{"id":187596,"date":"2011-05-04T21:14:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-05T02:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/05\/04\/no-this-is-not-the-onion-5\/"},"modified":"2011-05-04T21:14:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-05T02:14:00","slug":"no-this-is-not-the-onion-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/05\/04\/no-this-is-not-the-onion-5\/","title":{"rendered":"No, This is Not The Onion\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Ashcroft is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2011\/05\/blackwaters-new-ethics-chief-john-ashcroft\/\"><strike>Blackwater&#8217;s<\/strike> Xe&#8217;s new ethics chief<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: blue;\"><p>The consortium in charge of restructuring the world\u2019s most infamous private-security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former U.S. attorney general, is now an \u201cindependent director\u201d of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater. <\/p>\n<p>Ashcroft will head Xe\u2019s new \u201csubcommittee on governance,\u201d its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement. The subcommittee is designed to \u201cmaximize governance, compliance and accountability\u201d and \u201cpromote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private-security industry.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In other words, no more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2008\/12\/feds-issue-indi\/\">shooting civilians in Iraq<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/09\/murder-mistrial-for-facebook-friendly-blackwater-guards\/\">Afghanistan<\/a>, no more signing for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/02\/blackwater-in-kabul-or-eric-cartman-gets-an-ak-47\/\">weapons its guards aren\u2019t authorized to carry<\/a> in war zones, no more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/03\/500-ak-47s-please-art-imitates-blackwater\/\">impersonations of cartoon characters<\/a> to acquire said weaponry, and no more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/09\/aint-no-party-like-a-blackwater-party-cause-a-blackwater-party-got-coke-roids-and-aks\/\">\u2018roids and coke<\/a> on the job. <\/p>\n<p>Ashcroft\u2019s arrival at Xe is yet another clear signal it\u2019s not giving up the quest for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2011\/01\/despite-denials-blackwater-still-working-for-u-s\/\">lucrative government security contracts<\/a> now that it\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/12\/will-blackwater-go-vegan-after-sale-to-hippy-firm\/\">no longer owned by founder Erik Prince<\/a>, even as it emphasizes the side of its business that trains law enforcement officers. In September, it won part of a $10 billion State Department contract to protect diplomats, starting with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2011\/01\/is-blackwater-heading-for-the-holy-land\/\">U.S. consulate in Jerusalem<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;I don&#8217;t know which is more revolting, Ashcroft as ethics chief, or the fact that these incompetent corrupt f%$#s still get government contracts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Ashcroft is Blackwater&#8217;s Xe&#8217;s new ethics chief: The consortium in charge of restructuring the world\u2019s most infamous private-security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former U.S. attorney general, is now an \u201cindependent director\u201d of Xe Services, formerly known as &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[962,970,969,1179,982,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40yrs","category-corruption","category-evil","category-mercenaries","category-stupid","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}