Hot Water For Blackwater

The real story doesn’t run to script.

by Mark Corallo - November 2nd, 2007 - National Review Online

I woke up Thursday morning, checked the Blackberry, and found an e-mail from a television-producer friend asking about comments attributed to me by the New York Times about Blackwater USA. Remembering my lengthy conversation with a reporter about the security firm, I expected a thank-you call from my former clients. Then I read the story.

I’m not naive and I’m no rookie in dealing with the media. But when one spends 40 minutes on the phone with a highly respected reporter, singing the praises of a company that does heroic service to our country, one expects those comments to be reflected in the story.

When I was at the OLF hearings in Elizabeth City last week, I heard a group of the anti-war democrats talking about Blackwater. The words they used were insulting and filled with hate. Mercenaries. Killers. Nazis. Fascists. They did not miss a single insult. You would have thought this company was engaged in treason the vitriol was so clear. I felt I had to find out more about why they were so upset.

I had heard vaguely of Blackwater but I was not really that knowledgeable about the company. After some research I can give you a summary of what I found out about this group. More than 30 of this company's employees have given their lives to protect the people they are hired to protect. At this point, NO DIPLOMAT BLACKWATER WAS PROTECTING HAS DIED. Let's review that record. 30 Blackwater employees have died. No American or Iraq officials have died while Blackwater guarded them. 30 to 0. You can't say they do not do the job they are paid to do.

There is an incident where Iraq claims the Blackwater employees killed Iraq civilians in error. Blackwater insists they were under fire and were defending the person they were hired to protect. The accusations are simply that. Accusations. However left wing democrats act as if the accusations have been proved, the acts were intentional and that Blackwater is being protected by an evil conspiracy.

On the other hand, in 2004, four of its employees were captured, killed and burned by a mob in the Sunni city of Fallujah. Blackwater has been required by the State Department to adhere to its contractual obligation to maintain total secrecy and is denied permission to defend itself for any of its actions.

The impression I get is that the major hatred for Blackwater is from people who hate free enterprise and thus hate America because we are not a socialist nation. As Mark Corallo indicates in his article above, the press is anti-Blackwater and John Broder twisted what he said to demean the company. The press are well known liberals who hate America for not being socialist as well.

Who is surprised that the article written by John Broder is a hit piece on a company of people who are some of the best our nation has? Mark Corallo is right to be incensed that Broder mis-stated his position . . . . . . . but also should not have been surprised. The press in America today is a left wing propaganda mill, not an instrument for spreading truth.

But it isn't just the press. Today, the democrat party has become an instrument for spreading lies about anyone who does not embrace their campaign of appeasement and surrender. Blackwater is just the latest target of their hatred for America that is not socialist. With 30 dead doing their job, it is clear Blackwater doesn't understand either appeasement or surrender.