Blackwater: Portrait of an American PMC
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- Explore the complex history of Blackwater, America’s controversial PMC, from its dark past to its current role as Constellis Holdings. Uncover the evolution of this influential organization on Warographics.
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Blackwater vs Wagner would make a AAA boxoffice game
Wagner recruits prisoners and civilians,Blackwater only reaches out to those that have notable marks in actual military service history,most of the nerve in Iraq were veterans of the Gulf War 10 years prior or Afghanistan vets. They don’t consider anyone else,Wagner will sign anyone that walks in the door.
You want Squad, and its Global Escalation mod...
Check it out.
It's Shadow Company and Konni Group
Blackwater already has a videogame... And is a complete rail shooter.
@@oldworldpatriot8920Kind of-Wagner has (what has become a relatively small) portion of professionally-trained soldiers who performed better than the Russian regular army. Since the pay, training and equipment was higher-quality in Wagner, that’s where a lot of Russian soldiers chose to go. Then under them are the regular Russian army, and under them, the sea of disposable fighters Wagner pulled out of prisons and blessed with a 40% survival rate
Only Dutch knows what really happened in blackwater
Brilliant.
Hahaha best game 6 years later
We need the money
mangos
HAVE SOME GOD DAMN FAITTHHHHHH
“Ok AI do you know what a gun looks like?”
“Yes of course”
(Generates a painted nerf gun with random pipes on it)
Take a look at the box art for the 80s movie Platoon Leader if you want a real laugh at a gun...
I wish Simon would stop it. Makes every video worse...
The AI "Art" is the only thing I hate around here. It looks bloody awful.
It's not even a nerf gun, it's a Sawzall
As a non-american those guns look real enough to me lol.
They were named after the black water surrounding their first swamp-base? That's some straight up Metal Gear Solid stuff damn
one of those fact and fiction blending together moments
MGS was entirely inspired by pmc’s like blackwater as a franchise/story. Nothing surprising there.
Whether its inspired by the dark swamp water around their base or whatever, naming your organization after literal shit water has always made me wonder what they were thinking.
@ChrisAnilao Prince was a seal, so he'd be in the swamp water a lot, get a life
@@johngillespie3409zip up his pants when your done. he don’t know you exist lil bro
Anyone calling New Orleans "laid back and safe" have clearly never really visited or lived there. Yes, there are plenty of cool tourist traps there, but wander off the path, and you'll see what the city is really like.
100% correct. Tourists need to stay in tourist areas.
It’s relative. I’m sure to a place like Honduras, or Afghanistan nothing about New Orleans is remotely dangerous
I was thinking the same thing. Simon has obviously never been to New Orleans. The real New Orleans anyway.
Houston got all the refugees from New Orleans and Texas hasn't been the same since. Reverse immigration, yay!
@@slartybarfastb3648bro just made the OPs point.
When I join The Navy as a Master At Arms back in 2005, it was this PMC that trained us in Law Enforcement defense techniques and Fire Arms. Crazy looking back now.
The USG has outsourced just about every aspect of empire from the public sector to the private sector. Eventually you won't be able to tell the difference, and that's when we're all fucked.
@geordiejones5618 "empire" lol next you'll be saying an old man riding a bicycle down the road rules all roads lol.
@@geordiejones5618it’s not “out sourcing”, but I get what you mean….
ima say with that grammar it didn't happen boss stop lying on the internet
@thedayzgod IMA say with that grammar? LMAO WoW, your such a genius
The only Blackwater on my mind is the town where Dutch kept all the money….
w'at happ'n'd on dat dere boat
THe Pinkertons still exist. What happened to Merryweather?
@@ronald3836 Taketwo Rockstar's owner actually sent the Pinkertons to find GTA modders.
I have a plan
*T A H I T I*
Dude, Simon, your editors seriously need to stop with the AI generated images and the blatant typos that could be fixed with simple revision. You're a highly successful multi-channel youtuber, this is getting worse week by week.
Simon is actually just a private contractor 😉
Make no mistake: This the entire Simonverse is shallow as hell. A mile wide but only an inch deep. They've published episodes on matters I'm deeply familiar with and they were shock full of errors. So, by induction, I expect them to be as bad with matters I'm less familiar with.
This is mass media "infotainment". Nothing more. Expect exactly the same quality of journalism as you do of other tabloid media. Quote nothing, from here, before thoroughly looking into it yourself.
@@andersjjensen Do you have any examples?
@@zackanderson7440 off the top of my head, doing things like showing the f14 when talking about the f16. the f16 has nothing in common with it. alternatively, showing the f22 when talking about the f35. but alas, no one should be watching these videos as their primary source of information. Its entertainment.
@@zackanderson7440 Also, as the most egregious and relevant example, having that terrible AI art on the thumbnail is incredibly misleading. First of all, those guns dont even exist. Secondly, whatever theyre showing is most certainly not a Blackwater PMC. They arent even using Western gear. Their helmets highly resemble the russian infantry Ratnik helmet, which Wagner doesnt even wear. Theyre garbage. Theres not even any mounts for nods. The AI literally couldnt be bothered. No PMC is going to be out there with iron sights on their rifles and a ceramic bowl for a helmet. Not to mention, on those guns, the upper receiver looks like it belongs on a bullpup. The lower looks like a fucking ak12. Blackwater doesnt use the Ak12!
Trained at the Blackwater facility in 2009 in basic LE sniping (I’m a veteran and full time police officer). Fantastic experience; great instructors; one former Canadian Special Forces sniper, one former Phoenix PD sniper, and a US Army special forces sniper. Ranges were well designed and run and the curriculum for a 5 day course was excellent. By the end we were hitting targets out to 1000 yards.
The government over reached and did black water dirty. Half the shit they got blamed for was started by us troops.
Don't think there was a whole lot of concern when it came to training so much as how the company had little oversight. Never-the-less, thank you for your service.
Did you notice how when he went over the land they bought, that he made a geographical error because it’s close but that’s not actually where they’re located. Further south and actually in North Carolina
I was pleased with my contract, my training, my pay. Much better than when the Eagle shit.
@@KingsAirsoftGroup424Correct. 3.6 from my AO. Several mates stayed here in NC.
Blackwater once called my dad back in 2005ish. He is a Marine and a civilian paramedic (now retired). They offered him a contract in the Middle East as a combat medic, and even had his gear size ready for order, including his gloves. He declined because he has a family. I'm glad he did
The AI generated thumbnail and the typo looks so funny bro.
EDIT: Some of y'all are taking me pointing it out way too seriously lol. I just thought it looked silly.
It really is a bit off-putting considering their fairly high quality content.
Yeah it’s really a mess including spelling happened wrong lol
@@GuloYoloAI generative content will be the new norm. Watch for the "Real Human" tag in titles in the near future.
Someone else watches upper echelon@@AlexanderTheGoodEnough
I really despise AI thumbnails, like do better lmao
This how you know we love simon🤣 we all point out his add shucking, bad thumbnails & poor audio quality but still come every video
I certainly came.
@@JoelFazio( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The Japanese have a word for Mercenaries. No not ninja, Ronin
@luislongoria6621 The meaning of 'ronin' is closer to "vagrant" or "bandit"
1:50 - Chapter 1 - Building blackwater
6:20 - Chapter 2 - Hell in iraq
14:15 - Chapter 3 - A darkening reputation
24:50 - Chapter 4 - A modern american PMC
thx for this part
At this rate, you're just their official chapters guy.
no ufo stuff? its Sunday and I want a good laugh....im clearly wrong here
I actually did a driving course on their track while I was with Force Recon.
I worked for Eric Prince’s die casting company for some years . When he sold the company he took the profit and doubled everyone’s 401k. Not a bad guy in my book.
That's a good man right there 👏
yeah he still owes us that worked in the war zones alot of money hundreds of us he is a polesmoker
Horrible people can do kind or generous things occasionally, Saddam Hussain did.. Putin has.. Mao did, still doesn't mean they're not horrible people. Doing something nice for some people does not erase their past behavior
Hey. You can't stay a warlord long without keeping one's own goons and the media machine happy.
He's a pos. He wants to re-colonize Africa.
BlackWater is now Academi. I worked a few contracts for them. Please Understand that 99.9% of contracts are just static security. Standing in place holding a weapon. Doing absolutely nothing. For months on end…
Same but with Triple Canopy. Did two gigs with them, one in Afghanistan and one in Israel. Everyone thought I was out hookin and jabbin, and when I tried to tell them I was just static security and wasn't doing what Blackwater used to do, they always replied "Ohhhh I get it. It's all hush hush so you HAVE to tell us you were just static security 😉😉😉." And I'd say nope, I'm saying I was either in a tower, at an ECP, or doing a roving patrol. Not flashy, not exciting, nothing to write home about.
They are proably paid as much as a 4 star genreral too
I don't know where that thumbnail came from, but those are not Blackwater PMCs.
They also spelt "happened" wrong
It's AI generated
immediately saw the rifles and thought oh yea a computer made that ..
@@john-th5yj Based on the armor style, I think the AI was actually working off of pics of Wagner.
Sigh. We will never see a war of Blackwater vs. Wagner, may the best PMC win....
@@john-th5yj I was wondering what kind of rifles those were. Now I know.
I think it's important too keep in mind that at this time regular soldiers were under orders that if ANY vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint they were to open fire until the vehicle stops moving
By the END of my deployment in 2005 that order was changed to verbal warning, warning shot, then shoot to kill.
So any claims that blackwater members "opened fire" on vehicles failing to stop I always assume they were following orders from all the way up
Honestly, for that, I’d say they were following orders. And the other corruption over money, somebody in the military was helping them over bill. The military will always make sure they aren’t considered part of it. Even Russia did it with Wagner. But I also have family that were in the military for decades so I know the military isn’t as innocent as they claim.
@@elizabetherne556The military follows the chain of command. They do what they are told. Elected politicians are the people who call the shots. Democrats and Republicans are directly responsible for the things that people criticize the military for.
I wouldn't put much effort into explaining this kind of things to people with no operational background, I've tried many times and most of the time it was just wasted effort. Ignorant people automatically think that when shots were fired, it was the first event in the sequence, they don't understand that there are stages to things where you start 'low' and escalate until compliance is achieved, one way or the other.
Let's not forget those people drive like there's no traffic laws and they have to rush home to shit🙄
If you're talking about nisour square that's just not relevant? It wasn't a checkpoint. It was a convoy halting traffic. It definitely didn't meet ROE. Additionally, what about the other 20 people that were wounded and 14 that were killed? These people don't meet ROE even with your stipulation. This is so cut and dry bruv. It gets even worse from them not following direction from hireups that we have the transcripts of. So no it did not come from all the way up. Are you even tangentially familiar with the incident?
Why the AI thumbnail? Couldn't you just use a pic of Blackwater Personel on Google with a filter and some words slapped on top of it?
Depends how likely either Blackwater or whatever they call themselves now are to complain or YT to be dicks. They probably went with horrific AI to avoid any issues.
@WhiteIkiryo-yt2it Yeah. That could be a reason, but I am not too sure. Plenty of Blackwater critics have written books and done commentary videos using pics of contractors without issue. Even then, any random, stock picture of nondescript soldiers would do fine in getting the point across.
Pictures of blackwater PMCs look too cool. They wanted them to look ominous and evil.
Why not use a tool to make work easier.... Wise man once told me "Work smart not hard"!
I was in Iraq doing the whole frontline infantry, counter insurgency/hearts & minds thing and Blackwater's antics were ALWAYS a pain in the ass for us. Triple Canopy on the other hand were always super professional and you never had to tell them twice to fuck off or get out of your way. The merging of those two companies was a very good thing for all parties.
One of my coworkers was a former Ranger who worked for triple canopy; absolute professional.
Went from grunt to working for TC, good training and good work to be had (though the government sucks right now obviously).
Worked for Aegis, TC, and Academi. DOD psd was legit aegis was fun and first to admit BW had alot of antics that hurt all contractors in the early years, was non combat admin guys being dumb.
Travis Haley is a solid dude. He wasn’t killing anyone that didn’t need to be killed in the first place. He was well within ROE on that engagement.
Back in the late 2000's I got a job rebuilding AS 330 helicopters for Black Water. They poured millions on their airtransport division. They even had two Super Tucanos.
😮
They wanted to be part of the first boots on the ground. The longer they are there, the more money they stand to make. Heavy air transport spending makes sense
They had all the good gear. Not sure I agree with half of this.
@@captainspaulding5963it actually had to do with “big picture” spending… Super Tucanos are cheaper to operate/maintain/use than traditional U.S. aircraft, and providing a program that could train/equip Iraqi forces cheaper than other manufacturers would be a major money maker for EP
Erick Prince Proposed forming a joint Afghan PMC airforce using those they could have tripled the amount of available close air support and it would have had substantially cheaper operational costs
"Nobody Important died in our care", Erick Prince
What does he mean?
@@PieInSkyGuy Sounds like a cold heartless CEO cutting cost by not hiring enough men for the job to boost the bottom line.
Yeah, there is what Prince may have said and what Prince actually meant. He meant that no one he was contracted to protect lost their lives. Not only that, Blackwater contractors saved many many lives of American servicemen… both directly and indirectly by making it unnecessary to deploy troops in their place.
He’s not wrong lol
@T1kr3b3u lol
I heard they rebranded to Usec and are fighting a Russian pmc in Tarkov
Blackwater had a perfect record. They didn't lose a single asset. They lost some men but they never lost a person under their protection.
We definitely made contact. We occasionally were able to redirect air power. Fantastic force multiplier. Particularly when you're scared shit less.
During Iraq in 2004-05 we ALL felt above the law. We had 100% immunity from local prosecution. We didn’t feel like we were above the law, we were above the law, right or wrong
Now that’s a hell of a insurance policy
@@Mvpliberty Brother that power we had over the Iraqi citizens was absolute, sometimes I’m not gonna lie I felt a little like the Nazi’s must have felt occupying countries in Europe. Full disclosure, the power was intoxicating at times. You had to check yourself because no one else was going to.
@@sgt_loeram1933yeah so basically you comitted atrocities or know people who have and none of you paid for it. What a hero you are 👍
@@Dazzlefisher Call it whatever you want I’m just being honest with everyone and mainly myself. That was nearly 20 years ago now have demons I have to live with for the rest of my life. You call our actions atrocities? Nah I wouldn’t say our actions arose to the level of “War Crimes”. It was a different time for everyone, us as well as the Iraqis were just trying to make it home at the end of the day.
Anyone who was put in the situation we were after 9/11 just wanted revenge, we all lost quite a bit of our humanity. Especially since this part doesn’t get enough press, but we were forced into Iraq for over a year at a time. Brother I was a sales rep for Milgard Windows 5 months prior to that, imagine suddenly your in Iraq being shot at and IED’s going off daily! Obviously I was a reservist who got snatched up and put on the front lines, I’m not bitter, I knew what I signed up for.
@@Dazzlefisher Those people were animals not even equivalent to squashing a bug who cares
Spent more time than I should have trying to figure out what guns were being held in the thumbnail lol
They are weird looking did you figure it out?
@@isaiahwill7874 They're weird looking because AI can't figure guns out yet
Or hands
@@TheTomconroy Most AI's can do hands now.
A fused together mutation of AR-10 (vietnam era with carry handle), H&K G3 and AK-74 with PSO-1 like optics.
You misspelled happened in the thumbnail.
😅
Honestly, who cares? Apparently you're the only one.
@@frenzalrhomb6919 It doesn't really matter all that much but it's still good to post about so they can fix it if they want to
"What happned to BLACKWATER"... Apparently AI designed their rifles.
@Wolf-gt7mb you don't even have a thumbnail, let alone a channel....bwahahaha
I remember when Erik Prince was on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine and in the article said he was a CIA Asset, which I personally think that he shouldn't have said that. It seemed like he mentioned that because he wanted to look like James Bond.
It's like what they used to say.. An actual bad ass doesn't go around telling people they are bad ass.
Well I don't think he was doing it to be bad ass I think it was all about money.
Erik Prince also gotten contracts from the chinese government in order to "monitor" he Uighurs. I gotta say that dude is one of the most evil people out there. No wonder why Betsy is his sister.
Though full of faults the dude is a bad ass but must be suffering from severe imposter syndrome
@@Notrog21Their first acknowledged mission was to protect CIA bases in Afghanistan before the US military had even invaded yet.
The CIA doesn't give that level of trust and responsibility to anyone who is not a "CIA asset". There's no secret here, so why wouldn't he admit what is already blatantly obvious?
Not only those men mentioned at 12:25 were threatened with immediate contract termination, meaning "get back home on your own", the convoy they were made to drive was going to get forks and spoons. Blackwater got their men killed over forks.
I lived in Nola during and after Katrina, it was surreal to see the military and PMC’s patrolling.
The classic small company where they can pick the best staff changing into a company chasing money and taking on staff without the checks on their suitability in order to have enough staff to win contracts.
a k a shadow company 😂
watch erik princes interviews on shawn ryans show
you'll be amazed by how much you don't know.
if you do i'm thinking you'll consider prince a liar on everything he says, so just research as you watch. the dude was a valuable asset to this country and a direct threat to military budgets because he was so effective for the price.
he along with the cia staged operation anaconda which was the most successful military operation since desert storm. it was also the cheapest. op anaconda used northern alliance, which was a local force we've since abandoned (there's a pattern here), and just 200 operators. and the war was won in 3 months
that pissed off the pentagon, hence why afghanistan turned into a 20 year war
you understand what this means, right? under blackwater leadership, afghanistan would have been stable and we would have been gone by 2006 if there were left alone.
but the military industrial complex wants their nut
@oogafoo there still mad Desert Storm lasted 3 days
It's about the money not quality men, like everyone else in Iraq. They could've hired good highly trained dudes, but hey they cost too much....
Glad I'm not the only one that noticed the thumbnail
blackwater maybe the most infamous but there are plenty of other pmc's that have got themselves involved in more outlandish capers. it's a fun history hole to explore. blackwater may have been the single pmc that was getting large US military contracts but the way the US was running the wars in the middle east the US military was eventually going to contract out to someone. Rumsfeld emphasized fast results with the least amount of personnel used for almost everything. But most US miltary organizations have too much autonomy and careful work up procedures (which any military organization pursuing sustained success should have) to be ideally reactive to rumsfeld's meddling. so blackwater is what you get. Blackwater probably did nothing outside of the approval of their paymasters but they employed a pmc specifically for fast, dirty, results and plausible deniability. persecution of blackwater is playing right into the hands of the people who set up these catastrophes. in the end pmc's run a shell game, they exist mainly to be able to absorb blame for the decisions of people who have precious political careers. a pmc with a good track record is a pmc that hasnt had much business yet. pmc's do what militaries won't. the US government shouldnt even be allowed to contract out to pmc's, it should be codified that the US military doesnt allow private contractors, in roles beyond logistics and construction, in militarily contested spaces. pmc use probably always denotes bad acts.
One use of mercenaries is to disguise casualties. The home front reacts less to dead mercs than army regulars who could be their kids.
Blackwater was never supposed to do what they ended up doing the problem was the people the military had doing the job couldn't handle it ambassador Bremer was being protected by some national guard MP unit and they just didn't have the experience. back then blackwater was composed of SEALS, SAS, SASR, PJs, MARSOC, CAG, ARMY SF, and Army Rangers that had been fighting the dirty wars throughout the 90s and early GWOT the military couldn't spare special forces for those jobs but blackwater was able to get the retired ones because they wanted a more flexible schedule and better pay. They had the experienced people and they weren't bogged down by bureaucracy so they were more adaptable.
@@CenlaSelfDefenseConcepts One perk of mercenaries is that you don't need to bother with long-term costs like VA bills. The public gets less upset when a contractor dies.
I'm interested in the opposite end in general. The low-cost end of mercenary options.
I got to experience blackwaters compound in the peak. I still have a few of the shirts they gave us with the logo on the back.
That’s dope
If you ever plan on visiting Ukraine you might want to leave those shirts behind lol.
I have a few of those shirts and a hoodie one also.
Just gonna day, New Orleans is far from a relaxed city and their 9th Ward neighborhood is widely considered one of the most dangerous in the USA. Tourists visiting the French Quarter and Downtown will experience pretty relaxed vibes, but you go outside of those neighborhoods you need to pay attention to your surroundings.
Myself and a buddy in 2008 were driving on a hwy. in Metarie. We passed a place we wanted to eat at and went around the block to get back to it. Once we were one block away from the highway, it looked like Beirut!! It looked like Katrina happened last week!!
I'm well heeled when I visit mates in NO. Seriously shite pd. Over run with crime.
That compound is crazy huge. For reference, it is about 27 and a half square miles. You just see this fence that goes on forever. It reminded me of driving in the areas that surround what is now Ft Liberty
New Orleans being relaxed and easy going is hilarious. It’s one of the many major cities with a high murder rate around the time.
New Orleans is one of the more dangerous places I have ever lived. I saw people get stabbed for next to nothing, dead kids on the sidewalks, and political corruption of the highest degree. It's a long story, but , there is also a black market for fresh human bodies...
@@SATAANTHA "long story"= voodoo.... pretty short
That and organ harvesting. I resurrected in the "receiving" part of the "processing center" and I didn't see occultists,I saw gangsters...
@@SATAANTHA BS. I call BS Back to Leningrad, Vlad.
@HandyMan657 I could care less what you believe...
I have nothing to gain other than humiliation and perhaps shame for sharing this besides awareness. Yes I intentionally left out some sordid details I wouldn't generally want EVERYONE to know. Like how how the whole thing was my fault because I was pretty addicted to drugs eight or so years ago when this occurred and I was working LARF (Louisiana area renaissance festival) right outside of Hammond Louisiana. After the ren fair closed on Sunday a group of us went to Nola and my goal at least was to find some heroin. Only problem was that I didn't know anybody to get it from. So I resorted to getting it from strangers. I found someone who said they would if we walked to their house which wasn't too far from the French quarter. I said hell yea let's go. When we arrived, we made a transaction and as I was suggesting that I should leave, it was strongly implied that do some of my drugs in their presence to "prove I wasn't a cop"(which is utterly ridiculous)
Anyways I did the smallest little bit(I was very aware of the potential phentanyl contamination
In the heroin supply) and I didn't want to get fucked up there, I still had to walk back to quarter and find my friends, return to LARF campground ect. I then seemingly exploded back to life from a recliner to standing position and realize that I am Completely naked and have no clue when or where I happened to be. There is a very gangster individual who appears to be in a some type state of shock pointing his finger at me with his mouth wide open. I verbally expressed my outrage and was told that I dead and blue for six hours and how my standing there was "impossible" and that I needed to just leave. I responded "where in the fuxx are my clothes?" He handed me a garbage bag which contained my clothes ,shoes and my now empty wallet(minus $50 and the bag of who knows what)my phone wasn't there and I didn't ask for it back....
I am tired of looking at my phone so believe whatever you want to.
My step father was on seal team 2. Then he worked for blackwater for about 3 years. He doesn't like to bring that up now though. As you would assume.
Is he financially good from the three your tender? Did he developed mental issues he struggles with because of the time there?
I was the care taker of the 2002 or 2003 chevy suburban and 95+ later model armored chevy and 4 dr Mercedes. i was with a army detachment that provided PSD for Bremmer Kennedy Huron Cochran and the other ambassadors before Blackwater replaced us. i would see Bremmer on CNN and other news networks. i remember Bremmer complaining about riding in Blackhawks. our unit was filled with hardworking blue collar Ohioan's. the year we were there had 0 issues during that time. we did there work with out armor. we used what we had to get the mission complete. when Bremmer was there in Iraq US Army agent were providing his PSD . he requested helicopters like the hugh 500. he stayed mainly in the middle part of the presidential palace(green zone).
This channel has explained so many things clearly and extensively that are significantly hazy and often completely obfuscated to the average American.
Thank you and the team so very much for this amazing (AND FREE) content!
Please, there are open source images for this one.
For real…
I remember being in September 2007 when that happened. We were on the Iraq - Syria border. we locked down everything and waited for Retaliation attacks. Personally never worked with Blackwater but did work around British PMC they were very professional
I didn't know the UK had PMC's what were they called?
Sorry, I don't remember it was back in 2007.
Aegis probably was my team we came out to their around the time alot.
Should cover the French foreign Legion with this kind of in depth coverage. It's actually an interesting story to go into.
There's other channels that have great coverage of them. I watched a few.
"What you see here is advanced warfare." "We've just privatized world peace."
I had the pleasure of training at BW/XE twice. It was the best training I’ve ever received. Top notch people.
The hands in the thumbnail made me laugh enough to get me to click the video
As a native of North Carolina, I find this to be a very fun fact that blackwater started here in my home state. And it was also funny healing Simon pronounced the name of our state capital, I've never heard that sort of pronunciation before.
Also fantastic video super cool
Well Simon is known throughout RUclips for his mispronounciation of various words.
It's even more sad because it's named after Sir Walter Raleigh... you'd think Simon would know how to pronounce his name, instead he sounds like a yankee.
@@mr.z3664 Even a yankee wouldn't mess it up that bad
Delta Force is stationed here too in Bragg
Seal team 6 in san diego
I was first made aware of BlackWater in 2001. I was introduced to a couple employees that spent the weekend with us. I was given one of their fold out brochures and started paying attention to the company.
Correction on the Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq: there were some chemical and biochemical shells left over from the 1980's but most appeared not usable, or parts separated in different rooms (intentionally or unintentionally). This was hazardous to the troops that were handling disposal of these expiring shells. And I believe some got sick from them.
People always say "there were no WMDs." There tech ically were, but we were expecting/assuming that Saddam had an arsenal of more modern shells. Iraq was mostly our ally. And they kept Iran in check. Without Saddam Iran has grown in power. *Most people of Iraq have benefited from being a democracy, and the US Treasury is working with the Iraqi treasury to weed out corruption. They recommend Iraqis move away from the US dollar because terrorist and corrupt folk are using it in other countries due to its ready acceptance and buying power, at least until corruption levels are negligible.
Thank you for pointing that fact out that everyone just breezes by
Somehow people compare Prigozhin to Big Boss, but rarely compare Erik Prince, the guy with actual military experience and probably inspired MGS4, to Big Boss
The character of Big Boss was created in 1987 and most of his lore was established prior to public awareness of Blackwater. However, they most likely inspired the underlying plot of Metal Gear Solid 4 where proxy wars fought my PMC's are the backbone of the military industrial complex and the world economy (which was one thing he did not predict correctly).
Because Erik Prince is just a dog with no drive other than money Prigozhin and Wagner had a true anti colonial liberation ideology
@chrisbutler1668 if Big Boss was created in 87, ALL of his lore was created before Blackwater was even founded.
@captainspaulding5963 not necessarily. They only things Big Boss had lore wise when MGS 1 came out was that he was as a "legendary Mercenary" (whatever that means) was able to use that reputation to become commander of Fox Hound, and created Outer Heven and Zanzarbarland as nations defacto ruled by mercenaries. You could say he had an ethos due to radio conversations in the first two Metal Gear gamew but not much of a backstory. This phenomenon wasn't uncommon for video game characters/villains in the 80's and 90's.
It wasn't until MGS3 that Big Boss had a backstory and the whole global military industrial complex puppetmaster angle, that always was in the background of the Solid games started to be fleshed out as well.
MGS3 came out in 2003 if I remember correctly.
Also it is well known Kojima didn't plan on making and sequels to the original Metal Gear when he made it. He only made Solid Snake after seeing Snake's Revenge and thinking it was crap. You don't go into detail for (expected) one shot games.
@chrisbutler1668 but not pre Afghanistan. This video shows that Blackwater was part of the initial invasion.
That said MS3 is more about how the cold war was entirely a political conflict with no real point and nuclear procurement, then mercenaries. That part of Big Boss was fleshed out in Portible Ops and Peasewaller.
I also @ed the wrong dude. I meant to reply to the guy saying Big Boss's lore was set in stone in 87
When I reclassified from Engineer to Infantry, I was sent to a Blackwater training camp for some of the training. I always found it wierd that the Army would send me to a PMC camp for part of my training.
Do you feel like the training they taught was actually pretty helpful? Do you think some of the techniques that they taught were actually superior?
If i remember correctly, it was this PMC that inspired "Shadow Company" in the modern warfare series
I love the "this isn't defamation, don't sue me" ending. Just **chef's kiss**
One of the biggest problems with private security & private military is when the contracts start flowing in but you DONT have the man power. So they just start grabbing bodies to fill the demand but their in such a rush that NO ONE IS VETTED.
So the people you get are ethier unqualified or their just absolutely reckless.
In black waters case you have BOTH!
They took half measures, and completely underestimated a confident advisory.
Bethesda designing their guns?
that's an insult to AI, even AI does better guns than bethesda
It just works 💪
I was wondering why they have guns that I'm sure don't even exist and why their uniforms are so obscure. It's damn AI, can't even spell the title right. Lazy af.
@@MakusinMeringue haha, true
Simon, please don’t go down the AI generated route. Many of us come here because we respect the level of thought and scope you put into the videos. We dont come here for AI thumbnails, spelling errors that gotta be ai generated. 🙏
Stop your bitching
I was in Ramadi Iraq (Camp Blue Diamond) and Blackwater operators were there as well. They weren’t there long though. They were kicked out after it had been discovered that they were having “unprofessional contact” with some of the female service members.
1:13 You say mercenary....as if it's a bad thing.
Nope he didn’t say mercenary once
@@joshzerbe6043skip back 5 more seconds 🤡 he literally did
@@joshzerbe6043sounds like you didn’t listen 💀
Word on the street is that this segment was due and Simon had to run to his office to hit send. As he was running he had to go to the bathroom really bad or risk an accident. Simon knew he didn’t have much time and that there was a spelling error on the thumbnail. His options were either go number 2 and say screw wiping and run to the office and fix the error before hitting send, or give a proper wipe and most likely have to hit submit without correction due to time. Well, being the gentleman he is, Simon couldn’t not give himself a proper wipe so thus the spelling error.
Dude wtf Had me smiling tho
I'd have not wiped enough and leve massive spelling errors.
Legend has it he's still wiping.
By the rapid speach and one-breath paragraphs, I'd say he had to pee too.
I have been wanting you to do a video on these guys for years. They helped train people for the navy when i was in tech school for the air force back in 07 and I've always wondered what exactly they are. And now I'm extremely curious what they were doing at Lackland AFB in 2007. Like i said, they were there helping the Navy cops who also trained there as far as i know, but I'm curious what else they did...
They do everything that the US government needs/wants plausible deniability.
Training is one of the largest jobs for mercenaries. In Africa they can be hired as an instructor cadre to build a local force around.
I got to the end of the video before I realized this guy wasn't talking about BlackRock
serious question: with all the stories from Iraq containing the line "Iraqi driver refused to stop", has anyone ever figured WHY these Iraqi civilians always kept driving after warning shots? There are simply too many of them to be filed under "isolated incident" or "the Americans on the scene lied about warning shots" surely "guy standing behind a barrier firing a shot in my general direction" isn't Iraqi Arabic for "keep driving towards me!"
This barely even touches base with how crazy BW was.
Killing a whole family and burning the house down bc a guy didn't extend his contract?
Hiring an untold amount of convicted felons?
Blackwater has you.
6:28 is missing signature thunder and eagle scream
Corrections: News and Observer is based out of Raleigh (Rah-Lee) which is the capital of NC and is hours away. The Blackwater facility was located entirely within NC to the east of the Great Dismal Swamp south of Moyock which itself is decently far south of the Virginia border.
It's important to recognize the US is a union. The member states and locations aren't a footnote especially when the described location is so far off
Camden, County, NC is the county were blackwater was located in. Raleigh is about 3 hours or so from Camden County depending on where you start from. It is not too far from the Virginia boarder if you cut through Elizabeth City, as it will take them about 45 minutes to get to Norfolk, Va. driving.
@@EyeOfTheWatcher Exactly. The Training facilty is a little over a 30 minute drive to the border however which is a stretch to say "located on the North Carolina-Virginia border". 30 minutes is reasonable if he was talking about 30 minutes to a nearby city like what he implied with Raleigh lol.
Strongly influenced the fictional PMC in GTA V (Merryweather security)
Oh, we’re still out here and we’ve got an alumni association and we have yearly meetings. Nobody has gone away once you’re in you don’t get out anything else other than that is complete conjecture.
14:50 if I’m remembering this correctly all contractors died during the crash, pilot survived, and was subsequently gunned down by insurgents while standing dazed in a field after the crash. This was all captured on video.
As a DOD contractor, I traveled often in Afghanistan. Various entities provided convoy security on the convoys. My favorites were Blackwater, and the British soldiers. Many of the US Army troops were reservists or Guardsman, and not quite as cool under fire as career soldiers.
Says the nobody who was too scared of weak to serve his country
You sound like an insecure foriegner trying to insert his opinion.
AI thumbnail?
Yup. As someone in a different comment thread said "F I N G I E S", meaning "look at the fingers".
@@jamesbrisendine oh god the pinkies got worse as I scanned over the three guys eww. Cursed af, not to mention the nerf guns with extra strings attached
@@JakezMad when i first saw the thumbnail i thought the guns were those full auto shotguns that were in COD. But yeah, after i took a screenshot of it and zoomed in, everything just looked way outta wack.
I was wondering what weapon they were holding and then saw the fingers, my god this AI stuff sucks on so many levels. Goes yo show that this channel it’s as reputable as it might make itself seem.
It’s honestly kind of wild considering the fact that simply searching and downloading an image of “mercenaries with guns” probably would’ve pulled an *actual* picture of Blackwater *and* taken less time than generating an AI image.
And it would’ve looked better too.
Fun fact: I was actually a cell mate with one of the nisour square guys. Nick was his name.
This was in 2019 and he had been convicted and overturned twice already by then. He was locked up between his trials too. Even then he was pretty sure that he would need a pardon. I don’t know if he was innocent or not but there more than enough reasonable doubt for me. He should be free. He now is.
My last name is Liberty and I was wondering if I was related to that Eric Liberty character
Yep, the whole team was exonerated/ pardoned after evidence was discovered to have been suppressed and they were a political railroad scapegoat.
Yah I worked with a bunch of those guys that were there with BW at that time. They had the guys immediately paint the trucks to cover up bullet strikes then investigators didn't show up until week or days later. Amongst other things was a matter of changing politics, then after that they even came out with a separate wing of IRS agents to go after all us pmc guys.
Thank you for your intelligent, thoughtful, articulate and comprehensive reporting! You've gained a new subscriber!!
PMCs have some functional similarity to the Military Orders (Templars, Teutonic knights, etc.) of the Medieval age.
Gotta be better then the secret service now days
Ai is so stupid for generating photos
Great for concept art. Terrible at technical drawing of real world objects.
It’s great for anime girls UwU
Don't forget, Eric Prince is Betys DeVos's brother.
New oligarchy.
@@dabajabaza111I wish
@@dabajabaza111the oligarcy is Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street notice Larry Fink never gets in trouble for anything but Erick Prince did? Private Schools are just like PMCs they're better because they get paid to do a job without the government micromanaging them.
@@CenlaSelfDefenseConcepts Nicely put.
I got to train at the facility discussed in the video. It was an amazing course offered by exceptional instructors. Still have some memorabilia with their original logos. It also prompted me to research what is the difference between a pmc versus a mercenary company
They can change their name all they want. Anytime someone brought up PMCs in an intelligence brief, someone would always say "disposables". And i'll call out the Brits, it was always me and them grinning.
The irony is that you are the disposable one, too. Lol. Army infantry are exponentially less-well trained and have significantly higher casualty rates than Blackwater or Constellis ever have. We're not breaking down doors clearing houses, we get paid more and come in afterwards to babysit your infantry.
You fail to understand that 80% of our guys came from military infantry, mostly 0311s or 11Bs from the USMC and Army respectively.
But you keep sucking up the propaganda the military fed you to make you think you were favored.
I could call in an airstrike in Iraq just as fast as you could. I had better gear, better training and a better team. I didn't have any privates, all of my guys were retired E4 or higher. Cope more.
Don’t get it, grinning because it meant you wouldn’t have to go or because you guys didn’t like PMCs? Don’t understand what the joke was
@@scottmeredith3359 We just had no respect for them. They only popped up when they made mistakes. Absolutely did not share intel.
Depends we had sf teams coming to us for Intel, not sure what contractor teams you worked with. Know received and knew way more about all of iraqs daily events then ever knew in the marines.
@@joshm7225 They pretty much got banned after Nisour Square (from the briefing. I'll get that later). And before i left they even banned the Brits for the sin of drinking on base. By the time i left, it was pretty much just a circle jerk where the Army provided the ground intel, the Air Force provided translations of recovered documents, and... everyone else had been excommunicated by the base commander other than KBR and Tripple Canopy because they ran the DFAC and the gate, but weren't allowed in the briefing. My base commander wouldn't trust the African mercs the doors to the chow hall or even the front gate with access to the very threats they faced while guarding us.
It's difficult to control the dog of war once you slipped its leash.
"Faulty intelligence" bruh they lied
Buddy sent me this. Finally sitting down to watch it. I looked at non-security work with a company attached to Blackwater. Glad I didn't. Jesus.
Am I the only one who doubts the claims that the US military lacked for manpower? I'm sure that is the pretext that was used, but it seems to be just plain false.
Blackwater hired special ops vets *away* from the US military, then rented them back at a premium (with less oversight and accountability). Prince claims that the Afghanistan contract was a win for everyone, but there is a basic arithmetic problem here that you cannot get around: how can it be cheaper to pay a middle man to pay a premium rate to soldiers who are deployed with the same logistics? The only answer is creative accounting.
Please work on the quality control. Idk if this is a skeleton crew doing their best. But this is a pretty low standard of quality
I heard the sun sets forever over blackwater park. Not sure if that's related
How... Bleak
A family member of mine with Canadian Special Forces taught a course at blackwater. I always thought that was pretty neat.
Canadian, Israeli, what's the airsoft difference? Project Gecko is cool and some of those larpers can outshoot servicemen who only touch their weapons once a year
Two statements will always be true.
*"war is hell" and "war is a racket"*
Not sure who said the first, but Smedley Buttler was most definitely not wrong.
Alot of this was documented by Soldier of Fortune magazine, albeit with bias based mostly on ignorance of what was happening. The reporting was surprisingly frank though.
thank you for showing me video of my friends.. many of the folks in those short cuts are dead now... remember that Blackwater was used to do the things that would end up with american soldiers dead on the evening news.. Thos Blackwater boys took the hits, and you never heard about it. At 15:01 you have video of travis Halley shooting from the roof during the great Najaf turkey shoot.. that was where the Us Government abandoned a group of state department and army community affairs to be killed by the Mahdi army under Muktada Al Sauder... Black water flew out, dropped dudes, and they held off hundreds of insurgents, all day, until a rescue could be mounted.ruclips.net/video/BDoX8UnQ4D0/видео.html
Well, they knew the dangers when they joined Blackwater.
Dude the lemmings don't get it they still trust the media and gov think they care about their well being. Honestly if you were never in the middle of it they can only pull from media and scared journalist that hid in the green zone.
Living that lifestyle is crazy, you do not know who has your back. Happy Hunting.
No more AI at all simon plz
It's good for generating concept images or to get creative juices flowing, but it's ridiculous to use professionally and without modification.
Have you seen the utter slop provided by Google AI Summary, because they scraped that cesspool Reddit and The Onion? It's absurd 🤡🌎 crap.
Could you imagine if the US embraced Blackwater like Russia did with Wagner? Thatd be fucking terrifying
Executive Outcomes was around before Black Water. A lot of EO military contractors joined Black Water after EO was disbanded
EO was a British, SA outfit, the BW I Know you had to be a US citizen. EO turned into Aegis the British version of BW.
Cutting corners and it really starting to show in your production
Everything in the video looks fine to me.
@mariakelly90210 blind lol
@@mariakelly90210 good for you, some people come to expect a certain level of detail from their sources of information, others don't and that's okay too.
I know Hillary Clinton hated Blackwater.
Did Erik Prince not donate to the Clinton Foundation?
Eric Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos was the secretary of education under the Trump admin
Blackwater got Trump elected with help from Michael Flynn and the Emirates after Blackwater moved their headquarters to Dubai
Fun fact there's a bunch of High profile politicians that hated all contractors including after saving them
@@Derzto There you go. That explains it. I'm sure he didn't kiss Hillary's ass, I mean give donations to the slush fund known as the Clinton Foundation.
In your previous video criticizing Russian PMCs, you displayed a lack of passion compared to this video. You portrayed Wagner as engaging in inhumane activities, yet noted they operated under government oversight, unlike Blackwater, which was implicated in the killing of Iraqi officials and civilians. Please consider addressing UK PMCs in your next video.
British PMCs are also a W. I only wish the Executive Outcomes coup for Equatorial Guinea worked
One of the many reasons I was sad to see the TV show _Jericho_ end was how they included a shady contractor group based on Blackwater
So I find it hilarious that my most educational videos like this are hidden in my viewed history! I can fine all of my fishing videos in my history but not this one, had to go to your page directly to keep watching it. Keep up the real history!❤
SensorTube strikes again!
Black Water got a bad rap. They were a group of extremely professional men.
So Blackwater, after all their crimes, fell upwards. Power is everything.
Wellllll, when you have access to things that could potentially blackmail the government, the only way to fall IS up!
Probably because they didn't actually do most of what they were accused of. Youre forgetting that the media used to play full-time Al Qaeda defense force. For example, the nisour square massacre bodies were autopsied by the FBI flown in for maximum certainty.
They found the corpses full of 7.62x39mm bullets, the type fired from the AK-47, not 5.56 or 9mm like the M4's and PDW's Blackwater was carrying.
The media then reported that despite the autopsy proving it was Al Qaeda shooting up the crowd, that instead, the autopsises were inconclusive and please don't read about them they're not important please!
But why was the media attacking Blackwater specifically? Well, because it was on behalf of a certain pantsuit wearing female politician. No, really. When she got back into the state department a half decade later, she got rid of these public PMC's and had the CIA and state department recruit under full classification. They only hired companies that took extreme effort to hide their existence, because the state department can't assassinate local politicians if the company they use for it is public and can be held accountable, or might even hold itself accountable. Cant have that! Need to hire ex-seals through a shell corporation and leave them to die at your gun-running embassy annex in north Africa instead.
But the van der linde gang lost all their power
What crimes?
so, American Wagner, basically?