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Blackwater 3.0: Rebranded ‘Academi’ Wants Back In Iraq
So much for naming your mercenary company after an obscure element from the periodic table.
The company formerly known as Blackwater Say goodbye to Xe. The company formerly known as Blackwater — the world’s most infamous private security corporation — has jettisoned the name it chose in its 2009 rebrand. Now the “security solutions provider” wants to wash away the taint of the 2007 Nisour Square shootings by adopting the new name “Academi.”
But the company is changing its name — not its core business. And it even wants back into the country where it ran its brand through the mud: Iraq.
If Blackwater — sorry, Academi – was a sports franchise, you’d consider 2011 its rebuilding year. A consortium of investors close to the family of founder Erik Prince bought the company in late 2010, and spent 2011 putting together its new leadership team. It brought on board former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Bill Clinton consigliere Jack Quinn and Suzanne Folsom from the insurance giant AIG. Wright came from military-services giant KBR. Notice a pattern? All have deep experience with crisis management.
Notice another pattern: all of those hires either worked in senior government positions or worked closely with those who did. That signals confidence in the company’s traditional business — getting big government contracts to protect diplomats, aid workers and even the military in dangerous places. On its new website, Academi says providing “stability and protection to people and locations experiencing turmoil” is its “core” business. New name; same wheelhouse.
The name, however, is meant to convey that “we lead with training,” Wright says — using the company’s “elite training facility” at Moyock, North Carolina to train cops, first responders, and even U.S. troops. No more will the company, say, act like a cutout for the CIA.
Xe certainly didn’t get the company out of the private security business. But after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, turning the company radioactive, it played down its own its own brand name. When Xe ventured out into the security business, it often did so by using spinoff, subsidiary or front companies that obscured their ties to Xe, like “International Development Solutions,” its partnership with Kaseman that won part of a $10 billion State Department security contract in 2010.
That’s coming to an end, Wright says. All future Academi subsidiaries “will have the word ‘Academi’ in front.” International Development Solutions will keep its name, however, since Academi is a “minority partner” in the firm.
And that’s part of convincing everyone that the company has turned over an ethical leaf. Academi will issue new codes of conduct to its guards and trainers soon, and Wright promises “accountability and openness” over the company’s actions. Translation: no more stealing guns, coked-up warzone parties, or killing civilians.
Wright acknowledges that rebranding the world’s most infamous security company might seem like an exercise in cynicism. And so he sets himself a challenge: getting the company back into Iraq.
“As we make changes and they take root and we convince everyone they’re real,” Wright says, “then the real proof in the pudding is convincing the government of Iraq and the U.S. government to let us do business in Iraq.”
That’s a hard sell: Iraq stripped Blackwater of its business license after Nisour Square. Iraqis are unlikely to give Academi anything like the benefit of the doubt. But with U.S. troops set to leave Iraq at the end of the month, mercs are filling the security gap. There’s a lot of business to be had — if Wright and company can convince either government they deserve it.
Wright wants a shot to show a very skeptical world that Academi represents “an institution of trained thinkers and warriors,” he says, conveying ”excellence, dignity, honor, integrity.”
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46 Comments so far
Show AllHere's how it goes:
"Fool me once, shame on you..." = Blackwater.
"Fool me twice, shame on me..." = Blackwater becomes Xe, named not for an obscure element on the periodic table, but rather for the 'chi-rho' (Xe) symbol that graced the shields of the Roman Legions after Emperor Constantine's 'conversion' to Christianity. Blackwater founder Eric Prince is a known and notorious Millennialist Christian and admirer of the Roman Empire.
"Fool me three times, I have proven I am a clueless moron." = Xe/Blackwater becomes the neutral sounding 'Academi' (playing off the similarity to the word 'academy') making you think they are just there to teach the ignorant Muslims how to be good policemen. While really seeking to renew it's mercenary contract with the Big Boys in Washington, D.C.
"Wright wants a shot to show a very skeptical world that Academi represents “an institution of trained thinkers and warriors,” he says, conveying ”excellence, dignity, honor, integrity.”
While simultaneously continuing a US Government protected policy of rape, looting, organized crime, violations of international law and human rights, acting as 'deniable' assets for the CIA, NSA, UK MOD, Mossad, assassination, etc., etc., etc...
Spot on. I'd add arms trafficking, drugs/sex-slaves/slave-labor smuggling, all under the guile of private-mercenary oversight, but notably all paid for by public taxpayer dollars.
And wait a minute, it says, "The name, however, is meant to convey that “we lead with training,” Wright says — using the company’s “elite training facility” at Moyock, North Carolina to train cops, first responders, and even U.S. troops." So, they are going to be training "cops, first responders, and US troops" in such activities (should they not already have been trained in such matters.) Excellent--it'll be quite the debauchery and mayhem here in the US under their tutelage.
Excellent post, Gallen. In a sane, moral, or lawful world, Erik Prince, along with some of the upper level employees of Blackwater (under any improved "brand" name), would be shot and strung up. Instead, because US elites make a killing ON killing, an operation as heinous as his can tout lines like "honor" and "integrity," and thus far get away with it. These guys make Charles Manson look like an honest citizen, or Boy Scout!
"In a sane, moral, or lawful world, Erik Prince, along with some of the upper level employees of Blackwater (under any improved "brand" name), would be shot and strung up."
So Siouxrose, every so often, just once in a while, you agree perhaps violence-as-self-defense, is the answer.
Well, Galen, you caught me in an unguarded moment of passionate expression. Ultimately, I'd like to see the bastard get his day in court... however, with courts ruling FOR entities like Blackwater, et al under the cover of the War on Terrorism, what passes for a criminal justice system has been infiltrated and serves the precepts of Justice no longer. Karma takes time, but ultimately I leave that bastard's fate to karma. On the other hand, if people like Prince, Bush, and Obama think they're in for peaceful retirement years in foreign lands, I'm of the hope that an ending similar to that sketched out by Tennessee Williams in "Suddenly Last Summer," comes to meet every single one of them. I mean if a lightning strike manages to hit a plane carrying the Koch Brothers, or Newt Gingrich, or the Bush brothers, or Erik Prince (instead of it seeming to always take aim at the good guys like Paul Wellstone and John F. Kennedy, Jr.) I, for one, would surely shed no tear. In fact, I might feel like all the idiots who celebrated the head of Osama Bin Laden, post mortem, 10 years after.
Isn't it neat how the majority of the guys in the SEAL team who supposedly killed Osama wound up dying in a helicopter that was shot down just two weeks later?
Karma's a bitch, ain't it?
there are no coincidences....
...peace...
Legal murderers, way to go, give them money for murdering, the Cheeeeney theory.
Let's see: A.CA.D.E.M.I....A Curious Assortment of Deranged Mercenary Idiots
"Steve Woodward"
I was thinking it means something like
Arrogant Corrupt Abusers Demanding and Epitomizing Militarized Indecency
Excellent both of you.
How come the scum of the earth rename themselves every three or four years? Do they have something to hide?
"Oikos"
Do you mean how "Bush" became "Obama", "Cheney" became "Biden", and "Rice" became "Clinton"?
Altria...
New Flies. Same shit.
Why'd they pick that name? Do they want to be taken more seriously?
They picked that name because the elite are positioning themselves around the, bought and paid for by tax payers, American educational system. Further, they want to normalize the use of force on people by pushing militarization in the schools on impressionable young people.
Although I have issues with the way education is being handled in this country and although I realize that impressionable young people are targeted by military recruiters, to me it's just a cheap PR move meant to rebrand Blackwater with a name that has "intellectual" connotations. Ridiculous.
Ha. A private "school" to learn how to heard and control people for the One Percent captured Government, run by the same One Percent running Academi, buying the product. The perfect "torus" of a self perpetuating money machine fully equipped with a parasitic suck funnel to suck the money off the people they are controlling..
The elite are moving to control our education system just like they have moved and captured our medical health care industry. This will also involve a very ramped up class war justifying literacy as a privilege.
Well! Fox's Murdoch purchased rights to some of our education system. From what I understand, it will be much like an online school system, and don't forget who is the second largest shareholder of NewsCorp.
Many multinational corporations have been moving abroad to Dubai in order to avoid US taxes and regulations. Now they will have privet mercenary forces to protect their 'interests'!
"The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has enlisted the infamous founder of Blackwater security services to build him an 800-member private army of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates.
According to documents obtained by the New York Times Erik Prince’s new company, Reflex Responses, was hired and paid $529 million by the prince to form a new battalion of foreign fighters to carry out special operations, destroy internal revolts and defend urban areas and oil fields from terrorist attacks.
Troops are believed to have been brought to the UAE from Columbia, South Africa and other nations and are being trained by retired US military personnel and Germany and British special operations experts and member of the French Foreign Legion."
DC Native: Not privet, but private. Apart from that, when you look at Dubai, its expensive coastlines are very near to sea level from what I can tell. In other words, the region would appear to be VERY vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels. Guess who's gonna bat last in all of these calamitous decisions? As if the Armed Forces can hold back the rising waters... just as the unfortunate employees at Fukushima have learned. So much has been built or built upon the presumption that the LAND will continue to support the various and sundry massacres that too many resources and bodies of power engineer. A massive Paradigm Change is now underway... all the metrics of power are going to alter.
Siouxrose - Dubai built islands along that coastline and filled them with buildings. Will be interesting indeed when the waters start rising.
Shadre: When I flew (once) into Hawaii and saw those fabulous island cliffs as a virtual Temple, a living homage to the Mother Earth, I understood how Japan had lost its advantage in WW II for the HUBRIS of bombing such a sanctuary.---------------------------------------------------------
When I flew into Singaore (once) and saw the marvel of so clean and modern a city, it instantly changed my view of any claim on Amerika's part, to being the most modern or advanced of nations.------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And when I flew into Hong Kong (once), the sight of so many enormous high rise buildings virtually at the foot of the waters scared the Bee-Jesus out of me. Having known about this phase of Earth Changes for more than 30 years, added to my belief that there was a Lemuria and an Atlantis... the sense of the ultimate fragility of it all hit me head-on. That aspect has gone unrecognized, and is seen in such a dogged commitment to housing millions there at the water's edge. I sense it will prove a folly of monumental proportions. As likely will prove the case, with Dubai.-----------------------------------------------------------------
Wonder Woman: I like the way you pointed out the subtle implication between "Academi" and the rites of high-paid private warrior enterprises. What a disgusting segue that is... perhaps one day an "enemy combatant" in another land will make a trophy of one of Eric Prince's body parts.
"PRIVET" just might be the next name Blackwater chooses when "ACADEMI" gets old!
I'm not one to critique on spelling, because I do a lot of misspellings on my own (yes, I can proofread, but, usually don't.) Columbia should be spelled as Colombia, not like the college Columbia.
But, yes, you are correct about the moves abroad. People must also take into consideration, that some of the policies being made/carried out are not all of our own. For example, one of Pakistan's leaders became angry after we called all of their citizens terrorists, and he said we provided the books for the schools. I looked it up, and found that the University of Nebraska did indeed print the books for the schools and madrassas, it also allegedly said that not only did us aid (this spelling is done intentionally) gave grants to UofN but, allegedly the Saudis also was involved in this. Then, look at Fox news, who is the second largest shareholder? This prince, investor, allegedly has a large portion of shares in Citibank...LOL! I guess we were allegedly involved in the so-called radicalization of some of their citizens, and what were are getting is karma! Something else that was interesting, here, they are trying to scare us about the car bombs...but, when I looked it up, apparently, it is alleged that the IRA is the master of this, meaning, they were the originators of this.
And I don't think this is going to stop, because Willard Romney allegedly hired a former exec. of Blackwater to advise him on national and foreign. This is interesting because, I think he could have hired any vet from Iraq or Afghanistan...Then wasn't it Rumsfeld that made a huge profit on Tamiflu?
Mercenaries have existed ever since there was first money and war. Nothing new here.
Prostitution came first, then the men found they needed paying work or the women might gain too much power.
Actually in the more egalitarian (leaning Matriarchal) societies that predated the era associated with written History, neither (prostitutes o mercenaries) were necessary. These both represent the fall-out of patriarchal, hierarchical societal structures.
Wait until you see what company is going to subcontract as guards and staff for the concentration camps!
Once a mercenary company, always a mercenary company.
'Wright wants a shot to show a very skeptical world that Academi represents “an institution of trained thinkers and warriors,” he says, conveying ”excellence, dignity, honor, integrity.”'
Yup. You betcha. I cannot quite sort out what part of this latest eruption of criminal, deranged, fascist horseshit from this fucking boil on the arse of America nauseates me more - the so-called name 'Academi' - grotesque assault on the Academy , academics and anything to do with learning, intelligence, wisdom; the fact that all the usual murderous suspects are there and still refuse to join the human race; the 'trained thinkers and warriors' bit; the gross misrepresentation, 'a very sceptical world'.
So that homicidal fuck Prince is out? Out where? That piece of shit is free, on the streets? Or just working on his fascist, Jesus-driven murder plots elsewhere. Perhaps franchising the whole Blackwater shtick, complete with root beer and fries and Happy Homicide Meal passes to Creationism Museums.
Sweet fucking Christ. This story is just more proof of the end of the United States. The fact that this outfit, when it was still called Blackwater and was murdering extrajudiciously and sneering at all of its detractors because it was protected by that stinking murdering Boy Prostitute Bush, was not indicted and litigated and imprisoned out of existence, and laws passed to prevent others from taking its place is all the proof necessary that the United States is so utterly morally bankrupt and delegitimized as a nation-state that there's no reclaiming excellence, dignity, honor, integrity.”
Game fucking over, U.S.
Wasn't there some U.S. town a few years ago where the elders agreed to let the military use it to test its urban warfare skills?
-30-
Sometime 2012 Headline: ACADEMI Wins Contract to Protect Goldman Sachs!!!
Just IMEDACA backwards.
Bummer. I was thinking "iKill". Short and sweet and to the point, eh guys?
Way to go, Common Dreams. Not even a single article on your site noting that this month, the United States FINALLY removes (nearly) the last of its 150,000 troops in Iraq, after nine years of a fucking useless war in that country. I guess that's not significant news or anything? Well, silly me. I expected Faux News to ignore us finally giving up the charade that took cover under Bush's "War on Terror", but I hoped for something a little better from CD.
The massive US occupation embassy is still in place in Iraq. It is still 'defended' by thousands of US military and hired mercenaries. The oil Corporation presence that is stripping Iraq of it's natural resources for their profit under the protection of the US and it's military is still there.
The US has removed NOTHING in the way of occupation from Iraq.
My very wise grandmother once said "compost will always be compost, regardless of how many different names you may use to describe it." Blackwater will always be a company run by a very ruthless, greedy man, who hires a bunch of lawless, cruel, coldhearted mercenaries. Changing its name will not change its nasty reputation or its lack of respect for our Army or the laws in foreign countries. The American government should break all ties with this company and stop awarding it any further contracts. Its existing contracts should be eliminated immediately and its services permanently terminated.
'academi' is so politically correct.
i can almost imagine a scenario: where government contracts used to subsidize secret military research at elite american universities is siphoned off to the 'acedemi' for secret, cool shit like killing osama bin laden (as most 16 yr olds are programmed to believe).
however, i prefer 'illuminati' to 'acedemi'. it just sounds right, private mercenaries in the 21st century protecting the wealth of the secret elite- the lights of the future. "illuminati" private police. no ? anyway....
...peace...
You can't really share an economy with thugs. When Thug A (e.g US DOD) exchanges munny with thug B (e.g Blackwater) the exchange is basically supported by the backbone of the people, underwritten, guaranteed by the people. If you're skeptical, consider Kant's Categorical Imperative applied here as it works in virtually every situation to define what is sustainable and what isn't. If the people didn't serve as the backbone of the economy, Blackwater and DOD could hardly exist, let alone be capable of economic exchange. The doller would be worthless without the people to underwrite it. Now if the DOD and Blackwater didn't exist, would there still be an economy? Of course. This is pretty obvious to all. And so sharing our economy with the thugs can hardly be the right thing to do. They're simply expendable. Unnecessary. Unnatural. Economic parasites. So now we know what's important and what's not. It ought to determine how we vote in the elections, how we exchange in the markets and how we choose public policy and school curriculum. Now the thugs don't want to be pushed out of the people's economy. Certainly if you wait for them to approve an idea, you've lost the game to them.
Anyone remember the praetorian guard? It's only a matter of time before they will exist once again, mercenary forces protecting the unelected leaders. Humanity has been referred to as the thinking animal - can't prove it by me.
The company formerly known as "Prince". Glad to hear the Iraqis are smarter than the rest of us. But then I doubt many Iraqis are invested in this new industry. You know that "industry" that is training our "first responders" to pepper spray passive protestors, the new high growth sector of the US economy.
I wonder what their next incarnation will be? Today it's as an "academy" tomorrow as "child care development workers"? Can't wait.
Got to love that logo. We're supposed to read it as pages or books when in essence it's SWAT shields. I wonder what they paid for it? I am guessing they held an online contest and 200.00 for it's development. Some industrious investigative journalist should be able to discover the creator.
The notion that the people of Iraq do not know that Xe = Blackwater is as ridiculous as the request of the Obama administration that Iran send the downed drone back to the USA (has been confirmed by Obama and Clinton). The occupation of Iraq has not ended because the Obama administration is making unilateral demands on that nation's government with regards to the number of persons at the U.S. embassy-city, our "Vatican" in Iraq. That number has already raised opposition in Iraq and the opposition will significantly increase when El Sadr returns from Iran next year.
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Because the U.S. armed forces are no longer trained or no longer want to protect themselves and embassies they need companies such as Xe to do that for them. "Protection" has become a huge market.
And many of those private security forces will be from third world countries and speak no English. Just another area where US jobs have been outsourced.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/22-1
I have a question for all of us here at CD to ponder. How is it that we now have private contractors training personnel to use arms that used to be available only to military personnel?
When were they granted access to the tools and arms that in the past only our governments and military had access to? Who allowed for the dispersal of such important security and military proprietary hardware and software? I am thinking that wasn't very smart move on the part of those that were charged with it's oversight and control.
Anyone that's ever done any work for a corporation knows how many "nondisclosure" and "noncompetive" agreements they have to sign. How did these guys get their hands on tools and hardware that are obviously a threat to national security?