BLACKWATERS
RUN RED

When you’re a trigger-happy mercenary whose evil teat has just been unceremoniously escorted from the White House, it would be un-Blackwater-like to oil the guns and call it a night. And so the mercs made rich by the Bush Oil War have decided to take up arms against pirates. No, you won’t soon find your brains splattered across your monitor while downloading a cracked version of CoD:WaW. The pirates these mercs are after sail the seas. Hoping to provide the confidence of cold steel to companies transporting goods through the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast, Blackwater has been unsuccessfully soliciting contracts since October.

“This is a partial solution to a huge problem,” says Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell. “We see ourselves as gap-fillers.” But with the gap Blackwater has proven to most enjoy filling being civilian ass with live ammo, many are unconvinced they’re the right men for the job. Former Brit army pilot-cum-CEO of Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions Nick Davis says most pirates are desperate fishermen who don’t want to hurt anybody. He fears Blackwater’s “straight for the kill” tactics would exacerbate an already difficult situation.

“The second we go down there with private military companies and start popping off pirates,” says Davis, “they’ll start doing the same.”

by SCOTT SAXON