John Brown's Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review: December 30

"the decade of self-made celebs. Anyone could become famous."

--USA TODAY's Ann Oldenburg, about the past ten years; image from article: Kim, left, and Kourtney Kardashian, stars of the reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, on the red carpet the Primetime Emmy Awards.

"the depressing 2000s"

-- Marc Cooper, director of Annenberg Digital News at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

"a decade of collapse and exhaustion"

--Again, Marc Cooper

“The Decade Of Tyranny”

--How the blog Zombie America

characterizes our new century at its infancy; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Obama’s Impending “Lessons in Disaster”? - Ehsan Ahrari, Strategic Paradigms: “I know, America’s machinery of public diplomacy continues to emphasize that we are not in Afghanistan as an occupying force. What is important to note, however, is that most Pushtoons

(who formulate 42 percent of the population of that country) do not believe that; and they formulate the backbone of support of the Taliban in Afghanistan. So, for a majority of the people there, they are fighting foreign occupation forces led by the United States.” Image: Collage of images representing the Pashtun people.Top Row (left to right): Sher Shah Suri, Ahmad Shah Durrani, Mohammed Nadir Shah. Bottom Row (left to right): Bahadur Yar Jung, Zalmay Khalilzad, Hamid Karzai.

Hybrid Threats Require a Hybrid Government – Matt Armstrong, Budget Insight, A Stimson Center Blog on National Security Spending: “America’s national security requires better coordination of policy planning and execution across executive branch agencies. It also requires better communication between Congress and the agencies as well as improved communication across Congressional committees. Representatives Adam Smith (D-WA) and Mac Thornberry (R-TX) have taken the first step in informing House members and committees. They chair the recently created the Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy Caucus that, according to Smith and Thornberry, is an ‘informal, bipartisan group of Members dedicated to raising awareness of and strengthening American strategic communication and public diplomacy efforts.’ It will ‘bring together constituencies across all sectors with an interest in successful strategic communication and public diplomacy, and educate other Members on the multifaceted issues related to strategic communication and public diplomacy’ This is a long overdue first step to synchronize efforts in the legislative branch, a demand Congress has had of the executive branch.”

A Note from Deirdre Kline, Director of Communications, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. – John Brown, Notes and Essays: “Response to Zogby's article on Alhurra‏ From: Deirdre Kline (dkline@alhurra.com) Sent: Tue 12/29/09 11:38 PM John, I saw that you carried James Zogby’s article on Alhurra in the Dec. 28th Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review and I wanted to send you the comment that we posted online in response to the article.

James Zogby believed six years ago that an American television channel to the Middle East was a bad idea and is intent on proving he is right. However, latest audience surveys, conducted by international research firms such as ACNielsen, show Alhurra with a weekly reach of more than 27 million viewers. ... Alhurra continues to evolve and becomes better and more successful each year.” Image from

Going Mobile Faster: VOA Needs to Do More - Alex Belida, VOA News Blog: Voice of America journalistic standards and editorial decisions are discussed

Mobile phones help bring down North Korean "information wall" (updated) - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

Former US Olympian Michelle Kwan to visit S Korea as diplomacy envoy - Zhang Xiang, Xinhua: "Former American figure skating champion Michelle Kwan will visit South Korea early next month as an American public diplomacy envoy, local media reported Wednesday citing an official at the U.S. State Department. ...

During her planned seven-day stay, Kwan is expected to meet with a group of aspiring South Korean figure skaters and give lectures at universities, local media reported.” Image from

KL to wait for Vienna UN envoy's contract to expire - The Malaysian Insider: ‎‎”The Foreign Ministry will not be taking any further action against Datuk Arshad Hussain, the diplomat who controversially voted against censuring Iran. … The ministry will also ask the ambassador to resign from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) because he is contracted to the IAEA Board of Governors until 2011. … The ministry’s Department of Information and Public Diplomacy (JPDA) also sent a circular to the country’s entire foreign mission that it was conducting a comprehensive report on the international media coverage on the incident. The IAEA vote threatens to put Malaysia in the same category as Venezuela and Cuba, two countries well known to be at odds with Washington.”

Hijo de Radio Moscú: Russia Today (RT) launches Spanish channel - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

Is FP a neocon rag? - Blake Hounshell, Foreign Policy:

COMMENT BY READER PAPICEK: “Foreign Affairs...is good for analysis, good for discerning current thinking, but unimaginative, and frequently the outlet for mere punditry, though I'm talking about foreign policy ‘heavyweights’. … It seems to me that the preponderance of FA's articles touch on US security issues to the detriment of everything else: (trade, globalization, making foreign assistance work or at least lessening its harm, public diplomacy, other multilateral issues like international financal regulation, the effect of the bureaucratic juggernaut in Washington, etc.) I wouldn't even consider asking FA editors to question their fossilized assumptions.” Image from

RELATED ITEMS

Jihadism and the Cold War: The West won the Cold War; we can use some of the same tactics to defeat Islamic extremism - Tim Rutten, latimes.com: Many of the most devastating blows struck against Soviet totalitarianism were inflicted by writers and artists who'd lived under the system and then found allies in the West who appreciated their work and, most important, disseminated it. Where now are the critics, Western intellectuals and publishing houses searching out and supporting the Islamic world's voices of tolerance and modernity, whether philosophical or artistic? If we don't find and embrace them and give them a secure platform from which to speak truth to those within their own societies hungry to listen, we're waging this struggle with one arm tied behind our collective back -- and, perhaps, hopelessly. The one Cold War lesson that won't avail in this instance is that of the open society's example as a changer of hearts and minds. One of the chilling things about the jihadis is how many of them have lived and been educated in the West.

In 2010, a world of turmoil - David Ignatius, Washington Post:

If there's one perverse positive sign out there, consistent over most of the past decade, it's the failure of al-Qaeda's extremist ideology. We have an enemy that makes even more mistakes than we do. Image from

Afghans burn Obama effigy over civilian deaths - Samoon Miakhail, AFP: Protesters took to the streets in Afghanistan on Wednesday, burning an effigy of the US president and shouting "death to Obama" to slam civilian deaths during Western military operations. Extremists rarely claim responsibility for attacks that kill large numbers of civilians, instead blaming foreign forces in an increasingly effective propaganda campaign.

Iran's propaganda hits the 'Spinternet' - Evgeny Morozov, CNN: Flooding Twitter with fake and pro-government updates is one way to make Twitter unusable for the Western audiences. How, after all, should we know what updates we can trust, if many of them are written by the government and its loyalists? It turns the Internet into the "Spinternet." That propaganda is displacing censorship as a primary means of controlling the Internet is quite remarkable. In the past, the Iranian government would have simply blocked access to dissenting sites.

But blocking Twitter is impractical: Not only would it be very expensive, but it would also disconnect the Iranian secret police from a valuable channel of gathering intelligence. What many cheerleaders of Iran's Twitter revolution fail to understand is that the easy availability of such information allows the regime to explore how various anti-government activists are connected to each other and to their foreign supporters. All it takes is looking up their Facebook profiles. Morozov image from

As defense agencies hire, other government workers get incentives to retire - Ed O'Keefe, Washington Post: The federal government hired 97,445 people in the first nine months of 2009, mostly for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, according to the Office of Personnel Management. But just as new faces show up at some offices, seven agencies or departments hope to cut about 37,000 workers with buyouts and early-retirement offers.

A failure to communicate surrounding would-be bomber – Editorial, Washington Post: There was a stunning breakdown in communication among the State Department, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the British government that allowed Mr. Abdulmutallab to buy a ticket in the first place.

Christmas day's recycled terrorists: Releases from Gitmo are coming back to haunt us – Editorial, Washington Times:

With reports appearing that former Guantanamo detainees played a role in the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253, President Obama's plan to shutter the facility, putting detainees back on the streets, doesn't look so popular. Nor should it. Every released detainee has the potential for political and literal blowback. Image from

Gao Brothers continue to rile art world with Lenin-Mao sculpture - David Ng, latimesblogs.latimes.com: The Gao Brothers, as they are often referred to in the art world, have created something like a brand name in repurposing the images of communism's most prominent historical figures.