Americans working for a little known U.S.-based private military contractor have begun to come forward to media and members of Congress with charges that their work has involved using live ammunition for crowd control and other abusive measures against unarmed civilians seeking food at controversial food distribution sites run by the Global Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in Gaza.

UG Solutions was hired by the GHF to secure and deliver food into Gaza. The GHF, with the help of the PMCs claims to have provided nearly 100 million meals to Gaza . Israel put GHF in control of what used to be the UN-led aid mission.

The UN, however, has called the new model an “abomination” which “provides nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of Gaza ,” referring to the 1000 Gazans who have been killed near or at the GHF centers since May. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been accused of shooting and shelling unarmed civilians . The American contractors say they have witnessed it and have been told to use live ammunition in their own crowd control efforts

UG Solutions is one of two American contracting outfits working at the food centers. Both have vehemently denied the contractors’ claims, as has the IDF. The GHF has also put out extensive responses calling the charges categorically false .

Needless to say this raises a ton of questions about the use of American contractors in this particular conflict zone, but also about who they are. From all available information about UG Solutions, they are not operating under the banner, nor protection, of a U.S. agency contract, but of a foreign entity. This expansion of scope, I contend, makes UG Solutions a full-fledged mercenary organization and takes the industry down a very dark path.

What is a mercenary? The use of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) in Iraq created a gray area between war fighters and private civilians filling combat roles in a war zone. The U.S., not wanting to be seen as occupiers, handed over the governance of Iraq in 2004. In theory, this meant the military mission ended, and the diplomatic mission began. In practicality, the war raged on and diplomats needed to be protected by non-military members. Civilians working for companies like Dyncorp and Blackwater protected the people tasked with helping the nascent government of Iraq rebuild. Were they mercenaries? The short answer is: Sort of. The United Nations uses six criteria to define “mercenary.” Someone who: Is specially recruited to fight in an armed conflict Directly participates in the hostilities Is primarily motivated by private gain (promised significant compensation) Is not a national of a party to the conflict Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict Has not been sent by a state on official duty Lawyers can haggle over the legal definition of each criterion but, by my count, and having worked for Blackwater in 2004-2005, PMC’s meet four of the six criteria (1, 2, 3, and 5).

Is UG Solutions the next Blackwater? No. But they share similarities. Blackwater gained notoriety protecting diplomats in Iraq in 2003. The contract to protect the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, led to contracts under the U.S. Department of State (DoS) protecting the diplomats, Other Government Agencies ( CIA, FBI, etc.), U.S. Senators, and anyone else who wanted to check on the progress being made in Iraq. Ours was primarily a defensive operation where we protected people and places but had to move around the country to do so. This is also a gray area we had to move around the country with, and without, the people we protected. This meant clearing traffic using the same weapons issued to the U.S. military. Some could argue this was still defensive but the videos of us on YouTube look a lot like offensive operations. These contracts were issued by DoS to Blackwater who then hired independent contractors (me) to work for them in Iraq. With multiple layers of separation between the grantor of the contract (DoS) and the men doing the work on the ground, it’s been said that Blackwater wasn’t a mercenary group but it hired them. Going back to the UN definition of mercenary, I contend, this meets four of the six criteria: We were recruited to fight, participated in hostilities, were motivated by private gain, and were not members of the armed forces in the conflict. Leaking into the gray area created by hiring PMC’s I could make an argument we were also not a national of a party to a conflict as the war was now a “diplomatic” mission between the U.S. and Iraq where Iraq requested U.S. military assistance so we weren’t technically “at war” with Iraq any longer. But hey, I got a diplomatic passport and was told by Blackwater we had diplomatic immunity so I was definitely sent by the state on official duty.

Is UG Solutions the next Wagner Group? No. Honestly, they don’t share any similarities. Wagner is commonly referred to as a mercenary group but, by the UN definition, they are not. They are an extension of the Russian military. Granted, they recruited from prisons and have committed war crimes, but they aren’t mercenaries. Of the three companies, they are the one which can claim they are not mercenaries. The primary difference between Wagner and Blackwater is Wagner is a military unit. They conduct offensive operations, take and hold land, and are sent to places where Russia wants to exert influence. It wasn’t until 2023 that Vladimir Putin confessed Wagner was funded by the government. They also have a rank structure and code of conduct similar to the U.S. military. Granted, they don’t seem to abide by it in the same manner as U.S. service members are regulated by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), but it exists. That’s more than Blackwater had. Based on this, they aren’t any more a “mercenary army” than the U.S. military. I know this is going to ruffle some feathers but I didn’t create the criteria so don’t get mad at me.

Is UG Solutions a new kind of mercenary? Yes. UG Solutions is a mercenary group. They meet every criterion. They are not a party to the conflict in Gaza, were recruited to participate in hostilities, were not sent by the U.S. government, are not a national of a party in the conflict, are not part of a military, and are there for personal gain. I want to make a distinction that UG Solutions, as a company, is a mercenary group. The men working for them are also mercenaries. Similar to Blackwater, they are primarily doing defensive operations and the U.S. State Department has helped fund the GHF but they are headquartered in the U.S. working for a foreign entity, in a combat zone, for money. It’s time to call it like it is – U.S. companies are directly involved in mercenary work and trying to shield themselves under the guise of being a Private Military Contractor.

This week, the Senate rejected a Bernie Sanders effort to block arm sales to Israel.

This has happened before. Last fall, Sanders introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) for ammunition, fighter jets, and other weapons. Just 18 Senators backed the bill. When Sanders put forward a similar piece of legislation in April, that number had dwindled to 15.

This time around, 27 Senators voted for the resolutions. That’s 1/4 of the Senate.

A number of ardent Israel supporters joined the Vermont Senator. New names included Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Senate Armed Services ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, (D-RI), and Senate Appropriations ranking member Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA).

In the scheme of things, votes like this don’t mean much. Even if such resolutions somehow made it out of Congress, they obviously wouldn’t be implemented by the Trump administration.

However, these surprising results did not occur in a vacuum. They come amid daily stories of Palestinians starving and increasing criticisms of Israel from pundits and lawmakers.

Prior to the Sanders vote, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) made his position clear: “For these reasons, I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate—and vote—for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy. My litmus test will be simple: no aid of any kind as long as there are starving children in Gaza due to the action or inaction of the Israeli government.”

We just witnessed Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City. We saw educators vote to cut ties with the ADL. We heard about a U.S. union organizer kidnapped and beaten by Israeli forces for attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.

Then there’s the polling.

We’ve long known that Israel’s reputation was cratering among the Democratic base, and the genocide has understandably accelerated this process. Some new polling puts the situation in perspective.

A Data for Progress survey shows that 78% of NYC Democratic primary voters believe Israel is carrying out a genocide, and 63% want the city to enforce the ICC arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A Zenith Research/Public Progress Solutions poll has Mamdani getting 43% of the Jewish vote. 67% of Jewish voters between the ages of 18 and 44 say they back him. It’s clear that the repeated attempts to smear Mamdani as an antisemite have failed. However, based on the overall polling on the issue, it also seems clear that Mamdani’s defense of Palestinian rights helped him win the nomination.

The most important new poll comes from Gallup: just 32% of Americans say they support what Israel is doing in Gaza, and Netanyahu has an approval rating of 29%. That’s an all-time low for both.

After the Sanders vote, AIPAC predictably put out a statement celebrating the results.

“AIPAC applauds the U.S. Senate for standing with Israel and once again rejecting Senator Sanders’ attempt to ban vital weapons sales to the Jewish state as it fights to protect its families from Iran and its terrorist proxies,” it read. “Several times in less than a year, the overwhelming bipartisan majority of the Senate has repeatedly rebuffed Bernie Sanders’ dangerous efforts to undermine Israel’s security.”

“We commend the Trump administration for approving these sales and helping ensure Israel has the resources it needs to win,” the lobbying group continued. “Blocking the sales would have degraded Israel’s military edge, undermined its deterrence in the region, and incentivized Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah to continue their war to destroy the Jewish state. However, the majority of the Senate sent a strong bipartisan message that America stands with Israel in its just fight.”

It’s difficult to take these sentiments seriously. AIPAC might be putting on a defiant face, but everything previously mentioned in this newsletter is bad news for the Israel Lobby.

A couple of weeks ago, new Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) President Brian Romick released a more believable statement in which he lamented a number of “troubling developments” within the Democratic Party.

According to Romick, recent events added up to a “troubling pattern” as pro-Israel voices are facing increasing “marginalization…across the progressive landscape.”

You can find a similar level of consternation in a new Jewish Insider (JI) article, which details how former Obama staffers, like Ben Rhodes and the Pod Save America hosts, are criticizing Israel with more force.

“The anti-Israel activism from the Democratic influencers is a public example of the intense lobbying taking place in party circles and how progressive foreign policy officials such as Rhodes who have long been deeply critical of Israel are pushing to turn humanitarian concerns in Gaza into a more permanent split between the Democratic Party and Israel,” wrote JI’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik.

Back to the Bernie vote.

Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) backed Sanders’ first effort, and even gave a pretty good speech explaining his vote. He was subsequently attacked by Israel Lobby groups over the move and fell in line by April, voting against very similar Sanders resolutions.

This week, Ossoff voted again in support of the resolutions. It’s important to note that he faces a reelection campaign next year.

In other words, he knows which way the wind is blowing.

AIPAC corrects the rumor that it opposes starvation

Earlier this month, the Times of Israel reported that AIPAC might have dropped its support for the Islamophobic, racist, pro-genocide Congress member Randy Fine (R-FL).

AIPAC had endorsed Fine ahead of his 2025 House race, but his name stopped appearing in the organization’s database of endorsed candidates for the 2026 midterms. The omission was first noticed by Justice Democrats communications director Usamah Andrabi.

It was believed that AIPAC might have pulled its endorsement over Fine’s open endorsement of famine. The Representative had tweeted an ABC story about Palestinians dying from malnutrition and wrote, “Release the hostages. Until then, starve away. (This is all a lie anyway. It amazes me that the media continues to regurgitate Muslim terror propaganda.)”

As soon as this news broke, AIPAC quickly rushed to correct the record.

“This reporting is based on an unsourced speculative piece,” the group tweeted. “We will be endorsing candidates for the 2026 election throughout the cycle. Current endorsees for 2026 so far are listed on the AIPAC-PAC website. As Rep. Fine was elected only in April, consideration of his endorsement will take place later in the cycle, as is the case with many other freshmen members of Congress.”

So please, make no mistake: despite unfounded rumors, the country’s largest pro-Israel lobbying organization does not oppose a policy of starving children, and it has not ruled out endorsing people who do.

Having said that, AIPAC’s justification for the omission doesn’t exactly make sense.

“It’s not clear why the group would choose only to list endorsees for 2026, and why Fine wouldn’t be grandfathered in after earning the group’s endorsement just four months ago,” notes TNR’s Edith Olmsted. “After all, the group did pour more than $126,000 into Fine’s campaign, according to FEC filings. Now they say they need more time to decide?”

Since the story broke, Fine has reiterated his support for famine.

“There is no starvation,” he recently tweeted. “Everything about the ‘Palestinian’ cause is a lie.”

Odds & Ends

🫏 Lawmakers pressure Trump on Gaza aid, as support for Israel craters among Democrats

🙏 Don’t stop talking about the famine in Gaza

🇺🇸 U.S. security contractor: ‘I saw Israel commit war crimes at Gaza aid sites’

📰 The New York Times commitment to Zionism begins with its own staff

🏴 Responsible Statecraft: Not Blackwater or Wagner, Americans in Gaza are 100% mercenaries

📈 Common Dreams: ‘The Tide Is Turning,’ Says Sanders as Majority of Senate Dems Vote to Block Arms Sales to Israel

🐘 Politico: MAGA is turning on Israel over Gaza, but Trump is unmoved

🇮🇱 Counterpunch: The Genocidal Partnership of Israel and the United States

🤔 Truthout: Democrat Touts Opposition to Starvation in Gaza — But Blames US Protesters

↪️ Axios: Trump changes tone on Gaza humanitarian crisis

🪧 Times of Israel: 35 US rabbis arrested in separate NYC and DC demonstrations for Gaza food aid

🎓 Al Jazeera: Columbia University suspends, expels nearly 80 students over Gaza protests

On Wednesday evening, the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran sat down for an hour-long interview with the Chair of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Johnnie Moore.

You might think that Doran, or any interviewer, would ask Moore a question or two about the credible eyewitness accounts of aid-seekers being slaughtered at GHF sites. After all, more charges have been raised, seemingly every day, about atrocities committed by IDF soldiers and American contractors on the ground working with GHF. An IDF soldier called an aid site “a killing field.” One video shows armed US contractors firing into a crowd of Palestinians while cheering “Hell yeah, boy!”

Despite the golden opportunity — even if only to set the record straight — Doran ignored it completely. As though none of this had been dominating the news for the last several weeks. He in essence, let Moore off the hook.

Instead, Doran asked the GHF head what the Hudson Institute could do to help the organization push back on “disinformation.” “The disinformation problem in general but particularly with regards to Israel, do you have any ideas about what we can do?” he said. “This kind of event, it can’t really have that much impact. What would you like to see happen?”

Moore himself raised the only reference to the killing of aid-seekers throughout the interview. “Like all disinformation, there’s an element of truth down deep inside of it, and the element of truth is, we do not deny that there have been civilian casualties of people waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip. The irony is that far more of those casualties have taken place at the hands of Hamas in UN distribution sites than in any proximity to our sites.”

Unfortunately, there is more publicly available evidence to the contrary. IDF soldiers themselves have told Israeli media they were given orders to shoot at unarmed Palestinians, even if they did not pose a threat.

After the event, I approached Moore about these eyewitness accounts directly. Here’s a transcript of that conversation, edited for clarity:

RS: There are a lot of documented cases of violence from the IDF towards aid seekers…Anthony Aguilar, a contractor for the GHF said that he witnessed contractors instructed by the IDF to shoot children at an aid hub. He said he witnessed the IDF forces ‘firing into the crowds of Palestinians, firing over their head, firing at their feet, firing into the crowd, not just with rifles or machine guns, but tanks, tank rounds, artillery, mortars, missiles.’

JM: On that particular issue, you should go to GHF’s update page and watch the 20-minute briefing that our spokesperson did yesterday with legal counsel from the organization. It’s very very clear when you watch that these are not credible allegations and they are not from a credible source. [GHF released a 14-minute briefing video responding to Aguilar’s allegations, who a spokesperson refers to as a “terminated and disgruntled contractor.” GHF also circulated sworn statements from contractors that worked with Aguilar that contradict his claims.]

RS: I’ve seen the briefing. And there are other instances, you had IDF soldiers saying it’s a ‘killing field.’ That’s a direct quote. ‘When I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day, they’re treated like a hostile force, no crowd control measures, no tear gas.’

JM: This is not true. This information is not true. What is true is there’s an enormous amount of disinformation that’s originating with a globally designated terrorist organization that’s being laundered through organizations and also through news outlets. And if the world had half the interest in the amount of civilians that have been killed by Hamas, we might actually see this, this terrible, terrible war, which must end much more quickly.

RS: You said the 1,000 figure that’s been shared is a sham number. [the UN human rights office has said that over 1,000 aid seekers have been killed by Israeli forces since May, which Moore referred to in a separate July 25 event at the Hudson Institute as a “sham number.”] But these are first-hand accounts. These aren’t from Hamas. These are first-hand accounts, IDF soldiers, people that have witnessed or even participated in some cases, in these killings. So if you say that that 1000 figure is a sham number, I’m curious where you would put the real number of IDF killings at GHF sites.

JM: It’s very, very important that you get credible information. Everything you’ve said to me is not, it’s not credible. It’s just not credible information. If you care about the truth, go find the truth. I can say much of this reporting, I would say almost all the reporting that we see. It’s not something that we’ve seen at all in our experience on the ground. So you either care about the truth or you don’t care about the truth. We care about truth, and so we say the truth, and I’d encourage you to go find the truth.

eyewitness

The U.S. is once again entangled in a contractor scandal in a combat zone — this time in Gaza .

During the Iraq War, the name Blackwater became shorthand for contractor abuse after the 2007 Nisour Square massacre , where 17 civilians were killed. Since then, Washington has leaned heavily on private contractors, primarily for logistics, but also for security roles that keep U.S. forces out of direct sight.

“Contractor” has at times become a sanitized term for “mercenary” in the United States, yet the world sees them much like Russia’s Wagner Group: extensions of state power. If the latest reports of abuse are true, the damage won’t be limited to Gaza — it will land squarely on America’s credibility. Washington can’t subcontract responsibility.

There were already serious concerns about the practices and effectiveness of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). But the current scandal broke when two U.S. contractors working at aid distribution sites under GHF told the Associated Press — on condition of anonymity — that some of their colleagues were using live ammunition, stun grenades, and pepper spray against Palestinians trying to get food.

The contractors provided disturbing video and photo evidence, claiming that poorly trained guards with little oversight were sometimes firing directly toward the crowd.

GHF and its subcontractor, Safe Reach Solutions, deny any serious injuries and insist that live fire was used only as a warning to control crowds. However, both the contractors’ accounts and the footage suggest otherwise. Launched in February 2025 to replace the U.N. aid system amid an Israeli blockade, the U.S.-backed GHF has already seen nearly one-third of its June distributions result in injuries, according to internal reports.

Moreover, this isn’t the first time the American contractors made headlines at the sites, including a meltdown when the aid centers were first launched.

Externally, the Gaza Health Ministry has reported more than 600 Palestinian deaths and 4,200 wounded at these aid centers since they opened. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported last week, based on IDF soldier interviews, that forces were ordered to deliberately shoot at unarmed Gazans at these sites, even when no threat was present.

The implications for the U.S. are severe — not only does it raise the possibility that American contractors are directly harming or even killing Palestinian civilians, but it also revives the controversial precedent of outsourcing combat-zone roles. There’s a reason the United Nations and not armed U.S. contractors was once tasked with aid distribution. The primary victims, of course, are Palestinians being hurt or terrorized while trying to feed their families. But the reputational and moral cost to the United States is real, as is the erosion of norms, like the basic one that you don’t shoot at starving people.

You can watch the AP’s full video here .

For its part the GHF has released a statement on the allegations in the AP story:

“GHF launched an immediate investigation when the Associated Press first brought these allegations to our attention. Based on time-stamped video footage and sworn witness statements, we have concluded that the claims in the AP’s story are categorically false. At no point were civilians under fire at a GHF distribution site. The gunfire heard in the video was confirmed to have originated from the IDF, who was outside the immediate vicinity of the GHF distribution site. It was not directed at individuals, and no one was shot or injured.

Haiti could be Erik Prince’s deadliest gambit yet for business and a ticket back into the good graces of the Washington military industrial complex.

Prince’s Blackwater* reigned during the Global War on Terror, but left a legacy of disastrous mishaps , most infamously the 2007 Nisour massacre in Iraq, where Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 civilians . This, plus his willingness in recent years to work for foreign governments in conflicts and for law enforcement across the globe, have made Prince one of the world’s most controversial entrepreneurs.

Prince sold Blackwater in 2010 , but remains at large in the private mercenary business. Indeed, a desperate Haiti has now hired him to “conduct lethal operations” against armed groups, who control about 85% of Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince.

As the New York Times reported last week, Prince will send about 150 private mercenaries to Haiti over the summer. He will advise Haiti’s police force on countering Haiti’s armed groups, where some Prince-hired mercenaries are already operating attack drones to take out gang leaders. The U.S. government reportedly isn’t involved .

Reemerging after an extended absence from Washington circles, Prince’s Haiti venture coincides with a number of adjacent bids for the current White House, which during the first Trump term, turned down a Prince plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan .

But what Prince stands to gain by the venture may well be Haiti’s loss. Indeed, Prince’s private contractors, operating in a legally gray area in a functional conflict zone, could wreak further havoc — after a legacy of Western meddling that has undermined the country’s affairs.

Prince’s Trump era return The brother of Betsy DeVos, who served as education secretary in Trump’s first term, Prince has long been a supporter of Republican politics. He donated $250,000 to Trump’s successful 2016 presidential run. But, concerned that Prince’s controversial private security projects brought unwanted scrutiny to their work, DoD and CIA officials essentially barred him from contracts in 2020. And yet, Prince has been active in the rightwing-national security periphery and has resurfaced in official circles in recent months, even participating in group chats with State Department and National Security Council senior officials. And he’s been eager to showcase his usefulness through a barrage of pitches to the Trump administration as well as other relevant players in its orbit. In recent months he has floated a scheme to Trump in which private contractors would assist the administration in hitting its deportation targets. In April, Prince also pushed for a plan in which his contractors would be in charge of a prison partly owned by the U.S. in El Salvador. Prince brokered a deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the same month, arranging to secure and tax the nation’s mineral wealth — just as the DRC and U.S. moved closer with their own minerals-for-security deal. “Where was he during the (Democratic administration)? He was nowhere. He was hiding. So when Trump is in office, he comes out like a peacock and starts looking for contracts,” said Sean McFate, former contractor and author of “The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order.” McFate pegged the Haiti deal as a case in which Prince was acting as “an opportunist aligned with Trump.” Prince knows the Trump administration wants to stanch the flow of illegal migrants to the U.S. and to send back to Haiti those already here in the U.S. Right now, the security situation there makes it all the more complicated. While emphasizing much could go wrong, McFate said Prince’s initiative just might quell the country’s violence. “We’ll see,” he said. “What’s different this time…is that [Prince is] not really pitching contracts to Washington. He’s pitching contracts in cooperation with what he thinks is Washington,” McFate posited. “He’s finding clientele who are not Americans, but he’s doing it with the blessing he thinks [he’ll get], or wants [from] Trump.” Appearing to address Haiti’s gang-related woes, in other words, helps Prince align himself with Trump’s political goals.

Will Prince undermine Port-Au-Prince? The Prince deal is occurring within the context of extensive ongoing American intervention in Haiti. Currently the U.S.-backed, Kenyan-led multinational police force operating in Haiti to combat the armed groups is largely seen as a failure . Previously, a U.N. peacekeeping mission aimed at stabilizing Haiti from 2004 through 2017 was undermined by scandal, where U.N. officials were condemned for killing civilians during efforts aimed at armed groups, sexually assaulting Haitians, and introducing cholera to Haiti. The cloud of American intervention dates back far more than a century, but more recently, the U.S. installed former interim Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in 2021 following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Henry himself resigned last year following pressure from the U.S., turning government affairs over to a foreign-backed transitional council — where council members had to endorse international intervention to improve Haiti’s security situation to join. Before that, the U.S. was accused of ousting Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide after he proved obstructive to U.S. foreign policy goals, in 2004. (The U.S. denies this coup took place). Now, experts fear a clumsy, profit-driven private mercenary touch could now push Haiti past the brink. “Haiti’s crisis was generated by the dismantling of democratic accountability structures, including the police, but also the courts, the legislature and elections. A sustainable solution to the crises requires rebuilding those structures,” Brian Concannon, founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, told RS. “With a history of unaccountable, deadly violence and undermining governance and the rule of law in countries where they operate, Erik Prince’s companies seem ill-fitted to building accountability structures,” Concannon added. “Having mercenaries just go in and start executing people… is going to be just like the U.N. [intervention in the past]. It’s going to continue to undermine the rule of law and the social fabric and lead to just more rebounds of more trampoline effects of increasing gang violence,” Concannon explained. Practical factors regarding the deployment of foreign private mercenaries in Haiti are also at play. For example, the jurisdiction governing foreign mercenaries’ actions remains hazy, especially within the context of the weak Haitian government overseeing its deployment. “It’s unclear to what extent, if any, the Haitian government is capable of delineating the legal structures that would be in accordance with whatever global arrangement…is appropriate for this,” said researcher David Isenberg, author of “Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq.” “It is just problematic [to suppose], in my viewpoint, that the Haitian government, whatever remains of it, is…even capable of setting that out.” “Prince’s professional fighters have never shown a great grasp of local social and cultural issues or discretion in using force,” Ambassador Daniel Foote, the U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti from July to September 2021, told RS. “If they wind up running autonomous operations in Haiti, there’s a great chance we’ll see similar bloodbaths from Prince’s ‘army.’” The Haitian Embassy in D.C. did not respond to a request for comment. Rodenay Joseph, who owns a Florida-based security officer training company and was reportedly contacted by Prince about possibly collaborating on his Haiti deal, also did not respond to inquiries from RS. But the New York Times reported Joseph’s discomfort about private American mercenaries working with the Haitian government without outside oversight. “We should be very worried, because if (were) from the U.S. government, at least he can have the semblance of having to answer to Congress,” he told the Times, calling Prince’s scheme “just another payday.” “If it’s him, his contract, he doesn’t owe anybody an explanation.”

Editor’s Note: This story was corrected to accurately convey that the private company Constellis has no legal ownership or ongoing business relationship with Blackwater nor association of any kind with Blackwater founder Erik Prince.