Remember back to February 2009 when Blackwater suddenly changed its name to Xe?
The Associated Press described the Blackwater brand as "tarnished" and the private security contractor's decision "grew more urgent following a September 2007 shooting in Iraq that left at least a dozen civilians dead."
Well, it turns out Osama bin Laden was worried about al-Qaida's tarnished brand too. According to The Guardian, Bin Laden wanted to change al-Qaida's bloodied name.
Osama bin Laden was considering changing al-Qaida's name to improve its image among Muslims, according to documents obtained by US special forces from the compound where he was killed.
A letter apparently written in the months before he died indicates that Bin Laden felt al-Qaida, which means "the base", was not sufficiently religious and did not reinforce the message that the group considered itself to be engaged in a holy war against the enemies of Islam.
A name change would allow al-Qaida to distance itself from growing criticism within the Islamic world that it was responsible for killing large numbers of Muslims, Bin Laden wrote.
Here's what Time wrote about Blackwater's corporate name change:
Blackwater announced that it would be changing its name to Xe (pronounced Zee) in an attempt to escape the dark cloud it had been under since five of its guards were indicted on charges related to a 2007 shooting that left 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians dead.
Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army", told ABC News at the time:
"Blackwater's latest attempt at re-branding itself would be hilarious if the company's record wasn't so deadly...
"Blackwater's deadly record has clearly made the company an international symbol of the out of control violence of the Bush era in Iraq and the rise of modern-day mercenaries, so it is understandable why the company would try to change its name at this moment in history," said Scahill.
When Blackwater became Xe, their corporate spokeswoman, Anne Tyrrell, acknowledged the need to shake the company’s past in Iraq. “Certainly that is an aspect of our work that we feel we were defined by,” she said. The Blackwater brand was ruined by their conduct in Iraq.
Bin Laden too was worried about al Qaida's image because they killed Muslims in Iraq too.
In one letter sent to Zawahiri within the past year or so, Bin Laden said al-Qaida's image was suffering because of attacks that had killed Muslims, particularly in Iraq, officials said.
Bin Laden also wrote that he found the suggestion of one militant in Yemen that blades be attached to a tractor or other farm machine to create a "killing machine" in the US "unacceptable". Al-Qaida was not about "indiscriminate killing", he said. Bin Laden and his senior associates have long struggled to make sure the disparate elements of the group and its various affiliated networks only attack targets they consider as legitimate.
A series of letters and envoys were sent to Iraq in a bid to moderate – or at least better focus – the brutality of international extremists there. In a question and answer internet session four years ago, Zawahiri was bombarded by aggressive demands that he justify the number of deaths of Muslims resulting from al-Qaida attacks.
I wonder if the questions were any harder hitting than what Erik Prince faced he was before Congress?
Mr. Prince disputed a Congressional staff report that detailed several instances of Blackwater employees killing Iraqis, fleeing the scene and then the company trying to cover up the violent episodes by whisking the Blackwater employees out of the country and quietly paying off the families of the victims.
He accused Congress and the news media of a “rush to judgment” about Blackwater episodes that left civilians dead...
“I stress to the committee and to the American public,” he said, “that based on everything we currently know, the Blackwater team acted appropriately while operating in a very complex war zone on Sept. 16.”
I wonder if Ayman al-Zawahiri used similar words to justify al-Qaida's deeds in Iraq too?