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"The administration then awarded Blackwater (which is now called Academi) a $250 million contract to perform unspecified services for the CIA." Your tax dollar

"The administration then awarded Blackwater (which is now called Academi) a $250 million contract to perform unspecified services for the CIA." Your tax dollars at work.

daveying99 14y ago
I thought they had changed their name to Xe services. What sort of name is Academi for a private mercenary company?
- cpeterso 14y ago
  That's probably the point.
- knowtheory 14y ago
  Honestly, that's probably why they changed it again. Blackwater was a comically villainous name to begin with.
  - autodidakto 14y ago
    Not only is it comically villainous, it's the technical term for waste water from toilets. That is, sewage. Whoever is picking their names needs to be, uhm, shot.
    - chubbard 14y ago
      It has nothing to do with sewage. Blackwater got it names from the swamps surrounding the area: "the Great Dismal Swamp, a vast swamp on the North Carolina/Virginia border, now mostly a National Wildlife Refuge...There, he created his state-of-the-art private training facility and his contracting company, Blackwater, which he named for the peat-colored water of the swamp.[10]" But apparently if Blackwater wanted to shot the person that named it they can do that.
- rdl 14y ago
  For a long time, they did run a lot of training as their primary business, too. (US Training Centers, in NC, is one of the best firearms/combat training centers in the world. They also make excellent reactive target systems.)
- MrMatters 14y ago
  Blackwater -> Xe -> Academi. For trying to get away from the story book evil sounding-ness of an entity named "Blackwater", they sure didn't do very good with "Xe", which sounds even more mysterious and potentially evil-doing IMO. Academi sounds a lot better though. And they do a lot US LE/gov't/etc. training which is probably what they would rather emphasize than their being a "private mercenary company".
  - theorique 14y ago
    They also run an online apparel business. I got an Academi T-shirt.
thaumaturgy 14y ago
Remember all the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010? One of them revealed that DynCorp had been spending money on pimps to buy young boys as "entertainment" (prostitution) for Afghanis. The money came from U.S. taxpayers. How's that for your tax dollars at work?

"The administration then awarded Blackwater (which is now called Academi) a $250 million contract to perform unspecified services for the CIA." Your tax dollars at work.

daveying99 14y ago

I thought they had changed their name to Xe services. What sort of name is Academi for a private mercenary company?

cpeterso 14y ago
That's probably the point.
knowtheory 14y ago
Honestly, that's probably why they changed it again. Blackwater was a comically villainous name to begin with.
- autodidakto 14y ago
  Not only is it comically villainous, it's the technical term for waste water from toilets. That is, sewage. Whoever is picking their names needs to be, uhm, shot.
  - chubbard 14y ago
    It has nothing to do with sewage. Blackwater got it names from the swamps surrounding the area: "the Great Dismal Swamp, a vast swamp on the North Carolina/Virginia border, now mostly a National Wildlife Refuge...There, he created his state-of-the-art private training facility and his contracting company, Blackwater, which he named for the peat-colored water of the swamp.[10]" But apparently if Blackwater wanted to shot the person that named it they can do that.
rdl 14y ago
For a long time, they did run a lot of training as their primary business, too. (US Training Centers, in NC, is one of the best firearms/combat training centers in the world. They also make excellent reactive target systems.)
MrMatters 14y ago
Blackwater -> Xe -> Academi. For trying to get away from the story book evil sounding-ness of an entity named "Blackwater", they sure didn't do very good with "Xe", which sounds even more mysterious and potentially evil-doing IMO. Academi sounds a lot better though. And they do a lot US LE/gov't/etc. training which is probably what they would rather emphasize than their being a "private mercenary company".
- theorique 14y ago
  They also run an online apparel business. I got an Academi T-shirt.

thaumaturgy 14y ago

Remember all the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010? One of them revealed that DynCorp had been spending money on pimps to buy young boys as "entertainment" (prostitution) for Afghanis. The money came from U.S. taxpayers. How's that for your tax dollars at work?