February 21

“I feel more like an advice columnist than a secretary of state.”

--Hillary Clinton, during her Asian tour

“Three weeks into the Obama administration, the transformational diplomacy of his predecessor is out, and transactional diplomacy is in.”

--Aaron David Miller, Public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Below Images from: The paintings of Sun Mu, from "’Faceless’ artist touches divided Korea,” International Herald Tribune

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

US Secretary Remarks: Putting the Elements of Smart Power Into Practice - PacificEyeWitness.org: “Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State En Route Seoul, South Korea Seoul, DC, South Korea February 19, 2009 … QUESTION: Madame Secretary … And in the coming months and years, do you feel that you need to address beyond the traditional mechanisms of public diplomacy, which many would argue have really failed in the last - certainly in the last eight years- but you have to come up with new ways of perhaps what you’re doing now in going beyond government -but new ways to assert American leadership and restore respect for America abroad? You know, how damaged are we, and how much anger do you feel out there? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that people around the world are bewildered by what is happening. And there is a certain expectation that the United States, with our large, resilient economy, can recover and lead the way for the rest of the world to recover, and that’s why we’re working so hard to turn that expectation into a reality. … QUESTION: Thank you, Secretary Clinton. On this smart power issue, I was really struck by the appearance on 'Awesome' and the civil society dinner and the town hall in Tokyo. And in a lot of these places, you’re being greeted as, you know, they love you, it’s effusive. … [T]hese are people who are already predisposed to be pro-American. So to what extent is your smart power message getting out to those people in Indonesia or in Tokyo, who aren’t in the room and who don’t already love the United States and you personally? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Indira, I think that every one of those events had a much broader audience. … And … about public diplomacy. We haven’t done a very good job. … We are in a struggle over ideas. … And I think our failure to engage on that level going back years, partly because we didn’t realize it was going on right underneath our noses, and then when we did, we didn’t exactly connect with the right messages for people in a way that they accepted. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. I mean, I have no illusions about how high a hill we have to climb here to inspire confidence and respect in people’s minds again.”

Clinton Reshapes Diplomacy by Tossing the Script
- Mark Landler, New York Times: “As she neared the end of her maiden voyage as secretary of state with a two-day visit to Beijing, Mrs. Clinton said she was determined

to make a connection to people ‘in a way that is not traditional, not confined by the ministerial greeting and the staged handshake photo.’ ‘I see our job right now, given where we are in the world and what we’ve inherited, as repairing relations, not only with governments but with people,’ she said to reporters on Friday. … For all of her innovations, Mrs. Clinton’s schedule in Beijing on Saturday looks like that of any other secretary of state: meetings with President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and other senior officials.”

Clinton first looks east – Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle: "No grand treaties will be signed or peace pacts reached on this trip. This trip is about sending messages, showing interest and letting foreign listeners meet the new sheriff at the State Department. This White House is headed in a new direction: eastwards."

Hillary Clinton Refuses to Sing for Indonesian TV Hosts – Daily Intel: "Hillary Clinton took a break from meeting with government leaders on her pan-Asian tour to drop by the set of the Indonesian youth-oriented music show Dahsyat, which means ‘Awesome’ in English. … Clinton was able to hold her own despite the language and generational barriers, discussing topics from her music preferences (Stones and Beatles) to the Middle East peace process. However, Clinton may have seriously strained U.S.-Indo relations when she declined a request to sing, a faux pas diplomats are likely scrambling to correct.”

Does "Al Amrikiya" have a nice ring to it in Arabic? - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: “President Obama's selection of of Al Arabiya was wise on a number of fronts. It was good public diplomacy, because Al Arabiya has a large audience, and because it is not a US government-funded station, questions from whose correspondents may have been treated with suspicion. As it turned out, Al Arabiya's questions were not especially hard-hitting. As Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star pointed out, the interviewer ‘did not even raise the subject of Hamas with President Obama!’ The selection of Al Arabiya was also wise (though perhaps not intentionally so) for the sake of US international broadcasting. Alhurra is now involved in the long process of building its credibility. If President Obama requested, or ordered, an interview on Alhurra, the audience would likely have concluded that the president is just using Alhurra as his own personal intercom to the Arab world.”

White Oak Recommendations: Rethinking Public Diplomacy (Updated) - Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner: "The product of the conference is a short, easily read document of common sense recommendations that would otherwise be in larger reports. All but three of the conference participants endorsed the report. Those who abstained did so because their employers do not permit even personal endorsements. The report is simple and straight forward, so much so that the endorsements run longer than the report. Download the Recommendations here (26kb PDF).Download the Endorsements here (84kb PDF)."

White Oak Recommendation – Julie, Perspectives on Public Diplomacy: “The ‘White Oak Recommendations on Public Diplomacy’ stress the need for a concerted, planned, funded, and leadership driven approach to public diplomacy. While our class may find the ten recommendations obvious, the coming together of experts and the dedication to increasing funds has put a spotlight on public diplomacy.”

A White Oak for Public Diplomacy - zenpundit.com: “American public diplomacy is beyond broken - it borders on non-existent. There’s a great deal of building that needs to be done and the White Oak Conference was an important step forward.”

Noteworthy – Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner:

Comment by Nick Cull re article "DOD says decision not final: Flournoy aims to curtail or nix pentagon's public diplomacy shop" by Fawzia Sheikh at InsideDefense.com: “It seems far too early to be closing down the Pentagon's assistance to public diplomacy shop. US public diplomacy has many problems but this office - under Mike Doran at least - was certainly not one of them.”

Ten Reasons Why We Don't Need an Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – John Brown, Huffington Post: Slightly revised version of piece cited in PDPBR February 19.

CPD Research Associate Launches Global Media Monitor - CPD Announcements, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: ”As part of his course entitled ‘International Broadcasting: Influence and Power in the Age of Information,’ CPD Research Associate Shawn Powers has launched the Global Media Monitor blog to monitor how different international broadcasters are covering and framing global events.”

Event: Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Engaging Muslim Communities Around the World - Matt Armstrong, Mountain Runner: “Briefly, as Public Diplomacy Week comes to a close, the 'week' may actually be a month. In other words, this might be declared Public Diplomacy Month. Besides the likely official announcement of the intent to nominate Judith McHale for Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, there will likely more public and vigorous discussion on public diplomacy percolating to the surface.“

Foreign Policy Entrepreneurship - Amicable Collisions: A Boutique Of Psychedelic Whiggery: “Our era is one in which individuals are being empowered in ways that would not have been possible in the past. This is the whole rationale behind the Strategic Citizen idea and my interest in entrepreneurship. I have argued for ‘public diplomacy entrepreneurship’…”

United States: A Mistrusted Ally of Sri Lanka - Prelude to Lunstead Testimony to US Congress February 24 - Daya Gamage, Asian Tribune: “In the absence of Sri Lankan representation at the senate committee the LTTE is using its well developed public diplomacy and boroughing the recently developed techniques of strategic communication to portray the Rajapaksa regime as the most ruthless genocidal regime ever produced in Sri Lanka to influence the U.S. Congress, State Department officials and the principal players in the international community.”

The US Media & Democracy in Crisis – Robert Parry, Middle East Online: “To get around legal prohibitions on the CIA influencing US politics, CIA Director William Casey transferred Walter Raymond Jr., one of the CIA’s top propagandists, to Reagan’s National Security Council where Raymond headed up a government-wide task force on 'public diplomacy.' [For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History.]” Above image from

RELATED ITEMS

Below images from:World War II Propaganda To Stay Off The Phones – Sociological Images: Posters of Government-sponsored ads to stay off of phone lines during the hours when soldiers were likely to call home.

BBC World: Propaganda as News - hoberfeld, Keeping it Real… - How long is BBC World going to get away with its horrible one-sided reporting/portrayals of life/politics/news in the Middle East!

Is no one in Britain watching what BBC World broadcasts to millions of viewers in the rest of the world?

Grading the Listening Tours – Washington Post: With President Obama's trip to Canada, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touring Asia, The Post asked foreign policy experts to assess the expectations on the Obama administration. Below are responses from Danielle Pletka, Daniel P. Serwer, Aaron David Miller, Rick Barton, Karin von Hippel, Shannon Hayden and David Shambaugh.

The law and terrorists: Bush's attempts to use extra-legal means against suspected terrorists was a mistake that Obama, thankfully, is stopping - Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times

Iran's Détente Gesture to Obama? - Muhammad Sahimi, Antiwar.com:

The United States is trapped deeply in Afghanistan. Any decent resolution of that conflict entails political accommodation with Iran (and Russia).

Obama Nixed Full Afghan Surge After Quizzing Brass -
Gareth Porter, Antiwar.com

Twilight in Afghanistan- Philip Giraldi, Campaign for Liberty: Afghanistan wants the United States to leave, but on its own timetable enabling the Karzai regime to survive. Perhaps it would be appropriate to move that timetable up in America's own national interest and leave now.

U.S. Fear, U.S. Folly in Afghanistan- William Pfaff, Truthdig: What do Afghanistan and Pakistan have that so disturbs Americans that Washington will fight a new war because of it? The answer is that they harbor the prophets of a new religion, which says that the world can be saved if everyone is converted to Islam and scrupulously follows its laws, as interpreted by certain Pashtun tribal groups in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Territory. This seems to be what Washington fears. But why?

Iraq's Resurgent Nationalism - Robert Dreyfuss, Nation: A nationalist Sunni-Shiite cross-sectarian alliance, much of which has roots in the insurgency that followed the US invasion, is reaching for power. There's no stopping it. By prolonging the occupation, the United States is only standing in its way.

Mideast Peace Talks on Hold Amid Dual Power Struggles -
Helena Cobban, Antiwar.com:

Palestinian analysts are divided over whether nearly all, or only some, of the intra-Palestinian dispute of recent years could be attributed to that U.S. policy. But they all agree that if the policy ends, the prospects for a workable reconciliation will certainly improve.

In Mexico, Faltering, Not Failed - Edward Schumacher-Matos, Washington Post: Mexico is not a failing state, as it has become fashionable to say. What has failed is our "war on drugs." That failure and the drug-related violence wracking Mexico suggest it is time to open a national discussion on legalizing drugs.

Chinese Women Say Divine Performing Arts Is the Real Rise of China - Xin Fei, Epoch Times: The two Divine Performing Arts (DPA) shows at the Kennedy Center on Saturday, Feb. 14 moved many audience members to tears. For some, the shows were much more than perfect visual and audio artistic presentations—they marked the beginning of a new age. Zhao, a lady who moved from mainland China to the United States two years ago, said the DPA show is reviving the true Chinese culture and regaining the admiration and respect China has lost since the communist reign. Zhao criticized the profit-driven propaganda shows that the Chinese authorities exported overseas. “Every show they brought here was a total failure. There are many talented people in China, but their talents are wasted. That’s a shame.”

"Faceless" artist touches divided Korea - Choe Sang-Hun, International Herald Tribune:

Sun Mu, who was trained to create posters and murals for the Communist government, is the first defector from the North to have won fame as a painter in the South, by applying that same propagandistic style to produce biting parodies of the North Korean regime. While serving in the North Korean Army, Sun Mu was assigned to create propaganda paintings. He produced countless images of North Korean soldiers cutting the throats of American soldiers or crushing Japanese invaders. SEE ALSO