The Company Formerly Known As Blackwater is now officially the Company Formerly Known As Xe Which Was The Company Formerly Known As Blackwater.

Xe has officially changed its name to Academi. CEO Ted Wright told The Wall Street Journal that he wanted to make the company more boring. Blackwater was frequently in the headlines for events like the 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 dead; the 2004 ambush in  Fallujah that left four Blackwater contractors dead and sparked a bloody invasion of the Iraqi city; the indictment of  five Blackwater officials on  federal weapons charges; and the 2004 airplane crash in Afghanistan that killed three U.S. soldiers.

Much as it did a few years ago with NBC's neglected jewel "Friday Night Lights," DirecTV rescued FX's superb drama "Damages" from the scrap heap last year, promising the show's fans two more seasons of Patty Hewes' mind-bending machinations.

The fourth season of that acclaimed Glenn Close series -- its first on DirecTV -- premieres tomorrow night at 10pm.

Season 4's legal plot involves a lawsuit against a powerful military security contractor, à la Blackwater, with John Goodman playing the Erik Prince role (in a fairly obvious nod, Goodman's character is named Howard Erickson). Chris Messina ("Julie and Julia") plays an Iraq war vet who took a job in Afghanistan with Erickson's High Star Security Corporation. He just happens to be an old high school friend of Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), who is trying to bring about the lawsuit on behalf of families of those killed during questionable High Star missions.

Republican legislators have introduced a bill that would forbid the use of foreign law in North Carolina courts. The bill is aimed keeping Islamic law out of North Carolina courts. It may set legal scholars on a futile search to find examples where Shari'a law was ever used in a courtroom here.

But The N&O has previously written about an attempt by a wealthy, politically powerful company to use Islamic law in federal court.

The instigator? None other than by Erik Prince, stalwart Republican, conservative Christian, major GOP donor and former Navy SEAL. Read our story here.

Prince owned the military firm formerly known as Blackwater. Prince and Blackwater's aviation company were sued by the widows of three men killed in a plane crash in Afghanistan. The widows said the plane lacked basic safety equipment like radar and GPS, and the pilots had failed to take the basic step of planning a flight route.

Blackwater's argument for using the Islamic law in Afghanistan: "Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders."

More importantly, Shari'a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work. Had Islamic law been applied, the lawsuit would have been dismissed.

A federal judge denied Blackwater's request to use Islamic law. Blackwater settled with the widows out of court.

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill reports that Blackwater founder and owner Erik Prince may be moving to the United Arab Emirates. This report comes after Prince announced that he was looking to sell Blackwater, now rebranded as Xe services.

Scahill suggests that Prince would flee the country to avoid prosecution -  the Emirates do not have an extradition treaty with the United States. Five former Blackwater executives were indicted in federal court in Raleigh last month, but neither Prince nor the company have been charged.

What to make of this? Scahill is one of Blackwater's most vocal critics, and the company regularly pooh-poohs his scoops. The report is based on three anonymous sources, so it's a rumor at this point. Still, Scahill, who literally wrote the book on Blackwater, has broken a number of stories on the company: stay tuned.
 

Harsh words and high salaries were on display Wednesday when five former Blackwater executives made their first appearance in federal court on weapons charges, according to an account from my colleague Sarah Ovaska. 

The fireworks were between Assistant U.S. Attorney Bowler and former Blackwater president Gary Jackson.

Bowler hammered Jackson for allegedly falsifying federal documents: "It is just
another display of sheer arrogance and scofflaw attitude."

Bowler also mentioned that Jackson had been making an annual salary of $1.5 million - and  that Bowler understood that Jackson's severance package included that annual salary for five years.

Jackson's lawyer, Ken Bell, said that ain't so. Jackson is getting  $425,000 a year for five years, starting in 2009.

Five former Blackwater employees charged with federal weapons violations made their first appearance in federal court today. Defense lawyers may be using the OGA defense - Other Government Agency, a reference to the CIA.

Ken Bell, lawyer for former president Gary Jackson heaped scorn on the charges: "These are not serious offenses. I don't think they're offenses at all...All of this was done with the knowledge of, the request of and for the convenience of, an agency of the U.S. government."

U.S. Assistant Attorney John Bowler said that Jackson, in particular, has behaved with arrogance, and rejected the claim that they acted on behalf of the government.

"It was not condoned by any government agency," he
said.

The charges include straw purchases of automatic weapons, fraudulent reports to the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and illegal possession of short barrelled
rifles.

The AP is reporting that federal prosecutors are mulling whether to file firearms charges against executives of the private military contractor formerly known as Blackwater. The News & Observer broke this story back in June 2008, and followed up a few days later when federal agents raided the Blackwater compound in Myock. 

Back in 2005, Blackwater bought fully automatic weapons (Romanian AK-47s and Bushmaster XM15 E25 automatic rifles) and gave the guns to the Camden County Sheriff for use by the 19 members of the sheriff's office. With two murders and three robberies in the past ten years, tiny Camden County (pop. 9,271) didn't have much use for such firepower.

Former CEO Gary Jackson, named by the AP as a target of the investigation, struggled in 2008 to explain the deal.

Why did Blackwater strike this deal with the Camden County sheriff?

"Because they needed guns, I imagine," Jackson said.

Jackson said Blackwater was a good corporate citizen that provided equipment and training, often free, to local law enforcement.

Did Camden County need more automatic weapons than deputies?

"They are very well equipped," Jackson said.

It's back to school for Erik Prince, the founder and owner of the private military firm Blackwater.  

Prince told Vanity Fair that he's through with defense contracting and is turning the company over to its employees and a board. 

What next?

“I’m going to teach high school,” he says, straight-faced.
“History and economics. I may even coach wrestling. Hey, Indiana Jones
taught school, too.”

Prince also talks about his work for the CIA in the VF article. He's bitter that government insiders leaked details of his classified work to the media. 

This link takes you to a partial archive of the N&O's extensive coverage of Blackwater, dating back to the Fallujah massacre of 2004.

Last night, we learned a bit more about the new mystery and what the heck Jon Voight's character is doing.

Apparently, all this drama has been initiated by Starckwood, a private military company that Senator Mayer had been investigating because, he said, it was rogue, a bit out of control, and the reason the country shouldn't be farming out military work.

Starckwood = Blackwater?

See how Blackwater is connected in Washington.