Blackwater vs. Pinkwater: The Wife of Erik Prince Picks a Fight With CODEPINK

[ensho]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/54535


It felt surreal to be inside the home of Erik Prince, the founder, owner and chairman of Blackwater (or Xe, as it is now called). Prince, a former Navy Seal, provides security for the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department. His company trains 40,000 people a year in skills that include personal protection. Yet his home in McLean, Virginia, has no security. None. Not even a fence or a guard dog or a No Trespassing sign. And his mother-in-law, who helps care for his young children, invited a total stranger--me--into his home without hesitation.

I had gone to Prince's home, together with two CODEPINK colleagues, assuming it would be empty. I'd read in the New York Times that Mr. Prince and his family had moved out of the country, fleeing from a series of civil lawsuits, criminal charges and Congressional investigations stemming from his company's contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the news, "In documents filed last week in a civil lawsuit brought by former Blackwater employees accusing Mr. Prince of defrauding the government, Mr. Prince sought to avoid giving a deposition by stating that he had moved to Abu Dhabi in time for his children to enter school there on August 15." Susan Burke, the lawyer seeking the deposition, announced that she was flying to the Emirates to find him.

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So we decided to make a symbolic gesture of visiting his home in McLean to bid good riddance to bad rubbish. On Friday, August 20, five days after the Prince children were supposed to be starting their new lives as schoolchildren in the Emirates, we mapquested the old McLean home and drove there, ready to take a photo with our "Adios Diablo Prince" sign and leave.

But when we got there, to our surprise we could see through the window that the house was full of people and furniture. There were no moving boxes, no empty rooms. Could the new owners have settled in so quickly? Curious, I rang the doorbell and before I knew it, I was invited in and found myself inside the living room with a bunch of young children and several adults, who turned out to be grandma, grandpa and wife Joanna Prince.

The rest happened very quickly. Joanna asked who I was and why I was there. I asked the same questions: Was this the Prince family and if so, why weren't they in Abu Dhabi? She freaked, told the grandparents to call the police, and she pushed me out the door.
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do read on to find out what happened.

[mnhtnbb]

1. Of course Joanna lied to the police. What would you expect?

And if the CodePink people hung around on the Prince's property, of course they'd be arrested.

How naive.

[tsuki]

2. So Erik Prince lied, and the NY Times printed it. Imagine that. nt

[ensho]

3. kick

nt

[zeemike]

4. I love pinkwater and the work they do.

they have the guts to do what we all should do.