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John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.

NOVEMBER 16, 2004
by John Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS REVIEW, NOVEMBER 16

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

“THESE ARE NOT ASSERTIONS. WHAT WE’RE GIVING YOU ARE FACTS AND CONCLUSIONS BASED ON SOLID INTELLIGENCE.”

--Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, regarding Iraq; cited in editorial, “Good Soldier Powell” (New York Times, November 16) (see below item 22)

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“THIS IS LIKE A PLANET INSIDE A CONTINENT.”

-- Ariel Machado, manager of a Cuban dancing group, as he stood in the Las Vegas Stardust’s Wayne Newton Theater; cited in Nick Madigan, “Asylum Papers In, It’s Back to Work for Cuban Dancers” (New York Times, November 16) (see below item 42)

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“EXTREMOPHILES”

--Microbes can survive in some of Earth’s most inhospitable environments; cited in John J. Fialka, “Position Available: Indestructible Bugs - To Eat Nuclear Waste Scientists Envision New Role For Sturdy Bacteria Breed; Creating ‘Super Conan’” (Wall Street Journal, November 16)
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PAID SUBSCRIPTION

A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

1. THE POWELL LESSON - REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 16): A consequence of Mr. Powell’s failure to take control of his department was the near-collapse of U.S. public diplomacy. Partly this had to do with the department’s misbegotten efforts to sell American values to the Middle East by way of a Madison Avenue-inspired ad campaign. But the U.S. can’t be sold as a “brand,” like Cheerios; what America has to “sell” are freedom and democracy. The larger problem was that so few in the middle ranks at State—the folks the media call “sources”—were willing to defend and advocate the President’s policies behind the scenes; nor were they pushed to do so by their often equally ambivalent higher-ups. Instead, the department’s idea of public diplomacy too often amounted to spinning itself to an obliging media as the supposed last bastion of sanity amid an Administration overrun by neocon crazies.
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PAID SUBSCRIPTION

2. MR. POWELL DEPARTS – EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s reluctance to travel—he spent less time abroad than any secretary of state in decades—greatly reduced his ability to cajole foreign leaders and charm their publics at a time when effective American public diplomacy was desperately needed.
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3. FROM BEHIND THE SCENES, RICE ON STAGE - TODD S. PURDUM (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): As secretary of state, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would be charged with resolving the clashing views of the world. Ms. Rice has told friends that she sees Mr. Bush’s second term as a time when American diplomacy can return to the forefront after three years of international turbulence following the Sept. 11 attacks. But her own skills in the hot glare of public diplomacy have yet to be fully tested.
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4. STATE DEPT. DAILY PRESS BRIEFING FOR NOVEMBER 15 - PRESS RELEASE: US STATE DEPARTMENT (SCOOP.CO.NZ NEW ZEALAND): QUESTION: Do you expect any change in public diplomacy, especially in the U.S. international broadcasting, to Arab world in Iran? MR. BOUCHER: To the Arab world in Iran? You mean because of the Secretary’s departure? QUESTION: Yes. MR. BOUCHER: Well, as you know, American broadcasting to the Arab world in Iran is largely the result of efforts and decisions made at the international—the Board of Broadcasting Governors, and the Secretary does have a seat on there and he’s represented usually by his Under Secretary, but he’s only one of several players. That’s a policy that’s pretty well set, that’s been very encouraged and supported by the President and the Secretary, but I don’t see any immediate changes unless the Board should decide that they collectively want to make some changes.
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5. INTERVIEW: JEHANE NOUJAIM AND HANI SALAMA – (BUZZFLASH): “Control Room” Filmmaker Hani Salama: “People just don’t trust it [USG-funded TV channel Al-Hurra] yet. They turn it on and they feel like the stories that they want to hear are not being aired; they’re not concentrating on the stories that they want to hear. I’ve heard that people do turn it on for the American perspective. There is definitely an interest in the American perspective, the administration’s perspective. But that doesn’t mean people trust it for their main news source.”
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6. AMERICA UNBOUND...OR INSOLVENT? BUSH KNOWS THAT ANTI-AMERICANISM IS COSTLY; HE JUST DOESN’T CARE – MATT WELCH (REASON): Though it wasn’t actually reported anywhere, the Defense Department’s main “independent” advisory body for research & development issues, the Defense Science Board, had its September 2004 package of recommendations (Link) for combating America’s abysmal image abroad made public. “More than 15 private sector and Congressional reports have examined public diplomacy” since October 2001, the report states. “There is consensus in these reports that U.S. public diplomacy is in crisis… America’s image problem, many suggest, is linked to perceptions of the United States as arrogant, hypocritical, and self-indulgent.” The report, unlike the Bush Administration, sees anti-Americanism as a pressing danger to U.S. interests deserving of immediate corrective attention.
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7. ASIA SCHOLARS OFFER PRAISE, ADVICE TO BUSH ADMINISTRATION – CNSNEWS.COM (TOWN HALL): An Asia Foundation report, authored by a working group of scholars chaired by two former U.S. career diplomats and released Monday, called for an expansion and improvement of U.S. public diplomacy efforts to counter anti-Americanism. This should include the revision of visa policies that restrict visits by groups such as foreign students “thereby reducing contact with those who will assume power in all fields in the decades ahead,” and moderate Muslims, “who offer the best hope of inoculating Southeast Asia against terrorist expansion.” To counter the longstanding perception in Southeast Asia that American interest in the region is only driven by crises, the U.S. should expand programs involving education, AIDS prevention and treatment, and the rule of law.
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see also
(1) LINK and (2) LINK and (3) LINK

8. PERSONNEL ANNOUNCEMENT - OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY (PRESS RELEASE, NOVEMBER 15): The President intends to nominate Jay T. Snyder of New York, to be a Member of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy for a three-year term expiring July 1, 2007.
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9. WILLIAM SAFIRE TO END OP-ED RUN AT N.Y. TIMES - HOWARD KURTZ (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 16): Safire was a New York publicist who helped stage the Moscow “kitchen debate” between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1959 that helped show off a homebuilder client’s kitchen. In the Reagan administration, Safire broke the story that Charles Z. Wick, who ran the U.S. Information Agency, was secretly taping telephone conversations.
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B) RELATED ITEMS

10. SUNNI ARAB REGIONS IN FLAMES – JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, NOVEMBER 16): Propaganda reared its ugly head on several occasions. US-installed CIA asset Iyad Allawi, the “prime minister,” said he was sure there had been no civilian casualties there. Allawi is gradually revealing himself as the pro-American twin of Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, “Baghdad Bob,” who used to deny that US troops were in Baghdad even though journalists could see the tanks over his shoulder. Now Allawi wants to deny that residents of a city that has been invaded and crushed managed to escape without a scratch unless they were active guerrillas. Col. Mike Shupp joined in this vaudeville act, denying that there was a humanitarian crisis in Fallujah or that there was a need for Red Crescent aid.
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11. THE FALLUJAH CARNAGE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN - MARK FOLLMAN (SALON): From the start of the war, the Bush administration—with a complicit mainstream media shuffling along behind it—has done whatever it can to keep the vivid images of the Iraq war out of view. But with the digital era’s unblinking eye and ever-growing bandwidth, even the furtive Bush White House can’t keep all the bad stuff locked away. One blogger (whose identity is not readily apparent on the site) has collected some recent images at Fallujah In Pictures, (LINK) most of which come from Reuters, AP, AFP and Al Jazeera.
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12. CRIMES IN IRAQ PRAY FOR FALLUJAH - SARA KHORSHID (ISLAMONLINE, NOVEMBER 15; COMMON DREAMS): In the name of Al-Zarqawi 1200 people have been killed in Fallujah—according to the American military, which describes the victims as “insurgents” and “guerillas.” Eyewitnesses say the dead are civilian residents.
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13. NEXT FALLUJAH BATTLE: HEARTS, MINDS; MARINES CONVERTED A MOSQUE INTO A FOOD AND MEDICAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER FOR RESIDENTS MONDAY - SCOTT PETERSON (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NOVEMBER 16): Senior American commanders speak of a race against time in which they must begin to restore services and the faith of the people of Fallujah. After making rapid progress toward ridding the city of radical Islamist fighters loyal to Al Qaeda, the challenge now for the US Marines is to turn military control into political progress.
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14. WINNING HEARTS, MINDS KEY: IF FALLUJAH GENERATES GREATER SUPPORT FOR THE INSURGENTS, WE WILL HAVE CREATED NEW REBEL SAFE HAVENS EVEN AS WE DESTROYED AN OLD ONE – FAREED ZAKARIA (NEWS-PRESS, FL)
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15. TOO MUCH MORE OF THE SAME IN IRAQ – LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 16)
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16. SAVING SCIENCE IN IRAQ - ALAN I. LESHNER (BOSTON GLOBE, NOVEMBER 16): Recent news stories suggest that US officials’ preoccupation with the military campaign has left too little time and energy for the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraq’s scientists and engineers. On the plus side, the State Department founded the Iraqi Interim Center for Science and Industry earlier this year. The center employs nearly 60 former weapons scientists, and a delegation of six former weapons scientists was brought to the United States for seminars on making the transition to postwar public works. But these potentially fruitful programs have been nagged by problems. Working in cooperation with Western and Middle Eastern universities, science centers and science organizations, the United States should be part of a focused science and technology assistance plan that will be crucial to Iraq’s future.
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17. FOREIGN ENROLLMENT DROPS AT US COLLEGES: US HIGHER EDUCATION IS COMING TO GRIPS WITH A SLOW ECONOMY, VISA DELAYS, AND AGGRESSIVE COMPETITION FROM OTHER ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES - STACY A. TEICHER (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NOVEMBER 16): For the first time since 1971, American colleges and universities have seen a falloff in the number of foreign students. Australia, Britain, and even Canada have boosted their foreign-student enrollments by double-digit percentages in recent years. “We need to be thinking about a major PR effort to convince international graduate students that they are welcome here and that it’s not as difficult to get a visa as maybe it was a year or two ago,” says John Ebersole, associate provost and dean of extended education at Boston University.
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18. REACTION MIXED AROUND THE WORLD: SOME DISAPPOINTED BY POWELL’S DEPARTURE, OTHERS WELCOME IT - SCOTT WILSON (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 16)
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19. EUROPE POLITE BUT UNMOVED - BY JUDY DEMPSEY (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 16): Britain stood out among most of the European countries on Monday in its lavish praise for Colin Powell, but diplomats from other European countries, while warmly praising Powell, particularly his sense of humor, politeness and discipline, said they retained a certain disappointment that Powell was neither strong enough nor had sufficient support in the White House to push through a genuinely multilateralist policy.
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20. POWELL’S RESIGNATION - JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, NOVEMBER 16): Powell was not enthusiastic about a war on Iraq, and his own doctrine called for the US to go in with massive force if it did go in. Instead, Rumsfeld sent in only 100,000 troops, laying the ground for the subsequent disaster. But you get no credit in Washington for having been right. You only get credit if you win the policy battle, regardless of how it turns out. Powell almost never did.
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21. COLIN POWELL’S REDEEMING FAILURES - WALTER ISAACSON (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s role in the Bush administration was to push for a little bit more realism—some more care and planning and humility in the conduct of the Iraq war—to be part of the current balance. It was a worthy role, one that ought not disappear with him.
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22. GOOD SOLDIER POWELL – EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s enormous stature and his image as a moderating force within the administration—valued especially by America’s European allies—were squandered in defending a unilateral decision he did not agree with to launch a war in which he did not really seem to believe.
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23. THE GOOD SOLDIER TAKES HIS LEAVE: POLICY EXPERTS AND FORMER U.S. DIPLOMATS WEIGH IN ON COLIN POWELL’S RESIGNATION - JEFF HORWITZ (SALON)
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24. EXIT POWELL – EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, NOVEMBER 16): Colin Powell’s role within the Bush administration was that of the loyal opposition. In a crew of blinkered unilateralists, the outgoing secretary of state functioned as a lonely devotee of what has been the mainstream internationalist tradition in US foreign policy since 1945.
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25. ODD MAN OUT: INTERNATIONALIST COLIN POWELL’S LOSING BATTLE TO REIN IN THE ADMINISTRATION’S NEOCONSERVATIVES IS OVER - JULIAN BORGER (SALON)
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26. COLIN POWELL’S STATE DEPARTMENT – EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): While some of America’s chief foreign challenges and threats could not be addressed through Mr. Powell’s diplomacy, such as those posed by al Qaeda and other terror groups, the statesman ably and loyally executed the president’s foreign policy, performing with integrity, dedication and creativity.
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27. EXIT STRATEGY - OPINION (BALTIMORE SUN, NOVEMBER 16): Powell is one of the few people in the top levels of the administration who sees the world through clear lenses, and that’s one of the reasons he is so popular within the State Department itself. But he didn’t deliver. American policy toward Israel and the Palestinians is bankrupt, and Iraq is a nightmare that may haunt America for years. That is Mr. Powell’s unfortunate legacy.
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28. THERE GOES A VOICE OF REASON – EDITORIAL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s reputation paid a heavy price for his service in an administration where ideological certitude drives foreign policy. With Iraq in tatters and the Israeli-Palestinian situation crying out for the United States to seize a precarious moment of opportunity, Colin Powell’s skills and stature are needed more than ever. But he can hardly be blamed for leaving an administration that never seemed to fully appreciate him.
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29. A SYMBOL OF MODERATION EXITS: POWELL HEADS LIST OF CABINET RESIGNATIONS - HOWARD LAFRANCHI (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s legacy legacy is likely to be that of the “good soldier” who put a kinder, gentler face on a foreign policy that detoured from the traditional American path in an era of heightened terrorism. Some US allies received the news of Powell’s departure with apprehension. In part, that’s because he was seen as the most ally-friendly member of the Bush foreign-policy team.
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30. A RESPECTED VOICE, THOUGH NOT A DOMINANT ROLE: POWELL SERVED PRESIDENT AS MODERATING INFLUENCE MID HARD-LINE VIEWS - MARK MATTHEWS (BALTIMORE SUN, NOVEMBER 16): While Bush has repeatedly said that he values having strong-willed advisers presenting different opinions, those of the State Department, under Powell, frequently were a minority view in an administration where the vice president exerted perhaps unprecedented influence and often lined up alongside Rumsfeld.
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31. THE MIRAGE OF COLIN POWELL - EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s tenure at the State Department was less heroic than often suggested. He could have achieved more by resigning after losing one too many battles, but instead he has tried to have it both ways, loyally staying on while encouraging speculation that he often disagrees with the president’s more extremist ideas.
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32. WHY POWELL HAD TO GO: AND HOW WILL CONDI FARE AS HIS SUCCESSOR? - FRED KAPLAN (SLATE): The entire world knows that Powell is out of favor. Any deal he might have negotiated, any assurances he might have given, any declaration of policy he might have uttered would have been subject to doubt. If Rumsfeld and his E-Ring gang survive the Cabinet shake-up, Rice may wind up every bit as flummoxed as her predecessor.
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33. POWELL’S FLAWED EXIT STRATEGY - RICHARD COHEN (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 16): The pity is not that Colin Powell has resigned as secretary of state. The pity is that he did not do so quickly.
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34. A MODERATE VOICE LEAVES THE WORLD STAGE - FARAH STOCKMAN (BOSTON GLOBE, NOVEMBER 16): Ultimately, many inside and outside the department said yesterday, Powell will be remembered more for the public battles he lost, like his unheeded warnings about the risks of intervention in Iraq and a stalled Mideast peace process, than his less publicized victories.
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35. POWELL: A WARRIOR FIGHTING LOSING BATTLES WITH HAWKS - GUY DINMORE (FINANCIAL TIMES, NOVEMBER 15): Mr. Powell is more likely to be remembered for his achievements as a black American rather than secretary of state.
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36. RICE SHARES PRESIDENT’S VIEW OF THE WORLD: A CLOSE FRIEND TO BUSH AND HIS FAMILY, SHE IS UNLIKELY TO STAKE OUT FOREIGN POLICY POSITIONS AT ODDS WITH THE WHITE HOUSE - TYLER MARSHALL AND PAUL RICHTER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): With the resignation of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Rice is expected to preside over a second-term foreign policy team that speaks to the world with a more unified voice—but that is less willing to seek compromise to win support. She prays often with her president. Rice and Bush share a love of football too. In Europe, news of Powell’s departure was met with a combination of dismay and concern about what would follow as Bush reshapes his foreign policy team.
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37. MOVES CEMENT HARD-LINE STANCE ON FOREIGN POLICY - GLENN KESSLER (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 16): Powell’s departure—and Bush’s intention to name his confidante, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, as Powell’s replacement—would mark the triumph of a hard-edged approach to diplomacy espoused by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Powell’s brand of moderate realism was often overridden in the administration’s councils of power, but Powell’s presence ensured that the president heard divergent views on how to proceed on key foreign policy issues.
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38. THE PETER PRINCIPLE AND THE NEOCON COUP: THE BLOODLETTING HAS BEGUN - ROBERT SCHEER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): By successfully discarding those who won’t buy into the administration’s ideological fantasies of remaking the world in our image, the neoconservatives have consolidated control of the United States’ vast military power. With the ravaging of the CIA and the ousting of Powell—instead of the more-deserving Rumsfeld—the coup of the neoconservatives is complete. They have achieved a remarkable political victory by failing upward.
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39. FOR AN AMERICAN ABROAD, WHERE’S THE LOVE? BY KELLY RAMUNDO (NEWSDAY, NOVEMBER 15/COMMON DREAMS): “It is clear to me living in Europe that there is no coalition with America in any way, shape or form. President George W. Bush and his supporters appear to be the only ones not to realize it…. People no longer are intrigued to meet us, or curious about what the American Dream is about. I am no longer peppered with questions about Big Macs, skyscrapers, Woody Allen films, rap music and guns. Now they ask why we are in Iraq.”
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40. YANKS, EUROS TRADE BLOWS ON “WELCOME TO THE NEW COLD WAR” ANDREW O’HEHIR (SALON, NOVEMBER 15; PDPR, NOVEMBER 15): SOME SAY THE DOLLAR’S VERTIGINOUS FALL IS JUST THE BEGINNING; OTHERS GIVE “EURO-WEENIES” AND FRENCH SNOBS A ONE-FINGERED AMERICAN SALUTE – LETTERS (SALON)
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41. BOUND BUT GAGGED - SHIRIN EBADI (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): EBADI, IRANIAN AUTHOR AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE IN 2003: “I was surprised and angered when I learned that regulations in the United States make it nearly impossible for me to write a book for Americans. Despite federal laws that say that American trade embargoes may not restrict the free flow of information, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control continues to regulate the import of books from Iran, Cuba and other countries… I filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department on Oct. 26, joining one filed in September by several American organizations representing publishers, editors and translators. We seek to overturn the regulations on what Americans can and cannot read in the United States.”
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42. ASYLUM PAPERS IN, IT’S BACK TO WORK FOR CUBAN DANCERS - NICK MADIGAN (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 16): Forty-three Cuban singers, dancers and musicians have defected to the U.S., victims, they said, of a harsh policy in Cuba that had declared illegal their decision to perform in the United States. “In Cuba, we were so accustomed to hearing all the propaganda about the United States being a bad place,” said choreographer choreographer and dancer Daisy Alvarez, who has appeared with the troupe in 17 countries since its founding in 1998. “But as with any country, you’ve got to get to know it, both good and bad.”
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