Blackwater USA canvassing support via e-mail

[The Bread Guy]

Note:  My sharing this does NOT imply support for or opposition to this company - this is shared only in the interests of letting people interested in military affairs know what the company is doing in light of recent media coverage.

Here's an e-mail shared with me by someone who received it (they're on the company's newsletter mailing list)....

A Request for Your Support

The Blackwater family is comprised of dedicated and active service providers that work vigorously to support the American nation. In this tumultuous political climate, Blackwater Worldwide has taken center stage, our services and ethics aggressively challenged with misinformation and fabrications. Letters, e-mails and calls to your elected Congressional representatives can and will create a positive impact by influencing the manner in which they gather and present information.

While we can’t ask that each supporter do everything, Blackwater asks that everyone does something. Contact your lawmakers and tell them to stand by the truth. Correspondence should be polite and professional. We don’t support generating negative messages. Tell the Blackwater story and encourage your representatives to seek the truth instead of reading negative propaganda and drawing the wrong conclusions.

Suggested themes:

- Cost efficiency of Blackwater – saving the US taxpayer millions of dollars so that the US Government doesn’t have to take troops from their missions or send more into harms way
- Professional population of service veterans and mature law enforcement personnel
- Sacrifice in lives lost by Blackwater saving US diplomats without one single protectee harmed

If you see a lawmaker speaking good things about Blackwater, contact their offices and let them know that they have your support. Find and contact your federal, state, and local officials by visiting www.congress.org.

Expanding our communications effort starts with you. Pass the word – pass the truth.

 

[edgar]

It's interesting how these guys seem to have a regimental family. When threatened they mobilize the Honoraries and alumni just like any other unit. Combat makes it so I think. Any security company I worked for had more in common with McDonald's than a regiment.

 

[Greymatters]

Why would anyone want to support an organization that maintains such a blank face of anonymity? this is pretty much teh message they send out...

"Hi we're from Blackwater.  We wont tell you who we are or how to talk to us. And we dont want you to call us by phone, preferably you can just send us an email to a blank generic email address.  We also wont tell you who our board of directors are, or our owners, or our leading commanders.  We also wont show you any company fiscal or performance reports, or explain exactly what we do on overseas operations.  But trust us, we're a great bunch of guys and we deserve your support."

These guys need some serious PR and marketing advice...   

 

[tomahawk6]

When you are good you just dont need PR.

 

[Greymatters]

When you are good you just dont need PR.  

You can be as good as you want, nobody trusts an anonymous face unless there is a reputation for trust there.  Blackwater has deliberately created a low-profile for themselves and their staff, all part of the company image they wanted to project, but its an image that never works well with public opinion-dependent campaigns.

 

[KevinB]

Please Mr. Greymatter - fill us with your wisdom on other PMC's that have a high profile media image?

Clients dont want publicity.  BlackWater is THE face of PMC's currently and they are wearing a lot of undue attention for it.

 

[GAP]

I agree with Infidel-6 on this one....Blackwater comes immediately to mind, as it is the only one that is commonly known to the public. I couldn't tell you two others if my life depended on it, simply because they purposely do not intrude their presence on a typical civi's world.

 

[edgar]

Why would anyone want to support an organization that maintains such a blank face of anonymity? this is pretty much teh message they send out...

"Hi we're from Blackwater.  We wont tell you who we are or how to talk to us. And we dont want you to call us by phone, preferably you can just send us an email to a blank generic email address.  We also wont tell you who our board of directors are, or our owners, or our leading commanders.  We also wont show you any company fiscal or performance reports, or explain exactly what we do on overseas operations.  But trust us, we're a great bunch of guys and we deserve your support."

These guys need some serious PR and marketing advice...   

They could , on the other hand, give you some serious OPSEC and PERSEC advice.

 

[Greymatters]

This isnt an attack on Blackwater, or the people who work for Blackwater, so dont take it as such.

And this isnt about OPSEC and PERSEC.  In that regard, Blackwater does a great job.  And yes they probably could teach me a few things about OPSEC and PERSEC, as they could you too, 'edgar'.  And Im not disputing that they arent one of the best in the world at what they do.  They are without a doubt at the top of the heap when it comes to what they do and business image.  Nor do I dispute their need for keeping a low profile, which is neccesary in this line of work.  As well, as tomahawk6 implied, when you're that good, you dont need to care about it, as long as the clients know who to call when they need someone. 

There is however a difference between keeping your client's privacy secure and maintaining a public image for a company.  Blackwater is not the first company to be encountering this problem.  There are dozens of major corporations around the world encountering this problem, that being that they do not put a public face on the company and have never needed to worry about it.  As a result, when they do need support from the general public, they have have a hard time getting it because no one trusts an anonymous face.  Well, thats not quite true - there are many who will blankly trust an image without personally knowing the person, but Im not one of them and most of the general population doesnt either, with the popular exceptions being sport figures, movie stars, and music idols. 

Think of it this way - If someone came up to you wearing a mask and said "Hi, Im with the Canadian Forces, you can trust me, so do you mind writing me a letter of recommendation?",  would you do it?  Im a former CF member and I love my country, but I wouldnt give a blank letter of support to a faceless person Ive never met.

 

[CADPAT SOLDIER]

Everyone who subscribes to there weekly newletter got this email.
Their news letter is actually a fairly good read if you don't mind the wildly right wing slanted articles that occasionally appear to it they have some pretty good articles.

 

[Greymatters]

That I would agree is a good idea.  'Preaching to the converted' is always a good practice, and the subscribers are most likely to support them without demanding 'additional evidence'.  Then when the letter is propogated, it is based on what is known about the person who sent the email, not neccesarily knowledge of the company in question, and allows the company to retain their privacy. 

 

[edgar]

This isnt an attack on Blackwater, or the people who work for Blackwater, so dont take it as such.

And this isnt about OPSEC and PERSEC.  In that regard, Blackwater does a great job.  And yes they probably could teach me a few things about OPSEC and PERSEC, as they could you too, 'edgar'.  And Im not disputing that they arent one of the best in the world at what they do.  They are without a doubt at the top of the heap when it comes to what they do and business image.  Nor do I dispute their need for keeping a low profile, which is neccesary in this line of work.  As well, as tomahawk6 implied, when you're that good, you dont need to care about it, as long as the clients know who to call when they need someone. 

There is however a difference between keeping your client's privacy secure and maintaining a public image for a company.  Blackwater is not the first company to be encountering this problem.  There are dozens of major corporations around the world encountering this problem, that being that they do not put a public face on the company and have never needed to worry about it.  As a result, when they do need support from the general public, they have have a hard time getting it because no one trusts an anonymous face.  Well, thats not quite true - there are many who will blankly trust an image without personally knowing the person, but Im not one of them and most of the general population doesnt either, with the popular exceptions being sport figures, movie stars, and music idols. 

Think of it this way - If someone came up to you wearing a mask and said "Hi, Im with the Canadian Forces, you can trust me, so do you mind writing me a letter of recommendation?",  would you do it?  Im a former CF member and I love my country, but I wouldnt give a blank letter of support to a faceless person Ive never met.

Thing is, I don't think the memo was addressed to you. Or the general public for that matter. It was addressed to all the faceless people, behind the bland corporate facade, who know something about the company, and the situation.

 

[CADPAT SOLDIER]

it was addressed to anyone that put their email in the little box on the BW homepage.
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/archive/btw_subscribe.asp

 

[Greymatters]

Then it appears that the title of this thread and the introduction gave the wrong impression, that being that this was an email to the general public from Blackwater.

If it was intended only for subscribers and insiders like yourself, then I will bow out and leave you to it.  

 

[The Bread Guy]

Then it appears that the title of this thread and the introduction gave the wrong impression, that being that this was an email to the general public from Blackwater.

To be fair, I don't see "general public" in the subject line, and I did include this tidbit in the first posting:  "Here's an e-mail shared with me by someone who received it (they're on the company's newsletter mailing list)...."

You're right, though, about a canvass of self-identified subscribers is different than a mass spam mail out.  That said, I shared this to show one of the tools the company is using to help people work in its image with legislators.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I thought this was an interesting article with a point that seems to have been overlooked.

Don't blame Blackwater
The security firm acts according to its contract with the State Department.
By R.J. Hillhouse

Hilo, Hawaii
One critical piece has been missing from the debate about Blackwater's behavior in Iraq. The security firm operates as should be expected – as an agent of the US State Department, which it is. It acts just as State has prescribed by contract. Giving the Defense Department (DoD) more oversight over Blackwater and other contractors in Iraq, a plan announced Tuesday, doesn't change that.

Since Blackwater was involved in a September shootout in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, the firm has come under intense criticism for what many call overaggressive tactics.

But the issue isn't an overly aggressive contractor. It's the State Department's zero tolerance for casualties of its employees in Iraq. Such an approach makes tragedies such as the September episode more common – and it marginalizes the lives of innocent Iraqis who just might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Placing so many diplomats and civil servants on nation-building assignments in the middle of a civil war has a high price – perhaps too high, as officials at State have finally started to acknowledge.

The US government appears to tolerate a certain number of casualties from the all-volunteer military. But civilian employees are a different story. Images of dead diplomats being dragged through Iraqi streets or videotaped beheadings of civil servants, it's assumed, would undermine already tenuous public support of the war.

The very branch of the US government charged with fostering relations with the Iraqi government and people is responsible for the behavior that has helped erode support from the Iraqi populace. The State Department Diplomatic Security Service set up aggressive rules for the use of force for its contractors in what's called the Mission Firearms Policy. These rules are more aggressive than those used by the military for its contracted forces. In fact, the Secretary of State's Panel on Personal Protective Services in Iraq recommended last month that these guidelines be amended to require basic assurances: "due regard for safety of innocent bystanders," "every effort to avoid civilian casualties," and only aimed shots – a nod to the fact that pointing and spraying rounds isn't explicitly banned.

Since 2005, Blackwater has conducted more than 16,500 protective security details under contract with the State Department. In 1 percent of these missions, Blackwater operators discharged weapons. The government officials that Blackwater was guarding were present on some portion of these missions and, at the least, were tolerating Blackwater's aggressive behavior.

The State Department's responsibility, however, is much more straightforward than that. The Diplomatic Security Services' Regional Security Office maintains direct operational control of each mission performed by Blackwater. As Blackwater CEO Erik Prince described to CNN, "They [State personnel] dictate the missions, they dictate the vehicles, they provide the weapons, they tell us where to go and what to do."

The State Department contract requires that protective security details are trained in some of the very behaviors that Blackwater teams have been criticized for, particularly tactical motorcade operations that include offensive driving techniques such as ramming other vehicles.

It is doubtful that replacing Blackwater with another contractor, or even with diplomatic security officers, would make a difference in how the contract is performed. Aligning the Mission Firearms Policy with Central Command's guidelines for contractors is a good first step.

Transferring oversight of contractors from the State Department to DoD will allow DoD to monitor their previously unknown whereabouts – a longtime irritant to commanders in the field. But the change will have little effect on the instructions that firms receive from their State Department contracting officers. It would also worsen accountability: DoD's dismal record of vendor oversight includes Halliburton and the contractors involved in Abu Ghraib.

One of the gravest dangers of the government outsourcing $400 billion of its services is that it can shift responsibility for its actions to the private sector even if the blame is unwarranted. The State Department has launched internal reviews and let its chief of diplomatic security go. But the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's granting immunity to the contractors involved in the shootout is a troubling precedent, particularly since that bureau contracted with Blackwater and has been responsible for its contract monitoring.

Contractors need to be held accountable to the same standards and legal codes as federal employees are. Otherwise it becomes too easy for the government to outsource its own responsibility, then absolve the contractor when it gets caught. If there was any wrongdoing at the Blackwater shootout in Baghdad, the guilty should be held accountable.

However, the American public and Congress should not be distracted by the fact that the State Department's grittier work was outsourced to a contractor. They should not allow the government to let a contractor take the fall while it sidesteps accountability for a cold calculus that its diplomats and aid workers have to be protected at all costs – costs that may include some innocent Iraqi lives.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1102/p09s01-coop.htm

 

[BF1]

For a company like BW to make a profit their customers expect anonymity. If I were doing contracts for Dept of State or a private corporation, I would want a company that can keep its collective mouth shut. From what I've seen of the PMC world, word of mouth advertising is the preferred method of generating business but it can be a double-edged sword, especially when your company is suddenly thrust into the limelight, and you don't have much experience at PR damage control.

 

[The Bread Guy]

For more on how Blackwater is getting its message out there, here's a blog I just spotted:
http://bwourstories.com/