So here it is. I blogged about a hint of Erik Prince starting up a campaign to sell his plan for Afghanistan, and this is the start. For this go around, he set up three videos to sell the idea. One of them is in Dari and I will post a few of the videos below. Both of them have detailed some of the same things mentioned last time Erik rolled out his plan.
Of course for that last roll out, the Prince Plan was squashed because President Trump was surrounded by military folks. Specifically, Prince mentioned exactly who shot down the plan last time in this Independent interview.
Speaking of its strongest critic, the then national security advisor, Mr Prince said: “McMaster was a three star [general] who wanted to be a four star, and simply would not accept anything like this which was not conventional.
“I heard President Trump read about my plans in the Oval Office and told McMaster that he preferred it to his plans, so perhaps I got off on the wrong foot with McMaster.
“But McMaster was at the time proposing sending 70,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, so obviously he would not have liked what I was suggesting.”
I also found a piece that Erik wrote today over at Real Clear Politics. What I thought was unique was the mention of President Trump’s Wollman Ice Rink deal. If folks remember, that is where the President when he was a private citizen, took over a project that was taking way too long and cost way too much money in New York. In this example, Prince was appealing to that part of President Trump’s thought process about accomplishing tasks that government fails at.
This is a Wollman Ice Rink moment for the president, who rightly campaigned on a pledge to end America’s endless wars—especially its longest in history. An approach like this is the only way he can do so responsibly, legally and cost-effectively, while saving the lives of America’s service personnel and hundreds of billions of dollars.
I challenge the inevitable naysayers to offer a better solution.
This is a fascinating aspect of this whole deal. To sell a concept like this to a President whom has surrounded himself with the top military leaders of the country. Although it is not a new thing in the course of US history. I have been reading the book The Flying Tigers by Daniel Ford and it is fantastic. In that book, Ford details the effort of selling the idea of a private air force in China to President Roosevelt. Of course there was risk in that as well, but the President accepted that risk and gave the wink to the operation. The Flying Tigers were immensely successful and the rest is history. But that venture still needed the ‘ok’ by the President and Erik Prince is definitely writing this stuff to appeal to the Commander in Chief.
I would also say there is new leadership surrounding President Trump, that might be a little more receptive to what Erik is talking about. Which is probably why Erik is putting all of this together in the first place. We will see how it all goes and I am sure we will see more in the news about it. Especially as the Taliban continue to take more territory in Afghanistan and the strategy there gains more scrutiny. –Matt