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=> USS Diplomacy

Posted by parhad (Guest) - Friday, August 20 2004, 16:18:05 (CEST)
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These aren't "articles" in the usual sense...this isn't "news"...this is a planted policy statement with a goal and the goal isn't to inform the public. It's purpose is to confuse, confound, mix around, screw up and generally make hash of anyone's desire to understand just what's being "reported". But these things get planted in people's minds and later get dredged up as faint memories of "facts" learned in a "newspaper"...and we march on to the next "policy" thinking we understood something...it's the same thing passes for an education...things get put inside your head and later you pull those things out and repeat them...if you want a good grade...and later, any kind of a paycheck.

U.S. Struggles to Win Hearts, Minds in the Muslim World

...Just the title would make any sane person flash the response on their screen..."Are you sure that's what you're even THINKING of doing"?

By Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration is facing growing criticism from both inside and outside its ranks that it has failed to move aggressively enough in the war of ideas against Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups over the three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

...what "idea"? That it's okay to back Israel in whatever it wants to do to anyone? How can you call Islamic groups "extremists" without pinning the same name and worse on the Israelis? This turkey of ana rticle flunks at the get go...but manages to reinforce the idea that America WANT to win hearts and minds AND that it could if not for dastardly extremists..the assumption or message still is: "Those people are just that way"...Natural born killers and hellbent on ruining everybody's lives...when the Isarelis acting under U.S. command are the ones closer to that definition..this is still the Rapist of the Third World pissed as hell that anyone would DARE refuse his advances.

The Sept. 11 commission last month called for a vigorous strategy for promoting the image and democratic values of the United States around the world, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said yesterday that the administration is working hard on those efforts.

..promote all "images" you want...it's in America that Image is Everything...where Reality is a T.V. game show...reality is real in the Muslim world...it's especially real for the poor...these people know an image of food from the real thing.

But Middle East experts -- and some frustrated U.S. officials -- complain that the administration has provided only limited new direction in dealing with anti-American anger among the world's 1.2 billion Muslims and is spending far too little on such efforts, particularly in contrast with the billions spent on other pressing needs, such as homeland security and intelligence.

...in the first place no one wants any leadership from the United States..that's our own myth. The puppets we support waht our CASH...and our government will pay it out to them...on "initiatives", or potholes...we don't care what...the money first pases through several US agencies and helps keep them afloat...next it goes to its intended target where it gets skimmed off into Swiss banck accounts...and there is NEVER enough to do whatever the intention was...the atated intention..the real purpose of US aid is to ensnare unscrupulous leaders and get them to sell our corprorations the resources of their governments and people and then the people themselves.

...Homeland Security and Intelligence too are merely ways of fleesing the public some more...these people couldn't earn an honest buck if their lives depeneded on it...so they make OUR lives dependent on them...and we pay out whatever we need to make them go away.

On its boldest policy ideas, such as the Greater Middle East Democracy Initiative, the administration has limited its follow-through or deferred to the very governments that have most resisted democratic reforms, specialists and some U.S. officials say.

...they played this game in Latin America too..there were all sorts of "Partnerships For The Advancement of Etc." run by the State Department as a cover and smoke screen for what they were really doing...these "image" enhancers are always put in place with great fanfare and hoohaa...and once again, no one is fooled..the intended targets of these "programs" is the fool American public...not the people they are said to be aimed at...no poor person anywhere in the world is foolish enough to believe the American government is coming to improve his or her life...this is the American Myth that allows Americans to feelgoodaboutthemselves when they attack and kill the children of "ungrateful" Darkies.

"It's worse than failing. Failing means you tried and didn't get better. But at this point, three years after September 11, you can say there wasn't even much of an attempt, and today Arab and Muslim attitudes toward the U.S. and the degree of distrust in the U.S. are far worse than they were three years ago. Bin Laden is winning by default," said Shibley Telhami, a member of a White House-appointed advisory group on public diplomacy and Brookings Institution scholar.

...this is pure poppycock..it makes it LOOK like America is scolding itself for not trying hard..or at all...makes it appear that the INTENTION or the GOAL is to "win Muslim hearts and minds"...this only fools Mr and Mrs America who already feel the world owes them even more...Bin Laden isn't winning by "default"..if he's won anything it's because of America's FAULT...it's intentional fault.

The dissatisfaction extends to some in the State Department who are involved in public diplomacy.

...there are always "some"...you have to them or the thing won't fly.

"This is all feel-good mumbo jumbo," said a State Department official familiar with public diplomacy efforts who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Particularly in light of [people detained without charges at] Guantanamo Bay, it's unclear how this will make us safe. If this is so important, where's the money?"

...this is officially skirting "close to the truth"..again meant to make people believe we're taking a "hard cold look at our failtures"...but it ends quickly enough with the truth of these calls to "improve" the lives of those we blight...it asks.."where's the money"...that's the heart and soul of these "policies"..they are merely ways of fleecing us, that's all. If America didn't spend trillions of pissing Muslims off for the sake of a corporations who reap all the rewards, we wouldn't have to ADDITIONALLY spend billions, or be scolded for being "tight" to "give them a better image" of us...they KNOW us...know us well.

Top administration officials said yesterday that the United States has redirected funds and designed a wide range of political, economic, educational and aid programs to better lives, press reforms and improve America's image as an ally to Muslims in more than 50 countries.

...utter nonsense...the programs are dreamed up to send our money to a few corporations...I could come up with a company that intends to help America improve its image where its aid to israel is concerned..I could print books, hire historians, create videos and interactive games, T shirts, baseball hats...a Rap concernt promoting peace and love...I could invent a million ways, for the right price, to get Americans feeling like they DID something to help, "those poor people"...all the while the military aid keeps flowing...Israelis keep murdering and stealing lands...with the added bonus that Americans are even more pissed at the OPalestinians for costing so mucvh and learning so little...and I wouldn't fool a single Palestinian...the targets of our military and corproations live in "reality"...we simply try to manipulate it...like we do at home calling WallMart employees, "associates"...or "team players"..or "family". THEY know what the reality is, that they get no medical benefits, no protection no bargaining rights..no NUTHIN except a "bent reality".

"The foundation of our public diplomacy strategy is to engage, inform and influence foreign publics in order to increase understanding for American values, policies and initiatives," Patricia Harrison, assistant secretary of state for education and cultural affairs, said in testimony yesterday before the House International Relations Committee.

..if you believe that you're far gone already.

Rice, in a speech yesterday at the U.S. Institute of Peace, conceded that public diplomacy is an area the administration wants to "look harder at" and said, "We are not obviously not very well organized for the side of public diplomacy."

...Look at the poor HONEST dears!

But she said the administration has made global outreach a priority and is making important progress, citing among other things increased broadcasting in the Middle East and programs to encourage literacy, democratic reform and education.

...no one in Iraq needed encouragement from the United States to get an education. Iraqi students and schools trump American schools and education any day of the week. Or they did..having reduced Iraq and so many Latin countries to basket cases, the American government then comes in with "aid"...like all the reconstruction in Iraq we made necessary...and will now "help" with.

The basic goals in the war of ideas are to dispel destructive myths about both U.S. culture and policy and to encourage voices advocating moderation, tolerance and pluralism in the Muslim world, Rice said.

...myth" Myth? What myth? The destructive truth is destructive enough. This entire article is a fable about the noble American character...bullshit.

...about this point someone will say, "if you hate America so much etc". I don't hate my son if he is a drug user..I HATE his supplier and I HATE the drugs...I want to get my son CLEAN. I hate what these dope peddlers are doing to America...it's THEM we hate...not America. They tell us a drugged up America reeling in its own shit and vomit is a land we MUST be proud of...bullshit.

"The victory of freedom in the Cold War was won only when the West remembered that values and security cannot be separated," Rice said. "The values of freedom and democracy as much, if not more, than economic power and military might have won the Cold War."

..there was no "victory" anywhere. The Soviet Union was outspent by the United States...the Soviets lived in far more REAL fear of America than Americans ever had to really fear from them. These guys want to same programs, the same green light to spend whatever and wherever they want...and to do it they need to manufacture the same fear in us towards Muslim poor people they planted in us for rice farmers half round the world...the whole Cold War thing was an incredible PR stunt..yeah STUNT!

That thinking tracks recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, which besides calling for reorganization of U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism urged a diplomatic offensive: "If the United States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly do the job for us."

...the job has been done already. In the Clod war the United States also found its "allies"..it also tried to "reach out" and make friends...and NO one not on their payroll ever believed it...that's why those people are able to maintain good feelings for the American PEOPLE while they hate our government..because THEy see the bullshit we're subjected to...they see as big goofy dopes hopelessly inept when it comes to knowing when we're being diddled...if they thought these policies were our idea...that we had ANY idea of the relisty of our government and these "efforts"...they hate our guts too.

Yet in a report to Congress in October, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy warned that cultural exchanges and similar efforts to win the hearts and minds of Muslims were "absurdly and dangerously underfunded."

...underfunded...funds...MONEY...that's all this is...Bechtel, which makes bombs to blow up building it makes cranes to rebuilt would ALSO like to rebuild "hearts and minds" in the Muslim world..when no one there needs ANYTHING from Bechtel..or G.E. which ALSO has a "feel Good" Division...just WAITING to swing into action if we'll just PAY THEM.

The budget for the State Department's public diplomacy programs worldwide for 2004 is $685 million -- the majority of which does not go to the Muslim world, despite the major shift in emphasis after the 2001 terrorist attacks, U.S. officials say. Only $79 million goes to education and cultural exchanges -- the heart of public diplomacy and the largest single expenditure in its budget -- with Middle East and South Asian countries. And the increases since 2001 have been small, with an initial decrease in the first budget after Sept. 11. The budget for the Department of Homeland Security is more than $30 billion.

...this is what diplomacy means..like everything about America it's become a pork barrel...oink.

The numbers of people reached directly by key U.S. programs are extremely small, U.S. officials concede. A new U.S.-sponsored exchange program for Arab and Muslim high school students brought 170 students last year and 480 this year and will bring 1,000 next year. In contrast, about 5,000 exchanges were organized from former Soviet republics in the first year after the Cold War ended, a State Department official said.

...too funny. Most of these kids are the kids of rich allies...give us a break. Slave children were also sent to "school".

Congress has not been much of an ally, in some cases cutting even relatively small proposed increases for cultural and educational exchanges, U.S. officials say.

..well oh my gooness...SPEND OUR MONEY you silly old Congress!!!

"We need as a government -- all of us -- to view traditional public diplomacy tools as soft weapons," said Margaret Tutwiler, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, who now works for the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). "The activities associated with public diplomacy need to be seriously prioritized on an equal level with an aircraft carrier. Both are equally important."

...that's a gteat metaphor...diplomacy as an aircraft carrier.

Much of the U.S. focus over the past three years has been on rebuilding programs cut back or dismantled after the Cold War, when, in the words of one senior U.S. official, the United States "declared victory and the end of history and went home." Now Washington is struggling to get back to the level of foreign cultural programs and exchanges that existed in the 1980s, the official added.

..that means more money folks..they actually claim they "won" the Cold War..like they won in Vietnam and Korea and now Iraq...this is all a disguised attemot to get our blessings to do it to us again...they created the bogeman..they're going to prop that bogeyman up as long as they can...they're going to rob us for just as long...and when they get tired or exhaust that game, they'll let the bogeyman fall of its own weight and declare victory...by then Africa will have become our next enemy number one AND humaitarian target number one..and the aircrafty carriers bearing bombs and diplomacy will set sail..and we'll feel safer. No wonder the nation is on drugs.

Other U.S. programs now supplement public diplomacy. The new Middle East Partnership Initiative, housed at the State Department, had $100 million for fiscal 2003 to help create nongovernment groups, particularly among women and youth, and to link businesses to support political and economic reforms. And since 2001, the U.S. Agency for International Development has increased its focus on education and job creation in the Muslim world.

...the Nazis never got around to re-building...they got only as far as the first phase..tearing everything down.

The administration has launched a major new broadcasting effort with Radio Sawa in Arabic and Radio Farda in Farsi, as well as Al Hurra, an Arabic-language television station, to counter the growing influence of regional broadcasting outlets. But the three get mixed reviews.

"Sawa seems to be having some impact, but the reaction to al Hurra has been very negative," said Edward S. Walker Jr., president of the Middle East Institute and former ambassador to Egypt and Israel. "People watch it once or twice and then turn to al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya -- if they're inclined to look at news."

...yes indeed...when they want image and bells and whistles, people tune in to America..when they want reality, they go elsewhere.

The democracy initiative, formally launched at the June summits with countries in the Group of Eight and NATO (news - web sites), is the most ambitious U.S. effort to transform the Islamic world. Washington plans to sponsor the first meetings between European, U.S. and Muslim officials to discuss economic and political reform next month.

...we've seen what economic reform means in Iraq...it means an innovative approach in which you enslave an entire population by calling it "Freedom".

But the administration has scaled back its goals because of an initial backlash in Muslim societies and fears that the United States might try to impose its form of government, officials said.

...a little hand wringing here...how CAN those people think so poorly of us...?

President Bush (news - web sites) used bold language last November in pledging to end six decades of U.S. policy that opted for stability in the oil-rich region over promoting liberty, including in such key allies as Egypt. Now, however, even some proponents of the effort say Washington needs allies in the war on terrorism too much to press them too hard toward democratization and civil liberties.

...sure, after pounding the shit out of them and calling it Liberation...they now want to maintain the status quo they imposed on the region and call THAT "stability"...they wanted stability down on the Plantation too.

In House testimony yesterday, Harrison noted that public diplomacy is "not the work of weeks or months. It is the work of years and generations."

...and guess who pays? After having paid to cut those people up..where they were fine and healthy before...we are now being told we MUST send them bandages.

But other U.S. officials say much more funding will be needed to have a meaningful impact.

...of course...money, money, money.

"There is a total collapse of trust in American intentions and it's only gotten far worse over the past year," Telhami said. "When people hate or resent the United States far more than they dislike bin Laden, how can you succeed? That's the bottom line."

...and the end note is...we need your MONEY to help save you!!! Think it will work? What are newspapers for if not to tell you the latest news?

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