Tim Spicer person
also: Tony Blair's pet bulldog, Mr. Spicer, Spicer
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
Sandline Internationalorganization · 18Aegis Defense Servicesorganization · 15United Kingdomcountry · 13Simon Mannperson · 9Executive Outcomesorganization · 8United Statescountry · 8Scots Guardsorganization · 6British Armyorganization · 6Irancountry · 6Sierra Leonecountry · 6Ahmed Tejan Kabbahperson · 5Tony Buckinghamperson · 5private military security industryplace · 4Papua New Guineacountry · 4Peter Singerperson · 3Le Cercleorganization · 3U.S. State Departmentorganization · 3Kurdistanplace · 3Peter McBrideperson · 3British Special Air Serviceorganization · 3Afghanistancountry · 2Boliviacountry · 2Nigeriacountry · 2Rhodesiacountry · 2
Claims (31)
Tim Spicer funded
Project Matrix documented
“military groups. The plot that catapulted Mann into a jail cell in Zimbabwe was a classic mercenary operation that seemed to be real-life adaptation of Dogs of War. Spicer and Mann had been partners and compatriots in the private military w…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 51:46
Tim Spicer headed
Aegis Defense Services documented
“G4S, and Triple Canopy. Among the signers representing the many companies that day was Aegis Spicer, a predictable occurrence considering that Aegis had been actively involved in the Swiss initiative for several years. Spicer signed on beha…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 25:48
Tim Spicer member_of
Executive Outcomes documented
“generation graduate of Eaton, which was a private school in England known to be, it's basically kind of like our Yale. He was also a former SAS commander, a former lieutenant in the British Army's Scots Guard Unit, and one of Buckingham's p…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 1:36
Tim Spicer headed
Aegis Defense Services documented
“The resume of the CEO, none other than Tim Spicer, was long, deeply linking the firm to the industry's origins of mercenary. In Britain, Spicer was as well known as his firm was little known. In fact, Spicer and his friend Simon Mann were, …”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 49:42
Tim Spicer member_of
Inter-Services Intelligence host_asserted
“among the British was that Spicer had been part of MI6 for years, and he was just continuing working for them. This fit with the long-lived suspicion that Jardin Fleming Banks, tethered to Aegis early days, was just an extension of the Brit…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 37:13
Tim Spicer founded
Sandline International documented
“this executive outcome point two that is going to run to their assistant. And we end up in the same place that we've been so many times where you're basically funding both sides of all of these wars. The company would have a new name, thoug…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 8:33
Tim Spicer headed
Aegis Defense Services documented
“was granted to a British company, Aegis Service Limited, in May to provide security teams for the project and contracting office, the body responsible for overseeing $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds for Iraq. The company is led by T…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 11:29
Tim Spicer headed
Sandline International documented
“where they murdered somebody, and had managed PR for the British Army in Bosnia. After retiring from the army, he became a marketing director at one of London's most impressive investment firms, a job that required travel regularly to the M…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 20:06
Tim Spicer member_of
Scots Guards documented
“was granted to a British company, Aegis Service Limited, in May to provide security teams for the project and contracting office, the body responsible for overseeing $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds for Iraq. The company is led by T…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 11:29
Tim Spicer member_of
British Army documented
“The most important figure in the transition of old world mercenaries to these new private military companies had already lived several lives. He was a graduate of Sandhurst British Elite Military Academy for British Army officers, had serve…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 19:38
Tim Spicer founded
Aegis Defense Services documented
“was the banker star researcher also from Jardin. A few months later, in December of 2002, while the New Jersey project continued, Spicer, the two men from Jardin, and one more Jardin banker, who was a big backer, launched Aegis. So, you hav…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 27:22
Tony Choate recruited
Tim Spicer host_asserted
“He was familiar with both Aegis and Spicer. He had worked with Spicer during the 1990s Balkan War, when Hunter Kiyote had been part of the British UN contingent, while Spicer was the spokesperson for the UN Protection Force, which comprised…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 41:12
Aegis Defense Services funded
Tim Spicer book_quoted
“Aegis indeed focused on the coordination aspect of the project when it entered the competition, and this was what the U.S. government wanted. But the government also wanted Spicer's expertise, Avant said. At the time, according to knowledge…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 44:09
Tim Spicer worked_for
Department of Defense documented
“Tim Spicer, for example, noted that his company was a contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense, unlike Blackwater, which was contracted to the State Department. And that meant that Aegis had to adhere to about 15 layers of regulations t…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 4 @ 41:16
Tim Spicer headed
Sandline International host_asserted
“Sandline's CEO, Tim Spicer, who we're going to talk about a lot, would become a highly influential and hugely controversial figure in the private military security industry. After the Cold War ended, companies like these grew in size and se…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Ann Hagedoan Part 1 @ 50:14
Tim Spicer founded
Sandline International documented
“Spicer would vigorously defend their action, even testifying on their behalf. After being convicted of murder, both of his guardsmen were released from prison in 1998. Spicer later argued for their reinstatement back into the Scott Guard. U…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Strange Tales of the Parapolitical Part 11 @ 42:49
Tim Spicer member_of
Scots Guards documented
“He's often described as a veteran of the Special Air Services, or SAS, their most elite special forces. By his own admission, he was actually rejected by the SAS, according to him. You don't know whether to believe him or not. But he did ta…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Strange Tales of the Parapolitical Part 11 @ 41:55
Tim Spicer overthrew
Papua New Guinea documented
“He was involved in the Papua New Guinea debacle in which Spicer's client was overthrown after the nation's military learned of Sandline's involvement. Whoops. Effectively, Spicer and his merry band had toppled the government they had been h…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Strange Tales of the Parapolitical Part 11 @ 45:15
Tim Spicer supplied_arms_to
Ahmed Tejan Kabbah documented
“Kamajar units loyal to Kaba and received assistance from a Nigerian force as part of a UN mission. Sandline's plan was a success with a counter coup driving the rebel forces from the capital. It was in the aftermath that things blew up. In …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Strange Tales of the Parapolitical Part 11 @ 48:44
Tim Spicer founded
Aegis Defense Services documented
“have implications for the Tony Blair prime minister. Spicer left Sandline in 1999. The next few years were austere after a series of lackluster security firms. Spicer founded Aegis, A-E-G-I-S, Defense Services in 2002, which just so happene…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Strange Tales of the Parapolitical Part 11 @ 49:43
Tim Spicer member_of
Aegis Defense Services documented
“as well as to better serve and protect its clients while enabling their mission. Unquote. Spicer's presence at such an event and his involvement in the cause to regulate, self-regulate that is, should not have surprised anyone. In his 1999 …”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 26:42
Tim Spicer member_of
Aegis Defense Services documented
“While in the U.S., there were private militaries sometimes legally unaccountable to anyone. For Aegis and for Spicer, an ironic situation surfaced in August of 2010 when Aegis established a new non-operating holding company in Basel, Switze…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 38:11
Tim Spicer member_of
Sandline International host_asserted
“military groups. The plot that catapulted Mann into a jail cell in Zimbabwe was a classic mercenary operation that seemed to be real-life adaptation of Dogs of War. Spicer and Mann had been partners and compatriots in the private military w…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 51:46
Sandline International front_for
Tim Spicer host_asserted
“be seen as central to the new military privatization, making 2004 a defining year for private military security companies. And because of the company that won it, the contract would also represent a milestone in the modern history of mercen…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 36:33
Tim Spicer founded
Aegis Defense Services host_asserted
“Well-known British journalist Stephen Armstrong began an article in a TV interview with the observation, Tim Spicer is the future of warfare. Another writer described him as the closest thing to the father of private security in the militar…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 29:55
Tim Spicer spied_on
The Troubles documented
“seen combat several times. He was in the Falklands. He also, let's see, was in the Iraq War and in Bosnia. During the early 1990s, Spicer got his first taste of controversy with his Scott guards had been deployed to Ireland as part of the T…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Strange Tales of the Parapolitical Part 11 @ 42:23
Aegis Defense Services front_for
Tim Spicer host_asserted
“The resume of the CEO, none other than Tim Spicer, was long, deeply linking the firm to the industry's origins of mercenary. In Britain, Spicer was as well known as his firm was little known. In fact, Spicer and his friend Simon Mann were, …”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2 @ 49:42
Tim Spicer traded_network_to
Simon Mann host_asserted
“and was called routinely by high-level government officials. Articles about Aegis and its CEO less frequently commented on his shadowy past as a mercenary, with his arms-to-Africa scandal, the New Guinea jail episode, his tie-to-coup plotte…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 29:27
Tim Spicer covered_up
Arms-to-Africa scandal host_asserted
“and was called routinely by high-level government officials. Articles about Aegis and its CEO less frequently commented on his shadowy past as a mercenary, with his arms-to-Africa scandal, the New Guinea jail episode, his tie-to-coup plotte…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 29:27
Tim Spicer carried_out_attack
Peter McBride host_asserted
“and was called routinely by high-level government officials. Articles about Aegis and its CEO less frequently commented on his shadowy past as a mercenary, with his arms-to-Africa scandal, the New Guinea jail episode, his tie-to-coup plotte…”
▶ The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers Part 7 @ 29:27
Tony Blair ordered_assassination_of
Tim Spicer host_asserted
“incidents in the past. It would explain it perfectly. He was referred to as Tony Blair's pet bulldog. Those were the rumors based on the assumption that the U.S. did not know about Spicer's past and hastened the quest in the award of the co…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Invisible Soldier by Hagedoan Part 3 @ 37:44
Mentions (79)
▶ 41:30
Last one real quick. And this one is Aegis. A-E-G-I-S. The Brits have long been well respected for their private military companies as well. And one of their most infamous people is a Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer. Spicer spent 20 years in …
▶ 41:55
He's often described as a veteran of the Special Air Services, or SAS, their most elite special forces. By his own admission, he was actually rejected by the SAS, according to him. You don't know whether to believe him or not. But he did ta…
▶ 42:23
seen combat several times. He was in the Falklands. He also, let's see, was in the Iraq War and in Bosnia. During the early 1990s, Spicer got his first taste of controversy with his Scott guards had been deployed to Ireland as part of the T…
▶ 42:49
Spicer would vigorously defend their action, even testifying on their behalf. After being convicted of murder, both of his guardsmen were released from prison in 1998. Spicer later argued for their reinstatement back into the Scott Guard. U…
▶ 43:17
and it was founded during the following year. Amusingly, the early PR push for Sandline featured one of the earliest uses of the term private military company while it worked to rebrand mercenaries as contractors. In theory, this more corpo…
▶ 43:48
Spicer received early backing from a guy by the name of Simon Mann and another helper, Tony Buckingham. They were SAS men who had helped launch Executive Outcome. Mann had originally offered Spicer a role in Executive Outcomes, but he had d…
▶ 44:44
The London branch of the Executive Outcomes had been registered with an organization called Branch Heritage Group in 1993. When Sandline was launched in 1996, it was also owned by the same group. Like it's two apples on the same tree. So, t…
▶ 45:15
He was involved in the Papua New Guinea debacle in which Spicer's client was overthrown after the nation's military learned of Sandline's involvement. Whoops. Effectively, Spicer and his merry band had toppled the government they had been h…
▶ 45:46
Spicer's efforts to support, let's see, effort in PNG were supported by Tony Buckingham, who appeared to have been running the same type of scheme with executive outcomes in Africa. And the PNG's negotiations with Sandline, Buckingham opene…
▶ 46:17
buying interest in the mines and Sandline would soon then liberate the mines. That's kind of, that's actually a very interesting. So now we've combined the international syndicate with the operation Gladio under one company. So we're going …
▶ 46:47
Spicer moved on to Sierra Leone, where he became ensnared in what became Arms for Africa scandal. Executive Outcome had departed the nation in January, and the regime of Ahmed Tahan Kabbah, K-A-B-B-A-H, that they had helped install was soon…
▶ 48:13
only able to produce 1.5 million of the promised 10, but Spicer decided these funds were more than sufficient for him to start work. Initially, things went well, using many of the tactics as executive outcomes had used. Working on behalf of…
▶ 48:44
Kamajar units loyal to Kaba and received assistance from a Nigerian force as part of a UN mission. Sandline's plan was a success with a counter coup driving the rebel forces from the capital. It was in the aftermath that things blew up. In …
▶ 49:14
despite Sierra Leone being under a UN arms embargo. To bypass the embargo, he arranged for the arms to be transferred to Nigeria first, and then they were going to pass them to Kaba's government. Spicer had secured approval for these effort…
▶ 49:43
have implications for the Tony Blair prime minister. Spicer left Sandline in 1999. The next few years were austere after a series of lackluster security firms. Spicer founded Aegis, A-E-G-I-S, Defense Services in 2002, which just so happene…
▶ 50:44
to all of Britain's higher-ups, as well as the Netherlands and everybody else all over Germany. So, Colonel David Sterling again, we have the circle and all of their contacts being in bed with this Spicer guy. A year after his meeting with …
▶ 51:40
It was at this time the largest security contract that had ever been awarded as part of that occupation. Overnight, they went from nothing to everything as a result on the global war on terror. That contract had taken us from a small organi…
▶ 52:09
ended up with this contract. Prior to 9-11, Spicer had been held in such esteem by the U.S. government that he was once chained to a chair while officials sorted out his purpose of even being in the United States. To further complicate matt…
▶ 52:41
W-O-N-G-A, sponsored by his former business partner, Simon Mann, that was going on when he was awarded the IRAC contract. No doubt Spicer's contact with the Circle, as well as his friends at the Coalition Provisional Authority, helped. Ages…
▶ 53:11
General Tony Hunter Choke, so it's Hunter-C-H-O-A-T, headed the security for the project management office and is credited for aiding Spicer to get the contract. Hunter Choke served in the British SAS for over 20 years. His military career …
▶ 55:30
once they were reviewed after allegations made of them doing bad things, were found they didn't do any bad things. Imagine that. I'm shocked. So at the time, the whole operation was being ran by the former Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer. So …
▶ 5:14
All three were reshaped and reintroduced as the privatization of conflict and the market for private force evolved. In Britain, coverage of the story revived accounts of Tim Spicer's mercenary past. Quote, controversial ex-British Army offi…
▶ 5:41
The article quoted industry insiders who believe the contract could prove politically embarrassing for both the UK and US governments. Officials at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, and that's an important element of this, the…
▶ 6:11
That was their word, passed, as a mercenary, but saw no reason why that would be a barrier to his qualifying for the contract. The Financial Times article ended with a British foreign officer spokesman saying that the foreign office had not…
▶ 8:29
Singer believed that it was possible that the people awarding the contract might not know anything about ages past because the responsibility and the funding of private military contracts is spread out over the government to some of the str…
▶ 11:29
was granted to a British company, Aegis Service Limited, in May to provide security teams for the project and contracting office, the body responsible for overseeing $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds for Iraq. The company is led by T…
▶ 11:57
for illicit arms deals in Africa and for commanding murderous military units in Northern Ireland. Two soldiers in the unit shot and killed Peter McBride, a Catholic teenager in Belfast in 1992 while under Mr. Spicer's command. Two soldiers …
▶ 12:25
McBride in the back. Spicer argued for their release, which occurred in 1998, and the soldiers were inexplicably reinstated into the British Army. The U.S. government requires all contractors to be responsible bidders. Contractors have to h…
▶ 15:40
The contract involves coordination of security support for reconstruction contractors and for the protection of their personnel, unquote. After that, he was quiet and apparently out of the country for the summer. The British Foreign Office …
▶ 16:10
am doubtful that the folks awarding the contract had any sense of Spicer's history, he told the Globe reporter. The Army never even bothered to Google this guy to find out who he was. Backing up such notions were the comments of the U.S. Ar…
▶ 16:40
He did, but it was as a mercenary. And of course, you're asking the people that are responsible for these coups to reevaluate the fact that they just awarded another contract to the people doing the coups. It's kind of like spinning your wh…
▶ 17:43
and already tainted, albeit slightly, with a whiff of dirty tricks. And that is the crux of the matter. The powers that be want mercenaries for mercenary activity. That was his email. The email recipient was Deborah Avant, then a scholar at…
▶ 18:13
past was likely viewed as an asset for the work they wanted to do in Iraq. Some people have suggested that this shows that the U.S. was clueless about contracting. Avant says, but there is no reason for his company to have gotten the contra…
▶ 19:08
This was, after all, a business dependent on conflict and instability to market itself. So guess what we're going to get? More conflict and instability. In the summer of 2004, Spicer kept a low profile. By then, he seemed already different …
▶ 19:38
The most important figure in the transition of old world mercenaries to these new private military companies had already lived several lives. He was a graduate of Sandhurst British Elite Military Academy for British Army officers, had serve…
▶ 20:06
where they murdered somebody, and had managed PR for the British Army in Bosnia. After retiring from the army, he became a marketing director at one of London's most impressive investment firms, a job that required travel regularly to the M…
▶ 20:36
Special Forces officers, MI6 agents, Arab sheiks, and a wide range of entrepreneurs. He knew the power of PR and the perception of management in building the success of any endeavor. He knew what it was like to be lamb blasted and despised …
▶ 22:59
The Papua New Guinea military denounced Sandline's contract. The prime minister fired the military commander and the soldiers. The soldiers, showing their devotion to the commander and their anger to the government, began anti-government pr…
▶ 23:25
The prime minister was forced to resign and eventually Spicer was released. The next year, the second Sandline scandal occurred in Sierra Leone. This one was labeled by the media as arms for Africa. It caused a considerable stir during the …
▶ 23:55
the Project Matrix contract. In brief, Sandline allegedly violated a UN arms embargo when it supplied at least 1,000 AK-47s, as well as mortar, light machine guns, and ammunition to coup plotters favoring the return of Sierra Leone's exile …
▶ 24:56
So they wanted him back in office and they wanted to overthrow the current government because Cabba had sold his soul to the Western oligarchs. And in this case, an Eastern one as well. The mineral rights, mostly diamonds, would be awarded …
▶ 25:27
however, disputed his claim, and investigation reports and heated disputes would ensue for years. In 1999, Spicer resigned from Sandline, and for the next few years until founding AGES, he started and ran several small enterprises, mostly p…
▶ 26:22
and won a Homeland Security contract to assess security at American seaports and brought Spicer in as a partner. Some people in the insurance business in London gave me Spicer's name, the director said. I knew he had a colorful reputation, …
▶ 26:50
who had left a British army for baking career in Hong Kong at a bank called Jardin Fleming. And that has come up as a money launder, just FYI. This was a merchant bank rooted in the Fleming family, of which Ian Fleming is a part. It had bee…
▶ 27:22
was the banker star researcher also from Jardin. A few months later, in December of 2002, while the New Jersey project continued, Spicer, the two men from Jardin, and one more Jardin banker, who was a big backer, launched Aegis. So, you hav…
▶ 27:52
Aegis. Are y'all following along? That's crazy shit. So from the start, this company basically fits all of the descriptions of this ongoing Operation Gladio bullshit. On the list of Aegis' early investors was Frederick Forsyte, who said lat…
▶ 49:45
of private military firms, mineral resource businesses, and air charter companies, you know, like their own private CIA. Among its holdings would soon be a company called Sandline International, run by some of the same ex-military men and b…
▶ 2:07
UK, because remember, it was created in South America. The third man's name was Tim Spicer. We're going to hear a lot about Tim Spicer. He was a former lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guard as well. Spicer had no man for many years, but he …
▶ 7:05
in order to pretend like they were a brand new company, kind of like what Blackwater did later. Spicer noted later in his autobiography that he, Buckingham, and Mann discussed the creation of a properly organized professional company market…
▶ 7:32
would be a company working only for legitimate government. It would be more conventional, more public, and less secretive than executive outcomes had been. They agreed that there was a significant market for these companies. Spicer, as he l…
▶ 10:35
The first use of the term private military company in the press occurred barely a month after the meeting. In an article from a French news agency reporting on the Civil War in Angola and referring to executive outcomes. Later, after Mann a…
▶ 36:33
be seen as central to the new military privatization, making 2004 a defining year for private military security companies. And because of the company that won it, the contract would also represent a milestone in the modern history of mercen…
▶ 49:42
The resume of the CEO, none other than Tim Spicer, was long, deeply linking the firm to the industry's origins of mercenary. In Britain, Spicer was as well known as his firm was little known. In fact, Spicer and his friend Simon Mann were, …
▶ 50:12
for separate events. While Spicer was seeking a lucrative U.S. contract for his latest company, Mann was planning a coup in another country. In March, a Boeing 727 loaded with 60 men and $180,000 in cash and crates of guns was stopped minut…
▶ 51:46
military groups. The plot that catapulted Mann into a jail cell in Zimbabwe was a classic mercenary operation that seemed to be real-life adaptation of Dogs of War. Spicer and Mann had been partners and compatriots in the private military w…
▶ 20:08
As was clear in the autumn of 2006 when Britain's Spectator magazine read a story with the headline, quote, guns, men with guns are the new dot coms, unquote. That began with this scene, quote, sitting behind his smartly fashioned desk in o…
▶ 41:16
Tim Spicer, for example, noted that his company was a contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense, unlike Blackwater, which was contracted to the State Department. And that meant that Aegis had to adhere to about 15 layers of regulations t…
▶ 57:02
embassy security protection and thus Aegis could stay. Even the British Foreign Office, which had nearly declared war on Spicer in 1990, wanted Aegis to guard some of its embassies. We've built a brand. We've built a reputation. We've dispe…
▶ 57:31
It had nine years since the headlines that marked Aegis' rise from winning the largest security contract in Iraq. Now, Spicer and his company rarely have ever made the news, nor did the industry he helped launch. By 2013, these businesses s…
▶ 25:48
G4S, and Triple Canopy. Among the signers representing the many companies that day was Aegis Spicer, a predictable occurrence considering that Aegis had been actively involved in the Swiss initiative for several years. Spicer signed on beha…
▶ 26:42
as well as to better serve and protect its clients while enabling their mission. Unquote. Spicer's presence at such an event and his involvement in the cause to regulate, self-regulate that is, should not have surprised anyone. In his 1999 …
▶ 28:30
I cannot recall any instance where we have put more than 100 people on the ground and it is usually far fewer, which is a bold. Well, in 1999, that was true. But he knew that was not going to be true forever. By the time Spicer was signing …
▶ 28:59
it would be hard for anyone to refute the fact that he was among the first to see the sun setting on the old world of Cold War mercenaries and to witness the sun rising on the new industry. By 2010, Spicer was often quoted in articles about…
▶ 29:27
and was called routinely by high-level government officials. Articles about Aegis and its CEO less frequently commented on his shadowy past as a mercenary, with his arms-to-Africa scandal, the New Guinea jail episode, his tie-to-coup plotte…
▶ 30:24
had been in a dark kingdom where few dared to go and had learned things that might be useful to know. Or perhaps it was simply the alluring intrigue that so-called mercenaries projected and that lingering long after the shareholders and boa…
▶ 30:50
a few blocks away from K Street's office in Washington. He looked like an investment banker on holiday. It was hard to imagine him in a Papua New Guinea jail cell or surrounded by rebels in Sierra Leone during a mission to overthrow the gov…
▶ 31:22
Witty and sober, he spoke for a long while about the evolution of the sector, as he called it, the private military security industry. Quote, the American companies came later. The British were early, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. Unquote. And why Br…
▶ 31:50
Spicer saw the trajectory of private military security companies as analogous to the history of the American railroad industry. At first, they were accused of everything, but they were essential as the world was changing and they in turn ch…
▶ 32:21
You start off wild and then become part of the establishment. Experimental music becoming mainstream. It's like rap. It took 20 years, but now it's just a regular form of music. What should cause a real fuss from his point of view was not h…
▶ 32:49
It wasn't as much of an issue that the private militaries were threatening democracy as it was that democracies were threatened by economic and geopolitical instabilities that the private military companies could tackle more successfully th…
▶ 33:19
Let me just stop right there. You are drawing on the very skilled population of the large standing military. Just thought I'd point that out. You pay for the recruitment of soldiers, the training, the sustainment forever. Every 24 hours, he…
▶ 33:50
water, food, pirates, support of future military missions where you want to get involved, unquote. So that's about as callous a statement as I have ever heard. He would be nowhere, absolutely nowhere, without drawing on the source of funded…
▶ 34:20
and they're throwaway items for him. They're a line on a balance sheet or expense account, I should say. The future for the sector, he stressed, wasn't about identifying geographical areas and getting work there. It wasn't about Iraq, Afgha…
▶ 34:50
disaster relief, famines, earthquakes, you name it. So support to customs control on the Mexican American border, training in Mexico. Spicer was a determined man with intense blue eyes that could stare down a leopard. Yet there he was seemi…
▶ 35:16
Spicer's favorite book was Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor, a trilogy, a classic work about war, religion, and politics set in World War II. Its three volumes, Minute, Arms, Officer, and Gentleman, and The End of the Battle were mischievous a…
▶ 39:09
Hearings of a bipartisan commission on wartime contracting on Capitol Hill, a University of Maryland professor, had asked AGES president Christy Clemons Rogers, she's the president for the branch that's in the United States, if Tim Spicer w…
▶ 49:58
Ironically, this time, Spicer's wild and unconventional past had become a component of his own success story, the before and after, an impressive image. In late autumn 2010, as a new multi-billionaire state department security contract in I…
▶ 53:25
um before tonight um so thank you guys again all for being here i really really appreciate it more than you'll ever know um thanks for all the support sr71 go ahead thank you colonel and thank everyone for being here on on spaces and on rum…
▶ 53:55
You don't even get a picture of Tim Spicer on Wikipedia. Okay? I found one on a German website with an article about Sandline. So I did post that in the pill if anybody wants to go look. But trying to find a picture of that man is not easy.…