At the Maverick PAC’s annual conference Friday night, Blackwater founder and former CEO Erik Prince said it was “a shame the [Obama] administration crushed my old business,” which could have easily defeated the Islamic State, The Daily Beast reports.

Blackwater, Prince said, “could’ve solved the boots-on-the-ground issue. We could have had contracts from people that want to get there as contractors. You don’t have the arguments of U.S. active duty going back in there.”

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His mercenaries “could have gone in there and done it, and be done, and not have a long, protracted political mess that I predict will ensue.”

Prince sold the company, which has since changed its name to Academi, after the incoming Obama administration severed the U.S. government’s ties with it.

He encouraged conference attendees to pressure their Republican representatives to fight for conservative values. “I want you to tell your congressman that we pay them to fight,” Prince said.

“They are hired to fight for our values, for what you sent them there to do. I am sick and tired of Republicans getting rolled — having a lousy, weak leadership that gets rolled every time by the Democratic Party. We’re like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football every time and they keep taking it away.”

“I encourage the Republican Party to get off their ass and fight like we pay them to,” he continued.

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The Maverick political action committee is a conservative group with deep ties both to the Bush administration and Texas politics, and also featured speeches and panels with the likes of GOP chair Reince Priebus and a “video townhall” with Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz (R-TX).