by Baaz

On Monday, the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke about the Trump administration’s views on the war in Afghanistan.  Tillerson said:

·         We’ve had now three sessions within the National Security Council exploring a full range of options. And when I say a full range of options, I mean the entire landscape… I think this is reflective of the deliberations that we want to undertake. The President is asking, I think, some very, very pointed questions, and they are good questions. They were the right questions that he should be asking, and perhaps these are questions that no one’s been willing to raise in the past.

·         And so with his – with the questions that he’s asked us, we want to give him good, thorough answers and good, thorough analysis to go with that, a very clear-eyed view, a very realistic view of what the future is likely to look like.

·         And I think we want to take the time to do the analysis, a fully integrated analysis from the Intel Community to the military planners to the diplomatic channels as to how does this all play out and where does this go. It’s one thing to say we’re just going to keep fighting because we’re – there is no other option. There are always other options.

·         And so that’s what the President has asked us to fully explore, and I think the fact that we’re taking our time to try to come to a solution that is realistic, is – takes a clear view of what we’re dealing with on the ground, and being very honest with ourselves about expectations of the future, I think that is – that serves the American people’s interest well. This is a very, very – as you know, a tough area, 16 years, 17 years we’ve been at it now. To just say we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing, the President is not willing to accept that, and so he is asking some tough questions, and the Security Council is working diligently to give him the best answers we can.

By M K Bhadrakumar – August 8, 2017

Trump may outsource the Afghan war

Erik Prince offers Western mercenaries in Afghanistan

Prince’s firm is now called the Frontier Services Group and is based in Hong Kong.

“US military contractor Erik Prince has advised the administration of President Donald Trump to deploy Western mercenaries to Afghanistan to save both manpower and money.

Prince, who founded the notorious private military company Blackwater USA, now called Academi, has proposed a two-year plan for about  5,000 professional killers and under 100 aircraft, bringing the total cost of the failing US war to less than $10 billion a year, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

Prince, a former Navy Seal, said on current spending, the Afghan military campaign would cost the US $45 billion this year and $50 billion the next.

“We’re spending too much in Afghanistan and it’s making the insurgency worse, through corruption and leakage to the Taliban,” he told the newspaper.

“I then heard about a big troop surge [proposal] and I thought that was a dumb idea . . . I’m going to contract everything; I’m going to get down to some spending sanity,” he said.

Blackwater received widespread notoriety in 2007 when a group of its mercenaries killed 14 Iraqi civilians and wounded 18 others using gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection.”

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What we are looking at is

1) Huge Savings of money and human resources  for the Deep state to use the regular US army/SOF (not that they r not using those now) either in hotspots such as Syria, Ukraine, Libya , Baltic’s etc

2) or use it in US homeland in case something like a civil war situation arises

3) Considering the global economic situation , there would be many candidates to take up an opportunity earning us $500-600 per day  irrespective of the onsequences that it entails including it is morally wrong. (Paid Killers) .

4) Drug trade earning from opium would be in private hands and it would only grow as there is huge amount of money to be minted to pursue hidden agendas .(Self financing cycles)

5) As The Saker says, using mercenaries provides plausible deniability from any covert deep state agenda they might be pursuing being close to Chinese border (Wakhan Corridor .. Pakistani Border and The Stans .(Disruption of OBOR/BRI…non implementation of IPI pipeline (IraN-Pakistan-India) so they could export expensive LNG to India and not provide the Chinese the way out from Malacca dilemma.

These are my 2 cents . troublesome times ahead.

Kind Regards,

Baaz

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by Scott

Baaz brought up a few of the valid points.

The following is some info I want you to consider

  1. On the face of it, Eric Prince wants to get $10 billion to stage a dignifying withdrawal of the US troops from long suffering Afghanistan.
  2. Eric Prince refuses to admit that his fighters are mercenaries. In his case, the beauty is truly in the eye of the beer-holder.

However, what’s important is not how Mr. Prince wants to classify them, but how the Russians and their allies will decide to handle them.

Art 47. Mercenaries

A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary

Protocol Additional GC 1977 (APGC77) is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Article 47 of the protocol provides the most widely accepted international definition of a mercenary, though not endorsed by some countries, including the United States. The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, (Protocol I), 8 June 1977 states:

Art 47. Mercenaries

  1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
  2. A mercenary is any person who:

(a) is especially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;

(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;

(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;

(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and

(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

All the criteria (a – f) must be met, according to the Geneva Convention, for a combatant to be described as a mercenary.

United Nations Mercenary Convention
The United Nations Mercenary Convention, officially the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, is a 2001 United Nations treaty that prohibits the recruitment, training, use, and financing of mercenaries. At the 72nd plenary meeting on 4 December 1989, the United Nations General Assembly concluded the convention as its resolution 44/34. The convention entered into force on 20 October 2001[1] and has been ratified by 35 states.

Countries with large militaries that have not ratified the convention include China, France, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[2]

 

3. Something they are trying to cook up
Two US marines ambushed and killed last week was probably organized to push an issue of the private army to guard all those poppy fields.
Military Times reported that Erik Prince wants to step up the Afghan air war with a private air force capable of intelligence collection and close-air support, according to a recent proposal submitted to the Afghan government.

According to a senior Afghan military official, Prince has submitted a business proposal offering a “turn-key composite air wing” to help the fledgling Afghan air force in its fight against the Taliban and other militant groups

“The proposal submitted to the Afghan government in March boasts an impressive array of combat aircraft for a private company. The aircraft offered in the proposal includes fixed-wing planes, attack helicopters and drones capable of providing close-air support to maneuvering ground forces, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Military Times.

The proposal promises to provide ”high speed response” close-air support and ”the entire country can be responded to in under 1 hour.”  The proposal states that weapons release decisions will still be made by Afghans.

The air frames are also outfitted with equipment to provide intelligence collection that includes imagery intelligence, signals intelligence and communications intelligence. The aircraft would be operated by the private company’s employees.”

Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanista says that Afghanistan won’t accept a private contractor force.

“President Ghani has told me he won’t accept it,” Neumann told Military Times in an interview. “Afghans will never accept this.”

Neumann also questioned the legality and cost of using a private contracted force compared to using U.S. military assets.

“It cannot be cheaper,” he said. “This idea that it is somehow cheaper is ridiculous. Any force is going to have the same [support and logistical] requirements.”

Contracted forces would also not have the same legal protections under international law, Neumann said.”

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A private air force for Afghanistan?

A private security firm known as Lancaster6 has offered to provide the government of Afghanistan with a “turnkey air wing” with range of aviation assets. A look at the aircraft it offers:A-4 Skyhawk, T-Bird, Aérospatiale Gazelle, AN-26, Lionseye, Super Puma,

A Russian translation of above-mentioned material titled:

A Blackwater founder offers to Afghanistan to create a privet military air force guided via iPhone

McMaster And Mattis Have Twelve Months To Succeed In Afghanistan

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Aug 8, 2017

President Trump has so far rejected the advice of his national security adviser for the next steps in Afghanistan, a war that’s been going on for nearly 16 years. Erik Prince, founder of the security firm previously known as Blackwater, wants to send about 5,000 private military contractors to replace troops helping the Afghan army. Prince, now executive director of Frontier Services Group, joins “CBS This Morning” to discuss the plan that he says would cut the annual cost of the war from an estimated $45 billion to less than $10 billion.

 

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Founder and Former CEO, Blackwater Erik Prince Speaks on Admin Split on What to do in Afghanistan

 

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Scott Humor

Director of Research and Development

author of The enemy of the State

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In case you have forgotten what happened in Ukraine, this book should refresh your memory with the incredibly precise and humorous chronicles: ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSIAN HUMOR: FROM MAIDAN TO TRUMP