The notorious Erik Prince set to make a comeback under Trump

Erik Prince, the former Blackwater CEO and notorious US Navy SEAL veteran, may seem like a relic of the past. His name, like the private security agency he headed, was tied to some of the most egregious abuses of the Bush era.

But he may be making a comeback, this time as a backchannel advisor on intelligence and security matters to US President Donald Trump, The Intercept reported on Tuesday.

It's unclear when Prince made his way into Trump's inner circle, but he has made sizable contributions to the pro-Trump Political Action Committee (PAC). The Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings for the PAC shows he made a contribution of $100,000 in September 2016 to their efforts. His mother Elisa Prince also gave $50,000 to the committee.

Prince's sister Betsy DeVos is Trump's Secretary of Education choice. DeVos courted controversy during her hearing on January 17, when the progressive Democrat Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren grilled her over her commitment to protecting students from cheating by for-profit colleges and later wrote on her Facebook post that "I don't see how she (DeVos) can be the secretary of education."

The proximity of Prince — who gained notoriety after his military contracting firm killed over a dozen Iraqi civilians — to Trump is sure to ruffle some feathers.

Here's a look back at Prince's chequered past and why the world may have reason to worry about his closeness to the 45th president of the United States:

Blackwater's Iraq killings

In 2007, Prince's private mercenary forces were accused of killing 17 Iraqis, including children, in a mass shooting that provoked global outrage and caused further strain to the relationship between Washington and Baghdad.

In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried and convicted for manslaughter and murder.

Now, nearly a decade later, the killings remain one of the darkest chapters of the US occupation of Iraq. It also led to important questions about the US Army's reliance on private contractors, and whether outsourcing was a way to avoid oversight. Blackwater was accused of acting outside either US or Iraqi law, and even of threatening US State Department officials.

Prince sold the company in 2009. Under its new ownership, the company was twice renamed, first as XE, and later as Academi.

In his 2014 memoir, Prince claimed to divulge the entire story of Blackwater, writing in the introduction:

Fighting Daesh and revival of CIA "assassination ring"

In an interview with the right-wing Breitbart News — owned by key Trump ally, Steve Bannon — in July 2016, Prince suggested that one way for US to destroy Daesh was to revive a controversial Vietnam War-era CIA torture and assassination campaign.

Under the Phoenix Program (between 1965 and 1972), CIA officers and the US Special Operations troops conducted torture and assassinations to target the Vietcong's guerrilla networks in South Vietnam. The programme became one of the most notorious chapters in the agency's history, and was officially shut down in 1972.

But Prince wants to revive it, arguing that it would help capture or kill the "funders of Islamic terror and that would even be the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East, and any of the other illicit activities they're in."

Part of the controversy around Prince's previous work was that private contractors were not subjected to the same kind of legal oversight and obligations as the US military.

Prince doesn't think US troops are required on the ground to fight Daesh, but supports using "local forces" with US backing — a strategy that could potentially open the door to further lucrative contracts.

Refugees entering Europe from Libya

Earlier this month, Erik Prince wrote a dispatch in The Financial Times arguing that he has a solution to prevent refugees from entering Europe.

Prince proposed "base camps" for Libyan militias, who would receive ten weeks training and be armed with surveillance drones and armed vehicles. He also wants to be involved in building a new border fence in Libya.

The border police, as he sees it, would work with Western private contractors from "a European law enforcement background." The air operations would likewise be outsourced to private contractors, as would the medical evacuation services.

"There would be nowhere for migrant smugglers to hide: they can be detected, detained and handled using a mixture of air and ground operations," he wrote.

Critics, including author Belen Fernandez, argue the plan is aimed at making financial gains from people's miseries. Many Libyan militias already have a poor track record in their treatment of refugees.

"One thing is for certain, though: that Prince's ‘solutions' aren't aimed at any sort of resolution but rather at the perpetuation of strife in the interest of financial gain," she argued.

UAE's mercenary fighters

In 2011, Erik Prince reportedly created a secret desert force of Colombian mercenaries for the UAE. The New York Times reported that the Colombians had entered the oil-rich country posing as construction workers. According to the paper, the soldiers were part of a secret US-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince with $529 million from the Gulf emirate.

Quoting documents, the paper reported that, "the force intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts."

Quelling pro-democracy protests or the unrest in the UAE labour camps was part of the 800-strong battalion's job. In 2015, the New York Times reported that the UAE dispatched the same mercenary force to Yemen to fight the Houthi rebels.

Working with Putin

Prince sees Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong ally for Washington in their fight against the "common enemy" of "Islamic extremism". Trump has made similar statements.

In an interview with Breitbart News last year, Prince said: "Do we want a leader exactly like Putin in America? No. Do we want their political system? No way. But Trump is right, in at least that we can work with Putin, because we have a common enemy, and that is Islamic fascism."

There are, however, fears that Trump would be reorienting American foreign policy in a pro-Russian direction and that US allies will stop sharing intelligence under Russia-friendly Trump.

China connections

These days, Erik Prince provides the Chinese with everything from men to machinery to security and logistical backing, helping them get to in and out of some of the most risky areas of the African continent.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Prince said his new company, Frontier Services Group Ltd, is actively aiding Beijing:

China may have poached a former US operative but Prince argues his company is simply "on the side of peace and economic development."

Columnist James Poulos sums up Prince's transition in a Forbes article in January 2014, "A big-government military-industrial complex, too clumsy and fearful to take on its own toughest security challenges, can't take the heat when the guy it hires to do so makes a mess -- so it proceeds to clumsily and fearfully flog him out of Washington. What happens? Blowback, that favorite word of American foreign-policy critics."

Poulos argued that it will be hard to guess just "how dismaying an impact on Africa China will have with Erik Prince at its side. But it's hard to see how any American can be happy with these latest fruits of our Blackwater experience."

Behind-the-scenes support to Trump

Prince's sister Betsy DeVos is Trump's Secretary of Education choice.

According to an investigation by The Intercept, Prince has been advising Trump on security issues behind the scenes for some time now.

TheNew York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that Prince attended the annual "Villains and Heroes" costume ball in December, hosted by Rebekah Mercer. She is the daughter of billionaire hedge funder Robert Mercer, who is one of the strongest bankrollers of Trump's campaign.

Dowd wrote that Peter Thiel, a staunch supporter of Trump showed her "a picture on his phone of him posing with Erik Prince, who founded the private military company Blackwater, and Mr. Trump — who had no costume — but joke[d] that it was ‘NSFI' (Not Safe for the Internet)."

With the mantra of "countering Islamic extremism" as his battle cry, Prince supported the rise of Trump as the US president who would battle "terrorists" and "fascists."

"As for the world looking to the United States for leadership, unfortunately, I think they're going to have to wait till January and hope Mr. Trump is elected because, clearly, our generals don't have a stomach for a fight. Our President doesn't have a stomach for a fight and the terrorists, the facists, are winning," Prince said in an interview last year.

Behind the discourse lies a clear economic interest —Prince literally backs theft of Iraqi oil. He believes Trump's idea to take Iraq's oil as repayment for deposing Saddam Hussein "is not a bad one":

And should the Trump administration attempt to enforce such a policy in Iraq, it seems likely Prince would want to have in on that too.

Author: Baba Umar