Xe?

The private military company Blackwater has changed its name this month. It now wishes to be called Xe (pronouced zi). Blackwater Airships is now Guardian Flight Systems, Blackwater Target Systems is GSD Manufacturing, and Blackwater Lodge and Training Center is the U.S. Training Center. The company also shed its bear-paw and crosshairs logo, for a stylized rendering of the name "Xe."

Company executives say the change is part of an effort to distance the company from various incidents during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Blackwater has come under fire for being mercenaries for hire which are not accountable to military or civilian law. They are currently fighting several lawsuits filed on behalf of workers killed in action, and have been accused of tax evasion by Henry Waxman.

Currently Blackwater has 20,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, trains over 50,000 personel for various countries each year, recieves over 90 percent of its funding from the US government, and has turned founder Erik Prince into a very rich man.

Eisenhower used his final presidential address to warn the country against the military industrial complex. Since then, the US economy has become intertwined with the US military, and everything Eisenhower said not to do, we have done. But not even he foresaw hiring private companies to supply and fight US wars.

I wonder what he, as both president and military general, would say about Blackwater? I doubt he would be very complimentary.