If there's any justice in this world (a big if), then when the history of the United States's disastrous effort at nation-building in Afghanistan — and its even more disastrous withdrawal thereof — Erik Prince will surely go down as one of the worst villains of our time. As founder and former chairman of the massive private security company Blackwater (now known as "Academi"), Prince is arguably the most powerful, wealthiest mercenary of the modern era. His employees have been responsible for some of the worst wartime atrocities in recent memory, while he personally amassed immeasurable wealth and power from a steady churn of global conflict and instability.
Today, the epicenter of that same conflict and instability is Afghanistan once again, where the vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal has allowed the fundamentalist Taliban to reassume the governing power they lost when America invaded nearly two decades ago. And after having spent years making a fortune by setting the stage for last week's collapse in Afghanistan, Prince has now hit upon a new, even more morally bankrupt scam to squeeze every last cent out of the tragedy
