May 23

"Yes, another great moment in public diplomacy. We congratulate the public diplomacists at the Department of State for changing minds and winning hearts

with their wicked Tweeting. Seriously dudes, who is that lame ass Tweet intended to persuade? I mean, besides your boss."

--American diplomat Peter Van Buren commenting on a Tweet from the Department regarding US actions in Yemen; twitter messages from entry; heart image from

VIDEOS

(a) Real News from the Blaze: Propaganda U.S.A.? (The Blaze)
(b) NDAA 2013: Congress approves domestic propaganda (Russia Today). See also.
(c) Visit America: It's easier than you think. Via JJ on Faceboook
(d) Slippery Business at the Naval Academy (Washington Times)
(e) China's Programming for U.S. Audiences: Is it News or Propaganda? (PBS)

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

[US Ambassador to the Russian Federation] Michael McFaul - Facebook: "Herbie Hancock at Spaso [House, the Ambassador's residence in Moscow] on Tuesday, meeting Will Smith at opening of Men in Black 3 on Friday.

Perks of the job! Only tough part was trying to translate the movie for my boys. Thankfully, lots of great action scenes!" Image from entry.

Congressman Adam Smith Introduces Bill To Permit Government Propaganda - Ross Reynolds: "US Congressman From Washington Introduces Bill To Permit Government Propaganda: Earlier this month, Washington state Democrat Adam Smith helped introduce a bill to roll back a 64–year–old law barring government propaganda within the United States.

He says the law is outdated and hurts the US in the fight against al–Qaeda and other extremist groups. Ross Reynolds talks with Congressman Smith about his proposal." Image from entry

Thornberry: End ban on domestic propaganda - amarillo.com: "A federal amendment tucked in the recently passed House defense spending bill has sparked a firestorm about one of the country’s most influential Cold War relics. Sponsored by U.S. Reps. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, and Adam Smith, D-Washington, the measure would allow the government to make its foreign propaganda available in the United States. For nearly 60 years, federal law has barred the State Department from disseminating domestically materials it makes explicitly for overseas audiences. That, the amendment’s backers say, has tied the hands of broadcasters and diplomats. In 2009, for example, a Minneapolis radio station attempted to rebroadcast a radio piece by the U.S. government-owned Voice of America rebutting terrorist propaganda targeting Somali-Americans in the city. Federal government attorneys said the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 barred the station from replaying the broadcast domestically. That would change under the amendment the House passed May 18. The Senate still must approve the change. 'This is about access to information in an information age,' Thornberry said in a statement. 'Removing the restriction on domestic access to public diplomacy material would actually increase the oversight by Congress and the public so we know what is being said by our own agencies.' Smith-Mundt provided the backbone for the State Department’s propaganda initiatives to combat Soviet misinformation in foreign media during the Cold War. But the law’s prohibition against the government reports coming back to the U.S. was easier to enforce in a media world that did not include the Internet, experts said. 'Smith passed its sell-by date in 1994, when anything they did overseas, you could access from home,' said Nicholas Cull, a public diplomacy professor at the University of Southern California. 'It’s been running on empty for nearly 20 years.' Beyond technological advancements, the amendment’s supporters argue, the law has hampered domestic broadcasters. An act of Congress explicitly saying what can be released is required to get around the law. Lifting the ban, opponents say, would allow the government to spill propaganda into domestic media and subject Americans to brainwashing, said Matt Armstrong, former executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. The amendment specifically bars the State Department from using the new freedoms to influence U.S. public opinion, and it does not affect the public information agenda of the Defense Department, which controls military advertising. 'It has nothing to do with public opinion,' Armstrong said. 'It has to do with public affairs. It’s not based on content — it’s based on bureaucracy.' The core idea of the law — to have an American corrective to anti-American propaganda overseas — still can be effective more than 60 years later, he said. 'How do you get news and information to people who otherwise can’t access it?' he said. 'If they can’t read The Associated Press, how are they going to know what’s going on? It can shape the discussion.' The American Civil Liberties Union is expected to endorse the amendment in the coming days, said Gabe Rottman, the group’s legislative attorney and policy adviser. 'The amendment generally does the right thing,' he said. 'We have to make sure that any material that’s being disseminated by the state or broadcasting entity is labeled, so that people can tell it’s government information.' The amendment includes critical caveats that make lifting the ban only a narrow change, Rottman said. 'There has to absolutely be a ban on government using federal funds to covertly influence U.S. public opinion, and the amendment does this,' he said."

‘Disconcerting and Dangerous’: House Passes Amendment That Allows Gov’t-Backed Propaganda” - Liz Klimas, theburningplatform.com: "The recent passage of a $642 billion defense bill by the U.S. House of Representatives, even under the threat of a White House veto, carries weighty provisions such as a ban of same-sex marriage on military bases and continued allowance of indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. But a little reported-on amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act is beginning to get more attention. It is a measure that some are calling 'creeping fascism' and others 'a bit unsettling.' The amendment has bipartisan sponsorship by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash) and would essentially legalize propaganda by the government within the United States. Buzzfeed reports it is an amendment that would 'strike the current ban on domestic dissemination,' meaning both the the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987 would be overturned. A Tuesday press release announced the 'The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012' explaining that it would '[modify] a Cold War-era law that hampers diplomatic, defense, and other agencies’ ability to communicate in the 21st century.' 'We continue to face a multitude of threats and we need to be able to counter them in a multitude of ways. Communication is among the most important,' Rep. Thornberry said in a statement.

'This outdated law ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible and transparent way. Congress has a responsibility to fix the situation.' 'While the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 was developed to counter communism during the Cold War, it is outdated for the conflicts of today,' said Congressman Adam Smith. 'Effective strategic communication and public diplomacy should be front-and-center as we work to roll back al-Qaeda’s and other violent extremists’ influence among disaffected populations. An essential part of our efforts must be a coordinated, comprehensive, adequately resourced plan to counter their radical messages and undermine their recruitment abilities. To do this, Smith-Mundt must be updated to bolster our strategic communications and public diplomacy capacity on all fronts and mediums – especially online.' Buzzfeed goes on to state critics of the bill see it as an overreach to give the State Department and the Pentagon this ability." Image from entry

Propaganda 101: What You Need to Know and Why or . . . - Gene Howington, guest blogger, Jonathan Burley, Res ipsa loquitur ("The thing itself speaks"): "Originally, I drafted this article with a preface about the story Michael Hastings recently broke on BuzzFeed about an amendment to the latest defense authorization

bill that would 'legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences.'  .... What is your first line of defense against propaganda? You are. And that is my unhidden message to you: Wake up. Civilization calls. The world is what we make it."  Image from entry

How about Some Government Propaganda for the People Paid for by the People Being Propagandized? - Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger, jonathanturley.org: "Investigative journalist Michael Hastings recently broke a story on BuzzFeed about an amendment that is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill. ... In a Mediaite piece last week, Josh Feldman wrote of how the US military has been looking for new ways to spread U.S. propaganda 'on social media websites for a while now.' Feldman also made reference to an article that was published in Wired last July. In the article, Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine, Adam Rawnsley told of how the DoD 'has been working on ways to monitor and engage in ‘countermessaging’ on social media sites like Twitter.' According to Hastings, the Pentagon already spends about $4 billion dollars annually to 'sway public opinion.'

Congress legalizing propaganda against US citizens - Larry Cockerham, prophecyforum.blogspot.com: "Propaganda is defined as 'chiefly derogatory information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view; the dissemination of such information as a political strategy.' Since 1948, the federal government has been banned by law in using propaganda against its citizens. Texas Republican Mac Thornberry and Washington Democrat Adam Smith have introduced a bill to make it legal for the government to lie to its citizens about certain political causes. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (HR 5736) was referred to committee and is likely to be an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013."

Image from, with caption: Larry Cockerham [-] Baptist pastor for over thirty years and an avid student of Bible prophecy.

Is Congress Really Authorizing US Propaganda at Home? Progressives are worked up over a new "brainwashing" law for misguided reasons - Adam Weinstein, Mother Jones: “Late last Friday, Buzzfeed reporter and Rolling Stone contributor Michael Hastings broke what looked like a big scoop: Congress was quietly planning to lift a 64-year-old law preventing the US government from using propaganda on its own citizenry. Before the House passed its defense budget bill Friday afternoon, Hastings reported, a bipartisan group of congressmen tacked on an amendment that would ‘essentially neutralize’ a set of time-tested guidelines ‘that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government's misinformation campaigns.’  Progressive thinkers balked at the news. ... But the outcry in this case seems misguided. For starters, the proposed law doesn't permit the spread of any information that isn't already available to the American public. Moreover, the amendment could conceivably bring more of the government's overseas information operations into the sunlight, a good thing. The actual text of the amendment, authored by Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.), modifies the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. That bill was the first to establish a post-World War II ‘public diplomacy’ role overseas for the State Department and US media organs—think Voice of America and Radio Free Europe—but the law also barred those agencies from disseminating their ‘good news’ to audiences at home in the United States. The amendment from Thornberry and Smith ‘updates’ Smith-Mundt by lifting that ban, and it also clarifies that it never applied to other government agencies, including the Department of Defense. ... The argument against Thornberry's and Smith's amendment appears to be pretty straightforward: We only want US propaganda peddled to foreign populations, but not to our own! In reality, though, most ‘public diplomacy’ is mundane boilerplate about America's purple mountains' majesties.  (And a lot of it is laughably ineffective. I should know: I spent nearly a year preparing upbeat, if technically accurate, press releases for the US Army in Iraq about Sunni militias reconciling with the Shiite-dominated government. Four years later, the two sides still don't get along very well.)  Furthermore, there's some value to knowing how the United States articulates itself to the rest of the world. In this regard, Smith-Mundt's provisions have been a bureaucratic headache for sunshine activists: Federal courts have long held that, under the existing law, the State Department and associated US agencies don't have to honor Freedom of Information Act requests from US citizens for records ‘when those records or information have been prepared by the Agency for audiences abroad.’ Want to request a transcript of a

Voice of America radio broadcast? Sorry, you're not allowed. In fact, only members of Congress are legally permitted to receive any of this information. (ProPublica keeps a database of records requests that have been turned down on these grounds.) The absurdity here is that a simple web search will turn up much of this ‘forbidden’ content: Just check out the websites for Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or listen to Radio Sawa, Uncle Sam's Arabic-language news station, online. (You paid for 'em, after all.) And anyone who thinks the military doesn't already dabble in domestic propaganda has never watched a Pentagon press conference, viewed a Marine recruiting ad, or seen an admiral justify his budget in a congressional hearing. Beyond that, Smith-Mundt has nothing to say about self-promoting PR emanating from other government entities—say, the White House, Capitol Hill, or the FBI. ... Even purveyors of ‘public diplomacy’ who favor updating the law think there's value in its long-standing division between foreign and domestic PR roles. ‘Tear down that firewall, and it will be a matter of time before resources and personnel who focus on talking about America overseas are diverted in favor of domestic 'public affairs,' the short-term political imperative of any administration,’ Gregory Garland, a foreign service officer, wrote in 2009. ‘In other words, given the choice about writing about jazz for a world hungry to know about America's unique art form, or a presidential news conference, guess which will win? Smith-Mundt protects us from that false choice.’ But realistically, in the internet age, such a firewall is now essentially meaningless; anybody in the United States (and in many other places) can access most of this otherwise open info. And isn't the American public capable of sorting through self-serving state PR?” Image from article, with caption: Prepare for an incoming transmission

Proposed US law makes domestic propaganda legal - Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing: "Buzzfeed's Michael Hastings reports on a revision to the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987, which prohibit the use of government disinformation and propaganda campaigns within the USA. The amendment, sponsored by

Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State, would allow the US government to knowingly tell lies to its people in order to promote the government's own policies." Image from article, with caption: chinese propaganda booklet

Are ‘Sock Puppets’ Propaganda? - "Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) sure has some strange priorities. Last week, he formed the left flank of the Amash-Smith coalition to upend the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act. It failed, 238-182. Three days ago, BuzzFeed reported that he had proposed another amendment, along with Texas Republican Mac Thornberry, to 'strike the current ban on domestic dissemination' of Pentagon and State Department propaganda. Recognizing that some legal limits on domestic information operations are probably a good thing, it remains clear that the limits in place up until now haven’t exactly prevented either agency from advancing their own agendas in the press. This is not new. Complete separation of state and media has always been a fallacy; in fact venerable broadcasters like Edward Murrow, who President Kennedy appointed head of the U.S. Information Agency more than a decade after the Smith-Mundt Act‘s passage, have turned to the state messaging apparatus in the face of the perceived market failure of broadcasting to deliver news as anything other than entertainment. It’s a salient anecdote because a subsidiary of the USIA, Voice of America, provided the pretext for some of the provisions of Smith-Mundt; the bill’s supporters were concerned about how an organ like VOA might be used if it were allowed to broadcast domestically. The first attempt to permanentize the agency was blocked in 1946 by Sen. Robert Taft. Back then, VOA was justified as providing a way to make sure the recipients of our foreign aid knew where it was coming from; hearts and minds and all. Therefore, the assumption went, it was better for academicians and the traditional media to bring it home instead, with an acceptably independent spin. This is a significant development because it extended the antagonistic wartime understanding of information ops–it’s ok to broadcast propaganda over there, but not here–to peacetime.  Now, due primarily to the internet, it’s nearly impossible to separate foreign and domestic dissemination.  If the old Smith-Mundt bill was paranoid in its apparent fear of government leaflet operations over Peoria the repeal provisions now before the House seem to have a paranoid belief that Al Jazeera’s presence in domestic markets will make Americans unduly skeptical of our current mideast policy of promiscuous military intervention. So why not repeal an ineffective law? Because this is all about wartime messaging. Repealing portions of the law would only give more cover to the military for violating the spirit of the law, which they already do in several ways. It was revealed earlier this year that the military was engaged in creating armies of social media 'sock puppets'  to drum up support for its policies. When two USA Today staffers started to look into the propaganda contracting, they found themselves on the receiving end of it. And the sock puppets are just the automated version of their earlier talking heads. That is, the Pentagon’s military analysts program, which provided VIP trips to Guantanamo and other perks for retired military officers who would then appear on cable news and reliably tout DoD talking points.  Consistent messaging and a complacent public are enormously important to the war managers at the Pentagon. Not to get all Alex Jones-y, but my favorite example thereof is this lovely white paper from 1980 on Mindwar–'The Psychology of Victory'–co-written by Fox News military analyst Paul Vallely and avowed satanist Michael Aquino."

New Bill Legalizes Government Propaganda and Disinformation on American Citizens - vigilantcitizen.com: "The next defense authorization bill to be proposed by the American congress contains a not-so-publicized amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American citizens. The bill would indeed nullify an existing law that (supposedly) protects U.S. audiences from misinformation campaigns conducted by its own government. In other words, Americans could now be subjected to the hardcore, massively manipulative and disinformation-filled propaganda that is usually reserved for foreign countries such as Iraq. Yes, the American public is the new 'enemy' to brainwash and the internet will be an important battlefield. Readers of this site might ask: 'Since when Americans were NOT subjected to propaganda?'.

That is a true assessment. Most of the articles on this site effectively describe how mass media products are filled with propaganda and disinformation that is communicated to the American public. The new bill would however legalize the process, making it official and out in the open. While propaganda in the United States was always somewhat covert and disguised as something else, the new bill apparently seeks to form an actual Orwellian Ministry of Truth, where propaganda is just part of daily business. If you believe that mass media is full of BS now…there’s apparently a lot more of it coming our way soon." Image from article

GAO auditing Pentagon propaganda campaigns - Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today, posted at navytimes.com: "The top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have called for a federal audit of the Pentagon’s “military information support operations” in light of concerns about their growing cost and questionable merit, according to their offices and documents obtained by USA Today. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) review, which begins this week at the request of Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., is the latest inquiry into programs the military uses to market its war aims abroad. ... The Pentagon promised full cooperation to ensure the audit is finished quickly, said Lt. Col. James Gregory, a spokesman. 'We welcome the opportunity to allow our programs and activities to speak for themselves, and we are confident that the resulting study will demonstrate the effectiveness of MISO programs and their value to the overall (Pentagon) effort to keep the nation safe,' Gregory said. Last week, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee voted to strip nearly $81.5 million of $251.6 million requested by the Pentagon for information operations. Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the committee, backed the cut, citing his concern about the lack of details justifying the activities and their benefits. Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., have also expressed concerns about the programs, especially the $4 million in unpaid taxes by the owners of the Pentagon’s top information operations contractor. The Pentagon Inspector General has begun a criminal inquiry, although Leonie Industries’ owners have paid their tax bills, company officials say."

US Government’s Global News Network Will Target US Citizens with the Help of the Smith-Mundt Act Modifications,Visit BBG Innovation - BBGWatcher, USG Broadcasts/BBG Watch: "As the U.S. Congress considers the bill known as H.R.5736 — Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (we prefer to fall it Smith-Mundt Modification Bill), allowing the Pentagon and other US government agencies to distribute news and news commentaries directly to American citizens, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a federal agency in charge of US government-funded overseas broadcasts, is already working on a new online news distribution platform, which it calls the Global News Network, or GNN. Everybody, not just Broadcasting Board of Governors employees should visit the BBG blog InnovationSeries more often. The site does not seem to have too many visitors, which should perhaps give BBG members some pause. The stories on the InnovationSeries home page generated only one comments in several months, an indication that the team doesn’t even engage in incestuous cheering. Perhaps they don’t care too much about self-promotion and publicity, but that would be out of character for young social media advocates. In fact, they do generate a lot of hot air in their posts, even if they can get hardly anyone to visit their site and post comments. And yet one can learn from the site many interesting things, not only where BBG’s US taxpayers’ money is going and for what, but also what BBG’s government bureaucrats are up to in preparing for the modification of the Smith-Mundt Act to allow them to target Americans. ... By all means, go global, go American, and go and web-only if you want to lose your relevance, your audience, the support of the American people, the support of Congress, and your funding, which is not sufficient to even try becoming like CNN. You don’t have a global audience and you don’t and should not have an American audience, at least not at US taxpayers’ expense. You have many good local audiences, which US taxpayers want to serve with uncensored news for humanitarian and national security reasons. Merge your 'surrogate-grantee' broadcasters, put the current IBB management team in charge, produce global news content for foreigners and Americans alike and see what happens. Nothing good, we suspect."

Board Member And Former RFE/RL Executive S. Enders Wimbush Steps Down - bbg.gov: "Note from S. Enders Wimbush to the BBG Board: Dear Colleagues: I write to inform you that I have submitted to the President my resignation from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As you all know, I recently assumed a new position with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Over the past few months, given the demands of that position and an increasingly heavy travel schedule, I have not been able to devote the time and attention to my BBG role that I would like. It therefore makes sense for the President, in consultation with Senator McConnell, to nominate someone who can devote the time and attention the BBG deserves."

Public Diplomacy Measurement - William P. Kiehl, Public Diplomacy Council: "Perhaps the State Department should take a leaf out of the Marine Corps playbook, especially in terms of evaluation and measurement of results. I for one would like to see a similar study of State Department Public Diplomacy in Afghanistan 2001 to 2010. We learn from our mistakes as much or more than from our 'self-rated' successes."

New Rice University Paper Chronicles Impact of the Internet On U.S. Foreign Policy - Sarah Lai Stirland, techpresident.co: "We all know that the Internet has transformed the way that the United States conducts diplomacy, and the way that it views national security, but where should we look to find evidence of this? This is the wide-ranging subject matter of a new paper published on Tuesday by Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The paper provides a round-up of some of the major turns of events between 2005 and 2011 in the realms of Internet governance, the development of online public diplomacy at the State Department, the evolution of the Internet-fueled Arab Spring, and the establishment of the shadowy U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Maryland, among other things. The paper, authored by Baker Institute Fellow Christopher Bronk, covers a lot of ground, and doesn't quite tie all the pieces together, but it does offer a useful point of reference in the sprawling topic area of 'international Internet governance policy.'"

A Comprehensive Public Diplomacy Strategy for Myanmar - Claire Ashcraft, takefiveblog.org: "In the past year, Myanmar has sought to limit Chinese influence in its economy, and strong public diplomacy that results in Western investment will diversify Myanmar’s financial partners and improve its national security.

This is a critical time to be practicing public diplomacy with Western countries–especially the U.S.– because many are beginning to shift their foreign policy focus towards containing China and gaining a foothold in the South China Sea, where Myanmar is located. Public diplomacy should be a central aspect, rather than an afterthought, of Myanmar’s transition strategy in order to tell the country’s remarkable story on its own terms." Image from article

Literary fests new tool of public diplomacy in South Asia - Madhusree Chatterjee, twocircles.net: "Literature, the soul of cultural exchange, is giving conventional diplomacy a run for its space in South Asia with the mushrooming literary festivals that are provoking, discussing and building new bridges across cultures. Five major literature festivals - the Jaipur Literature Festival, Mountain Echoes in Bhutan, the Kathmandu Literary Yatra, the Galle Literary Festival in Sri lanka and the Karachi Literature Festival – which have been showcasing literature as a medium of holistic exchange together with music, performing and visual arts and local lifestyles are forging a new south Asian solidarity on the strength of the region's soft power. Central to this new literary wave is India, which is spearheading festivals in countries like Bhutan and Nepal, buoyed by the world's response to the Jaipur Literature Festival - hailed as the Mecca of fine print. ... Literature festivals are the real assets of public diplomacy, said Navdeep Suri, a writer and joint secretary in the external affairs ministry's public diplomacy division. The fact that so many authors flock to festivals, the exposure it gives them and the connect they forge with the audience make for public diplomacy, which seeks to bring hearts and minds together, Suri said. 'The fact that the Jaipur Literature Festival goes that extra mile to extend beyond India makes it a place for candid dialogue without rancour. The motto of our public diplomacy division is advancing India's conversations with the world and these festivals are ideal platforms to advance India's engagement abroad,' Suri [said]”

Brazil Amps Up Human Rights as Spike Joints in to Chill Favela Fever - Eric Ehrmann, Huffington Post: "Dilma doing a cameo in a Spike Lee joint, and spotlighting human rights violations. Lula rolls out a new Facebook page and gets tagged at an arts crawl with Dilma. It's all part of the cultural public diplomacy designed to make those who say 'they don't care about us' say Go Brazil, Go! before the World Cup and the Rio Olympics. But on the hard power front the same smoke grenades and tough riot control tactics used to push back the Arab Spring are being employed to quell political and drug-related violence in the favelas where Michael Jackson and Spike Lee made their controversial 1995 hip hop culture video.  ...  After installing the commission that will provide Brazilians with the facts about the nation's dirty war Dilma did some cultural public diplomacy last week visiting the Memorial da America Latina in Sao Paulo, designed by Oscar Niemeyer. ... Director of Uruguay's Biblioteca Nacional and former deputy minister of culture, Liscanao is one of the most respected living literary figures in Latin America.  ...  His novel The Truck of Fools, depicting prison life and the darker side of the human condition, was published in the United States in 2004 by the Vanderbilt University Press and was amped up by Pravda as a cultural public diplomacy feature of this year's Venezuelan culture fair Filven

Twitter in Developing Countries - mediabadger.com: “Twitter saves a cow. Sounds funny in a Western world context doesn’t it? But in rural Kenya, that cow is a critical part of staying alive. An Al Jazeera story  shows an immediate and direct impact of the microblogging tool Twitter in Kenya. It is a direct statement of the role these technologies are starting to play in developing nations. In this case, it is a local policeman who is bringing the education of how to use this tool in meaningful ways. Access to Twitter is via a much cheaper SMS or texting gateway.  Although Twitter recently announced a low-bandwidth version, SmartPhones can still be too expensive in many developing countries and SMS integration will remain a key use for sometime.

Increasingly, we are seeing how mobile apps and social media services are being accessed by mobile phones through SMS gateways. When you add in geolocation capabilities of mobile carriers, we start to see how these phones, not even advanced ones like the iPhone or Blackberry, can play an increasingly vital role in public diplomacy, digital diplomacy, aid relief, monitoring and evaluation and crisis reporting (as is done already by valuable systems like Ushahidi.) As citizens in these countries begin to see the direct impact value of these tools, it can help governments reach out and connect more with citizens. On the downside, less amenable governments may also use the tools in more nefarious ways such as listening in or seeking opponents. Sadly, there is always good with the bad. But one can hope the good will outweigh the bad in these instances. Image from article

How does one ‘Show’ Information Operations? - toinformistoinfluence.com: "I want to show Information Operations or Information Warfare, Strategic Communication, Public Diplomacy and other influence disciplines at work.  Do you have a collection, can you share and give permission for their Life of the Party: Bulleit Blazer - Shaken or stirred, bourbon aficionados enjoy an up-close-and-personal look at a spirit with local roots - John Arundel, washingtonlife.com: “About 200 attendees from the worlds of media, politics and diplomacy converged on the private, members-only Georgetown club for ‘Bulleit Blazer,’ an April 26 reception sponsored by the club honoring Bulleit, a Georgetown-educated lawyer and former Treasury Dept. official who got into the family’s hallowed business of bourbon-making  Washington Life event planner Fran Holuba organized the event for attendees who enjoyed lively conversation, libations and hors d’oeuvres, as well as a jazz trio provided by D.C. Jazz Fest. Notable attendees  ...  Artur Orkisz, the Embassy of Poland’s senior adviser for Congressional Affairs and Public Diplomacy.” Image from entry, with caption: Tom Bulleit's family spirit

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The agents are arguing that the agency is making them scapegoats for behavior that the Secret Service has long tolerated. Image from

State Dept’s Crocker, Feltman on May Departures … Leaving Posts in Nine Days? - Domani Spero, DiploPundit

Messy Afghanistan War heads for uncertain ending - Editorial, USA Today: The hard fact is that the Afghanistan conflict will go into the history books in much the same way that every major war since World War II has: an unsatisfying, incomplete mess. By the time Obama came to office — proclaiming Afghanistan to be a "war of necessity" — it was already beginning to look like a quagmire. With Americans and Afghans both turning against the war, a clear-cut victory is no more attainable than it was in Vietnam, Korea or Iraq. In that light, Obama's decision is encouraging. It is the latest signal of his conclusion that the nation is ill-served by massive, optional ground wars. That's why there were no troops on the ground in Libya and why there are unlikely to be any in Syria. There will instead be financial support for Afghanistan, without which the government would collapse, and a sharp focus on al-Qaeda, which continues to pose a threat to the United States. That's hardly a happy ending, but given the poor options, it might turn out to be a smart one.

US-Pakistan Relations: Common and Clashing Interests - Shehzad Qazi, worldaffairsjournal.org: There is a crucial need for Washington to vigorously rethink relations with Pakistan. US regional interests and Pakistan’s geopolitical importance warrant a pragmatic, complex, and dynamic Pakistan policy. The US plans to maintain sizable bases and a military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014. It also has interests in Central Asia because of the region’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas.

Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state led by corrupt and unaccountable leaders and institutions, with a weak economy, growing population, and a youth bulge. Moreover, it suffers from resource scarcity and mismanagement (especially in water, gas, and electricity) and will need resources to provide postconflict stability in many parts of the country. Image from

Pakistani who helped US track down Osama bin Laden convicted of treason, sentenced to 33 years - Associated Press, Washington Post: A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden was convicted of high treason Wednesday and sentenced to 33 years in prison, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country’s relationship with Washington. Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden’s presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the al-Qaida chief last May. The operation outraged Pakistani officials because they were not told about it beforehand.

Getting a Good Deal With Iran -  Lindsey Graham, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, Wall Street Journal: A diplomatic solution with Iran is possible if the Iranian regime genuinely wants one. But to achieve this outcome, we must not allow the Iranians to draw us into an extended negotiation with a continuing series of confidence-building measures that never ultimately force Tehran to verifiably abandon its pursuit of a nuclear-weapons capability. We've been sold that horse many times before, most notably in the failed efforts over two decades to end the North Korean nuclear program. Our best hope for avoiding conflict is to leave no doubt that the window for diplomacy is closing

An underwhelming approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions - Reuel Marc Gerecht and and Mark Dubowitz, Washington Post: President Obama and his Western European counterparts have adopted a strategy of quasi-regime change: They don’t really intend to overturn Khamenei’s dominion, but they want Tehran’s power players to think they will. But given how advanced Iran’s nuclear program is, the West’s approach seems wildly underwhelming

Libya’s path ahead is unclear as elections loom - Anne Applebaum, Washington Post:  While the election will give Libya its first legitimate government in generations, it won’t decide everything. The real contest isn’t between the 2,000 candidates or the dozen-odd parties, after all, but the constructive and destructive forces within Libyan society. After the voting ends, watch what happens to the talk-show hosts, the refugee advocates and the environmental activists on the one hand, and the militias and the regulators on the other — and you’ll have a good idea which way Libya is heading.

Two propaganda flops in less than two weeks: Is Beijing losing its touch? - The official Chinese media appear to have it in for US Ambassador Gary Locke. But their angry attacks against him are backfiring with Chinese Twitterati - Peter Ford, csmonitor.com Image, with caption: In this May 2 file photo, blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng (c.) holds hands with US Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, at a hospital in Beijing.

Australia Tops OECD Better Life Index, Leading Norway and U.S. - Michael Heath, Bloomberg News: Australia is the world's happiest nation based on criteria including income, jobs, housing and health, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. Australia led Norway and the U.S., the Paris-based group's Better Life Index showed, when each of 11 categories surveyed in 36 nations is given equal weight

Stop... hover time: Have the Chinese made the worst photoshop job ever? - Phil Vinter, dailymail.co.uk: There is a certain charm to terrible special effects in early sci-fi films, but when you are a world superpower failing to knock up a convincing Photoshop image in 2012 is a tad embarrassing. This photograph of a man apparently 'floating' above a path on greenbelt land was reportedly produced by Chinese officials as part of a propaganda campaign to raise awareness about a landscaping project

 

Social media off to war with propaganda posts: Disinformation campaigns will start with NSFW honeypots - Simon Sharwood, theregister.co.uk: Social media posts which lure readers with the promise of illegal, amoral or forbidden products and services may become a cold war cyber weapon, according to Kaspersky Labs CEO Eugene Kaspersky. Speaking to The Register in Sydney yesterday Kaspersky said the usual suspects – Duqu, Stuxnet, whatever happened in Estonia and the regular data deletions apparently plaguing Iran – are all jolly good examples of cyberwar in action, but require a concerted effort. Easier-to-execute, attacks, he believes, will be fought through dodgy posts to social networks.Kaspersky’s theory is that states will create handles on social networks that initially post information about illegal (dodgy downloads or drugs), amoral (smut) or forbidden products (drugs again) in order to attract an audience. Once followers or friends have been won, the feeds will turn to dispensing propaganda. Messages of this sort won’t be explicit, Kaspersky said, but will instead represent an attempt at mass manipulation. “A post could say ‘New Zealanders just killed several Australians,’” he said, reflecting the Antipodean location of his meeting with The Register yesterday. The cumulative effect of such posts, he feels, could demoralise or agitate a population in ways that advance international political and/or military agendas. “You poison them, and little by little and you will have a huge conflict between countries,” he says. All of which sounds very plausible, except for the fact that New Zealand doesn’t need disinformation to demoralise Australia: that’s what the All Blacks are for

“Armenian Lobby Stands For The Anti-Azerbaijan Propaganda Against The Background Of The Eurovision Song Contest” - historyoftruth.com: "Armenian lobby stands for anti-Azerbaijan propaganda against the background of the Eurovision song contest, said speaker of the Azerbaijani Ogtay Asadov at the meeting of the parliament. He said that the Armenian websites informed about the scenarios of the propaganda in Iran in advance: 'There are proofs on this issue. One of the Iranian officials was a guest in the Azerbaijani Parliament 2-3 years ago. During the conversation after the discussions, I told him that they have such an article in the Constitution: financial aid to the poor countries. I asked him did this article consider Armenia too? He said no, Holy Quran considered assisting the weak and we have included it into the legislation. Then I asked, why do not you render assistance to their fellow Muslims?'  Asadov noted that Iran is a large neighbor country: “But we must not stoop to the level of policy that conducted in Iran against us.” Image (presumably of Asadov) from article

Baron Cohen's Zionist Propaganda Film "The Dictator": Horrid, Vulgar, and Not Funny - Gilad Atzmon, aljazeerah.info: Cohen isn’t alone, after all, he has created The Dictator together with a Hollywood studio.

So, it’s reasonable to say that what we see here is just one more Hollywood-orchestrated effort to vilify the Arab, the Muslim and the Orient. Image from

Meet Facebook’s Secret Propaganda Arm: The Analog Research Lab - Facebook’s got it all — wired.com: Facebook’s got it all — 845 million users, a $104 billion valuation, blackmail-worthy pics of everyone born in the ’90s, and a screen-printing studio. Yup, that’s right:

The social-media behemoth houses a basement art studio, the Analog Research Lab, where designers Ben Barry and Everett Katigbak churn out hand-screened posters that go up all over Facebook’s 36 global offices. Image from article