February 7

“Every generation needs a new revolution.”

--Thomas Jefferson; image from


PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Incompetence: US disowns comments by own special envoy to Mubarak‎ - Rick Moran, American Thinker: "Last week, the Obama administration sent Frank Wisner, former Ambassador to Egypt, as a personal envoy from President Obama to Hosni Mubarak. The goal - ostensibly - was to get the 82 year old Egyptian president to read the writing on the wall and step aside. Now the BBC is reporting that the State Department has been forced to disown comments made by Wisner that Mubarak should stick around. ... Unbelievable.

They sent this loose canon to Egypt as a direct representative of the President of the United States and his statements conflict with the public diplomacy of the administration 100%. Does this seem a little amateurish to you? Of course it does. The right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing - or acting at cross purposes with what is official policy - smacks of incompetence if not cluelessness about how to handle this crisis. No wonder all sides in Egypt are ignoring us. Our own stupidity has made us irrelevant." Image from

"Obama 2.0": Two Years On... - Yelena Osipova, Global Chaos: "[I]t seems like Egypt does indeed present the major public diplomacy challenge for Obama (of not the biggest foreign policy problem). There has been a lot of attention as to what the White House (or anyone else from the administration) will or will not say. And yet, what will matter in the end is what his administration actually does, whether overtly or not (apologies to all the speech writers!)."

Crisis in Egypt: Factors That Led to Revolt Are Not New to the Region: As protesters demand democracy, Egypt's neighbors provide a lesson on what can happen - Gerold Firl, poway.patch.com: "Ever since Jimmy Carter brokered peace between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin back in 1978, both Egypt and Israel have been major recipients of U.S. financial assistance. For Egypt, the bulk has been military aid. That seems wrong: In a country with widespread poverty a barely functioning economy and no real external enemy, the military should be the lowest priority.


But now we see the Egyptian military is a comparatively progressive institution, and our investment there over the last 30 years is about to pay off. The Obama administration is trying to use our influence to bring about a peaceful settlement, with the army as mediator. Money talks louder than public diplomacy." Image from

Photo of the Week: American Diplomats Assist U.S. Citizens in Egypt - Women's Philanthropy--Women's Issues:


"These week's photo of the week, taken by Deputy Spokesperson for Foreign Media in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Erin Pelton, who was featured in this Newsweek video interview on evacuation efforts. Erin captures Public Diplomacy Officer Adam Lenert and Consular Affairs Officer Jessica Adams of U.S. Embassy Cairo assisting U.S. citizens at the Cairo International Airport in Egypt on February 3, 2011."

Detained RFE Reporters Leave Egypt: "We Were Not Treated Well" - rferl.org.


Image from article: Egypt -- A plainclothes policeman (L) runs to attack a foreign journalist during a demonstration in Cairo, 28 January, 2011. Via LB

Afghanistan's Hizb-e-Islami chief warns Egyptian protesters against "those ... promoted by BBC and the Voice of America" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Wikileaks: genéricos contra las cuerdas - m2mmarketplace.com: "La Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) permitió, en 2003, que un país con una crisis sanitaria no respete la protección intelectual para un fármaco, y fabrique o importe un genérico. Algunas ONG vieron en esos acuerdos (ADPIC en español) la puerta abierta para una de sus grandes reivindicaciones. Pero no contaron con el contrapeso de la presión estadounidense, siempre velando por sus laboratorios. El caso más claro es el de Guatemala. ... El momento más crítico fue en 2004 . ... El ministro de Sanidad, Marco Tulio Sosa, quiere abolir una ley anterior con 'la excusa de que restringe el acceso a los genéricos'. Con un agravante para el presidente: 'la premio Nobel de la Paz Rigoberta Menchú le apoya'. ... Tras un intenso tira y afloja, la crisis estalla en noviembre. ... Sin aviso, Sosa y Menchú aparecen en el Congreso con un nuevo proyecto para eliminar la protección de datos que se aprobó de manera unánime ... . El representante estadounidense se pone en acción, e interpela al presidente. ... El embajador les urgió insistentemente a que vetaran la ley ... . A la vez, hay una intensa campaña mediática ('public diplomacy Blitzkrieg'...) . Al final, el presidente revocó la ley, y Guatemala volvió al redil."

Livni: Two-state solution is part of our Jewish values - Jerusalem Post: "Discussing the current government, [opposition Leader Tzipi] Livni said 'the decision-making process is the problem,' adding that the current debates over who will be the next IDF chief of staff is one of a series of decisions Israel's leadership failed to make. 'Mothers of soldiers need to know that they are giving their sons over to a worthy leadership, and this leadership is not worthy,' Livni said. 'Decisions need to be made for the benefit of the state, and not for political reasons.' 'I'm not here just as a critic.


I believe we can do things differently. Israel's problem isn't public diplomacy, it's what happens within,' Livni claimed. 'When we face external events, we need to make the decisions in the right way.' 'All the problems can be solved by a new vision, which will provide a moral significance for Israel, recreating global legitimacy,' Livni said. 'If we change the social direction, we can give young people hope.'" Livni image from article

Access to information law promulgated but attacks on journalists continue - Reporters without Borders for Press Freedom: "While concerned about continuing cases of violence against journalists, Reporters Without Borders hails President Viktor Yanukovych’s promulgation on 3 February of the Access to Public Information Law and amendments to the Information Law. ... Reporters Without Borders is posting a letter from New Citizen Civic Campaign thanking all the organizations that backed its campaign for the law’s adoption. New Citizen is a non-political alliance of about 50 independent civil society groups that advocate increased citizen influence in the political process and public affairs


in Ukraine. ... New Citizen Civic Campaign [signatories include]: ... Public Diplomacy Fund." Image from

Theorizing Twitter Revolutions Part 2: A Short Introduction to Social Movement Theory - Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence

RELATED ITEMS

Obama the Realist - Ross Douthat, New York Times: Obama might have done more to champion human rights and democracy in Egypt before the current crisis broke out. But there isn’t much more the administration can do now, because there isn’t any evidence that the Egyptian protesters are ready to actually take power.

How Democracy Became Halal - Reuel Marc Gerecht, New York Times: Egypt needs elections sooner, not later. More convincingly than any president before him, Barack Obama can say, “We are not scared of Muslims voting.” He can put an end to the West’s deleterious habit of treating the Middle East’s potentates respectfully and the Muslim citizenry like children.

A Republic Called Tahrir - Roger Cohen, New York Times: "I don’t think the “Yes-we-can” American president should have adopted the tiptoeing “No-we-can’t” that leaves Mubarak as a dead man walking." Below image from




U.S. deeds don't follow U.S. words on Egypt - Anne Applebaum, Washington Post: "Democracy promotion," or "civil society construction" does not mean that we should have funded violent opponents of the Egyptian state or paid anyone to bring down Mubarak. But it is possible to maintain relations with an authoritarian government while simultaneously helping to nurture civil society through education, radio and media. We did that in the Soviet Union and Central Europe for decades. We should follow the same course in the Arab world, not only because it's morally right but because it's pragmatic.

Obama needs a freedom agenda he can believe in - Fred Hiatt, Washington Post: No one outside Egypt could control its destiny, but the United States - with the leverage of $1.5 billion in annual aid - could have insisted that Mubarak show more tolerance for tendencies that already existed in Egyptian society. For the most part, the Obama administration chose not to - because the "freedom agenda" had become too associated with President George W. Bush, because U.S. involvement in Iraq had tarnished the idea of democracy promotion and because it believed "feel-good" democracy promotion would interfere with hardheaded engagement on Mideast peace. Now the harder-to-imagine risks of the coddling strategy are all too visible.

Egypt's real parallel to Iran's revolution - Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post: The Obama administration is right to work to produce a smooth transition.


The danger of chaos is real: The views of the Muslim Brotherhood are retrograde and pernicious. If Washington is now perceived as brokering a deal that keeps a military dictatorship in power in Egypt, de jure or de facto, the result will be deep disappointment and frustration on the streets of Cairo. Over time, it will make opposition to the regime and to the United States more hard-line, more religious and more violent. That might be the real parallel to the forces that led to the Iranian revolution. Image from

Seeing ourselves in Cairo: We take credit for founding the modern democratic rebellion, and also yearn for something to unify us like the protesters in Tahrir Square - Gregory Rodriguez, latimes.com: The point isn't whether American history and our innovations are owed credit for global "democracy movements," but that we try to claim that credit, one way or another.

The Technology of Counterrevolution: The Web helps reformers, but Egypt's autocrats are using it for their own ends - L. Gordin Crowitz: Facebook and other communications tools helped protesters in many Arab count, Wall Street Journalries find one another and plan demonstrations. But the same tools are also being used by repressive governments to distribute propaganda and track dissidents. Likewise, while the Web can be a liberating medium for spreading information, in the Middle East is also used to recruit terrorists and publish anti-American and anti-Israeli screeds.

Taliban Propaganda Watch (RC South) – 062235UTC Feb 11 - milnewsca

Chutzpah in Saudi propaganda - The Angry Arab News Service: "They are really hilarious these days--without intending. The director of Al-Arabiyyah TV (news station of King Fahd's brother-in-law) mocks the presidents-for-life in Arab countries. He always talks like the republics are dictatorships, and that Arab monarchies are democracies, with kings-for-life, of course. I am not making this up. It is very hilarious."

Animated Soviet Propaganda - Maria Popova, brainpickings.org: From the October Revolution to Perestroika chronicles the visual legacy of 60 years of Soviet political history between 1924 and 1984. Forty-one beautifully animated black-and-white and color short films, never before available in the U.S., depict — and exploit — national stereotypes with remarkable visual eloquence that bespeaks the


complicated non-relationship between the East and the West during that critical time in political history. The ambitious collection is divided into four parts, curated not simply by chronology but by recurring themes. American Imperialists features 7 films from the Cold War era, depicting Westerners as money-hungry industrialists who inevitably collapse under the weight of their own greed. Though mocked and derided, it’s interesting to note that Americans nonetheless remain human — which is not the case with other antagonists in Soviet propaganda, as we’ll see in just a second. Image from article