Blackwater to Become Xe

It's been on the news - you've probably heard it - the mercenary outfit called Blackwater is going to change their name. Could it have anything to do with the fact that Iraq is tossing them out for their unmitigated, uncontrolled violence?

From Mother Jones...

What's in a name? A lot, particularly if you're a company accused of misdeeds. The best way out, as has been shown time and again, is simply to discard your name, adopt a new identity, and start again. It's a veritable capitalist tradition. Just ask the budget airline ValueJet, which, after one of its planes nosedived into the Florida Everglades in May 1996, killing everyone aboard, quietly became AirTran. Even cereal executives know the score: the breakfast favorite "Sugar Pops" became "Corn Pops" as health conscious mothers awoke to the idea that feeding sugar to their kids each morning was not a great idea.

What about repeated, questionable shootings of Iraqis? That, too, demands a blank slate... or so Blackwater has decided. Buried in the news Friday was Erik Prince's decision to rebrand his network of military contracting firms from Blackwater to "Xe," pronouned like the letter "z." Seems pretty lame at first blush, but perhaps it's a stroke of genius. Could it be that reporters' fascination with the Blackwater flows, at least in part, from the perfect symmetry of shady dealings and an ominous, Bond-villainish name?