September 30

"It’s a world where a cheap YouTube video made by a superempowered individual can cause us more trouble than the million-dollar propaganda campaign of a superpower competitor."

--Thomas L. Friedman, "The World We’re Actually Living In," New York Times; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

For Foreign Diplomats, Social Media’s Benefits Outweigh Its Risks - Nancy Lazarus, mediabistro.com:  " 'Social media is about taking smart risks,' observed Victoria Esser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Digital Strategy at the U.S. State Department. Unfortunately, the recent tragedy in Libya has reminded us that being stationed overseas can be a very dangerous occupation. Esser appeared on a panel at the Social Good Summit on Saturday along with other foreign diplomats in order to provide attendees with a snapshot of their digital media experiences. The three-day conference takes place at New York’s 92nd Street Y during UN Week and concludes today. The State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has embraced internal and external digital platforms as tools to interact with employees and the public. As Esser said, 'nothing replaces face-to-face diplomacy, but social media cuts away time barriers.' She noted that the State Department had recently hosted a 'Google hangout in Persian to engage in dialogue with Iran, where the U.S. doesn’t have

an on-the-ground presence.' They invited a few journalists to join in. Charles Ray, former U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, pointed to another well-documented advantage of using social platforms. 'Social media is not a magic wand, but it’s an effective tool to have ongoing conversations with people who are hard to reach with other methods.' He was referring to those who are under 30 years old; in developing countries, members of this demographic primarily use cell phones since they have only limited access to the internet. Twitter has become to go-to digital platform for officials serving overseas. 'More foreign diplomats are comfortable now using Twitter. While it doesn’t supplant traditional diplomacy, Twitter is also good for cultural diplomacy,' said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. Not surprisingly, diplomats must tread cautiously on Twitter. 'You can’t get every tweet approved by the foreign minister,' Sarukhan noted. 'I do my tweets in a more kosher and formal way.' Sarukhan and Ray both reported receiving occasional comments from hostile followers; Sarukhan in particular must choose his words wisely, given the tenuous nature of national security relations between Mexico and the U.S." Image from

Digital diplomacy: areas of work, risks and tools - russiancouncil.ru: "At a meeting of ambassadors and permanent representatives in June 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin put digital diplomacy among the most effective foreign policy tools. The President urged the diplomats to more intensively use new technologies across multiple platforms, including in the social media, to explain the positions of the state. Digital diplomacy named by Silicon Valley experts as Web 2.0 Diplomacy has appeared relatively recently. A simplified definition of this phenomenon – the use of web and information & communication technologies (ICTs) to carry out diplomatic tasks – is quite illustrative. There are several common areas where digital diplomacy is particularly effective as a foreign ministry resource. In the first place, this is public diplomacy: in establishing contacts with online audience and formation of new communication tools, digital diplomacy allows direct addressing the target audience with specific messages, which includes attracting influential opinion makers for collaboration. E-diplomacy promotes citizen to citizen and person to person dialogue formats. This dialogue can be initiated both by the civil society members themselves and by the state, which can act as a moderator in the dialogue. ... [D]igital diplomacy is mainly applicative in nature and is particularly useful in working with foreign audiences, in matters of relaying the official position and building up the image of the state. It is important to understand that it is unlikely to ever replace diplomacy in its conventional sense. Closed talks will remain closed. However, digital diplomacy is capable of explaining why a certain decision was made, what results it will give, how it will influence the foreign policy process, i.e., of opening public access to the results of conventional diplomacy. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson talked about the principles of openness in diplomacy as early as 1918. The first of Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points of the draft peace agreement ending World War I stated: 'Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view'. Then, the principle of openness was the requirement of time – the public opinion,that was gaining more and more influence in the political life of European countries was hostile to the secrecy in which diplomatic contacts were traditionally shrouded. Amid the spread of literacy, emergence of mass periodicals and formation of an elected parliament, heads of states, ministers and diplomats were conscious of the need to publicly justify their actions in the public view."

Diplomat vows to work for bolstering Saudi-US bond - "A number of Saudi officials and members of the diplomatic community gathered Saturday at Park Hyatt to attend a welcoming reception organized by US Ambassador James B. Smith in honor of Anne Casper, the newly appointed US Consul General in Jeddah. Smith was particularly proud to introduce to the public a young lady and an experienced diplomat who began her career as a public diplomacy officer at US missions in Morocco, Syria and Jerusalem and served more recently as Public Affairs Counselor in Bangkok and Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda.

'Casper is not here because she is a woman. She is here because she is the most qualified person within the US department for this position. I needed someone who would help us build up a family and represent the American people focusing on notions of mutual trust and mutual respect. Over the past three years we have been dedicated with great success on building up relations in the trade, medical and education sectors based on these concepts. Casper will continue to nourish these relations bringing with her new energies, visions and ideas,” said Smith. Casper, accompanied in Jeddah by her husband who is a registered nurse, looked self-confident and gave proof of closeness to the Arabic culture and knowledge of local customs beginning and concluding her speech in fluent Arabic." Casper image from article

Interview: American Author Praises Iranian President's "Worthwhile Public Diplomacy" - english.farsnews.com: "Lawrence Davidson, a renowned American author, political commentator and professor of history at the West Chester University

was one of those who had the opportunity to meet President Ahmadinejad in New York's Hotel Warwick. 'My impression of President Ahmadinejad was completely the opposite of …the Western designed propaganda image against him. In the meeting I attended the president showed himself to be a quiet spoken idealist - someone who is quite knowledgeable and thoughtful,' said Davidson in an interview with Fars News Agency. ... Q: President Ahmadinejad's travels to New York in the past 7 years to attend the United Nations General Assembly have always made the headlines and received remarkable attention by the Western mainstream media. He has given numerous interviews, held several meetings with students, university professors, public intellectuals, religious figures, journalists and political experts and tried to reach out to the American public and have Iran's message be heard by the international community. What do you think of his public diplomacy and his trips to New York? A: The president's public diplomacy and outreach is necessary and worthwhile, but one must accept that it will make only a limited impact. That is because the information flow in the U.S. is controlled by the enemies of the Islamic Republic. Those who influence both policy formation on the basis of economic interests, ethnic and religious interests or ideological orientation have crafted a picture of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a fanatical enemy of the Western Civilization in general and the United States in particular. The American media, which shares and promotes this picture, has encouraged an entire generation of U.S. citizens to believe this view of things. And so, most of them do believe it. Ahmadinejad's efforts to counter this view receive little press and the best he can do is promote a process whereby a different picture is spread by word of mouth. Is it worth the effort? Yes, because those he talks to will be decision makers at one level or another. And so some small counterbalance is achieved." Image, evidently of Davidson, from article

Blooming, Buzzing - Winnowing Fan: "Time too, to mourn the violent deaths of four American diplomats in Benghazi on 9/11/12. My tribal identity as a fellow American Foreign Service Officer (now safely retired) intensified my sorrow. The mad chirping of my Twitter stream carried the news and views of the experts I follow into my otherwise languid garden sanctuary. ...'In the great blooming buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.' This patterned thinking written about by Walter Lippmann eighty years ago in his seminal work Public Opinion (1922), was sadly evident in the events of the past two weeks and the rush of commentary upon them. All the stereotypes seemed to be at play as the tragedy unfolded. The West was insulting Islam once again, Muslims were enraged once again, social media was the new speed dialing culprit once again. For the most part we do not see and then define, we define first and then see. Stereotypes, schemas, narratives or paradigm -- pick your favorite template term -- were triggered by political actors and pundits alike attempting to frame the blur of events into a coherent story line for political or ideological purpose. The first week's deforming framing contest seemed particularly egregeous [sic] to me. Mr. Romney saw an apology where there was none. The Obama administration saw an anti-American protest mob turned violent in Benghazi when there was none. Public diplomacy scholars saw global social media effects where mass media and domestic political agency offered the better explanations for the convulsions."

Public Diplomacy and International Communications: Thoughts and comments about public diplomacy, soft power and international communications by Gary Rawnsley - "So it seems that a considerable amount of American soft power was invested in

[President John F.] Kennedy, and a huge quantity of resources was devoted to American public diplomacy in the immediate aftermath of his death. But what made this soft power so successful? His relations with the Soviet Union were stormy to say the least; he was responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco; and he was the reason the United States became involved in Vietnam. So is the explanation simply that he was Jack Kennedy - that it is all about the man and the fact the he generated a wave of hope and optimism among supporters and critics alike? Is it, as I have long suspected, because this youngest ever President was only 46 when he was murdered during his first term in office?" Image from

Former Radio Liberty journalist comments in Index on Censorship blog on purge of Svoboda online writers and broadcasters - BBGWatcher, USG Broadcasts/BBG Watch: "Elena Vlasenko, a young journalist who said she resigned in protest from Radio Liberty’s (Radio Svoboda) Moscow bureau after dozens of her colleagues were fired by the American management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), published her commentary in the Index on Censorship blog UNCUT – 'free speech on the frontline' on the recent events at the U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcaster. In her article, Vlasenko

quotes from a letter of protest sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Congress, in which some of the most famous leaders of the human rights movement in Russia express strong disapproval of the actions of RFE/RL managers who report to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. federal agency." Vlasenko image from article. See also

In Nigeria, mobile phone users listen to VOA's 20-minute medical advice program. "No one in America would do this"  - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting.

Image from entry

Nigeria: Curtains On Indiafrica Initiatives - asia.afragenesis.net: "A performance from last year’s Starquest runners up, Quantum Vibes drew curtains on the Indiafrica initiative where Plloman Kumari’s idea of a solar-powered harvester clinched top spot and $10,000 during its finale at the City Hall in Lagos on September 25. Second spot in the keenly contested competition that was flagged off last April at the University of Lagos with a performance by Indian band Parakrama had Zubaidai Bai of India taking second place while the third spot was shared by Kennedy Kithake and Kola Bayole of South Africa, and Bhiraw Kumar Mandal. ... Plloman Kumari and Kennedy Kithake also earned a trip to Davos 2013 after they emerged the top ranked Indian and African winners in the competition organised by ideaworks and the public diplomacy division of the ministry of external affairs of the government of India. A youth outreach programme that seeks to bring Africans and Indians closer to each other via competition, creative exchanges and collaboration, joint secretary of the public diplomacy division of the Indian ministry of external affairs described the initiative as a success, with Nigeria having the highest number of entries from Africa."

Marjorie Coffin, Foreign Service office - Megan McDonough, Washington Post:  "Marjorie Coffin, 63, who retired in 2007 as deputy director of the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, died Sept. 8 at her mother’s home in Hagerstown, Md. Ms. Coffin, an Arlington County resident, joined the State Department in 1975 and worked in the embassies in Guatemala, Japan and Costa Rica. She transferred to the U.S. Information Agency in 1988 and worked in cultural affairs in Turkey and Spain, as well as at the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico. She was the director of the Cuba, Mexico and Panama office from 1996 to 1998. Before USIA duties were folded into the State Department in 1999, Ms. Coffin served as the public-affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador.

From 2002 to 2006, she was the cultural-affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, during which she served on the Fulbright Commission Board, which helps facilitate educational and cultural exchanges. Marjorie Coffin was born in El Paso and was a 1971 theater arts graduate of American University. She received multiple Meritorious Service Awards for her government service. She was a soprano with the Capitol Hill Chorale in the 1990s and was a volunteer at Inova Alexandria Hospital." Image from

RELATED ITEMS

Afghan inside attack puts U.S. troop deaths at 2,000 - usatoday.com: U.S. military deaths in the Afghan war have reached 2,000, a cold reminder of the human cost of an 11-year-old conflict that now garners little public interest at home as the United States prepares to withdraw most of its combat forces by the end of 2014. The toll has climbed steadily in recent months with a spate of attacks by Afghan army and police — supposed allies — against American and NATO troops.

That has raised troubling questions about whether countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan will achieve their aim of helping the government in Kabul and its forces stand on their own after most foreign troops depart in little more than two years. Image from

War in Iraq Wasn’t Worth the Price America Paid - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well:

A very sad legacy. Uncaptioned image from article

Boykinism: Joe McCarthy Would Understand - Andrew J. Bacevich, TomDispatch: Further reliance on armed force as the preferred instrument of U. S. policy in the Islamic world will compound the errors that produced and have defined the post-9/11 era.

The World We’re Actually Living Inc  - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times: Foreign policy is a lot like domestic policy. The morning after the election, we will face a huge “cliff”: how to deal with Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, without guidance from the candidates or a mandate from voters. Voters will have to go with their gut about which guy has the best gut feel for navigating this world. Obama has demonstrated that he has something there. Romney has not.

Freedom House report: "threats to internet freedom are becoming more diverse" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting.

Iran Mocks US for Much Ballyhoo, Weak Action in Persian Gulf Wargames - FNA: Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the recent US-led wargames in the Persian Gulf were an embarrassment for the US. "They made a few moves in very limited points of the vast Persian Gulf, but they named it 'wargames', which is an embarrassment for them," Vahidi

said on Saturday. "And the few countries that accompanied the US in this political and propaganda maneuver took up some weak and passive roles," he added. Image, evidently of Vahidi, from article

Iran finds Reuters guilty of propaganda about female ninjas - digitaljournal.com: A jury in Tehran has found the news agency Reuters "guilty of propagating against the Islamic Republic and disseminating false information to disturb public opinion" for running a story titled, "Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran's assassins." The story was run in March 2012. Reuters subsequently corrected the story, after the martial arts club where the video was filmed made a complaint, and the news agency apologized for the error.

The story's headline was then corrected to read "Three thousand women Ninjas train in Iran." The video shows women clad in black from head to toe, running up walls and flipping backwards, and diving and rolling over swords held at waist heights, performing ninja skills. Image from article

AMERICANA

"[T]he Federal Register at the end of 2011 had 82,351 rules that Americans are supposed to live by."

--George Melloan, Wall Street Journal

“It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”

--Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has resisted calls to release more tax returns, citing a wish to keep his charitable contributions private as one reason.

IMAGE

Via FW on Facebook

September 29

"You know, we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to be murdered for it."

--Gen. John Allen, who has directed U.S. and other foreign forces in Afghanistan since mid-2011 and who will be replaced by Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., assistant commandant of the Marine Corps; image from

BLOG OF INTEREST

Robert Albro Public Policy Anthropologist

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

USA to Pakistan TV ads provoke criticism from Pakistan to the USA - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: Elliott comment: "For public diplomacy purposes, there is probably no better way to reach a large number of people in the target country than TV ads."

Chef Corps to Help Build Bridges through “Culinary Engagement” - Darci Vetter, Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, blogs.usda.gov: "Some of the nation’s top chefs have signed on to help promote American food and culinary traditions around the world through the new American Chef Corps. The corps is part of the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Initiative, launched earlier this month by the Department of State and the James Beard Foundation.

USDA is delighted to support this initiative, which is an excellent complement to our ongoing work highlighting the quality, variety, safety and sustainability of U.S. food products to our customers around the world. As part of this new endeavor, more than 50 renowned U.S. chefs will serve as resources to the State Department, preparing meals for foreign leaders and participating in public diplomacy programs that engage foreign audiences abroad as well as those visiting the United States. This initiative builds on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of 'smart power' diplomacy, using a full range of diplomatic tools – in this case, food and hospitality – to enhance how formal diplomacy is conducted. Members of the American Chef Corps will use their culinary skills to cultivate cultural understanding and help strengthen bilateral relationships." Image from

Against Foodie Diplomacy - Noreen Malone, tnr.com: "[W]hat the White House and State Department wish to accomplish with the Chef Corps (as part of the larger 'Diplomatic Culinary Partnership') is to rebrand U.S. food culture abroad. Thanks to the many Golden Arches strewn across the globe, the rest of the world has a certain fixed idea about American cuisine, and perhaps Americans more generally: A horde of preservative-popping tramplers of local culture. Unfortunately, Foggy Bottom’s effort to show off the more diverse and human side of the Yankee kitchen seems focused primarily on the $100-a-plate foodie category of culinary life—something out of reach for most Americans, not to mention the foreigners with whom our toque-wearing ambassadors will soon be engaging." Via PR

For Foodie Diplomacy - samuelchapplesokol, Culinary Diplomacy: "Noreen Malone’s article .... takes cheap shots at a program in its infancy." Via PR

Why There are No Women in Jazz Or, “How Globalization Has Changed U.S. Music Diplomacy” - Stephanie N. Stallings: artsdiplomacy.com: "There are many women who buck the trend and become outstanding jazz musicians. Likewise, jazz still has many adherents in the world, and from a public diplomacy perspective it still presents a heritage that offers an attractive narrative and is fully American. But to reach youth around the globe, the immediate future of music diplomacy belongs to hip hop."

Ambassador McFaul Participates in a Twitter Q and A - "U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul participates in a Twitter Q and A at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia, September 26, 2012."

Image from

Pioneering collector of African music retires from Voice of America - Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post: "Long before there was ping-pong diplomacy or pere­stroika, a short, balding, Armenian American was lugging an enormous reel-to-reel from village to village, sweet-talking people into singing and playing for him.

Leo Sarkisian had the kind of career that today lives only in legend: Hired by famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, he was paid by the U.S. government to travel throughout Africa, visiting every country over half a century and returning with thousands of rare recordings of music that most of the world had never heard. On Friday, Sarkisian, 91, officially retired from the Voice of America, where the weekly radio show he started 47 years ago, 'Music Time in Africa,' is VOA’s longest-running English-language program." Image from article, with caption: Leo Sarkisian, left, records top musicians at Kabul Radio in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the 1950s, using gear he was given when he left a job in Hollywood.

Once Upon A Time There Was Radio Liberty - BBGWatcher, USG Broadcasts/BBG Watch: "[V]aluable journalists and contributors are gone or have been terminated [at RFE/RL]" Image from entry

Radio Free Europe history in the news, including a 1951 US nationwide TV fundraiser - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting.  Image from entry

VOA TV programs in Chinese, Tibetan and English now available in China on Telstar 18 - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

From Ikebana to Manga And Beyond: Japan’s Cultural and Public Diplomacy Is Evolving - Kazuo Ogoura, japancenter.livejournal.com: "At the end of World War II, Japan faced the task not only of rebuilding a devastated country, but also of rebuilding its image in the world. Since then, Japan’s cultural and public diplomacy have gone through a complex evolution and adapted repeatedly to the country’s rapidly changing place in the world. ... Ikebana and tea ceremonies, post-modern features of Japan coupled with age-old traditions of Noh or Kabuki theater, intellectual exchanges based on the concept of a global agenda and innovative ideas of cultural activities for peace-building ― all these elements are mingled with each other in present-day Japanese cultural and public diplomacy. Such a mixture is a strong point of Japan’s public diplomacy but it also harbors a weak point, namely, the lack of a clear focus. This is partly related to a shortage of funds from both government sources and private non-profit organizations, but it is also related to the problem of redefining Japan’s role in the international community ― something that the Japanese themselves have not yet fully determined in today’s world, particularly at a time when East Asia’s responsibilities and interdependence have been remarkably on the rise."

Lesson 132 New Media, Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy - larrylauer, larrydlauer.wordpress.com: "Diplomacy is generally understood to be governments communicating with governments. It is primarily practiced through embassies and consulates around the world, and involves foreign service officers and ambassadors advancing their governments’ foreign policy objectives while collecting and researching essential political and economic information. Some governments argue they also practice 'public' diplomacy. Public diplomacy generally takes two forms: The first form is governments communicating directly with the publics of other nations. It is practiced through cultural and educational exchanges, as well as by providing local libraries, information centers, and educational programming. It is also managed for the most part through embassies and consulates. Government sponsored international broadcasts (i.e. Voice of America, and BBC World Service) and other forms of mass media can also be seen as public diplomacy.

And government sponosred public diplomacy is also usually driven mostly by foreign policy objectives. The second form of public diplomacy is direct people-to-people communication. At one time the United States had a government agency called the US Information Agency, or USIA. It was separate from the state department so many people believe that this 'independence' allowed it to practice this more direct form of people-to-people public diplomacy. But the function and funding of the USIA were significantly reduced during the Clinton administration, and then its functions were moved into the Department of State. Today this more direct form of public diplomacy is practiced mostly by nonprofit organizations such at Sister Cities International, and other similar NGO’s. A business plan for a new independent organization was recently developed during a project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, and it will be interesting so see what happens next. Its champions are currently seeking start-up funding." Image from

RELATED ITEMS

Afghan troops get a lesson in American cultural ignorance - Kevin Sieff and Richard Leiby, Washington Post: An 18-page pamphlet, officially titled “Cultural Understanding — A Guide to Understanding Coalition Cultures,” was introduced this month by the Afghan Defense Ministry. Written in Dari, the primary language in much of Afghanistan, it will soon be distributed to Afghan military leaders across the country. The booklet will be taught

in three one-hour sessions to all soldiers as well as new recruits. As NATO winds down its mission here, the “Cultural Understanding” guide marks the Afghan army’s most significant effort to identify long-standing points of contention and confusion between the two forces. It also seems aimed at restoring support for a foreign troop presence that has seen its popularity plummet during the course of the war. Despite widespread misgivings among the Afghan public, in the guide the coalition is depicted glowingly, often in florid language. The United States is “a little like a lovely carpet. Different colored strands combine to make a beautiful whole.” NATO’s coalition is described as a “work of art.” Image from article, with caption: Photos of everyday life in Afghanistan as coalition forces attempt to transfer responsibilities to Afghan troops.

The foreign policy debate Obama doesn’t want - David Ignatius, Washington Post: Less than six weeks before the election, the Obama campaign’s theme song might as well be the old country-music favorite “Make the World Go Away.” This may be smart politics, but it’s not good governing: The way this campaign is going, the president will have a foreign affairs mandate for . . . nothing.

Snubbed by Obama? There were political reasons for the president not getting together at the U.N. with either the Egyptian or Israeli leaders - Aaron David Miller, latimes.com: America's role as senior partner in the triangular relationship born in the wake of the Camp David accords is going to erode. Egypt and Israel are likely to be increasingly at odds with each other and with America over issues as diverse as the peace process and Iran.

Indeed, Israel and Egypt now say no to America without much cost or consequence. The days of America's unchallenged preeminence in this particular corner of the Middle East are coming to an end. Image from

Iran talk: What’s in a war? - William J. Fallon, Chuck Hagel, Lee Hamilton, Thomas Pickering and Anthony Zinni, Washington Post: A U.S. attack on Iran would demonstrate the country’s credibility as an ally to other nations in the region and would derail Iran’s nuclear ambitions for several years, providing space for other, potentially longer-term solutions. An attack would also make clear the United States’ full commitment to nonproliferation as other nations contemplate moves in that direction. The costs are more difficult to estimate than the benefits because of uncertainty about the scale and type of Iran’s reaction. Iran is likely to retaliate directly but also to pursue an asymmetrical response, including heightened terrorist activity and covert operations as well as using surrogates such as Hezbollah. An increase in the price of oil could keep the market unstable for weeks or months and disrupt the global economy.

Propaganda for Dummies: Netanyahu displays cartoonish bomb diagram at the UN to convince the world to turn against Iran - Jeffrey Heller, Reuters: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew his "red line" for Iran's nuclear program on Thursday - the point at which Iran has amassed nearly enough highly enriched uranium for a single atomic bomb - and voiced confidence that the United States shares his view. Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu appeared to pull back from any threat of an imminent Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, saying the Islamic Republic would be on the brink of producing an atomic weapon only next summer.

He added that he was confident the United States and Israel, which have disagreed about the urgency of military action, could devise a common strategy to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Holding up a cartoon-like drawing of a bomb with a fuse, Netanyahu literally drew a red line just below a label reading "final stage" to a bomb, in which it was 90 percent along the path of having sufficient weapons-grade material. Image from article, with caption: Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, September 27, 2012.

The fate of Israeli propaganda - As'ad AbuKhalil, angryarab.blogspot.com: "I have been arguing for years that Israeli propaganda is now as dumb as Ba`thist propaganda. Israeli' propaganda of the 1950s and 1960s was rather smart and effective.

People on FB and Twitter have been mocking the dumb speech and illustration by Netanyahu. Even the pro-Israeli Daily Show mocked it last night. I mean, with all the advisers and American consultants there was no one to tell him how foolish he looks with his cheap prop and stupid illustration." Image from entry

Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do - Ian Birrell, Guardian: A damning report says that well-intentioned westerners do little to alleviate the lot of poverty-stricken children in developing countries. Orphanages in such countries are a booming business trading on guilt. Some are even said to be kept deliberately squalid. Westerners take pity on the children and end up creating a grotesque market that capitalises on their concerns. This is the dark side of our desire to help the developing world. Via MS on Facebook

Training for Consulate Attacks, in Case There’s a Next Time - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times: In the aftermath of the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, the Pentagon sent two teams of elite, specially trained Marines to protect American Embassies in Libya and Yemen and would have deployed a third group to Sudan had not the government in Khartoum said no. To demonstrate what those units — called F.A.S.T. Marines, for Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team — are trained to do, the Marines put on a show this week. At a training center on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, a clutch of reporters observed Marines repelling faux rioters, shooting down doors and clearing a supposed American embassy occupied by militants.

Abu Dhabi Media’s Hollywood Propaganda - Daniel Greenfield, frontpagemag.com: As Heritage has pointed out, The Promised Land, the troubled piece of lefty Hollywood agitprop aimed at the domestic oil industry is actually financed by the international oil industry.

A new film starring Matt Damon presents American oil and natural gas producers as money-grubbing villains purportedly poisoning rural American towns. It is therefore of particular note that it is financed in part by the royal family of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. This isn’t the first time that the UAE have dabbled in anti-American Hollywood propaganda. While Imagenation Abu Dhabi does produce legitimate movies like Men in Black 3 (if that’s your idea of legitimate) and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (okay they’re just burying America in crap), they have been known to push propaganda before. Uncaptioned image from entry

Korean propaganda soars with balloons: Helium balloons carry millions of messages of hope and hate across Korea's heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone each year - aljazeera.com: One could say propaganda is ballooning on the Korean Peninsula. At the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) - the world's most heavily fortified border - North Korean defector Lee Ju-seong organises the launch of six large, helium-filled balloons loaded with "good-will" messages that will float back into the country he escaped from.

Millions of messages are delivered on thousands of balloons this way each year across the DMZ. The balloons soar from the South deep into the impoverished North, where they crash to the ground, dispersing what some call messages of hope, and others deem propaganda. Image from article, with caption: Activists launch six balloons loaded with leaflets from Imjingak on the Demilitarized Zone.

US Comic Book Propaganda, 1939-1945 - retronaut.co: Among the images:

Want To Get Your Hands On Coulson’s Trading Cards? Want To Get Your Hands On Coulson’sbloody Trading Cards? - Susana Polo, themarysue.com: "eFX is a movie collectibles company that prepared a number of really to die for items at San Diego Comic Con, including a set of Agent Coulson’s beloved Captain America trading cards, Thor’s formal helmet, and a few gorgeous reproductions of Captain America propaganda posters seen in Captain America: The First Avenger. But alas… only a tiny fraction of us can go to San Diego Comic Con, and everybody had to satisfy themselves with their Hunger Gamespropaganda poster instead. Just me? But now eFX is swinging into production on a number of Avengers items, including the cards (in both bloody and not-bloody versions), which you can see after the jump.

AMERICANA

A) "On this morning in the isolated Virginia woods, the Marines practiced shooting down 'doors' consisting of plywood sheets hung from free-standing metal frames. The right way was to aim at a 45-degree angle for the locking mechanism to the right of the doorknob, then fire. When one knob was blown apart, an instructor brought out a piece of wood with a row of three knobs, which was then attached to the plywood door.

(The knobs were lined up so that the Marines could practice shooting down doors with knobs in one of three positions common to doors around the world.) Instructors say that the Marines go through several hundred knobs a day." Image from

--Elisabeth Bumiller, "Training for Consulate Attacks, in Case There’s a Next Time," New York Times

B) Make the World Go Away
Elvis Presley
(words and music by Hank Cochran)

"Make the world go away
Get it off my shoulder
Say the things we used to say
And make the world, make it go away
Do you remember when you loved me
Before the world took you away
Well if you do, then forgive me
And make the world, make it go away
Make the world go away

Get it off my shoulder
Say the things we used to say
And make the world, make it go away
Now I'm sorry if I hurt you
Let me make it up to you day by day
And if you will please forgive me
And make the world, make it go away
Make the world go away
Get it off my shoulder
Say the things we used to say
And make the world, make it go away"

-Image from

C) "Souder makes it clear that [Rachel] Carson had enough distractions as it was. She’d worked as a government biologist and writer from 1936 until 1952, when sales of her book allowed her to quit her job and write full time. She bought a plot of land near Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and had a summer cottage built on it. It was there that she met her neighbors, Stan and Dorothy Freeman, and began a romantic relationship with Dorothy Freeman that lasted the rest of Carson’s life.

The women’s letters were unambiguously passionate: In 1954, Carson wrote to Freeman, 'But oh darling, I want to be with you so terribly that it hurts!' While her husband napped, Freeman wrote a letter from another bedroom in her house, telling Carson that she was writing from 'the corner that belongs in my heart only to you — you know where and why.'

One Christmas they shared a hotel room in New York, and the letters leading up to that rendezvous were concerned with whether Carson should register under an alias and whether the women would be able to 'restrain themselves long enough to get up to their room,' to use Souder’s paraphrasing.

In spite of the heated language, Souder suggests that sex 'seems not to have been part of their relationship, or at least not an essential feature of it,' and that their feelings for each other 'existed in a realm above ordinary physical love and desire.' (If someone has done a study of the number of 'romantic friendships' between women that biographers assume to be platonic, as compared with similar friendships between men, I’d like to know about it. I hope such women were far less prim than their biographers assume.)"

--Amy Stewart, "Book review: William Souder’s ‘On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson’," Washington Post

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ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

“In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion, and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.”

--Thomas Jefferson

IMAGE

--Via ES on Facebook

September 28

"Assortativity is a useful principle in epidemiology."

--Cultural diplomacy scholar Robert Albro; image from

MAGAZINE

Current Issue Summer 2012: INNOVATIONS IN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY,  PD Magazine, University of Southern California

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Public Diplomacy as Apology - Helle Dale, blog.heritage.org: "Judging by President Obama’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly yesterday, U.S. public diplomacy messaging on the Middle East crisis is stuck perpetually on a setting of 'apology.' It has been this way since the much-criticized September 11 statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, which apologized to the threatening mob outside its gates for any hurt to Muslims’ 'religious feelings.' ... The Cairo statement could be described as an act of desperation and bore every sign thereof, even lacking punctuation. As the U.S. embassy was being threatened by a violent mob outside its walls, the embassy website hosted a denunciation not of violence but of an offensive 14-minute YouTube video. It remained the official U.S. position for nine hours before it was removed under pressure from protests at home. On September 12, it was denounced by both the President and the Secretary of State. The State Department has embraced social media with a vengeance as a public diplomacy tool, also known as Public Diplomacy 2.0.

In the first hours of the crisis on September 11, the embassy Twitter feed defended the statement against incredulous comments from other tweeters. Those tweets were later deleted. The stated policy of the U.S. government is 'Internet freedom.' Yet, when it came to the YouTube video, the White House asked Google to 'review' it, and it was subsequently taken down in several Muslim countries. There is a clear double standard at work, which countries engaging in Internet censorship will not have failed to notice. ... The after-action review of U.S. public diplomacy in the aftermath of the current crisis will be a copious exercise. Learning the lessons of what has gone wrong is the critical first step.” Image from

Social Media Uber Alles: Embassy Baghdad Gets Its Head Around Twitter - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: "Taxpayers, a robust group huzzah please! The US Embassy in Baghdad has taken a bold, innovative step towards resolving all problems in Iraq, large and small:

The Embassy is now paying someone with your tax dollars to Tweet! ... But really, this is just sad. With State Department Director of PT Barnum Affairs Alec Ross popping up worldwide to announce how innovative the State Department is, you’d think the world’s largest embassy staff could come up with something, anything better than generic propaganda Tweets and links to CNN articles. Maybe something unique to Iraq? Of interest to Iraqis? Your tax dollars at work americans!" Image from entry

Facilitating and Delegating the New Public Diplomacy - ckilbyus, publicdiplomats.wordpress.com: "The inflexibility in the State Department’s use of twitter and blogs shows that there is an increased need for flexible engagement with foreign publics. Since it is unlikely that the State Department can achieve this on its own, there is a clear need for programs that can engage in an alternative conversation with foreign publics. This is a space where civil society can be delegated to through grants to produce programs of social media outreach in foreign languages, and pursue an alternative dialogue in regions where moderate voices are generally silent. Organizationally, a shift from direct PD programming to facilitation and delegating to civil society has a need for more standardized measurement and evaluation techniques."

Freedom of expression [video] - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "Obama and Clinton conducting a lil PD to explain American freedom of expression in the wake of the Innocence of Muslims incident. TY TS."

"A new and more dynamic Svoboda" (RFERL Russian) thanks 40 employees, and lets them go - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting.

Image from entry

'Public diplomacy may help fix China-Japan crisis' - twocircles.net: "China and Japan should give public diplomacy a chance rather than rely only on the official channels to help resolve their conflict over the ownership of Diaoyu Islands, Chinese scholars say. 'In the face of the damage wrought by radical Japanese politicians, we can only resort to the power of friendship to eliminate difficulties,' Feng Zhaokui, a Japanese studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said. 'Even in this bleak situation, goodwill can make a difference,' China Daily Friday quoted him as saying. This year should have been a great opportunity to deepen links, said Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

On Sunday, Jia met with the heads of major Japan-China friendship groups and Japanese politicians who want to improve ties. The meeting was seen as a positive gesture to improve sharply deteriorating ties. China has meanwhile informed Japan it will delay a reception scheduled next Thursday to mark the 40th anniversary of normalized ties. Japan's 'nationalization' of part of the islands, regardless of China's repeated representations, have 'pushed China-Japan ties to the grim situation', Jia said. 'Japan should fully recognize the seriousness of the situation, face up to the problems over the islands and correct their errors as soon as possible to avoid causing greater damage to relations,' he added.'" Image from

Urbanizing China-EU Relations? - Michele Acuto, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "[The] tentative urbanization of EU-China relations holds some interesting promises for city leadership which, after all, might be a key component in producing truly innovative transnational responses to global challenges."

Fools: Netanyahu’s ‘Red Line’ Cardboard Mocked on Twitter - "TYahoo News Reports: 'Okay, it’s official,' The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote. 'Netanyahu has no idea what he’s doing. He has just turned a serious issue into a joke. Goldberg continued: 'Netanyahu’s bomb cartoon is the Middle East equivalent of Clint Eastwood’s chair.' 'Apparently Netanyahu took a chart-making course from Paul Ryan,' the comedian Rob Delaney tweeted. 'I didn’t realize nuclear bombs looked like the bombs from Super Mario,' Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski quipped. 'Netanyahu has reduced nuclear war diplomacy to cartoons and markers,' Sam Stein tweeted. Many Twitter users questioned the wisdom of bringing clip art to the U.N., while some referenced a Roadrunner comparison.

'Excuse me, Prime Minister Netanyahu?' Rex Huppke wrote. 'Wile E. Coyote called. He wants his bomb back.' [Comment by] Raphael Judas Kaufmann • 2 hours ago − That's the state of Israeli public diplomacy... not even ready to invest in a serious infographic.

M***F*** Morsi and Abbas took off the gloves and we show a 1$ cartoon..." Above Iimage from entry; below image from

Let them call me crazy - israelhayom.com: "Mudar Zahran, a lecturer, publicist and Palestinian blogger attends international seminar on new media and public diplomacy given by the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry at Ariel University Center in Samaria, speaks to Israel Hayom about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Image from article, with caption: Mudar Zahran, Palestinian lecturer, publicist and blogger spoke with Israel Hayom about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Hedley Bullshit - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "How the English School has fallen! What began whimsically over kimchi quesadillas and tikka tacos is turning into a real field of study. Yes, gastrodiplomacy is going legit. I found out that a piece I authored on gastrodiplomacy is being published in the academic journal Public Diplomacy and Place Branding. Meanwhile, my culinary diplomacy colleague Sam Chapple-Sokol is having his own work on culinary diplomacy published in the Hague Journal of Diplomacy. Yes, I am the father of a school of public diplomacy practice. As the Muse once told me, if you can find what you are searching for in this world, make it up."

Mahogany Jones, Sandy Koufax, Applied PD and Me - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "I had to be on my horse because I was slated to give a lecture at Prof Craig Hayden’s class on Applied PD on just that. I spoke for about 40 minutes or so about pushing boundaries of public diplomacy, about the Bernays-Barnum School of Public Diplomacy (PD Bread and Circus to make an oblique yet tangible connection), American Voices’ Guerrilla Cultural Diplomacy and Gastrodiplomacy. After I was done, we had a nice period of talking PD shop. The irony was rich in this case as well. Just a year prior, I was at High Holiday services staring across the street at AU thinking I might be attending as a PhD student. Well, things didn’t work out as planned but a year later I was busy lecturing on PD in the same environs. I then had to duck out and walk across the street to go atone for my propaganda sins."

Cultural Mediation - Molly Sisson, Public Diplomacy and Student Exchanges: "If you can understand Disneyland, you're on your way to understanding American culture."

The Hard and Soft of Cultural Diplomacy: Networks and Stories in Global Affairs - Robert Albro, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "More attention has been given to identifying people, their behavior, their connections, and network nodes than has been given to how information is distributed across networks or what these symbols, values or stories mean to network participants."

Panelists discuss role of the Olympics in diplomacy - Kyron Richard, Daily Trojan: "USC Olympians, stakeholders and experts reflected on the London Olympic Games’ impact on participants and diplomacy during the panel discussion 'Sports Diplomacy and the 2012 London Olympics' Thursday afternoon. The event was hosted by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and the British Consulate-General in Los Angeles at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism."

RELATED ITEMS

Calling U.S. Drone Strikes 'Surgical' Is Orwellian Propaganda - Conor Friedersdorf, theatlantic.com: Drone strikes aren't like surgery at all. The phrase "surgical drone strike" is handy for naming U.S. actions without calling

up images of dead, limb-torn innocents with flesh scorched from the missile that destroyed the home where they slept or burned up the car in which they rode. Image from article

Abderrahim Foukara, Al Jazeera's U.S. translator - Patt Morrison Asks, latimes.com: [Q:] Is it frustrating for the foreign press corps that U.S. foreign policy plays such a small role in U.S. elections? [A:] The U.S. is seen as a superpower. It controls land, it controls sea, it controls space; it has so many military bases around the world, particularly in the Mideast. People in the Middle East and North Africa think of foreign policy constantly, of U.S. foreign policy, and they find it baffling that the people who actually wield that influence are not so interested in foreign policy. American insularity is partly a function of geography — size and isolation. The United States is absolutely

huge, and I can understand how some Americans can live all their lives without thinking of going overseas. Moving from one state to another is in some ways like moving from one country to another. Isolation was part of the security this country had; 9/11 shattered that. The Middle East has for thousands of years been the crossroads of empires and powers and civilizations. There's obviously a much more heightened sense of history and geography; it's been one empire after another. Partly because of geography, people in the Middle East they feel they're almost constantly under attack, and have almost never had a fair shake at determining their own fates — there's always [something] coming from the outside; whether you agree with that, that's how they feel. Image from

Iran Propaganda Outlet Bases News Story on Onion Article - Lee Smith, weeklystandard.com: Still basking in the glory of his latest appearance at the U.N., Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now heads back to Tehran with his head held high after winning yet more American hearts and minds. As the Islamic Republic's official news agency, Fars, reports this morning, according to a new Gallup poll released Monday "the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than US President Barack Obama." "I like him better," said West Virginia resident Dale Swiderski, who, along with 77 percent of rural Caucasian voters, confirmed he would much rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Ahmadinejad than spend time with Obama. "He takes national defense seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does." According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn't try to hide the fact that he's Muslim. Unfortunately for Ahmadinejad, and perhaps worse for the Fars employee who republished the item, it's a gag. The story was originally posted earlier this week in The Onion. It seems unlikely that the Iranian president will enjoy the joke at his expense. Instead, expect to see the satirical website included on the IRI's next blacklist of American media organizations, policymakers and think-tanks involved in a high-level conspiracy against the regime.

Exhibit shows how some Romanian artists resisted being used as communist propaganda tool - Alison Mutler, newser.com: "One painting shows a peasant crucified above a hole in the shape of Romania. Another of a man holding a book is painted in the style of Pablo Picasso. Neither work would have been displayed in public during the communist era, when censorship was rife and art was used as a propaganda tool to glorify late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

A new exhibit of some 650 paintings that opened this week at the National Library seeks to show how some artists subverted the regime, creating works that criticized communism or painting in styles like cubism that were out of favor. Image from article, with caption: A picture taken Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012, shows a woman visiting an exhibition of visual art created by Romanian artists during the Communist period, between 1950 and 1990, in Bucharest, Romania

Power of propaganda, from Nazi era to now - Ryan Torok, jewishjournal.com: “One man’s propaganda is another man’s fact,” writer Eli Attie told an audience of approximately 100 students and other guests gathered at the University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial Library. They were gathered for the panel discussion “Mind Over Media: Politics, Propaganda and the Digital Age,” on Sept. 20. Organized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the panel explored how propaganda can be used as a force for political gain, taking the example of Nazi-ruled Germany, but continuing through the current United States presidential elections. The panel was an outgrowth of “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda,” an exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Early writings, love letters of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels fail to sell in Conn. - startribune.com: A Connecticut auction house says the love letters and other pre-war writings of Adolf Hitler propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels

have failed to sell. Alexander Historical Auctions says it offered the letters, school papers and dramatic works of Goebbels on Thursday. The collection spans the period from Goebbels' childhood to shortly before he joined the Nazi party in 1924. Auction officials had hoped it would sell for more than $200,000. Auction house president Bill Panagopulos says an overseas phone bidder made an offer that was too low and he's disappointed. He says the collection will remain for sale, possibly at a lower price once he talks to the owner. The thousands of pages include Goebbels' college dissertation, report cards, poems, school essays and letters from relatives, friends and girlfriends. Image from Google search

AMERICANA

"At a press conference Thursday, LAPD Commander Andrew Smith said that 'nobody else was in the house.' but a dead cat was found in the house."

--USA Today (with its punctuation), article by Ann Oldenburg, "Sons of Anarchy' actor, 28, found dead in Los Angeles"; image from