September 17

"Dubai could become the gateway to global knowledge about public diplomacy."

--Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean and Walter H. Annenberg Chair in Communication, the University of Southern California

NEW BOOK

Global Intentions Local Results: How Colleges Can Create International Communities (Paperback) by William P. Kiehl

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Palin, McCain, Bush Soviet Propaganda Style

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Call to Build Strong Regional Base in Dubai for Global Media - Staff reporter, Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates: Dubai should continue to build a strong regional base for the global media and tell the world about its success story for others to follow suit through public diplomacy, a senior American professor said on Tuesday at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Communication at the American University in Dubai (AUD). Speaking to students on "Public Diplomacy, a New Tool for Dubai," Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean and Walter H. Annenberg Chair in Communication at the University of Southern California, said that the emirate should continue to build a strong regional base so global media can tell their stories.

The MBR School of Communication at AUD kicks off its Academic Events – Press Release, Zawya: “The Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Communication at The American University in Dubai launched the start of its academic events for the current Fall semester with a lecture ... by Ernest J. Wilson III … . Dr. Wilson … spoke of ‘public diplomacy’ as as a response to globalization, information revolution, economic uncertainty and the strategic shifts in world power. Moreover, he explained how public diplomacy may be a tactic for governments, yet warned against its inevitable outcome of causing the setback of nations, if misused.”

MSU Hosts MEPI – ACEBook: 2008 marks the fourth consecutive year that Montana State University has hosted the MEPI program. The MEPI Study of the United States Institutes are part of the U.S. Department of State’s public diplomacy initiative in the Middle East and North Africa. Funded and administered by the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), the MEPI Study of the United States Institute at Montana State University is one of five programs that take place in the summer on campuses across the United States.

Sending American Students to Study Abroad - StudyAbroad.com’s The Globe: “The Association of International Educators, NAFSA, has some advice for the next President of the United States, whomever that may be, when it comes to the important national goal of sending more American students to study abroad each year. Since the presidency is directly involved with public diplomacy, NAFSA has put some of the responsibility of increasing study abroad in the hands of the commander in chief.”

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - Yes We Can Hope: “The new Obama book, Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise has an astonishing amount of ideas everyone will agree with. … Below are the sub-chapters of the book in bold followed by the individual ideas, goals, plans, etc. All items on this first list are in the same order as they appear in the text. … The '[A]' appearing next to some ideas stands for ‘All Can Agree,’ meaning most sane Americans. … [A] ‘Launch a Public Diplomacy Effort.’”

Women Leaders For Obama - Pray For Barack Obama: Yesterday, the Obama campaign announced that hundreds of national women leaders in business, women’s rights, sport, and other fields endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. These women will be involved with various aspects of the campaign. The national women leaders supporting Barack Obama include Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, Former US Ambassador and Vice-Chair of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Washington, DC.

Metrosexual Healing: Can Barack Obama save the trans-Atlantic alliance? - Blake Hounshell, Foreign Policy: “Republicans have relentlessly mocked the Democratic Illinois senator for his July 24 speech in Berlin’s Tiergarten park, in which he appeared before an enthusiastic, 200,000-strong crowd in front of the Victory Column. His campaign rarely mentions the event, understandably wary of the 'global celebrity' label that rival John McCain’s campaign has hung around his neck. But if he overcomes his recent stretch of bad news cycles, Obama might have a shot at restoring the United States’ broken trans-Atlantic ties -- not because he will become the crypto-Frenchman that middle America so fears --but because … style is essential to successful public diplomacy.”

Being Young And Arab In Post-Sept. 11 America - Neda Ulaby, Book Tour, NPR: It seems barely an exaggeration to say that Arab and Muslim Americans are constantly talked about but almost never heard from. The problem is not that they lack representations but that they have too many. And these are all abstractions. Arabs and Muslims have become a foreign-policy issue, an argument on the domestic agenda, a law-enforcement priority, and a point of well-meaning concern. They appear as shadowy characters on terror television shows, have become objects of sociological inquiry, and get paraded around as puppets for public diplomacy.

Out Of Uniform - A colossal misjudgment in the ministry of external affairs Diplomacy - K.P. Nayar, Telegraph, India: “[T]he urge to create a public diplomacy division could very well be understood in the context of the United Progressive Alliance government’s fascination with everything American, be it good or bad.”

IPRA - GuiaSenior: “IPRA: La Asociación Internacional de Relaciones Públicas (IPRA) invita a participar del Congreso Mundial de Relaciones Públicas IPRA 2008 que se realizará del 13 al 15 de noviembre en Beijing, China. … Se presentará el nuevo IPRA Gold Paper on Public Relations and Public Diplomacy (Informe Dorado en Relaciones Públicas y Diplomacia Pública). Sus contenidos también serán discutidos por un panel de distinguidos profesionales.”

To the Private Sector - Al Kamen, In the Loop, Washington Post: Richard Grenell, who's been director of communications and public diplomacy at the United Nations since 2001, working for four ambassadors to that organization, is heading back to California to be senior vice president of corporate communications for Kent Thiry, CEO of DaVita, a health-care company that specializes in kidney care.

Welcome Back, Dr. Brown - Schmilsson Nilsson, DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age: Re “The new and improved John Brown's Public Diplomacy Press & Blog Review 2.0.”

Public Diplomacy 2.0 - Sheldon Rampton, Spin of the Day, Center for Media and Democracy

RELATED ITEMS

Owning the Past [abstract] - Steven C. Munson, Commentary: Museum officials apparently out of financial concerns and worries about their institutions’ reputations, have adopted more restrictive guidelines on the acquisition of so-called “unprovenanced” antiquities -- that is, those lacking adequate proof of having been legally acquired. Although the guidelines leave final decisions on such purchases to the individual museum, they would seem to reinforce the notion that such antiquities should be returned to their “source” countries.

Propaganda film plays to Muslim stereotypes - Jeff VanDenBerg, News-Leader.com, MO: Despite its opening line that "most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terror," the film "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" makes use of all the standard tools of propaganda to create an image of Muslims as terrorists.

Anti-Islam Propaganda Reveals Vidal Sassoon's Secret Agenda - Jossip, NY: Hope everyone is following the story on the "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" promotional DVD that arrived in several major newspapers throughout the swing states, because it is the most blatant form of fear-mongering propaganda since Disney made those anti-Hitler cartoons during WWII.

Al-Qaeda 'able to reinvent itself' - Patrick Walters, Australian: Al-Qaeda remains firmly committed to mass terrorist attacks and has been able to adapt, rebuild and reinvent itself, according to ASIO's latest assessment. "Al-Qa'ida also continues doggedly to pursue its propaganda campaign - including increasing numbers of messages in the languages of target audiences," it says.

'To Contain Jihadism, You Need Pluralism' – RFE/RL: Walid Phares, a visiting fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington: “In order to contain and reverse the agenda of the jihadists you have to have pluralism, you have to have the ability for young minds to get another message and let them make their choice.”

Al Qaeda 9/11 message hacked? - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: In recent history, and still to some extent, groups such as Al Qaeda would have used clandestine shortwave stations to disseminate their messages. Such broadcasts could be jammed, but with more difficulty than the hacking of websites today.

US pushes Pakistan towards the brink - Tariq Ali, Asia Times: Although, in the world of the Western media, the Taliban have been entirely conflated with al-Qaeda, most of their supporters are, in fact, driven by quite local concerns. If NATO and the U.S. were to leave Afghanistan, their political evolution would most likely parallel that of Pakistan's domesticated Islamists.

20 Months in Baghdad - David Ignatius, Washington Post: General Petraeus, this media-savvy commander, was precisely what the Iraq war needed in the age of 24/7 coverage. With President Bush largely discredited, Petraeus became the public face of the war.

Odierno Warns Iraq still Unstable – Juan Cole, Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion: The success of Republican Party propaganda that Iraq is "calm" now has the disadvantage for U.S. commanders facing daily violence that it may mislead Congress and the public into cutting the support the commanders feel is still very much necessary.

The Petraeus Doctrine - Andrew J. Bacevich, Atlantic: According to the emerging Petraeus Doctrine, the Army (like it or not) is entering an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous -- with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.

An Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan: America is Now Rome - Stan Goff, Counterpunch: God's Creation does not stop at the border of the United States; and God's love is not extended exclusively to Americans.

Mission Creep Dispatch – Robert Kaplan, Mother Jones: Small missions worldwide provide the incentive for our troops to learn foreign languages and study local cultures.

The Post-American World [review of Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World] - John W. Coffey, American Diplomacy: Zakaria emphasizes the importance of “soft power,” of the need for international support and cooperation and the example of “who we are” as a nation. The new “National Defense Strategy” issued by Secretary Gates recognizes the role of “soft power,” but realistically couples it with military assets as well, particularly a mastery of irregular warfare, in the long struggle against violent extremism. The same old world we’re fated to live in will not dispense with the need for TR’s maxim, “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

U.S.-Iranian relations: The diplomatic cost of not talking - Edward P. Djerejian, Washington Times: The United States can afford to take the first step in putting the Iranian regime to the test by offering a broad strategic dialogue on all the key issues between us.

Separating U.S. Rhetoric From Reality - Jonathan Russin, Leonid Sevastianov, Tom Thomson, Moscow Times: The U.S. policy debate on whether to engage or isolate Russia will intensify. It is, however, clear that relations must be pragmatic and recognize interdependencies in economic development, energy security, fighting terrorism and controlling nuclear proliferation. The challenge for the next U.S. president in working with Medvedev and Putin will be to address such issues with sound judgment and an acute awareness of the consequences for failing to meet this responsibility.

Four Wars in One - Richard Lourie, Moscow Times: What the United States and the West have to do is rethink the policy of NATO expansion. George Kennan, creator of the "containment doctrine," was against it from the start, knowing it would lead to exactly the sort of situation we now have on our hands.

Unlike Its Soviet Predecessor, Russian Propaganda Deceives Only Those Who Want to Be, Analyst Says - Paul Goble, Window On Eurasia, posted on Georgian Daily: Russia's intervention in Georgia has highlighted the fundamental difference between Moscow's propaganda now and Soviet propaganda in the past. In Soviet times, the regime sought to convince everyone of the truth of its lies, whereas now, the Kremlin propaganda effort is so transparent that it deceives only those who want to be deceived.

Easing Mugabe out – Editorial, Boston Globe: Zimbabwe's democratic movement benefited from foreign backing that was untainted by military threats.

Lehman, Merrill, AIG: World Media React: Pundits from Berlin to Beijing assess the fallout from Wall Street's rash of bankruptcies, buyouts, and ratings downgrades - David Rocks, Business Week: There's no shortage of schadenfreude. Many blame the meltdown on a culture of greed and an outsize appetite for risk on Wall Street. Some call for greater regulation of the U.S. financial sector, others say the events will give the Democrats a boost in November's elections, and still others worry about the effect on their own economies.

ONE MORE QUOTATION

“Sarah Palin knows a little something about God’s will, knowing God quite well, from their work together on that natural-gas pipeline, and what God wills is: Country First. And not just any country! There was a slight error on our signage. Other countries, such as that one they have in France, reading our slogan, if they can even read real words, might be all, like, ‘Hey, bonjour, they are saying we can put our country, France, first!’ Non, non, non, France! What we are saying is, you’d better put our country first, you merde-heads, or soon there will be so much lipstick on your pit bulls it will make your berets spin!”

--George Saunders, writing in The New Yorker

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Abkhazia’s Abandoned Railway Lies Forgotten