The Outfit Formerly Known as Blackwater
Some of your employees are facing manslaughter charges. Your biggest customers just yanked your contracts.
How do you repair your image and your reputation?
Simple: change your name and cover your tracks.
The Outfit Formerly Known as Blackwater, the huge military contracting and consulting firm, made its bones and its less-than-salubrious name in Iraq. And now it wants to unmake its notoriety. It is changing its name to Xe.
Pronounced Z. Or maybe "zed," depending on what part of the world you're in.
In a memo to employees, Blackwater/Xe president Gary Jackson says the switch "reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security." To providing what now, exactly? Frosted cupcakes?
Xe is on the periodic charts at atomic number 54; it stands for xenon, a "noble gas" like fellow elements krypton and neon.
The Outfit Formerly Known as Blackwater now joins the ranks of the rebranded, along with Altria, a bland, content-free name used to make people forget that its real name and mission was Philip Morris, cigarette maker.
Whatever they choose to call it, for an awful lot of people, here and in Iraq, Blackwater's name will always be mud.
Photo: April 4, 2004 file photo of Blackwater USA employees involved in a firefight in Najaf. Credit: AP Photo/Gervasio Sanchez
I guess they do do what needs to be done, but perhaps they do have some good in them. A friend of mine is on a school ship trying to sail from Oman to Egypt, going right through the Gulf of Aden. Apparently, Blackwater is going to escort them through for free in an attempt to show their better side. I guess they're not all bad...
Posted by: james cassidy | February 17, 2009 at 10:06 PM
Could this be Xe's logo:
http://www.blables.com/comics/?id=18
Posted by: Tyler | February 15, 2009 at 08:51 PM
I don’t care what they change their name to I just want peace in our community and Blackwater or Xe is going back on a promise they made with us.
What I find troubling is that Blackwater had met with some citizens in the community and requested the community support the gun ranges (without permits) in Currituck that were built illegally. The citizens supported Blackwater in good faith and did not request the ranges or the illegally built driving track be removed. Shooting would stop at 10:00, this was all agreed to.
Now that Blackwater have received the changes to the Currituck Unified Development Ordinance through the Commissioners, they betray the community...they are not going to Camden County, just over the line, and asking to shoot all night. What a betrayal to the folks who supported them.
They can change their name but they do not seem to be changing the way they do business especially with the community they are in.
They are not very nice people or good neighbors.
Posted by: Janet | February 14, 2009 at 07:37 AM
Mud? Wouldn't a better name be "Slime"?
Posted by: Farkas McDee | February 13, 2009 at 09:55 PM
This article makes me mad. Blackwater just does what needs to be done. So what if some of their employees made poor decisions? If a couple of LAPD cops beat up a man, does that make all of LAPD bad? Yes. Poor example. Does an Iraqi bomder that kills innocent people make all Iraqis bad people? NO. ROE in this day and age are dumb. And also, the media coverage of wars never shows anything in a positive light. ITS A WAR. PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE. Blackwater USA just has an uncanny ability to fight wars well. Someone has got to do it.
Posted by: sam | February 13, 2009 at 07:17 PM