Quotes by Erik Prince - Page 2

Troops fighting for their lives should not have to ask a lawyer sitting in air conditioning 500 miles away for permission to drop a bomb.
Erik Prince /
Air Conditioning
Conditioning
Lawyer
Miles
Permission
Troops
Bomb
Drop
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Video games are an exciting medium. The creativity of design, the technology and the interaction represent the best of American innovation.
Erik Prince /
Medium
Video Games
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We have no George Pattons anymore. We have no Ulysses S. Grants. We have none of the swashbuckling generals that actually made things happen.
Erik Prince /
Grants
Things Happen
Ulysses
Things Happen Things Happen
Generals
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I like the fact that Donald Trump has been in the private sector. I like that he's had to make a payroll. I like that he's had to do projects.
Erik Prince /
Payroll
Private Sector
Donald Trump
Sector
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You pretty much remove the entire political texture from Blackwater when you come to China. What they look at is our 100 per cent success rate.
Erik Prince /
Rate
Remove
Texture
Cent
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For people to mischaracterize my time or ownership of Blackwater as being some great financial bonanza, it was not. It was most definitely not.
Erik Prince /
Ownership
Time Great People
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One of the real core competencies of Blackwater, or companies like Blackwater, is we can operate in difficult places without any outside support.
Erik Prince /
Competence
Operate
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I think faith gives us a structure around which to try to organize our lives. I'm also a big believer, and very thankful that there's forgiveness.
Erik Prince /
Forgiveness
Thankful
Believer
Organize
Big Believer
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I wish we had been doing diplomatic security in Benghazi. I can tell you that Benghazi would not have happened if Blackwater were on the job there.
Erik Prince /
Benghazi
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I loved being a SEAL. I loved working with those kind of guys and a sense of mission, and Blackwater was started to continue that sense of mission.
Erik Prince /
Seal
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I know a lot of people in the aviation business, particularly ones who will fly to places where your boots get dirty when you get out of the airplane.
Erik Prince /
Airplane
Aviation
Boots
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I would rather deal with the vagaries of investing in Africa than in figuring out what the hell else Washington is going to do to the entrepreneur next.
Erik Prince /
Investing
Figuring
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We protect our banks, hospitals and airports with armed personnel; surely, we can do more to protect schools, which teach our nation's most valuable resource.
Erik Prince /
Hospitals
Personnel
Valuable
Airport
Armed
Banks
Resource
Surely
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Our nation has endured and flourished because people of goodwill adapt and innovate productive solutions to our nation's problems - not because of top-down dictates.
Erik Prince /
Goodwill
Solutions
Adapt
Dictates
Endured
Innovate
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I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.'s disposal for some very risky missions. But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.
Erik Prince /
Missions
Disposal
Expedient
Risky
Threw
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I don't know if I want to live in a country where lone wolf and random terror attacks are impossible 'cause that country would look more like North Korea than America.
Erik Prince /
Lone
Lone Wolf
North Korea
Terror
Attacks
Wolf
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I'm painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket.
Erik Prince /
Congress
National Security
Security
Activities
Meanwhile
National
Painted
Paying
Pocket
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The video game industry is constantly evolving. The sheer creativity matched with cutting-edge technologies gives me the comfort that innovation is alive and well in America.
Erik Prince /
Matched
Sheer
Evolving
Technologies
Video Game
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Very few people know someone who would voluntarily go into a war zone to protect a person he has never met. I know 1,000 of them, and I am proud that they are part of our team.
Erik Prince /
War
Protect
Team
Zone
I Am People Never
Few
Few People
Met
Voluntarily
War Zone
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I identify with Wyoming, I love the state of Wyoming, I love the people. It's a fantastic state - people that live in rugged conditions and who make their living doing things in the outdoors.
Erik Prince /
Conditions
Rugged
Wyoming
Love Live People
Love Living People
Identify
Outdoors
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I'm not sure whether a person can really gauge the quality of his work by the enemies he's made, but if I somehow upset Hamas and the Taliban and Henry Waxman, I must have done something right.
Erik Prince /
Hamas
Taliban
Upset
Enemies
Gauge
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We have the finest officers in the world, but it seems like once they become generals it is a self-licking ice cream cone of who gets promoted and who gets approved to join that club. No one thinks outside the box.
Erik Prince /
Approved
Cream
Finest
Ice
Ice Cream
Officers
Cone
Generals
Join
Promoted
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We have a great all-volunteer force, but the fact is that 0.5% of the U.S. population serves in the military, maybe another 3-5% knows someone who serves. Leaving 95% of Ameria with no real contact with the military.
Erik Prince /
Contact
Population
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The Janjaweed is a truly unfettered bully. No one has stood up to them. If they were met by a mobile quick reaction force of African Union soldiers, the Janjaweed would quickly learn their habits were not sustainable.
Erik Prince /
Sustainable
Habits
Quick
Reaction
Soldiers
Stood
Unfettered
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The people we helped in the field, they know what the legacy is. The 40% or so of Americans that really can't stand the name of Blackwater, that's fine, I'll never really win them over anyway. And I really don't care.
Erik Prince /
Legacy
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I'm an American working for America. Anything we do is to support U.S. policy. You know the definition of a mercenary is a professional soldier that works in the pay of a foreign army. I'm an American working for America.
Erik Prince /
America
Army
Mercenary
Pay
Policy
Soldier
Support
Definition
Working
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Developing good investments in Africa is by and large the best for the people of Africa that have a job, that have electricity, that might have clean water, that might have those things that we in the West take horribly for granted.
Erik Prince /
Clean Water
Developing
Electricity
Granted
For The People
Horribly
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In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.
Erik Prince /
Afghanistan
Approach
Bereft
Cash
Fraud
Spending
Strategy
Central
Focusing
Further
Handing
Initiatives
Institutional
Memory
Rampant
Reduce
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The greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity is not al-Qaida, the Taliban, Iran or even China. It's an idea, the idea that we can spend our way out of our problems without tightening our belt and paring down the very bloated government.
Erik Prince /
Iran
Prosperity
Taliban
Threat
Belt
Bloated
Greatest Threat
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When someone needs copper, or wood or an ag product, and they invest capital somewhere to make that happen, and people get jobs from that, and that good gets introduced to the world stage and it gets traded and moved, the whole world benefits.
Erik Prince /
Jobs
Benefits
Copper
Moved
Needs
Stage
Good World People
Somewhere
Capital
Invest
World Stage
Gets
Happen
Introduced
Product
Traded
Wood
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Everyone says they support our troops and thank you for their service, if they really want to support their troops, demand better. Demand that their sacrifice not be wasted. That we not just muddle along as some of the generals have called for.
Erik Prince /
Thank You
Demand
Muddle
Sacrifice
Support Our Troops
Troops
Generals
Wasted
Service
Thank
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After 9/11, a few hundred CIA and Special Operations personnel, backed by airpower and Afghan militias, devastated Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. That effort has since turned into a conventional Pentagon nation-building exercise and gone backward.
Erik Prince /
Afghan
Al Qaeda
Cia
Conventional
Devastated
Nation Building
Operations
Pentagon
Personnel
Taliban
Backed
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I live in Loudoun County, and the counties surrounding Washington, D.C., have the highest per-capita income in the country. Not because they create wealth, but because they suck wealth from the rest of the country, and that system needs to be shaken up.
Erik Prince /
Income
Needs
Wealth
Counties
Create
Washington
Rest
Shaken
Surrounding
System
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The failings in Afghanistan don't fall on the shoulders of the American service personnel trying to complete their mission. The failure falls on military leadership unable to adapt to irregular warfare, and a Congress that blindly continues to fund failure.
Erik Prince /
Fund
Personnel
Shoulders
Warfare
Adapt
Blindly
Failings
Irregular
Unable
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America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Whether it's allowing the NSA to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should.
Erik Prince /
Allowing
Monitoring
Nsa
Quick
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I love the U.S. military. I want them to be the most effective and the most cost-effective and I think there is so much spending and so much bloat and so much bureaucracy that it actually hinders them from having a lot of the mission accomplishments that they should.
Erik Prince /
Bureaucracy
Accomplishments
Cost-Effective
Hinders
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Every individual who has worked for Blackwater in Iraq has previously served in the U.S. military or as a police officer. Many were highly decorated. And from the beginning, these individuals have been bound by detailed contracts that ensure intensive government direction and control.
Erik Prince /
Contracts
Police Officer
Bound
Decorated
Detailed
Ensure
Highly
Intensive
Officer
Served
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Our failed population-centric approach to Afghanistan has only led to missed opportunities, which is why Afghanistan depends on donors for 90% of government revenues. A smarter, trade-centric approach will boost Afghanistan's long-run viability by weaning it off donor welfare dependency.
Erik Prince /
Afghanistan
Approach
Boost
Dependency
Smarter
Welfare
Donor
Failed
Led
Missed
Opportunities
Revenues
Viability
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President Trump should appoint a special presidential envoy and empower them to wage an unconventional war against Taliban and Daesh forces, to hold the corrupt officials accountable and to negotiate with their Afghan counterparts and the Afghan Taliban that are willing to reconcile with Kabul.
Erik Prince /
Afghan
Counterparts
Officials
Presidential
Reconcile
Taliban
Unconventional
Accountable
Appoint
Corrupt
Empower
Negotiate
President Trump
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The left wants to protect social programs, the right wants to protect defense and intelligence spending and all the rest. I say the defense and intelligence world will be better off with a smaller budget. They would be less encumbered by bloat and able to maneuver the way they used to be able and not trip over themselves.
Erik Prince /
Better Off
Defense
Programs
Maneuver
Smaller
Trip
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Blackwater's work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked. In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.
Erik Prince /
Agency
Cia
Missions
Extension
Facilities
Followed
Instructor
Provided
Specialized
Virtual
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In Iraq, State Department civilians and U.S. soldiers have been operating in the same location in an active war zone. While the troops have been facing insurgents, the State Department civilians have been working to rebuild institutions and infrastructure. Blackwater's role in this war evolved from this unprecedented dynamic.
Erik Prince /
Civilians
Department
Infrastructure
Location
Troops
Unprecedented
Zone
Dynamic
Evolved
Facing
Operating
Rebuild
Soldiers
State Department
War Zone
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When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.
Erik Prince /
Afghanistan
Air
Conventional
Devastated
Hundred
Matter
Operations
Pentagon
Personnel
Special
Stability
States
Taliban
United States
Backed
Weeks
Few
Later
Qaeda
Reversed
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Since United States military operations in Iraq began in 2003, I have visited Iraq at least 15 times. But unlike politicians who visit, the question for me has never been why the U.S. got into Iraq. Instead, as the CEO of Blackwater, the urgent question was how the company I head could perform the duties asked of us by the U.S. State Department.
Erik Prince /
Ceo
Department
Military
Operations
United States Military
Me Never Company
Me Never Why
Asked
Began
Perform
Politicians
Duties
Instead
Question
State Department
Visit
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Erik Prince Quotes - Page 2

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