Erik Prince reminds us of Catch-22

"In a democracy, the government is the people," Milo declared. "We're people, aren't we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman. Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry."

How far from that amoral doublespeak are the recent machinations of Erik Prince, founder of controversial private security firm and military contractor Blackwater? Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, recently promoted a massive plan to create an army of private contractors and their aircraft to take over much of the war in Afghanistan. President Donald Trump was talked out of his initial support for the idea, but the revelation we came that close to outsourcing our war should scare all of us.