The saga of America’s private-sector pirate-hunting Navy is over. That’s right. Blackwater’s (Or Xe’s) Navy is up for sale–in Spain, no less!
Make an offer! Blackwater’s former flagship, the McArthur, is a modified 183′ Norfolk Shipbuilding Expeditionary Yacht. And it can be yours for $3.7 million dollars–so put your money down! There’s been a “Major Price Reduction” already, so this ship won’t last long! Here’s what you’d get:
The “McArthur” is totally self-contained, makes her own water, and has satellite communications systems that provide for continuous broadband service and satellite telephone. The vessel has a two bed hospital and carries adequate stores of food and supplies to support her crew and 30 additional personnel for 45 days without re-supply. She has the ability to land and fuel small and medium size helicopters and store, launch and retrieve 3 small craft up to 15 tons and 36 ft. in length. She has temporary sheltering for over 100 survivors from disasters.
Now, all this must come as a rude shock to those in the milblogosphere who happily regurgitated Blackwater propaganda or credulously promoted Blackwater’s anti-pirate Navy. Here’s an example of the irrational press-release-fuelled exuberance:
“…The French are already using private contractors for these purposes. This is the next logical step based on those calls. Unless the citizens of the US are ready to push the US Navy to make this a top priority, something that requires political action, this is seen as one of the limited but cost effective ways for the shipping industry to respond…”
Blah, blah…The only thing was that nobody in the shipping business saw Blackwater as a cost-effective means to fight piracy. And few in the blogosphere bothered to do their due diligence–most just joined in the hype and began braying away (it’s a distressing habit that extends to the latest topic-of-the-day–be it ASBMs, piracy, or whatever–beware those who constantly hype the popular programs and suck up to the powerful people).
Sadly, blog-hype was unable to compensate for a platform that just was inappropriate for the job at hand.
I didn’t join in. Rather than pass on media releases, I began covering the hype in October 2007, after Wired’s Sharon Weinberger broke the McArthur story. In April 2008, I noted the ship had been sitting for about a year, unengaged in anti-piracy operations, and by October 2008 began wondering why milbloggers still fawned all over the concept when it just wasn’t working. It all got worse last year, when, in January 2009, I found McArthur fighting pirates from a Norfolk berth.
And by May 2009, the ship had dissolved into something more akin to Animal House than a buttoned-down pirate fighter. But then what does one expect from a company run by a boss who, after reaping a political windfall, cries like a baby once the going gets hard?
Maybe, one day, a company somewhat like Xe might get it right. But in the meantime, let’s raise a glass to a defunct Navy, and hope that our navies (whatever nations you readers might hail from) can avoid a similar fate…
h/t Moose! (BTW–what are you doing shopping for multi-million dollar yachts?)
