just the military, right righte? What do they know about
Speaker 1: insurgents there? Let the contractors the real work. That's insane
Speaker 1: and so their account to defend themselves for slaughtering a
Speaker 1: bunch of innocence was that, like, is there was there
Speaker 1: any like like in the reporting of it, like anything
Speaker 1: that someone could even perceive to be as a threat
Speaker 1: or do people just think like they're so unprofessional that
Speaker 1: they got spooked and just fired on a bunch of civilians.
Speaker 1: So I can tell you that when you hang out
Speaker 1: in credit Iraqi cities, especially when there's a lot of unrest,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear gunfire regularly. My guests, from what I've
Speaker 1: read is that somewhere else in the city there was
Speaker 1: some shooting or maybe even a fucking backfiring car. There
Speaker 1: might have been a bomb that went off somewhere else
Speaker 1: in the city, and these guys got spooked, oh right,
Speaker 1: And they said from maybe they saw a guy who
Speaker 1: looked shady and they heard a sound that was shady
Speaker 1: and at the same time, and people just started firing,
Speaker 1: and maybe a couple of the bullets ricocheted passed and
Speaker 1: that made him keep firing. Like It's it's hard to say,
Speaker 1: but the military says there's no evidence, uh that they
Speaker 1: were under fire at all, that there is any insurgent activity.
Speaker 1: Um After releasing the statement, black Water put their website
Speaker 1: back up. They made no mention of the massacre, and
Speaker 1: continue to sell black Water branded T shirts, baseball caps,
Speaker 1: and baby clothes. Your strategies are like literally kind of
Speaker 1: putting their fingers in their ears by taking their website down,
Speaker 1: and like, well, just wait for this to pass, but
Speaker 1: let's make sure we're getting the merch out there to
Speaker 1: merch out there. I mean, I've ordered some of the
Speaker 1: baby clothes for Jack. I feel like it's a good gift.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean he I think Jack is wearing
Speaker 1: the black Water hoodie. Got Jack loves black Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: big into contractor where I mean if Jack, I think
Speaker 1: he should really be thinking about in terms of if
Speaker 1: his own powerful ascension, he should have a private army
Speaker 1: to everyone needs a private army. Nobody's disagreeing with that.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Jack O'Brien. Jacob, you haven't. If you
Speaker 1: know about this podcast, you know what universe you're in.
Speaker 1: The only Jack there is is Jack O'Brien black Water enthusiast. Um.
Speaker 1: We could keep talking about black Water for several podcasts.
Speaker 1: There's so much that I just didn't even include. Um,
Speaker 1: But the Eric Prince story is much bigger and dumber
Speaker 1: than that, and so we have to move on. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: so that was a moose bush for the main main course, Well,
Speaker 1: there's just there's just a lot to cover here. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, after after that whole massacre thing, some
Speaker 1: people go to jail, although their convictions were overturned last year.
Speaker 1: What yeah, again, it's a lot of stories here, um.
Speaker 1: But Prince changed the company's name to x E from
Speaker 1: Blackwater to avoid the bad press, and then he sold
Speaker 1: the company like two ten. It's now called Academy with
Speaker 1: an Eye because I don't I don't really know why. Um,
Speaker 1: Blackwater is no longer black Water. Prince was no longer
Speaker 1: with black Water, he was still devoted to the company,
Speaker 1: and one of the last things he did was work
Speaker 1: with the game's developer to make a black Water video game.
Speaker 1: According to Prince, the game's purpose was to quote give
Speaker 1: players the chance to experience what it is like to
Speaker 1: be on a Blackwater team on a mission without being
Speaker 1: dropped into a real combat situation. We already have games
Speaker 1: for that, sir. They're every other video yeah, exactly. If
Speaker 1: you just want to kill people randomly. Whatever it was
Speaker 1: like a Connect Motion game. I haven't actually played it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it was a Connect Motion video Blackwater Blackwater Guy.
Speaker 1: It was apparently very bad. All of the reviews I've
Speaker 1: read are terrible. Yeah, because I can't imagine like people.
Speaker 1: I found a lot like people who are sort of
Speaker 1: like in the very conservative side of things. They tend
Speaker 1: to not have the best taste in creatives that they
Speaker 1: work with. So I'm sure they probably just found some
Speaker 1: kid who's like, you know, it's like they went to
Speaker 1: Infinity Ward who made like Call of Duty, and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we need you for the new black Water game. They
Speaker 1: didn't pull all the stops out for this. Are the
Speaker 1: gestures like, anyway, I'll have to I'll have to read something.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple. There's a quote from I g
Speaker 1: N that could double his review for the actual company Blackwater. Um.
Speaker 1: They said it employs nothing but bad ideas and it
Speaker 1: fails to do anything exciting with any of them. Um.
Speaker 1: Another reviewer from Giant Bomb noted that the game presents
Speaker 1: Blackwater employees as quote a bunch of selfless, good natured
Speaker 1: totally not mercenaries who save hostages and deliver food and
Speaker 1: totally don't kill civilians. How could they when there are
Speaker 1: literally no civilians anywhere in this game? No margin. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so I know what you're thinking. Isn't it sad that
Speaker 1: poor Eric Prince had to give up on his dreams
Speaker 1: of having his own private armies. Well, don't worry. Eric
Speaker 1: does not give up on his dreams. He's not that
Speaker 1: kind of man. After selling Blackwater, he relocated to Dubai.
Speaker 1: The Immati police ponied up five million dollars for him
Speaker 1: to create an eight hundred man foreign fighting force because
Speaker 1: you know, they have internal revolts to suppress. Um. The
Speaker 1: emirates are filled with crowded labor camps. That's who builds
Speaker 1: all those fans slave slave labor from Southeast Asia at
Speaker 1: best a half step up from object slavery. Uh, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of unrest there. So the U a E.
Speaker 1: Was like, Eric Prince, would you make us an army
Speaker 1: of foreign soldiers that we can use to brutally suppress
Speaker 1: us up right? Yeah, I need something to uh quell
Speaker 1: the revolts that are impending with your professional killer groups.
Speaker 1: Eric Prince was just the guy to make that happen. Um.
Speaker 1: The whole operation was almost certainly illegal. American citizens are
Speaker 1: not allowed to train foreign soldiers without permission from the
Speaker 1: State Department. During his last year in charge of Blackwater,
Speaker 1: the company had paid a forty two million dollar fine
Speaker 1: for illegally training troops in Jordan's So this is like
Speaker 1: a pattern with Eric Prince is illegally training foreign troops.
Speaker 1: In order to sidestep any problems, this time, Prince just
Speaker 1: pretended he wasn't involved. He adopted the code name Kingfish
Speaker 1: so no one would know that he was committing blatant
Speaker 1: international crimes. Wait, what do you mean the code name?
Speaker 1: Like he's just like the documents, so they would never
Speaker 1: the words Eric Prince wouldn't show up. There was a
Speaker 1: company like RS two or something like. That was the
Speaker 1: name of the company doing the training, and Prince was
Speaker 1: connected to them and own them, but like didn't Like
Speaker 1: it's one of those like when you've got enough lawyers
Speaker 1: and stuff and figure out the layers of it. There's
Speaker 1: been some great journalists, particularly the Inner Stup to have
Speaker 1: spent years sort of unappealing the onion of Eric Princess.
Speaker 1: So he's showing like sort of the mechanics of his
Speaker 1: plausible deniability machine. Basically, yeah, exactly, but kingfish is what
Speaker 1: he goes by at this time, so of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh not no longer Prince Fish. Yeah, he's become king.
Speaker 1: He's a kingfish. Yeah. Um. So rather than hiring US
Speaker 1: Special Forces veterans, which remembers what he promised to do
Speaker 1: and why he said that he wasn't a mercenary warlord,
Speaker 1: because he was because I hire American people, right. Uh,
Speaker 1: he opted to bring in soldiers from Colombia because they
Speaker 1: were cheaper. The project immediately encountered problems when it turned
Speaker 1: out that many of these soldiers had never even fired
Speaker 1: a weapon. Uh. Prince initially hoped that this battalion would
Speaker 1: be the first of many, but after numerous problems, the
Speaker 1: force was reduced in size to five and eighty men.
Speaker 1: Men who actually served in the battalion reported being locked
Speaker 1: indoors all day and being incredibly bored. The boredom was
Speaker 1: only broken up by occasional trips paid for by the
Speaker 1: company to divide the prostitutes. Wow. Otherwise they're just like
Speaker 1: in a room. Slave kill squad just had to hang
Speaker 1: out in a room until it was process. They would
Speaker 1: do some running and training, but then they were locked
Speaker 1: in a room. Uh, but every now and then they
Speaker 1: got some prostitutes. So that's okay, okay, Eric Prince, this
Speaker 1: this all seems above board. So yeah, I mean, at
Speaker 1: this point, Eric Prince's first army had committed numerous war
Speaker 1: crimes and his second army uh seemed to be on
Speaker 1: its way to fizzling out. Um So in two fourteen,
Speaker 1: Erik Prince decided to take a break from making armies
Speaker 1: to try a bold new business strategy, making his own
Speaker 1: air force. WHOA, what the fuck? So that year Eric
Speaker 1: Prince gets closes up with an investment firm called the
Speaker 1: Civic Group and founded a company named Frontier Logistics Group.
Speaker 1: Now Civic Group is an investment company that is owned
Speaker 1: by the Chinese government. So this meant Eric Prince was
Speaker 1: either in business with or straight up working for China.
Speaker 1: Now wow, so he doesn't he does not give up.
Speaker 1: You think he's a patriot in any way, or he's
Speaker 1: just like pure reptilian brand, like I'm just gonna do
Speaker 1: what I want. I know nothing else but for me
Speaker 1: to obtain what I want. I am sure he would
Speaker 1: consider himself a patriot and have a justification. What kind
Speaker 1: of mental gymnastics do you think he's doing to say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I made a you know, like a kill squad for
Speaker 1: the U A E. And now I'm making a weird
Speaker 1: private Chinese air force the U a EAR sort of
Speaker 1: allies of the United States. He's not making an air
Speaker 1: force for China. We're about to get into that. He's
Speaker 1: just so The Frontier Logistics Group is supposed to be
Speaker 1: just a logistics company. They're the people you call if
Speaker 1: you're a corporation. You're like, we've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: diamonds in this country. I got him shipped here. Can
Speaker 1: you help us arrange that? Or we've got sick executives
Speaker 1: in Central Africa, can you get a metavact. We're building
Speaker 1: an oil field in this country. Help us figure out
Speaker 1: how to set it up an organize so that like
Speaker 1: that's a perfectly legitimate business. Somebody needs to do that
Speaker 1: work if you're like in that industry. Um so secretly
Speaker 1: without getting the approval of the rest of the company.
Speaker 1: Eric Prince also started trying to use FLG to build
Speaker 1: his own private air force, which you could then rent
Speaker 1: out to small African nations who needed to suppress insurgencies.
Speaker 1: So the Chinese as far as we know, have no
Speaker 1: idea he's doing this, and neither do the other people
Speaker 1: he's working with at f LG. He has his own
Speaker 1: tiny team within the company, and he decides, We're going
Speaker 1: to build an air force and not tell anyone. How
Speaker 1: do you fucking hide your It's like you have a
Speaker 1: you're making a bong in your room at a teenager
Speaker 1: and mom was like, what are you doing in there?
Speaker 1: Like nothing, just like playing with this cups, like I
Speaker 1: smell fire, I smell plastic mountain. It's like you're building
Speaker 1: a straight up rental air force and you can keep
Speaker 1: it under wraps. Well, you can't keep it under rest.
Speaker 1: We've got some commercials and after that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Eric tried to hide his private air force
Speaker 1: and how it didn't quite work out the way he planned.
Speaker 1: So all of that, after some capitalism ditties, we're back,
Speaker 1: uh and we are talking about Eric Prince's noble quest
Speaker 1: to build his own private air force without anyone knowing. Um,
Speaker 1: so I probably shouldn't have to say it, but I will.
Speaker 1: It is illegal to make your own air force U
Speaker 1: S government does and allowed you just mean like creating
Speaker 1: a collection of like fighter jets or armed planes meant
Speaker 1: to murder people from the sky. Can even buy an
Speaker 1: armed plane? No, no, you cannot, So you need the
Speaker 1: cover of a government even obtain a kill plane. There
Speaker 1: are ways for private companies to deploy air assets that
Speaker 1: can attack people, provide close air support. There are companies
Speaker 1: that do that. But there's like a problem, like you
Speaker 1: have to get a lot. Like you the government has
Speaker 1: to issue you a bunch of ships like it's a
Speaker 1: it's a thing. Like some of Prince's competitors. We're able
Speaker 1: to get government approval to provide close air support and
Speaker 1: have small fleets of aircraft, but like you know, you
Speaker 1: agree to government inspections, you get a bunch of And
Speaker 1: Eric Prince is not a big fan of licenses or
Speaker 1: qualifications or not breaking international law. What are you doing
Speaker 1: in your room? Nothing? Mom, it's not an airport. Um,
Speaker 1: so Eric Prince. So just to catch you up, he
Speaker 1: starts a company with a Chinese government called Frontier Logistics
Speaker 1: Group that's supposed to like help companies particularly working like
Speaker 1: Africa and Southeast Asia. Um, you know, get stuff from
Speaker 1: A to b right, because China's got their eye on
Speaker 1: Africa right now, China's got their eye on a lot
Speaker 1: of places. Yeah, well, and I think they're smart. It's funny.
Speaker 1: When I was in Ghana, like in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: they were the African Cup of Nations was happening and
Speaker 1: they had to build a bunch of new stadiums there
Speaker 1: and when I was like, oh, wow, like this is crazy,
Speaker 1: like these are huge modern stadiums, and one of the
Speaker 1: locals are like, yeah, if they're all Chinese prisoners building it,
Speaker 1: And then I was like whoa what? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they use these guys because if they try and escape
Speaker 1: there in the middle of Africa, and they're just gonna
Speaker 1: be like have you seen the Chinese guy? And they
Speaker 1: can like they just know. They don't really have to
Speaker 1: put them under much, you know, surveillance. But I mean,
Speaker 1: at least I could have been a myth. But I
Speaker 1: feel like and also a lot of the consumer goes.
Speaker 1: I was surprised how much of it came from China,
Speaker 1: but I guess they see a market. So yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: What Prince tells Civic Group, which is the Chinese company
Speaker 1: that owns Frontier with him, what Prince tells them is that,
Speaker 1: you know, he thinks there's a market where they can
Speaker 1: make some quick cash if they have a couple of
Speaker 1: moderately armored planes with sensors on them. So that like,
Speaker 1: if a company has a mine somewhere and they're worried
Speaker 1: that insurgents are going to rob the mine, you know,
Speaker 1: the government can pay us to surveil the area to
Speaker 1: let them know if an attacks company. That's legal. There's
Speaker 1: nothing illegal about, you know, government paying you to provide
Speaker 1: aerial surveillance uh or an area like a mine. So
Speaker 1: that's what Prince says he's doing to his backers in
Speaker 1: China and to his other American friends who work in
Speaker 1: Frontier with him. Without telling them, he buys of another company,
Speaker 1: h an Austrian company called Airborne Technologies, so it becomes
Speaker 1: an owner in this company, and he uses them to
Speaker 1: start producing an aircraft. They take an old Thrush five
Speaker 1: tin crop dusting plane and they turned it into an
Speaker 1: engine of war. And now at this point and for
Speaker 1: most of the air Force stuff. Here, I'm quoting from
Speaker 1: a fabulous article in the intersect called Echo Papa Exposed.
Speaker 1: Now here's a quote describing the airplane he has built.
Speaker 1: In addition to surveillance and laser targeting equipment. Airborne had
Speaker 1: outfitted the plane with bulletproof cockpit windows and arm engine block,
Speaker 1: anti explosive mesh for the fuel tank, and specialized wiring
Speaker 1: that could control rockets and bombs. The company also installed
Speaker 1: pods for mounting two high powered twenty three millimeter chain
Speaker 1: guns straight Vulcan canon in that thing. So to maintain secrecy,
Speaker 1: Prince does his best to keep his name out of
Speaker 1: this project. So the people at Airborne, other than like
Speaker 1: a couple of their top people, don't know him as
Speaker 1: Eric Prince. He's referred to in all of their papers
Speaker 1: as Echo Papa. But he purchased or he I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: essentially that's the only name he's known by in any
Speaker 1: of the public or not even public, and even the
Speaker 1: documents the engineer see. So the engineers see that someone
Speaker 1: with a codename Echo Papa is ordering them to build
Speaker 1: a military aircraft. That doesn't seem weird to them initially
Speaker 1: because they've done some contracts that are secret for like
Speaker 1: the German government in the Swiss government, so they think, okay,
Speaker 1: this is probably a government thing. Be done this kind.
Speaker 1: Our bosses assure us it's on the up and up.
Speaker 1: We're not breaking any laws, but they knew they were
Speaker 1: getting into bed with Eric Prince. Right, A couple of
Speaker 1: people at the top of the company knew. The people
Speaker 1: actually building the plane think they're working for like a
Speaker 1: German But yeah, but I guess, I guess yeah, to
Speaker 1: buy stake in a company like obviously, the people at
Speaker 1: the top are gonna know. Oh, I see who this
Speaker 1: person is, Okay, So yeah, one day, near the end
Speaker 1: of finishing this plane, Eric Prince comes by the hangar
Speaker 1: to inspect it, and one of these engineers recognizes him
Speaker 1: and knows who he is, and it's like, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: we're building a military aircraft for Eric Prince. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so these guys go to their bosses and they're like,
Speaker 1: we're pretty sure we're committing an international crime by making
Speaker 1: most right right, but the management is shares them things
Speaker 1: will be fine if they keep their mouth shut. Um,
Speaker 1: it's funny. Everything will be fine if you keep your
Speaker 1: mouth shut. It don't say anything. It's everything we find.
Speaker 1: If you could keep your mouth shut, you don't tell anyone.
Speaker 1: We will get in trouble for building a bomber. The
Speaker 1: plane you're talking about that they retrofitted. You said, it's
Speaker 1: a crop like a propeller plane engine. It's got like
Speaker 1: engines and stuff. It doesn't look like a prop plane, okay,
Speaker 1: because in my mind, a crop dusting plane is like,
Speaker 1: you know, like the old propeller plant, like like a
Speaker 1: right brother. No, it's it's like a nice crop dusting
Speaker 1: But they had a bunch of problems because like it
Speaker 1: wasn't made to have thousands of pounds of armor they
Speaker 1: had to build. So like the things that bombs hang
Speaker 1: on on a plane but are called pylons and they're
Speaker 1: either like made for US munitions or Warsaw Pact, you know,
Speaker 1: Russian munitions, and so these guys even designed pylons that
Speaker 1: could fit both because Eric didn't know what kind of
Speaker 1: bombs he was going to be able to get from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like that this is the kind of thing he
Speaker 1: has made. And before the plane's even finished, Eric goes
Speaker 1: out to a bunch of prospective clients, mainly people that
Speaker 1: we would call warlords or dictators, uh, and tries to
Speaker 1: sell them on his sexy new murder engine. Um. He
Speaker 1: told his partners in Frontier, including the CEO, that they
Speaker 1: were not running a security company, you know. Again, they
Speaker 1: just thought they were buying surveillance planes. Um So nobody
Speaker 1: knows but Eric Prince and a couple of his close
Speaker 1: people what he's doing. Yeah that for for the other people,
Speaker 1: they just think, oh, we've got a surveillance plane, and
Speaker 1: he's like, I've got something and that can do it
Speaker 1: all baby. Yeah. Uh so that's that's the situation. Um,
Speaker 1: nobody but Prince knows that he's planning to put missiles
Speaker 1: on this plane and use it to murder dissidence. Um
Speaker 1: So having his own air force to track back a
Speaker 1: bit has been a goal of Eric since at least
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, when he purchased an unarmed attack
Speaker 1: aircraft that he later at least to the Pentagon to
Speaker 1: use an Afghanistan to test it out to see if
Speaker 1: it would be good for the Afghan Air Force. Um.
Speaker 1: In Iraq, he tried and failed to sell a contract
Speaker 1: providing close air support to the CIA. Also in Iraq,
Speaker 1: Blackwater had a feat of tiny helicopters. Prince would have
Speaker 1: men with machine guns hang off them and shoot at people.
Speaker 1: Those helicopters can be known by the Iraqis as little birds.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, but those are unarmored helicopter. Armed
Speaker 1: helicopter but which that that's a specific kind of helicopter though,
Speaker 1: the little bird, right, and maybe you know it's not
Speaker 1: like a Huey or the other ones, but it looks
Speaker 1: a little bit like a Huey, but even tinier. Yeah right, right.
Speaker 1: I just think of it because I know, like I
Speaker 1: read a lot about like Somalia ninety three kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that was like those are like a lot of
Speaker 1: the other guys were in like those little bird helicopters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from the video games I always hoppen. Yeah. Yeah. Uh
Speaker 1: So Prince had never gotten to order his own private
Speaker 1: military aircraft bomb insurgents, and that's what was his dream, um,
Speaker 1: And in two thousand and fourteen it seems like it
Speaker 1: was finally going to come true. So the Austrians finished
Speaker 1: this thing and they've taken on the practice flight, and
Speaker 1: its dozens of problems pop up because of course you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to put armaments on a crop duster. Um.
Speaker 1: So they fix whatever they can, but Prince rushes them
Speaker 1: and says, basically, I need this thing in two days.
Speaker 1: I've already promised it to somebody and it needs to
Speaker 1: be right. God, what the fund is wrong with this guy?
Speaker 1: So during the plane's first flight, it's grounded for a
Speaker 1: faulty fuel pump that's eventually fixed, and the plane makes
Speaker 1: it to Juba, South Sudan, where it was expected to
Speaker 1: help with the civil war. Unfortunately for Eric Prince, but
Speaker 1: thankfully for humanity. Some random guy in Greece took picture.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's this this random guy in Greece
Speaker 1: whose hobby is taking pictures of planes that take off
Speaker 1: from He's just one of those nerds, and he takes
Speaker 1: a picture of this thing as it lifts off from Greece. Oh,
Speaker 1: because that's how they were getting it into Sudana, was
Speaker 1: taking off from like they were taking off from Greece.
Speaker 1: And the plane was registered in San Marino, which is
Speaker 1: a tiny micro state in like northern Italy or in
Speaker 1: that area. Um So this thing takes off, this guy
Speaker 1: uploads a picture. It gets back to the authorities in
Speaker 1: San Marino, who realized that the plane that Eric Prince
Speaker 1: had registered bore no resemblance to the plane on that runway,
Speaker 1: which is clearly a military aircraft. All right, He's like, Hi,
Speaker 1: I want to register my nice little process plane. It's
Speaker 1: a hobby plane. Nothing to see here, right, And They're like,
Speaker 1: those are missile pylons on the bottom. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: those are fun holders. So credit to the government of
Speaker 1: San Marino. They pulled his registration. The plane had to
Speaker 1: be flown to another hangar in a different East African nation,
Speaker 1: and it's probably still there right now. The whole project
Speaker 1: fell apart and Eric Prince never got to bomb anyone.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he really is like a tortured guy with
Speaker 1: a war boner who never got to get his war
Speaker 1: penis off. Basically, yeah, credit to Airborne Technology. It was
Speaker 1: one of the engineers who worked on the plane that
Speaker 1: leaked this story to the intercept or at least leaked
Speaker 1: a big intercept who was like, this is fucked up.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm okay making a plane for the German government.
Speaker 1: I really don't want to make one for this guy. God.
Speaker 1: That must have been such a moment though, to realize
Speaker 1: it's air Princes. Yeah, he looks him up on his
Speaker 1: phone and it's like like in a movie, like he's
Speaker 1: holding it up next to him, just like going back
Speaker 1: and forth. It's the guy. Yeah, this isn't gonna be
Speaker 1: good for my resume. Um, okay, So they clearly say
Speaker 1: you made a kill jet. Yeah, but is there any
Speaker 1: trial or like, so does anyone get in trouble, anyone
Speaker 1: to release a statement or anything? Like as far as
Speaker 1: I understand at this point, Airborne denies uh making a
Speaker 1: fighter jet. FLG denies that the fighter jet was made
Speaker 1: with their money. Prince just doesn't talk about it. Like
Speaker 1: the reason we know about this is the Intercept report,
Speaker 1: and they have everything. If you go read Echo Pop Expose,
Speaker 1: they have like advertising documents he built for this attack craft,
Speaker 1: like you can see like, yeah, you can see his
Speaker 1: marketing materials. It's very well documented. It's like this could
Speaker 1: be yours or if they were just making it up
Speaker 1: for some reason, all of these companies would have sued
Speaker 1: them to ship. But nothing's happened. Like that's the way
Speaker 1: it wout. Nothing has happened. The plane is still sitting
Speaker 1: in a hangar somewhere in East Africa. As far as
Speaker 1: we know, it was never used. Um right, So that's
Speaker 1: that's exactly what the situation any like conspiracy or logic
Speaker 1: to why we think like he has never had to
Speaker 1: answer for that, like because clearly that those are international crimes.
Speaker 1: If he's creating an armed aircraft, that that's that's probably
Speaker 1: in violation of many laws. Well, because what they have
Speaker 1: is the picture, which is why San Marino pulled his registration. UM.
Speaker 1: But they don't have like you don't have hard documented
Speaker 1: evidence outside of like what the journalists put up about
Speaker 1: how it was made or about exactly who ordered it,
Speaker 1: Like Prince doesn't have his name TI do it in
Speaker 1: legal documents. These are allegations in a news report that
Speaker 1: has a significant amount of backing to it. Um. But
Speaker 1: also it's not like he was caught bombing civilians in
Speaker 1: Soudan got stopped before that point, so it's just sort
Speaker 1: of fizzled out. It's like being called like a homemade
Speaker 1: gun or something. Yeah. Well, it's like Prince didn't get
Speaker 1: in trouble when like when he was found illegally training
Speaker 1: troops for a foreign country company got a forty two
Speaker 1: million dollar uh lost, like had to pay forty two
Speaker 1: million dollars in fines, but that he didn't get charged
Speaker 1: with anything, and then they consider that an operating cost.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, I mean they made billions at this point.
Speaker 1: It's forty two million. What's forty two million? It's like
Speaker 1: when you sue Perdue Pharmaceuticals for you know, marketing illegally
Speaker 1: and hiding like the truth about the pain killers they
Speaker 1: were selling, Like they pay one and a half percent
Speaker 1: of the profits that they've made refines and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fine. What also doing a business like this is
Speaker 1: it's not like Eric Prince was flying a jet and
Speaker 1: dropping bombs on people himself. He had shell companies set
Speaker 1: up through all this and the plane never actually got
Speaker 1: to drop anything. So he's he's in the clear, right,
Speaker 1: And it's it's murky enough that people can just point
Speaker 1: fingers at thin air and no one really has to
Speaker 1: take the but like the back, you can see the
Speaker 1: plane and you can trace its registration back and you
Speaker 1: can like it's a picture of the planet. It's all
Speaker 1: pretty well documented. Um, if you get Echo Papa exposed
Speaker 1: on the intercept, it will be there. I wonder if too,
Speaker 1: if because the government has done so much business with him,
Speaker 1: it's like better to be like, dude, don't we don't
Speaker 1: even need to dig that whole part of It's possible
Speaker 1: that if the government filed a case against him, he
Speaker 1: would win in court because he's a billionaire with a
Speaker 1: lot of lawyers, and he's I mean, it's not like
Speaker 1: he just like did this haphazardly. He sat every step
Speaker 1: of the way. How does this have to be structured
Speaker 1: to minimize my risk? How does this like what we
Speaker 1: do to reduce my exposure? So Eric Prince is still
Speaker 1: keeping busy today. His current project involves working with the
Speaker 1: Chinese government co owner of his company to set up
Speaker 1: a forward operating base in the Yunan Province of China
Speaker 1: as part of a Chinese government initiative to help remake
Speaker 1: the Silk Road. Princess quote about the matter is we're
Speaker 1: not helping to serve Chinese foreign policy goals. We're helping
Speaker 1: to increase trade. Uh, it is possible, that's true. The
Speaker 1: basis stated goal is to quote provide logistics and unarmed
Speaker 1: security training services to facilitate Chinese trade throughout Southeast Asia.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that's all on the up and up.
Speaker 1: And this mercenary warlord won't try to hide committing war
Speaker 1: crimes in the guise of a legitimate business venture with
Speaker 1: the same company twice in a row. Um. So his
Speaker 1: other hobby right now is trying to convince the US
Speaker 1: government to hand the war in Afghanistan over to an
Speaker 1: army of private contractors. M Yeah, about six thousand mercenaries
Speaker 1: ought to be enough to really get Afghanistan under yea,
Speaker 1: and to make sure nothing terrible happens. These guys, they're
Speaker 1: not going to be lawless out there. They're gonna be
Speaker 1: commanded by someone Prince thinks should be put in charge
Speaker 1: of the Afghanistan effort, and he calls the guy of Viceroy.
Speaker 1: So that's a good idea, Like we should go back
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, back when Viceroy
Speaker 1: that that's really one. That's the time we all miss
Speaker 1: the world was great. Yeah, So that's that's that's it,
Speaker 1: simple man um. So far, the Pentagon hasn't bitten. And
Speaker 1: in fact, all of like like Maddison, all of the
Speaker 1: generals in the world are like right, like I've been
Speaker 1: around these assholes, like they can't even drive on the
Speaker 1: right side of the road. Yeah. But if I know Eric,
Speaker 1: a little thing like you know, complete lack of interest
Speaker 1: isn't going to stop him from trying, clearly, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna keep plugging away that keep making that bong in
Speaker 1: his room. Yea, even when his mom asks, no, he's
Speaker 1: got it. He's got an active life, you know, several
Speaker 1: days before the election, Prince showed up on Breitbart Radio
Speaker 1: to claim that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton laundered money
Speaker 1: and regularly visited a quote sex island with quote underage
Speaker 1: sex slaves. Uh. And in January if seventeen, Prince met
Speaker 1: with a guy named Kirol Dmitriev, a Russian businessman with
Speaker 1: strong ties to Vladimir Putin. They met in say Chell's right,
Speaker 1: Say Chell yeah? And he claims that the trip was
Speaker 1: just for business purposes and had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign. But earlier this year, George Nader, a
Speaker 1: guy who helped organize the meeting, told a grand jury
Speaker 1: that it was quote an effort to establish a back
Speaker 1: channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin. It's also
Speaker 1: worth noting that Prince donated about two to the Trump
Speaker 1: campaign and group support con try it during it left.
Speaker 1: They're representative, isn't natter? Uh? He represents inters of the
Speaker 1: U A E. Two, doesn't he? Probably? I think because
Speaker 1: that that was like the connection, because now that makes
Speaker 1: sense to me when you're saying that he created a
Speaker 1: mercenary army with them, that they've already done business. And
Speaker 1: but also he's like an easy go between. Prince was
Speaker 1: also regularly in contact with Steve Bannon throughout the transition,
Speaker 1: where while he's having this meeting with Love the conspiracy
Speaker 1: about the Sex Island because it goes back to sort
Speaker 1: of this bizarre form of what a conservative thinks is like,
Speaker 1: you know, the most evil ship. It's like sex Island.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Hillary Clinton had a Sex Island, she
Speaker 1: would not have lost the election. No, she would have.
Speaker 1: There would have been some flavor in that putting there
Speaker 1: would absolutely yea, yeah, that's not That is someone who
Speaker 1: I don't even think has been to an island, even
Speaker 1: though a restaurant called islands. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: where we are right now. The whole incident is of
Speaker 1: extreme interest to Robert Mueller because it might be proof
Speaker 1: that Kushner was trying to establish a back channel and
Speaker 1: go back channel to Russia. Um. So we'll be hearing
Speaker 1: more about Eric Prince in the future, probably before the
Speaker 1: time this podcast drops. Possibly. Um yeah, I again, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not crazy to me, right because we've
Speaker 1: we see people like this all the time, but like that,
Speaker 1: this is the guy who has constantly just been trying
Speaker 1: to make his secret little play army and do all
Speaker 1: the fun stuff that he maybe was never able to do.
Speaker 1: He's clearly like haunted, you know, from his like familial life.
Speaker 1: I'm almost curious to know what that what that upbringing
Speaker 1: was like, like what that household must have been a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Yeah, And there's no there's nothing that
Speaker 1: I would call like trustworthy information out about like what
Speaker 1: that upbringing was like, like like a lot of these guys,
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to talk a little bit about,
Speaker 1: like the abuse that Saddam Hussein and Jurd. I don't
Speaker 1: know what, I don't know. It's possible he had great
Speaker 1: parents who were just crazy far right nut jobs, and
Speaker 1: so Prince grew up because maybe he's just a happy
Speaker 1: guy being a billionaire nut job. Also he's a billionaire now,
Speaker 1: it's like worth two and a half billion dollars. So
Speaker 1: this has all worked out great for Prince and is
Speaker 1: there is there? You think the closest he would come
Speaker 1: to any kind of liability legally would be through the probe,
Speaker 1: the Russia probe. I mean, at this point, so many
Speaker 1: international crimes and never gotten in trouble me in a
Speaker 1: meaningful way. I haven't trouble believing that anything is going
Speaker 1: to happen that puts this guy away. Being a rich
Speaker 1: white guy is the best ship ever. And it's like
Speaker 1: getting the suit like the star in Mario. Yeah, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's Yeah, he's always got that flashing and vulnerability thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, most of the people talk about on this
Speaker 1: podcast have been dead for a while. Um, but Eric
Speaker 1: is still alive. And yeah, I'd be down with him
Speaker 1: spending the rest of his life in prison, Like that'd
Speaker 1: be great. That'd be the Bee's knees. Um. But he'll
Speaker 1: probably just keep on making more armies. And I got
Speaker 1: a feeling one of these days he's going to get
Speaker 1: his own air force, right God, I mean I believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll Yeah, help I help problem prior Russia or something weird.
Speaker 1: You're just gotta have a dream and a hope and
Speaker 1: billions of dollars in a rich white family that's heavily
Speaker 1: connected to the U. S. President. Yeah, that's all you need,
Speaker 1: and you can do any anything. I just don't go
Speaker 1: to college. Miles. Yes, thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: help today. You've been wonderful. Thank you for illuminating this
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, you got some plugs, you want to
Speaker 1: plug in the plug zone? Do I want to plug anything? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do. Uh. There's a little podcast I do every
Speaker 1: day with Jack O'Brien called The Daily Seitgeist. But you
Speaker 1: probably knew that, right because everybody knows the most famous
Speaker 1: podcast out there. Not really, but please listen to that.
Speaker 1: We talked about the news and have fun and we
Speaker 1: always have funny comedians and just try and make the
Speaker 1: news of the day bearable. And you can follow me
Speaker 1: on social media and on you know all that Twitter,
Speaker 1: Instagram at Miles of Gray, and you can find us
Speaker 1: on all of the various social media platforms as Bastards
Speaker 1: pod or at the Hid the Bastards dot com, our
Speaker 1: home on the Worldwide Internet Web dot net. Peace m
Speaker 1: h m hm