TRYING TO HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT, PRINCE BLACKBALLS HOMETOWN MEDIA COVERAGE
Going home to address a large group of his hometown, Erik Prince (Address at the traditional Tulip Time Luncheon, 10:30 AM, May 5, 2010, Holland, MI) is hoping to resuscitate a pristine image as a hometown boy, who went off to war and did great things for his country and then came back a hero bigger-than-life. Prince plans to recite his personal "values" arising from his Dutch heritage and salvage is family name and reputation.
UPDATE: Read the backstory
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Background below the fold...
Controversy in Happy Town
Erik has chosen Holland to begin to rebuild positives for himself and his family. Previously, about 2 years ago, Prince appeared in Grand Rapids, introduced by his sister-major national GOP figure-Betsy DeVos, and allowed no media coverage of that presentation. In an effort at spin, Prince largely misrepresented the mission and work of his Blackwater entanglements that time.
Eric, like others, rich and famous, has tried to use his power and wealth to control the media’s coverage of his life and work. Prince has allowed very limited interviews: CBS’s 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair, but little else.
Those 800 ticket holders hoping to hear him speak at Holland’s Tulip Time Luncheon, formerly the Governor’s Luncheon, will hear Prince recite his account of the values he finds arising from his West Michigan ethnic Dutch/Calvinist background.
However, the press and the media have been barred, "blackballed" from on-site coverage by Prince, who is aggressive in protecting his published image and verbal content. The blacking out of media coverage breaks an 80 year record of open press for this historic event.
Holland was recently accorded the accolade as being one of the happiest places to live in America. Yet not everyone in the festival town of Holland, Michigan is overjoyed with the record and the accomplishments of Erik Prince, a self-made commandant of his own band of mercenaries.
The separatist, Dutch/Calvinist tradition of Western Michigan, into which Erik was born, back to the early days of World War I, had struggled with what to do when forced to consider war and one’s role in such mayhem and killing as war entails.
Those earlier Dutch emigrants, many of whom sought to maintain their protestor/reformation heritage brought over from the Netherlands, had real problems with war. The Holland/West Michigan colony included many just off the boat-not that long before WW I. The moral and theological struggle the Dutch émigrés, faced when confronted with the challenge presented by a return of their men and boys to a major war in Europe, was one of great anguish and angst.
What the "old wise men and founding, religious Dutch fathers" would have thought about Erik Prince, the swaggering son of a billionaire, who plunged a generous portion of the Prince family inheritance (built by the diligent work ethic of the protégé of those emigrants) into a ill-conceived mercenary corporation-in support of Bush’s unprovoked war-of-choice in Iraq-all for fame and profit-will never be known.
On the other hand, Erik has strayed from his ethnic Dutch/Calvinist reformism , having just recently being converted to a very conservative element of Roman Catholicism-which has mythical ties to the Crusaders. Erik’s associations with former Pentagon Inspector General, Joseph Schmitz (hired by Prince's Blackwater)are curious. Schmitz is described by one writer as a member of the Sovereign Order of Malta described as "a Christian militia formed in the eleventh century [to defend] territories that the Crusaders had conquered from the Moslems...’"
Additionally, Erik’s close spiritual relationship with Tartuffian Father Robert Sirico, former self-confessed Marxist and founder of the Acton Institute, mentored and supported by Erik’s mother Elsa, has taken Erik deep into strange ideologies and schemes.
If Eric had checked into the writings and opinions of his Christian Reformed/Dutch Calvinist heritage Prince would have found, as does Darrell Cole, author of "Good Wars," as cited by Dale M. Courtney, The Reformed Theological Seminary:
"Calvin rejects outright mercenary soldiering—a popular profession among the Swiss of Calvin’s time—since it encourages soldiers to fight merely out of love of money and not out of love for their neighbors. For Calvin, soldiering loses its Christian function and legitimacy when it becomes a commodity."
Perhaps such a conflict played into Prince’s decision to reject his Calvinist Protestantism and John Calvin to become a ultra-conservative Catholic.
It’s clear that there’s a deep and wrenching conflict in the souls of many in Holland about Erik’s deeds and misdeeds, the reported civilian carnage, and the extent to which Erik and his proprietary Blackwater/Xe have committed a alleged variety of criminal and illegal war-related acts.
Erik’s actions have made the world a more dangerous place and the great impact his command, and the brash and deadly actions of his mercenaries have had, besmirching the image of his country, has left a bloody stain on America’s honor.
It’s clear that during the Bush era CIA and other Black Ops veterans have been used by Erik and Blackwater/Xe and/or/ additionally, there is the possibility that Erik Prince and Blackwater/Xe were co-opted as "useful tools" of the CIA and Black Ops to do certain "dirty work" such that there would be deniability on the part of the Bush Administration.
During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Blackwater made a surprise appearance in a very controversial manner and with an affront to the limits imposed on police force in this country. The highly regarded, arch-conservative guru and critic, Victor Davis Hansen, when asked about Blackwater’s interjection of its mercenary power into that domestic disaster, gave a one word, precise assessment. Hansen called it "pernicious."
Off-the-record-style forays, such as Erik was part of after he decided not to remain in the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and chose to become a SEAL, saw him committed to covert action in at least two foreign countries. This personal history has to be integral to Prince’s mindset and makeup.
A Dark Twist of Fate Which Ratcheted Up the Iraq War
Blackwater will forever be etched in the public psyche. The horror-laden archetypical images associated with it, we cannot erase from their memories because of the ill-chosen plans and careless tactics of Erik and Blackwater in Fallujah.
That Blackwater foray into the very heart of Fallujah rather than take a safer route at a very crucial time (following an ugly event on the evening of April 28, 2003), which involved marines firing into a large crowd. This action on part of the marines was in response to reportedly hostile fire from somewhere inside the assembled protestors. Scores of Iraqi protestors were either killed or injured. There were no Marine casualties. This event helped convert the formerly passive Fallujah into a hostile hell-hole of fierce anti-American insurgency. .
This 2003 event, in the early stages of the war, was serious provocation which left the city in a foaming rage.
The Blackwater tragedy, which happened just 4 months later, took place while its men were driving in vehicles-clearly identifiable as filled with contractors-played straight into the insurgent’s hands. The enemy took advantage of an ill-planned, ill-advised, poorly executed and-tragic tactical Blackwater operation, which led to the deaths of its operatives.
The subsequent capture and horrid deaths of Blackwater’s soldiers of fortune gave the world horrific images of charred remains of Prince’s mercenaries hanging in taunting derision from that bridge in Fallujah, created a firestorm.
The U. S. backlash spawned the ill-advised, unplanned, military over-reaction (untimely and not advised by the military leadership) which George W. Bush ordered in hasty reprisal against that city. The two battles for Fallujah became a major campaign of the Iraqi War.
The outcome of Bush’s anger resulted in intense house-to-house urban warfare, higher casualties, and greatly ginned up the Iraqi insurgency.
The eventual leveling of Fallujah, at a very critical time in the war with Iraq, had the blowback of putting the "liberation" of Iraq off course and setting Iraqis more aggressively against our troops. Also Fallujah events greatly increased overall American deaths and injuries resulted in a bitter upturn, and a prolonged American involvement in the war as a direct result.
Erik Prince Has Serious and Continuing Legal Battles Ahead
Recently Erik Prince’s Blackwater operations have been in court almost continually. August 2009 it was reported: "According to affidavits filed in federal court on Monday, the company’s founder Erik Prince and his staff were engaged in a fantastic litany of crimes, almost too fantastic to be believed. At the top of the list: Prince and his protégés "murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities" regarding the Nisoor Square killings. The affidavits, part of a civil lawsuit stemming from Blackwater’s alleged abuses in Iraq, were signed by "John Doe #1? and "John Doe #2," both of whom claim to be current or former Blackwater employees. John Doe #2 wrote that he "fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this declaration."
"The affidavits also allege that Blackwater illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq, sometimes in bags of dog food — an allegation we’ve heard before. More broadly, "Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. ... Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game," all this according to the statements made by former Blackwater employees.
"...Blackwater had re-branded itself as "Xe" earlier this year, in a bid to shed its bad image." Wired Magazine, David Ash, Aug 7, 2009.
It’s way too soon to know what the outcomes of these and other allegations, investigations, and indictments will be.
Erik, like other spies, and Black Ops personnel, is better served to take a low profile, keep his deeds and missions "off the record" and stay out of the limelight-to savor or revisit his exploits in private.
Years from now we may want to know what lessons Erik learned, what "values" drove him to act as he did. By then we may actually know the outcome of his many legal fights and his purported CIA/spy connections and we may learn if he was able to clear his name and reputation put into question-resulting from his many for-profit mercenary enterprises.
Will Erik be able to return to ordinary life and become an ordinary high school teacher as is his expressed his future plan for life (after mercenary command) ala his pick of fictional heroes, Professor Indiana Jones?