Blackwater Goes Grass-Roots, Scrubs Site

There's more to Blackwater's PR campaign than a new logo. *
*

*Think Progress *notes that the mercenary enclave private security contractor "sent an e-mail blast today', encouraging supporters to contact 'elected Congressional representatives' with 'letters, e-mails and calls” with the goal of 'influencing the manner in which they gather and present information."

(Wait a minute! Wasn't this #10 in our list of recommended PR moves for ol' BW?)

The company also provided "suggested themes" for supporters, like:

- 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

Which is an awfully odd argument, considering that Gen. David Petraeus makes "less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team," according to a contract analyzed by the Washington Post.

R.J. Hillhouse notes that the Blackwater website is also getting a makeover -- the latest in a long, long series of massive online image switches.

*The original image Blackwater projected to the world was simple and is website was built around its logo and giving basic information about its services. In July 2002 its home pageimage of their police training services... *
featured three services: Blackwater Training System, Blackwater Target
Systems and Blackwater Security Consulting. At that time, Blackwater
Security Consulting was little more than a dream and Security
Consulting wasn't even hyperlinked to additional information like the other two services. By November of 2002 they began featuring an

[By] 2004 Blackwater mushroomed into a global company, opening offices in Baghdad, Kuwait City and Amman, Jordan, winning the first battle in American history fought by contractors (Najaf) and marketing its services around the world, with the caveat, "Any and all defense services supplied to foreign nationals will only be pursuant to proper authorization by the Department of State." Its website was regularly updated with news, but they were clearly too busy expanding to change it to reflect the underlying shifts going on at the company.

*Finally in mid-2005 Blackwater breaks out the ninjas and rolls out its new image: BW as of the home of the tier-one operator, BW as the place where units of the military, police and Other
Government Agencies go to catch Blackwater Fever and BW as the go-to company for special operations services. Their mission was becoming more refined: "solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere..." * **

Their made-over website soon boasted that Blackwater was "a turnkey solution for 4th Generation warfare." It featured dark, masked, heavily armed ninjas, without uniforms, moving in formation.
It was cool. It was secretive. It was Blackwater cool. At this post-Fallujah, pre-Nissor Square golden age of Blackwater, the
Blackwater operators were the rock stars of the Iraq war; they knew it and they were proud--even if they could only hint at what they were up to. Lower the Tysons Corner cone of silence.

Blackwater cool didn't last for long on their website. Changes to the site in July 2005 added a picture of a child for the first time--alongside the ninjas. This is a very telltale change, revealing one of the tensions the company was struggling with as it presented its services to the world, a world that's scared of ninjas.

ALSO:

* Design the New Blackwater Logo
* The Times' Blackwater-Air Force Conspiracy
* NATO Wants Outsourced Air Force
* [Pentagon vs CIA over Blackwater](https://more-deals.info/defense/2007/10/pentagon-vs-cia.html%29%3Cbr/%3E%2A Blackwater Ordered Out of Iraq?
* Blackwater's a Black Sheep?
* Blackwater: Whose Side Are They On?
* The Private Military Company Happy Meal
* Condi Can't Afford to Lose Blackwater
* Video: Blackwater's Ad Campaign
* Blackwater and Friends: America's Achilles' Heel?
* A Kinder, Gentler Blackwater?
* Blackwater Hits the High Seas
* Blackwater: Japan's Missile Defense Force
* Blackwater's Hired PR Guns: Hillary's Helpers
* Disaster Outsourcing
* Blackwater: It's the Money, Stupid
* Blackwater's X-Wing Fighters
* Blackwater Hearings Ain't No Superbad
*Watch Blackwater Dig Its Own Grave
* Blackwater Author on Blackwater Shootings
* Addicted to Blackwater
* Black Days for Blackwater
* Blackwater: From Bad to Worse
* Top 10 PR Moves for Blackwater
* The Merc Cartoon
* Blackwater "Bitch Slap": Right Move?
* Blackwater Mess Fencing Diplos In
* The Blackwater Backlash
* Blackwater Ban "Inevitable"
* Blackwater: Banned in Iraq?
* Blackwater: The Vote
* Blackwater Goes Down the Rabbit Hole
* Blackwater Buying Counter-Insurgency Aircraft
* Blackwater Sprawl
* Inside the Belly of the Blackwater Beast
* Officers, Mercs Brawl
* Mercenary King, Revealed