On Friday Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince discussed his plans on increasing Private Contractors in Afghanistan in an interview with Mehdi Hasan for Al Jazeera English’s Head to Head. He said although he supports US President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop “endless wars” and withdraw all troops from Afghanistan, it would be a bad idea.
The reason he said this is because if all the US troops from Afghanistan are withdrawn at the same time, it would increase the influx of hostile activity in the Controlled area of Afghanistan.
Price Said, ” if we, if the United States leaves Afghanistan, withdraws any of the troops support or monetary support, you will have a moment like Saigon in 1975 with helicopters having to lift people off the roof of the US Embassy. It will be that bad.”
And to counter this problem he proposed a solution in which he would like to employ 2,000 US special operators and 6,000 contractors and replace 50,000 NATO troops and private contractors currently stationed in Afghanistan. This would help slowly withdraw the US troops and give a breathing time for Afghanistan to settle things down while also cutting the war spending by 30 billion dollars a year.
Prince said: “I do want to end the war by giving the Afghan forces the means to survive and to be much more offence. If you provide mentors and you provide air supports, and logistic support to those units, they can actually get out and get after the enemy.”
This is theory would work because as we have seen this previously when in 2013 Former President Barack Obama announced that he would be withdrawing 34,000 troops from Afghanistan.
After the announcement was made there suddenly increase in hostile activity in Controlled Areas. So if there are sufficient personnel in Afghanistan to counter the troops being withdrawn then it would help maintain the stability in the area.
But many people see this as Prince using this situation to his advantage as it would be to his merit if the US troops are withdrawn replace with his Private Contractors.