Late last month, Erik Prince, the founder of the Bush administration’s mercenary army in Iraq – also known as Blackwater – expressed admiration for the state’s “pager attacks.” Israel. The attacks, which killed at least two children and seriously injured many others, used explosives in densely populated civilian areas.

Even a misapplication of just war theory would force us to conclude that such attacks constitute war crimes. Exploding bombs without knowing where they might be or who will be affected does not meet the definition of a “just war.” It is not even clear that the targets were Hezbollah operatives. We are simply supposed to trust the opinions of Israeli technocrats.

Nonetheless, Prince praised the operation as “magnificent.” He added that he was “jealous” of Israeli intelligence agents and encouraged the US Central Intelligence Agency to employ similar tactics.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Prince has no problem with war crimes. During the US occupation of Iraq, Prince’s mercenaries opened fire on civilians during the Nisour Square massacre. Four blackwater officers were later convicted of various homicide charges in connection with the massacre. (Trump later pardoned the convicts in an effort to please pro-military voters.)

So Prince’s calling for more lethal tactics from the CIA is what we should expect from him. Prince has long been a close ally of the American deep state, and for decades has made a good living defrauding Americans through taxpayer-funded government contracts and cushy consulting positions with three-party agencies. letters like the CIA.

Even so, Prince is portrayed by his supporters as something of a capitalist or entrepreneur. He even presented himself as a libertarian favorable to the economics of the Austrian school. This is clearly absurd. Real capitalists and entrepreneurs do not base their business models on exploiting taxpayers through lucrative government contracts. True libertarians do not help their governments wage pointless wars of conquest.

Prince is not alone in this false parasitic “capitalism”. Indeed, working with the CIA appears to be a favorite pastime of many wealthy businessmen posing as free marketers.

Another example of this breed of “libertarian” CIA defenders is Peter Thiel. Thiel was a founder of Palantir, a technology platform with close ties to the CIA, NSA, FBI, CDC and other agencies. Thiel is, in the words of the great independent journalist Whitney Webb, “the CIA-linked architect of key aspects of the technocratic surveillance state.”

As Webb has shown, Thiel’s ties to the deep state’s “total information awareness” (TIA) programs are deep and lasting, and Palantir has become an equivalent of the TIA providing the US state with AI valuable and associated services.

Thiel, of course, adheres to all the usual war initiatives of the American regime and has worked to help the State of Israel kill civilians in Gaza and southern Lebanon.

Asked publicly about his active support of the Israeli regime, Thiels’ disjointed and almost incoherent response stated that “my bias is to support Israel,” that it is wrong to “question” the decisions of the Israeli state, and which government experts know better than anyone.

Asked about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence to bomb and kill Palestinian civilians in #GazaPeter Thiel @peterthiel co-founder of PayPal and first investor in Facebook, breaks down and declares:

“My bias is to rely on Israel!!️” pic.twitter.com/P5Wk8UPO6a

—Nour Naïm| نُور (@NourNaim88) July 24, 2024

This is what we get from the so-called libertarian “entrepreneurs” who roam the top of the Warring State.