Author Topic: Private military airforce.  (Read 6150 times)

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Offline Askold

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Private military airforce.
« on: April 12, 2016, 06:38:11 am »
Can you guess what would be even worse than the private militaries that are gaining power all over the world? If they also had an airforce.

Can you guess what would be even worse than private airforce? If Erik "Blackwater" Prince built himself a private airforce. Which he is doing.

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/11/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-drive-to-build-private-air-force/

The article is very extensive and explains how he built a new company to replace Blackwater, after he lost it partially due to all the horrible things he and the company did, and how the company also created different front companies so that it could turn civilian planes into ground attack planes.

Quote
The company also installed pods for mounting two high-powered 23 mm machine guns. By this point, the engineers and mechanics were concerned that they had broken several Austrian laws but were advised that everything would be fine as long as they all kept the secret.

When your boss tells you that it's ok to break the law "as long as no one finds out" it is time to call the police immediately.

Prince bought 25% of the Austrian company which he had hired to modify the planes owned by his other company. This way it was easier to keep his doings a secret from outsiders AS WELL AS from people the PMC who might not have approved of this kind of deals. (Also, since much of the stuff he was doing was either illegal or at least against the agreements he had done with USA using front companies would allow him to claim that his PMC didn't break the deals since it was the other companies that were doing the shadier stuff.)

I'm just amazed that the real world seems to insist on becoming a cyberpunk dystopia...
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
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Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2016, 09:12:37 am »
Ya know, we keep going after ISIS and the like, why the hell is this guy still alive?  Shouldn't building a fucking air force, in secret, with no knowledge of his host government be some serious kind of international crime?
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Offline Dakota Bob

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2016, 09:43:18 am »
Metal Gear Solid 5 predicted this.

BRAVO KOJIMA

Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2016, 09:52:58 am »
Metal Gear Solid 5 predicted this.

BRAVO KOJIMA

Standing

Offline Askold

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2016, 10:07:15 am »
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Katsuro

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2016, 02:43:23 pm »
Fucking hell, when you've become more of a Bond villain than Putin it's time to really fucking look at yourself.

Offline TheContrarian

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2016, 02:49:25 pm »
Nothing new, PMCs have had their own air support before.

These chaps, for a start


"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."

Offline Katsuro

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2016, 03:21:51 pm »
Oh well then that makes it ok then I guess.

And did you miss or just ignore the part where they were breaking the law and gave their employees the old "its only illegal if you get caught" line?
« Last Edit: April 12, 2016, 03:28:51 pm by Katsuro »

Offline TheContrarian

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2016, 04:31:57 pm »
No, but there is more to life than flipping out and making spasticated value judgements about every minute detail.

I'll leave that sort of thing to you...


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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2016, 04:34:40 pm »
Nothing new, PMCs have had their own air support before.

These chaps, for a start
Yeah, but never any direct attack aircraft.

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2016, 01:00:47 am »
Conty on the law and breaking it.

...minute detail...

Offline Askold

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2016, 01:18:17 am »
Ahem:
Quote
It was already apparent to most of the staff working on the plane that the modifications, requested by a company they knew only as Frontier, were deeply problematic. “It was clear they didn’t care about certification,” the former Airborne employee said, describing the attitude of Prince’s team. “If you make a modification to an aircraft and you do not certify it, then the operation of the aircraft is completely illegal. In Europe, it is very illegal. You are breaking a lot of laws.” He recalled one of Prince’s deputies saying that the aircraft would be used for surveillance operations in Africa and “no one there cares about certifications.” The former employee said he and other personnel working on the Thrush project were told that certification and licensing were the aircraft owner’s problem. The message was: “We do not have a risk as long as everyone keeps quiet.”
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Svata

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2016, 01:45:20 am »
Nothing new, PMCs have had their own air support before.

These chaps, for a start

Well, I guess re-performing the holocaust would be ok. After all, its been done before.
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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2016, 10:14:08 am »
Ya know, we keep going after ISIS and the like, why the hell is this guy still alive?  Shouldn't building a fucking air force, in secret, with no knowledge of his host government be some serious kind of international crime?

At the risk of saying the obvious, I imagine being white, male, and rich helps.

Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Private military airforce.
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2016, 11:29:20 am »
I wish that didn't matter.  At least with enemies, you know where their allegiances lie.  With sellswords...
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Life for the sake of life means nothing.