Let me just start by saying this: If you are like me, and you consider yourself to be a part of the progressive anti-war crowd, seeing the face of Erik Prince on the front page of the New York Times, is almost always bad news. This week was no exception. Prince, the billionaire founder and CEO of infamous mercenary army Blackwater, since renamed, has emerged from a strong field of contenders, as the face of the private soldier. His company, throughout the Iraq War was mired in scandals, culminating with Blackwater’s central role in the Nissour Square Massacre. But after a period of quiet (In which Prince operated from the UAE and solicited business connections with the Chinese), Prince has been back in the news since it was revealed he has been advising the Trump campaign from abroad since the height of last year’s Presidential campaign. This week, the New York Times has reported that Prince and Steven A Feinberg, himself the CEO of mercenary behemoth DynCorp, offered up a bizarre plan for a major change of pace to the US war effort in Afghanistan, to senior officials in the Trump White House and DOD. In fact, Prince himself made his case in the Wall Street Journal, for appointing a Viceroy to Afghanistan, to be supported and backed by an army of only private contractors. Then, earlier this week, Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met with Generals Mattis and McMaster to make the case for mercenary occupation.

Now, for those of us who have followed Erik Prince’s soldiers’ actions across the globe, this proposal would be odious even if it had not been made by an avowed Christian Supremacist. And if somehow this proposal becomes a reality, the consequences will be extraordinary. I think Deborah Avant did a nice job of explaining why Prince and Feinberg see a private army in charge of Afghanistan as appropriate, in the Washington Post on Wednesday. But, let’s leave all of those factors aside for the moment, and just say: if there are going to be US Soldiers on the ground fighting the War on Terror, they should be US Soldiers, not employees of Blackwater, DynCorp, Bechtel, Haliburton, or any private company. Can we agree on that? Let’s.

The reason I’m writing this is not because I want to jump on the pile, in terms of outrage at this proposal. Thankfully, there has been enough to go around. What I don’t understand, rather, is the conclusion of several liberal commentators, that this meeting amounts to proof that the Trump White House will allow for more privatization of the Military, than any administration preceding it. I saw someone say, “Mercenaries have the ear of the White House. The privatization/ monetization/ corporatization of our democracy assumes its most explicit form in this current Trump Administration”. On the whole, I agree with this statement. Clearly with regard to Environmental Policy, with regard to the influence of the very Financial Institutions that caused the recession, or with regard to the Labor Movement, I can’t think of a President who has been more in-bed with just the people and interests, that the Government is designed in order to regulate and police. But to apply that same sentiment to the Pentagon, is both knee-jerk assumptive, and remarkably myopic.

First and foremost, it is necessary to point out the most obvious tell-all about the meeting between the Bannon-Kushner side, and the Generals. Umm, the Generals HATED the idea. According to the NY Times, Mattis expressed his belief that he is not opposed to the use of private contractors in certain situations and at certain times.

“Aides and associates say that while Mr. Mattis believes that Mr. Prince’s concept of relying on private armies in Afghanistan goes too far, he supported using contractors for limited, specific tasks when he was the four-star commander of the Pentagon’s Central Command”

“No one should diminish the role that they play,” Mr. Mattis, then a general, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2012. “It is expensive, but there are places and times where having a contract force works well for us, as opposed to putting uniformed military to do, whether it’s a training mission or a security guard mission.” (NY Times).

This position is particularly striking when one takes into account that at different points in his career, General Mattis has worked in high level positions for contractors such as General Dynamics, which sell weaponized Drones. If Mattis were to consider moving away from traditional Military operators and toward mercenaries, he would be the odds-on favorite to make an even heftier six figure salary as the public face of DynCorp in a few years (Yes, it’s that blatant). He has everything to gain, financially, by siding with Prince and Feinberg, yet he doesn’t appear to be budging. This can only lead one to believe that General Mattis is, and by extension General McMaster, simply a true believer in the United States Military and not allowing for-profit companies to replace traditional soldiers. For a guy who many Iraqi’s refer to as “The Butcher of Fallujah”, this is a reassuring position.

Secondly, let’s take into account the literal location of Erik Prince in recent years. While he may argue otherwise, the general consensus is that negative press coverage was the main reason why Prince changed Blackwater’s name and logo, moved to the UAE, and started soliciting contracts with both friendly and adversarial foreign governments. He has been forced to operate in shadows. Of course, we in the Anti-War Left were upset, but not the least bit surprised when it was revealed that Prince had attempted to set up a Trump-Putin back channel, get this, in Seychelles, this past January.

That being said…it was not always like this. Blackwater came to power during the height of the Iraq war, and as armed opposition to US occupation materialized, Blackwater gained power and influence in lock-step. At one point Erik Prince’s main job was to ensure the safety of the most hated figure of Occupied Iraq, Paul Bremer (yes, at whatever cost necessary). Never before has a private mercenary had such influence in a modern US war effort. And as Prince’s influence grew, so too did his army. In fact, at one point during the Iraq war, private mercenaries outnumbered traditional soldiers, mercenaries that were subject to significantly less rigorous oversight.

Let’s also remember who was in charge of the Military at that point. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, two of the most ardent believers in the dismantling of bureaucracy and replacement with businesses inside the Pentagon. In fact, on the day before 9-11, Rumsfeld delivered a speech about the need to privatize all aspects of the Military, and Declared War on the Pentagon. Not only did the Iraq War reap unprecedented influence and profit for private soldiers themselves, but everything from construction, to surveillance, to drone technology was shifted from public to private authorities, mostly as a result of Cheney and Rumsfeld’s deeply held beliefs in neo-liberal economics tied to neo-conservative foreign policy. For anyone to say that those two beliefs, in concert, are more present in the Trump administration than the Bush administration, would be utterly absurd. Of-course there are neocons high up in the Trump administration. But there are also populists, hucksters, grifters, real estate speculators, woman haters, and ideological dingbats of all colors. During the Iraq War, it’s not just that there were only neocons. It’s that those were the original neocons. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Bremer, Wolfowitz, etc. They invented the idea of privatizing the Military, basically in its entirety.

What I’m saying is this: YOU CAN NOT POSSIBLY THINK that the meeting that occurred at the White House this week shows that the Trump administration is on par with HALF OF OCCUPIED IRAQ under the control of Blackwater and others. If by some massive surprise, the Viceroy plan, or as some have called it, quite tellingly, “The Laos Option” comes to pass, then we can talk.

Until then however, there are only two reasonable explanations as to why smart people would make such a lazy and inaccurate assumption.

The first is knee jerk resistance mongering. As I have already stated, this sentiment absolutely applies, on basically every other issue. But for appointing Bernie Madoff to run the Fed, this administration has pretty much taken the cake as far as corporate influence over the very government agencies designed to reign in corporate influence. And this resistance is appropriate on basically every issue…..EXCEPT THIS ONE. Mattis and McMaster don’t appear to be budging, and the rest of the administration have not in any way demonstrated the level of competency needed to conduct the “Shock Doctrine” as comprehensively and disastrously as the Bush administration. Part of me hopes they are still recovering from having their own bells rung by the MOAB. And that leaves us with just sheer, utter myopia. If Erik Prince actually takes over Afghanistan, Nissour Square incidents would start happening in Afghanistan as well, which would be even worse than Blackwater in 2006 and 2007. But if Erik Prince has Trump and Pence’s ear, he had Bush and Cheney by the collar and didn’t intend to hide it. I get it, I want to resist Trump too, but blatant myopia isn’t going to help us.