Reflexive Fire is due out sooner rather than later. As many of you know my novel is about former US Special Forces soldiers setting up a mercenary army in Kazakhstan, using so-called Third Country Nationals (TCNs) as infantry troops. These mercenaries are than deployed with their American, British, French, and South African advisers to fight dirty little wars around the globe.
A fanciful work of fiction?
NY Times: Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder
We all know that Blackwater founder Erik Prince fled to the UAE to avoid the increasing legal trouble he was in, not to mention scrutiny from the media. Today, the NY Times is reporting that Prince has been hired by the UAE to set up a commando force consisting of Colombian and other foreign troops at a secret training center out in the desert. The foreign veterans of South American conflicts were apparently recruited through Thor Global Enterprises, an offshore outfit based on the island of Tortola.
The article also states that Prince feels that Muslims can’t be relied on to kill Muslims, hence the use of TCNs. That statement is so shallowly superficial that I wonder if this quote can really be attributed to him. Like him or hate him, I don’t think Prince is an idiot and a statement like this shows a profound misunderstanding of the region.
Apparently, Thor’s quality control blows because they mostly sent a bunch of kids to the UAE, some of whom had never fired a gun before. The trainers were so disappointed that they than realized that they would have to change roles from mere advisers to being combat leadership, de facto Green Berets. Between this and the drug use among the recruits, the article states that a shock unit was put together to compensate, consisting of South Africans, some allegedly being former Executive Outcomes men, the mercenaries who fought against the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone back in the 90’s.
This is also where the reporting gets sloppy, based on my research, and may call into question some of the other allegations made.
“To bolster the force, R2 recruited a platoon of South African mercenaries, including some veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African company notorious for staging coup attempts or suppressing rebellions against African strongmen in the 1990s.”
EO fought for the democratically elected government of Angola and against the RUF butchers so I would like to see the reporter elaborate on this claim. What coup did EO participate in? News to me.
I think, that to keep all this on context, we have to also remember that very few Private Military Companies (PMCs) are actually private. Most operate with the approval of the State Department and Central Intelligence. We should also keep in mind that the New York Times has been a useful tool to certain elements on the intelligence community stretching back to the Vietnam War. I’m not saying we need to get our tin foil hats on, but please take these statement into your analysis.
Overall, even I am shocked at how similar this operation is to the one I first wrote about in my novel almost a year ago. How was I able to extrapolate the future use of TCNs and the off shoring of mercenary operations in this manner? Simple. Its what I would have done.
*Update 1
I’ve been browsing through it for some tidbits.
Basic duties and responsibilities.
The formation of a Light Infantry Battalion
Special Teams and attachments
The fact that the UAE wants to bring in foreign troops is telling. The contract calls for the creation of a Light Infantry Battalion with all the necessary attachments for fighting a modern counter insurgency, including intelligence assets and enablers for Direct Action (DA) operations. It could be that the UAE is bracing themselves for the “Arab Spring” that has been tearing across the Middle East since Tunisia fell apart.
Reflexive Fire 