December 24

“Communicating in this peppy, informal medium [Twitter] helped … enhance my impact … . Isn't that what effective public diplomacy is about?”

--Colleen Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy

“Guantánamo ... is well run and humane.”

--Ms Graffy

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites 43 – kindly provided by scholar Bruce Gregory

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

A Tweet in Foggy Bottom - Colleen P. Graffy, Washington Post: “'Tweets' are the lingua franca of Twitter, a social networking tool in which you 'micro-share' (140 characters or fewer) a response to the question: What are you doing? … One clear lesson that emerged from the Cold War was that winning hearts and minds required communicating in a way that ‘connected’ with people on their terms, whether through film or jazz or jeans. To keep our public diplomacy relevant today, we have to reach out and connect with people on their terms, whether we use blogs or texts -- or tweets.” The writer is deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy.

State Department official defends her Twitter tweets - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: “Twitter has become such a phenomenon that I looked into it. Eventually I decided I would not sign up. I operate this website that answers the question, ‘what is happening in international broadcasting and public diplomacy?’ Twitter asks the question, ‘what are you doing?’ From me, the answer would usually be: nothing that would be of any interest to anyone.”

Arabs are looking for deeds, not words - Rami G. Khouri,
Daily Star: “Obama can get off on a better foot … by accurately diagnosing how and why his predecessor failed on both the policy and public diplomacy fronts, and making sure that he does not repeat his mistakes.

By planning a speech in an Islamic capital aimed at making Muslims feel better about American foreign policy aims, Obama would only perpetuate the core mistake that helped make Bush and Hughes such catastrophes. … [T]he world indeed is ready to reconnect with the US.The best way for Obama to do this would be to quickly articulate, but simultaneously put into practice, some basic principles that will define his administration's foreign policy.”

Rebuilding Civilian Capacity: It's All About the Hill - Vikram Singh and Lindsey Ford, World Politics Review: “The State Department clearly needs an infusion of resources. To make this possible, the administration will have to establish clear funding priorities across the spectrum of national security agencies and provide greater flexibility in allocating resources between civilian and military activities. Finally, we must clearly define and restore the value of public diplomacy and development. Whether or not organizations like USAID and USIA exist independently or within the State Department, their voices need to be adequately represented.”

Free advice for Hillary Clinton – Dan Rodricks, Random Rodricks, baltimoresum.com: Thomas F. Farr, visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service: “Secretary Clinton should deliver, early in her tenure, a major address before a secular foreign policy audience, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, in which she makes it clear that this administration will begin to integrate the issues of religion and religious freedom into three major areas of policy: democracy promotion, counter terrorism strategy, and public diplomacy. She should also urge President Obama to address this issue both publicly and privately with the White House and NSC staff.

... [S]he should alter the way America's diplomats are trained at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute. Currently the subjects of religion and religious freedom are treated in an ad hoc manner that reinforces the religion-avoidance syndrome at Foggy Bottom. Those subjects should be integrated into political and economic training so that they are viewed as part of the world U.S. diplomats are paid to engage in pursuing American interests. She should instruct the Under Secretary for Management to establish a sub-specialty on religion and religious freedom under the existing political, economic and public diplomacy career tracks that Foreign Service officers choose.“

[User Comment] – cjsh in Rick Klein, (Hoop) Dream Team -- Quietly, Obama Builds All-Star Roster, The Note: Washington's Original and Most Influential Tipsheet - “Regarding [Hillary Clinton] serving as Secretary of State, I [worked] as a diplomat in the field of public diplomacy during the Clinton administration and can only say that the Clintons seemed to believe at that time that public diplomacy was a dead issue, that it had been a useful tool in fighting the cold war, but was no longer needed, that Hollywood and syndication of American TV shows along with the internet were going to be sufficient to 'tell America's story' to the rest of the world. That was bad policy then and its even worse now that we have our international reputation and integrity on the line. I sincerely hope that if Mrs. Clinton is the next Secretary of State, that she will take a thorough second look at public diplomacy, confer with experts in the field, including past and currently-serving Foreign Service Officer specialists in public diplomacy to determine how this vital effort needs to be carried forward. Bush II finished gutting program after the Clintons left the White House, so there is now a wide open opportunity to start anew.”

Caveat Emptor (or The Poisoned Apple) - Vi Ransel, OpEdNews: "There is a difference between politics and policy. Take care that you know the difference between the two. When they talk about 'hope' and 'change' and say 'Yes we can', that's politics, they haven't told you what they actually plan to do, which is policy.

Politics is public diplomacy, a form of public relations designed to sell actual policy whether it's to Americans or to other nations. It's used many times to effect change, regime change, that is. Then it's called psyops, or psychological operations. It's a means to conduct covert business where the buyer may not want the product and so must be manipulated into buying it, and depending on what and who's being sold, the sales pitch can be hard or delicate, ranging from buzz words and talking points, festivities surrounding presidential elections and propaganda planted in media as a means of new product introduction to the hard sell of false flags and proxy wars to effect a foreign government's destruction."

Comment to War of What Ideas? Whose Ideas? What War? By Patricia H. Kushlis – John Brown, in Ms. Kushlis’s Whirled View: “No one living on planet Earth is unaware that it is a place all too often defined by brutal, senseless conflict. But isn't it time to move beyond the ‘war’ metaphor to determine America's relations with the rest of humankind in our new century? Should not US public diplomacy offer a vision of universal hope rather than Hobbesian conflict?

And would not such an approach be, in the long run, the most ‘realistic’ thing to do for American national interests, given that we are only a small part of the world's population, and that being dismissed worldwide for our bellicose attitude doesn't help Main Street now or in the future, especially as we face enormous economic difficulties that cannot be resolved without international cooperation?”

The Battle for Hearts and Minds or Business Ethics - The Battle for Hearts and Minds, Washington Quaterly Reader Series: Using Soft Power to Undermine Terrorist Networks Author: Alexander TJ Lennon “The Battle for Hearts and Minds discusses four aspects of soft power. … The third section examines public diplomacy, asking whether the United States needs new policies or simply a new image to increase its appeal in the Arab and Muslim world. … The Battle for Hearts and Minds presents a balanced assessment of the role that nonmilitary options can play against transnational terrorist networks.”

Public Diplomacy: Taming the Transatlantic Waves - Melinda Crane, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 52, No. 5, 787-790 (2009): “This article discusses public diplomacy as practiced via the medium of television current affairs programs.

Examples from recent years show how effective this format can be for U.S. politicians to communicate with the German public. The article stems from the remarks made by the author at a panel session in Dresden, Germany, on "Media and Transatlantic Relations," sponsored by The Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning.“

Memo to VOA, BBC, RFI and other Russian services increasingly relying on the internet - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy, quoting scholar Paul Goble: “Moscow has been forced to recognize that the Internet now represents an increasingly serious challenger to its control of the media space and hence of the public agenda in that country. And that recognition has led the government to seek to control a [medium] that many Russian officials had thought that they could ignore.”

Quoting history - Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner: “[A] few paragraphs from [Armstrong’s article] Rethinking Smith-Mundt … should resonate given some of the criticism of public diplomacy over the last several days, especially those who ignore the role of Congress in rebuilding our arsenal of persuasion.”

The Right View: Thou shalt rise again - Tarun Vijay, Times of India: “The challenge [for India] in the present circumstances is to evolve a genuine, long-term Pakistan policy that is immune from the intermittent skirmishes or small-time love affairs on public diplomacy front. We are not dealing with one entity that is known collectively as Pakistan. India's Pakistan policy has to address the Sindh, Balochistan and Pakhtun factors as significantly as the Punjabi aggressiveness and deep hate for anything us.”

Javed launches public diplomacy effort: Associated Press of Pakistan: “Pakistan’s Ambassador at Large, Javed Malik is organizing an International Conference to support Democracy in Islamabad in which leading members of British Parliament will be taking part in January 2009. The event is expected to further strengthen relations between people of two countries. This is a part of a wide ranging public diplomcy efforts initiated by him since his appointment as Pakistan’s Ambassador at Large.”

Spain is fully committed to the memory of the Shoah - Diego de Ojeda, Jerusalem Post: “On January 2006, King Juan Carlos led the attendance of the highest state authorities at a formal ceremony in which the prime minister underlined Spain's determination to actively promote awareness of the Shoah, particularly among the younger generations.

Later on that same year, the new education law brought the Shoah into the official curricula, including a mandatory commitment to train teachers so that they can properly transmit knowledge to secondary education students. Spain's efforts to raise awareness have shaped up in a number of different ways coordinated mostly by Casa Sefarad-Israel, the public diplomacy institution which I have the privilege of heading since last summer.” The writer is general director of Casa Sefarad-Israel.

RELATED ITEMS

How Bush Can Transcend the Shoe Thrower: A small outrage requires a grand gesture - Mark Bowden, Wall Street Journal:
As a holiday gesture, President Bush ought to ask the Iraqi government to pardon Muntazer al-Zaidi -- the Iraqi journalist who tried to hit him with his shoes.

The Road Out of Iraq Begins In Vietnam - Scott Ritter, Truthdig: There is no way to spin the reality that America will not “win” the war in Iraq.

The Right to a Day in Court – Editorial, New York Times: The Bush administration wanted Guantánamo to be a law-free zone in which military captors were free to mistreat prisoners with impunity. Part of the process of undoing that ugly legacy is making clear that detainees have the right to sue if they were tortured or otherwise abused.

Shifting Troop Targets - Editorial, New York Times: If conditions deteriorate, Washington may have to slow the withdrawal pace. But, for now, we urge Mr. Obama to stick to his campaign pledge to pull combat troops out in 16 months.

A New Partner In Syria? - David Ignatius, Washington Post: Syrian president Assad looks like a ready partner for Obama's diplomacy, but a cautious one -- waiting to see what's on offer before he shows more of his hand.

Clinton's Donor List Raises Lots of Questions: Can't the United Way find better uses for its money? - Martin Peretz, Wall Street Journal: “Rest assured, the next secretary of state will not shirk her diplomatic obligations for the benefit of some scummy foreign mineral magnate's uranium. What I've been tying to discern about the Clinton Foundation is why -- aside from the annual fancy party in New York -- foreign governments, other foundations and charities have given money to fund what they already do themselves.” IMAGE from the Boston Globe.

MORE QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

Regarding "Thoughts on the So-Called 'War of Ideas,'" Common Dreams by John Brown:

Godisstillspeaking December 21st, 2008 4:41 pm:

“Thank you for a thoughtful commentary. Few realize the extent that propaganda and the style of dialogue shapes our life today. I am no fan of Plato.

It is plato's ideas that shape the propaganda war that is going on today. For Plato, ideals were abstract unchanging realities that existed in a metaphysical realm. For Socrates and Whitehead, ideas become dialogic entities that exist because of the support they are given in common discussion and dialogue. We need to create a society where we are less about battling for our war standards of ideas and more about expressing our view points in search for common ground and peace. This can only benefit us as we release our individual delusions and develop what another philosopher, Parker Palmer, calls a habit of ‘obedience to the community of truth.’”

voxclamantis December 22nd, 2008 12:10 pm:

“Nice post. Are you talking about Plato as filtered through Strauss? Plato's ideal realities were not abstract butterflies off in la la land someplace. They were logically prior and constitutive of the sensory world taken as given by the Aristotelians. Not unlike math for Einstein, the immaterial numbers behind material things. The idea that you create reality as you go along is a very luminous notion. It is just a dangerous notion when entertained by the brains of politicians and policymakers. We've had 2500 or so years to see that the ‘philosopher king’ is an oxymoron. Kings should not try to think. It only makes them more dangerous. Whole populations should not try to think, as this only sends them off on bloody crusades (and jihads) to correct the thinking of others. Only individuals are capable of thought. Collectively, I favor an endless and unresolvable dialogue. The cult of empirical observation can also be a tyranny, and we dismiss its opponents at risk of dogmatic error. I don't know Palmer, but to submit my individual cognition to ‘a habit of obedience to the community of truth’ sounds very scary to me. Propaganda isn't going to go away, but many of us can learn to recognize it. Philosophical arguments are usually pretty silly. If you want to get your brain cooking, take a good book and go sit under a tree.”