Famous mercenary corporation is rebranding… Blackwater will now be known as Xe.
Blackwater Logo... hmmm... black, red, white... whatever you think abou the company, this does seem to be a very strange colour combination for such a company.
If you have never heard of Blackwater U.S.A., it is a private military contractor or, more prosaically, a private mercenary army. It has become infamous for its high profile (and big-money) security contracts all over the world (they famously protected the controversial J. Paul Bremer while he was running Iraq after George W. Bush ‘liberated’ it. They are also infamous for killing civilians, enjoying immunity from prosecution while in Iraq, endangering U.S./coalition troops with their trigger-happiness, and then getting banned by the Iraqi government from operating in Iraq. (By the way, they now operate throughout many U.S. states and were on the ground in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, see Jeremy Scahill’s book which is very interesting and, I should say, frightening.) In the end, Blackwater was just the most high-profile security firms now operating all over the world.
Talking Points Memo carried an Associated Press story by Mike Baker that describes Blackwater Worldwide decision to re-brand to “Xe” (apparently pronounced’ zee’). So, going along with multi-national-corporation-groupthink, the best way to revive ones tarnished image or ‘brand’ is not to take responsibility for ones actions and change the way one does business but simply to re-brand and change the public’s perceptions of the company. Apparently, Blackwater wants to focus less on providing security and focus more on training.