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?

Blackwater Gets The Boot

Blackwater is a private security firm (mercenaries) who provide security for private firms operating in Iraq, and body guard functions for private, foreign workers in Iraq. They have not had a very good reputation as some of their employees seem to be a little bit "gun-crazy."

Here's a clip from Mother Jones - click the link to read more...

The Iraqi government, taking advantage of the autonomy granted by the Status of Forces Agreement that went into effect January 1, has informed US officials that it will not be renewing Blackwater's operating license, according to this morning's Washington Post. This does not come as a shock—the firm has been in Baghdad's sights since at least September 2007, when its contractors opened fire in a traffic circle, killing 17 and wounding 24 others. The Iraqi government's first attempt to boot Blackwater from the country came just days after the shootings when it revoked the company's license, but US officials (enjoying a bit more authority at the time) simply ignored the order and went on to reaffirm Blackwater's presence the following April, much to the Iraqis' displeasure.

Blackwater has a short grace period as Baghdad finishes a draft of new guidelines that will govern the operations of private contractors. As Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Adbul-Karim Khalaf told the Post, "When the work of this committee ends, [private firms] will be under the authority of the Iraqi government, and those companies that don't have licenses, such as Blackwater, should leave immediately."

Blackwater Recruits

Blackwater is Part of the Problem

You are paying for this nonsense with no-bid contracts and no oversight. Our military is broken and we're trying to repair it with a mercenary army. Ronald Reagan must surely be smiling in his grave. Next step - hiring out our representatives (small r - includes President, Congress and the Judiciary). Oh - wait a minute - isn't that what the lobbyists are doing? Paying off our representatives? Hmmm...

The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company.

From Daily Kos - read more by clicking on the link.

Shays Loves Prince (Video)

Iraq Wants Some Justice

From Chron.com

Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months and pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed when the firm's guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month.

The demands — part of an Iraqi government report examined by The Associated Press — also called on U.S. authorities to hand over the Blackwater security agents involved in the Sept. 16 shootings to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

Blackwater Security - Gun Happy Thugs

From Crooks and Liars...

The U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government’s contention that Blackwater was at fault in the shooting incident in Nisoor Square, in which hospital records say at least 14 people were killed and 18 were wounded.

“It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong,” said the U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident remains the subject of several investigations. “The civilians that were fired upon, they didn’t have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP or any of the local security forces fired back at them,” he added, using a military abbreviation for the Iraqi police. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, the official said.

The Sickness of the Republican Government

From TPM...

A few days ago the State Department released what it called a "first blush" report on the Blackwater incident in Baghdad, a report which largely exonerated the Blackwater personnel involved. I noted at the time that "first blush" was something of an understatement since the report was based exclusively on statements the State Department took from Blackwater operatives on the scene. In other words, the Blackwater employees who did the shooting gave State an account that largely exonerated themselves. A truly shocking development.

But it seems that I was behind the curve on the level of caricature and self-parody that is the military contracting biz in Iraq these days. The report was written out of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the folks who hired Blackwater to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq. But it turns out that the State Department employee who interviewed the Blackwater folks and wrote the report, Darren Hanner ... well, he wasn't a State Department employee. He was another contractor from Blackwater.

So yes, you've got that right. We've now reached what can only be called the alpha and the omega of contracting accountability breakdown ridiculousness. We're outsourcing our investigations of Blackwater to Blackwater.