An essay written in 2006. A brief look at how we destroyed country after country. And in so doing, we defeated America and the American people. We are still at war with Moslems, except that we have coopted more of their leaders. Just as our leaders have been coopted. We failed. We are failing miserably. Even as we outsource censorship to private companies, the FBI strongarms truth-tellers and intimidates them into silence, whistle-blowers are jailed and tortured, we continue to wage war internally and externally - crashing towards our demise.
The following was actually an essay on "public diplomacy".
George W. Bush & The War on Terror (Continued!)
On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush was inaugurated as
the 43rd president of the United States.
He did not gain office through popular
vote. The 25 electoral votes in Florida
were too close to call and recounts began.
After five weeks of legal battle, the Supreme Court by a ruling of 5-4 determined that the recounts in Florida
should be stopped – George W. Bush became the president by majority vote of the
Supreme Court.
His administration has been marked by corporation corruption, waning of
the economic boom, and rising anti-Americanism.
A ‘Pew Global Attitudes Project’ indicates that since President Bush took
office, with the exception of a couple of countries, there has been a rise of
negative view towards America across the board (Pew 2006) [i]. Several factors contribute to the rise in
anti-Americanism, and while much of it may be the unilateral
and militaristic approach following the terrorist attacks of September 11th,
the daily scandals and atrocities reported in Iraq, have had a grave impact on the
negative image of America and this president in particular.
From its beginning, the Bush’s presidency was on a
downslide. According to Boston Globe, on the day of his inauguration, tens of thousands of
protestors descended on George W. Bush's
inaugural parade route in Washington D.C. and shouted slogans such as: ‘Hail to the Thief’ and ‘Selected, Not Elected,’[ii]. In
June 2001, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed President Bush's approval
rating at 50 percent[iii];
his vacation hours at his Texas Crawford ranch were far too frequent. However, his dipping numbers were ‘saved’ by
the destruction of the Twin Towers and the horrors of 9/11. The Commander-in-Chief with a disputable
service record became the war president and his popularity soared[iv].
The shocking images of the Twin Towers were transmitted
around the globe and the world shared
America’s grief. The tragedy that had
befallen America was felt far and wide, even by perceived ‘enemy’ Iran where
candles were lit to mourn the victims[i]. In spite of the solidarity felt towards
America, some feared the White House
reaction to the attacks. London’s Guardian was among those that called
for restraint[ii]. Apprehensions about what the scope of the
U.S. retaliation might be heightened when on
September 16th, President Bush declared that he was launching a
‘crusade’ against terrorists. The ‘crusade’ he had spoken of, was also a clear indication that he
meant to ignore and dismiss the voices which had been articulated through the
person of “Hafedh Al-Shaikh
writing in Bahrain’s Akhbar Al-Khalij:
‘The U.S. now is eating a little piece from the bread which she baked and fed
to the world for many decades…’”[iii]. This
was to be a pattern throughout his presidency.
While this White House lacked the “culturally informed
approach which the old USIA had brought to US public diplomacy” in the past to
help coin its phrases and avoid such words as ‘crusade’ and ‘Operation Infinite
Justice’ (later changed to ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’[iv]),
it had a great appeal for his domestic
audience, the intended target and base support for his intended plan – the
affront on the Middle East. In addition,
his choice of words had enable him to implicate the ideology of two religions –
[Judeo] Christianity versus Islam, of a war of good against evil, with evil
being the [Moslem] terrorists. To help
Washington, on October 2, Charlotte Beers who had been named ‘the Queen
of Madison Avenue’ by Business Week , was appointed to the
post of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Her
job was to make the Moslem world hate their new hero, Osama bin Laden, and to
understand America.
By September 27, the FBI had determined that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible
for the attacks of 9/11. Sheltered
by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the bombing of that country
started on October 7, 2001. The United
States fired missiles into and dropped bombs upon
heavily populated areas of Afghanistan causing 3000 – 3,400 civilian deaths. The blame for the civilian casualties was put
on the Taliban who were said to be using civilians as 'human shields' to protect military targets. This explanation relied on the American short
term memory that the ten years of civil
war in the 1980’s during which many military
garrisons and facilities were located in urban areas where the Soviet-backed
government had placed them there to keep them better protected from attacks by
the rural US-backed Mujahedeen[v].
Not only did the Pentagon
undermine the number of civilian casualties, but it engaged a public relations
firm, the Rendon Group, to showcase the bombing campaign as a benevolent
gesture of good against evil. Rendon’s
task was to focus on the U.S. dropping food along with the bombs, as well as engage in a
propaganda campaign of having loudspeakers warning the civilians of the coming
assaults[i]. The PR campaigns would underscore that the
United States was siding with the civilians and was determined to fight the
terrorists only. This was purely a
psychological operation given that if it had a chance of success, it would have
helped the al-Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban also – the intended target of
the bombs, as well as provided them with the food being dropped.
The propaganda arm continued with insensitivities. On 5 November, VOA began its broadcast to Afghanistan to
justify the U.S. attacks during the holy
month of Ramadan (October). The Voice
(VOA) cited seventh-century battles led by the Prophet Muhammad as their
precedent and quoted George W. Bush’s assertion that ‘the enemy won't rest
during Ramadan, and neither will we.’[ii] The attacks had caused the death of almost 4000 innocent Afghanis, driving home
the fact that this was a ‘crusade’ as they had been foretold – and their
prophet was being callously invoked in preparation for their slaughter.
The next day, on
November 6th, a front page New
York Times story claimed that Beers was ‘planning a television and
advertising campaign to try and influence the ‘Islamic opinion.’ In a joint press briefing with Richard
Boucher on November 9, 2001, they announced that the State Department had
intensified its efforts to "tell America's story to the world." In the same briefing, Beers equated these terrorist acts by
implicating Islam stating: “ In an effort to foster greater dialogue with the
Muslim world, the State Department has established an advisory group comprising
Muslim scholars and academics.”[iii] In
effect, 3 billion Moslems were being implicated for the actions of nineteen
hijackers, fifteen of whom were of Saudi origin. This is sharp contrast to the British
policy [and common sense] when during the Cold War when in order to diminish
the grip of the Soviets, for each medal
won for a relevant sport by the former U.S.S.R., the British broadcasters would
announce that it had been earned by an individual country, such as
Ukraine. This would serve as ‘breaking
down’ the Soviet Union. In this
administration, Islam as a generic ideology behind the terrorist attacks was
implicated in order to move President Bush a step closer to his core agenda –
Iraq.
Even while the bombs were pounding Afghanistan, and a
prize of $25 million had been put on the head of Osama bin Laden, the man who
Mr. Bush had said ‘we would get dead or alive’,
the administration was forging on with plans to invade Iraq.
"For many conservatives, Iraq is now the test
case for whether the U.S. can engender American-style free-market capitalism
within the Arab world." - Neil King Jr., the Wall Street Journal,
May 1, 2003.
Mr. Bush’s Iraq plan needed to have the American people on board. The real agenda, that of the corporate
interest, had to be framed in a manner that would overcome the reluctance of the American people to go to war. To this end, it was necessary for policy makers to shape
the policy of self-interest into a more altruistic policy. The American public were made to believe that
war was necessary to defeat evil.
The Iraq agenda was so important to the
Bush administration that the planning of the Iraq invasion was minutely
detailed. The White House had even
created “an interagency ‘Iraq Public Diplomacy group’ comprised of NSC, CIA,
Pentagon, State and USAID staffers.” The
group created a documentary and press releases
showing interviews with Iraqi exiles and
dissidents. Secretary of State Colin
Powell, used VOA as a platform to emphasize “that the War on Terror was ‘not
anti-Islam. It is anti-terrorism and
anti-those regimes that develop weapons of mass destruction that they have used
against their own people, fellow Muslims.”[i] As with Afghanistan, this would be a
fight against evil, and innocent
casualties would be the collateral in the fight against evil – the terrorists
and those who had weapons of mass destruction.
In addition to the Iraqi Voices for
Freedom orchestrated by the Iraq Public Diplomacy Group, Rampton and
Stauber (2003)[i] claim
that a public relations firm helped create the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in
order to promote ‘the democratic voice of Iraq’. This firm
helped President Bush sell the war to the public with a hypnotic effect, taking over the American people's minds and
making them think what their political masters wanted them to think. They claim
the public's "erroneous beliefs" about Iraq was the result of a
"steady drumbeat of allegations and insinuations from the Bush
administration, pro-war think tanks and commentators." Apparently, myths
are transferred into our minds through "sheer repetition," whereby,
for example, "simply by mentioning Iraq and al-Qaeda together in the same
sentence, over and over, the message got through," and people eventually
believed that "Iraq posed an imminent peril" and that Saddam Hossein
was tied to al-Qaeda. The American
people were on board for the long haul.
But who was pushing the war with the President?
Concurrent with the INC, a Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) was
formed by a group who called itself ‘distinguished Americans who wanted to free
Iraq from Saddam Hossein’s rule’. The
distinguished members of CLI had close links to the Project for the New
American Century and the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that
shaped the Bush foreign policy. Notable among
the CLI members was former secretary of state George P. Shultz.[ii]
Prior to the Iraq invasion, Shultz was
Bechtel's senior counsel and director ,
and part of a fiercely pro-war group
with close ties to the White House, who made it clear that the ouster of
Saddam's regime was not enough, and that it was necessary 'to work beyond the
liberation of Iraq to the reconstruction of its economy." Shultz not only used his political influence
to help bring this war about, “but key Bechtel board members with advisory
positions to the Bush Administration, helped ensure that Bechtel would receive
one of the most lucrative contracts for rebuilding what they had helped to
destroy”[i]
It was not the first time that Bechtel
had been given a lucrative contract in Iraq.
Under a renewable 15-year
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the U.S. and Israel signed in
September 1975, the United States Government has undertaken to promptly make
oil available for purchase by Israel. If
Israel is unable to secure the necessary means to transport such oil to Israel,
the United States Government will make every effort to help Israel secure the
necessary means of transport[ii]. The 1979 overthrow
of the Shah created added expense and inconvenience for Israel and
America. The Shah supplied all Israel's
oil needs via a pipeline from Eilat. After the revolution, the IRI put a stop
to this and Israel was forced to buy more expensive oil from Russia – footed by
the U.S.
According to the Haaretz,
Hanan Bar-On, the former deputy
director-general of the Foreign Ministry, confirmed that during the mid 1980s,
Israel was involved in talks on a plan
for an Iraq-Jordanian pipeline to the Red Sea port of Aqaba. Among the participants in these talks was
Donald Rumsfeld, then an adviser to U.S. president Reagan ( and at the time of
the Iraq invasion two, secretary of
defense). The American corporation Bechtel was slated to build the pipeline[i]. These talks were taking place as Saddam
Hossein was dropping chemicals on his own people and his neighbors, the
Iranians. In 1985, the deal was called
off as Hossein had concerns about the safety of the pipeline going through Israel.
A far more powerful man pushing
for the Iraq war was Vice President Cheney.
Mr. Cheney seems to have strong financial links to the war. It was revealed that Kellogg, Brown, & Root, a
subsidiary of his former company, Halliburton, had been awarded a contract to supply the
American military with food, fuel, housing and other necessities prior to the
war (New York Times)[ii]. As of 2004, Halliburton, had contracts worth over $10 billion in Iraq
which had prompted Rep. Henry Waxman to
call for an investigation. [iii]
The Bush Administration used the
pretext of ‘war on terror’ to expand capitalism in the Middle East/Islamic
world starting with oil rich Iraq. Having
set the stage with the help of Public Relations firms, Its corporate agenda has been disguised as a
pre-emptive war (war on terror, democratization), with everything in Iraq to be owned by U.S. corporations – perhaps with some
crumbs falling to allies. On May
1, 2003, the day he gave his “Mission
Accomplished” speech on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, it was revealed that the Bush administration
had plans to remake Iraq's economy in the U.S. image, calling for the privatization of state-owned
industries. The execution of the plan
was to fall “ largely to private American contractors working alongside a
smaller team of U.S. officials “(Wall Street Journal)[i]. The plan would allow U.S. corporations to
take over Iraq’s entire economy from banking to schools to health care to
energy to water.
While some 150 American companies received contracts for work in Iraq
following the invasion, the big reconstruction winners were: Halliburton; Parsons Corporation of Pasadena, California; Fluor Corporation of Aliso Viejo, California;
Washington Group International of Boise, Idaho; Shaw Group of Baton Rouge,
Louisiana Bechtel Corporation of San
Francisco, California; Perini
Corporation of Framingham, Mass. ; and Contrack International, Inc. of
Arlington, Virginia (Juhasz 2006)[ii]. None of the reconstruction contracts were awarded to the Iraqis,
and often foreign workers were brought in to work for the American firms. Unemployment and a sense of injustice only
fueled discontent and internal strife.
War invigorated the sense of nationalism in the Iraqis; and they
perceived the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. The U.S.
plans met with resistance. Blackwater USA, another corporate entity was
there to deal with this.
Blackwater USA got a no-bid
contract to protect high profile State Department officials in Iraq since 2003. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) which had been examining the
Pentagon's Iraq expenses, stated that ''we're having extreme difficulty in
getting the Department of Defense to provide a full accounting of what they're
spending" there. It further
added: ''I can't understand how we're
spending $1 billion a week.[i]" Some 48,000 private soldiers, working for 181
private military firms, are deployed in Iraq alone[ii]. The
chaos in Iraq necessitated the presence of militias as well as the troops. In
2004, fourteen U.S. bases in Iraq had
been planned as a model for the rest of the Middle East.
"Is this a swap for the Saudi
bases?" asked Army Brig. Gen. Robert Pollman, chief engineer for base
construction in Iraq. "I don't know.
... When we talk about enduring bases here, we're talking about the present
operation, not in terms of America's global strategic base. But this makes
sense. It makes a lot of logical sense." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of
operations for the coalition in Iraq, said the military engineers are trying to
prepare for any eventuality. "This is a blueprint for how we could
operate in the Middle East," Kimmitt said. "[But] the engineering
vision is well ahead of the policy vision. What the engineers are saying now
is: Let's not be behind the policy decision. Let's make this place ready so we
can address policy options."(Chicago Tribune) [iii]
With its foothold in Iraq, the
State Department attempted to reach out to the Muslim world even as every
terrorist act was reported as an ‘Islamist terrorism’. In April 2003, President Bush and Colin
Powell launched a ‘roadmap for peace’ in the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians.[i] Yet,
in mockery of the Islamic world, four months later, in August, Mr. Bush appointed anti-Muslim Daniel Pipes to the board of U.S.
Institute of Peace, a man fiercely opposed to the “Road Map”. Pipes had “warned that America's Muslims are
the enemy within and called for unrestricted racial profiling and monitoring of
Muslims in the military (The Guardian).”[ii]
On October 30, 2003,
al-Jazeera accused US-led forces in Iraq of harassment, after one of its
journalists was detained. Their cameraman, Samer Hamza was freed after two days in
custody. They claim to have had
"more than 15 arrests in recent months". It seemed that America was keen to keep
journalists out. There were
reports of accidental shootings and near misses. In October 2003 the Belgian-based
International Federation of Journalists lodged a formal complaint over
harassment of journalists in Iraq.[iii] It would seem that the Americans had good reason to want
the journalists out.
In April 2004, the world would witness Iraqis being tortured at Abu
Gharib when the CBS program 60 Minutes II
exposed some of the photographs taken there. The pictures revealed more than torture and
sexual humiliation of inmates at the hand of their American guards – they
reflected a knowledge of Islamic culture[i]. The
Islamic world watched.
In May 2004, President Bush
granted an interview to the
Virginia-based Arabic television Alhurra following the release of the torture
pictures which had come out of Abu Gharib.
Asked if America is any better than Saddam’ old regime, “President Bush
responded by pledging that the images were an aberration and ‘mistakes will be
investigated…and people will be brought to justice.’ He went on to pitch his support for a
Palestinian state.” [ii]
One would have to question if Mr.
Bush intends to support the Palestinian state from the military bases in Iraq,
for Iraq has become a hot bed of ‘lily
pads’ for America. The term describes the
military jumping from base to base without ever touching the ground in between.
The U.S. base in Balad, north of Iraq,
houses 40,000 troops and civilians, and it is the headquarters for an Air Force Expeditionary
Wing. The Subway sandwich chain is one
of several U.S. chains with a foothold here. There are two base exchanges that
are about as large as a Target or K-Mart. Consumer items from laptop computers
to flat-screen TV's to Harley Davidson motorcycles are available for
purchase. Seen from the sky at night,
the base resembles Las Vegas: While the surrounding Iraqi villages get about 10
hours of electricity a day, the lights never go out at Balad Air Base (NPR)[iii]. At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's
western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling
American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership. At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're
planning a mess hall that will seat 6,000 airmen and soldiers for chow (The
Seattle Times)[iv].
The vast majority of the American
public is not aware of the bases in Iraq, nor of the corporate expansion. They are not aware that it is the war
profiteers, the weapons manufacturers who are supplying the war intelligence.
An advertisement taken out by Lockheed Martin in 2006 looking for intelligence
recruits read: "on substantive intelligence matters involving
terrorist groups and networks . . . Centcom experience is a plus,". Raytheon, the other large defense contractor,
is also supplying intelligence.
America’s military industrial
complex has been contracted to take America
to war (Washington Post)[i].
Regardless of the nation’s demand to bring the troops home, George W.
Bush continues to ask for money for Iraq and Afghanistan in order to maintain
the troops in the region. As the war
rages on, the Los Angeles Times
revealed on November 30, 2005 that a contractor called the Lincoln group was
paying Iraqi media to run positive stories about the progress of the war in
Iraq[ii]. In
spite of the report by Djerejian, the focal point of which can be summed up as
follows: “Surveys indicate that much of the resentment toward America stems
from real conflicts and displeasure with policies, including those involving
the Palestine-Israel conflict and Iraq” , policies remain unchanged.
Karen Hughes who took on her role as under secretary of state for public
diplomacy with the words: ‘I am mindful
that before we seek to be understood, we must first work to understand’[i] also brought home a message that American
policies were the root of regional anger.
‘One of the things that I heard as I traveled throughout the Middle
East’ she told NPR in the spring of 2006, ‘is concern about the
Israeli-Palestinian policy.’ On her
return she urged the president and secretary of state that the need for the
U.S. to be ‘seen as visibly working to improve life for the Palestinian
people.’ [ii] Mr. Bush had announced his support for a
Palestinian state on Alhurra
television. This was not to be the
case.
In January 2006, following President Bush’s
call for democracy and elections, Hamas won
the parliamentary elections with 76 seats in the 132-seat-strong
legislative body against a 43 rival Fatah.
( Ynet
new)[iii]. President Bush, ignoring Karen Hughes and the
Djerejian
report, at the behest of Israel, decided that this step toward
democracy, popular vote, should be punished by cutting off all aid to Palestine
(AP)[iv].
For the first time in its history, the
International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a political statement
about the Palestinian territories:
“Throughout the occupied
Palestinian territories, in the Gaza Strip as well as in the West Bank,
Palestinians continuously face hardship in simply going about their lives; they
are prevented from doing what makes up the daily fabric of most people's
existence. The Palestinian territories face a deep human crisis, where millions
of people are denied their human dignity. Not once in a while, but every day.”(ICRC)[v]
While Palestinians
were being subjected to hardship for choosing their own government, the Arab and Moslem world, witnessed the contempt with which other
fellow Moslems were treated by Israel – the bombing of Lebanon.
The head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon told Haaretz:
"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire
towns in cluster bombs," . Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket
unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over
1.2 million cluster bomblets.
Soldiers testified that the army
used the phosphorous shells which are strictly forbidden by international law
(Haaretz)[i]. It would be revealed by
former Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, that the United
States deliberately blocked an immediate ceasefire (BBC)[ii].
The Islamic world had not recovered from the 33-day Lebanon war when the
execution by hanging of Saddam Hossein exploited the creeping divide in the
Moslem world. Following the bombing of
one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, the Askariya shrine in Samarra in
February 2006, a dangerous divide was settling between the two Moslem factions,
the Sunni and the Shiites. Hanging Saddam
Hossein on Eid ul-Adha. Only added to
these grievances as it was a holy day of celebration for the Sunnis, yet the
timeline had not yet commenced for the Shiites – it would commence a day
later. This was perceived as a gift to
the Shiites. There is mystery and
speculation around Saddam’s death.
In that Karen Hughes stepped down, there is no surprise. Bad policies cannot be fixed with public
diplomacy. In her NPR interview in March 2006, she had
gone on record as saying that it would take more than her to ‘fix’ the image problems facing the United
States. “The new era had to be lived and
not just spoken; a new era in U.S. public diplomacy needed a new era in U.S.
foreign policy and a new president”[i]. The president’s close friend and trusted advisor could not persuade
him to change course.
The United States overestimates its influence. It is no longer a dominant force in
controlling the information outlets and the political discourse. More importantly, its credibility is being questioned. America still commands a large television
audience, and the mainstream media has often played the conservative card,
however, the political discourse across
the globe is growing at a fast rate. With the advent of weblogs and Youtube, very little can be hidden from the
public.
In spite of the decline in U.S. popularity, its extraordinary lack of
credibility in the lead up to the Iraq war,
and the continuous allegations it is facing, America was successful in yet another major
propaganda battle; that of persuading the American public and other nations
that Iran was a threat to peace. Undoubtedly,
given that America’s reputation has been so sullied, this has been a true
accomplishment in diplomacy abroad and public diplomacy at home. Condoleezza
Rice who had replaced Colin Powell, pirouetted around the world and in a
major diplomatic coup, brought all United Nation Security Council members on
board to pass a sanctions resolution against Iran for enriching uranium – its
inalienable right under Article IV of the Non- Proliferation Treaty. While Iraq was associated with al-Qaeda,
9/11, and weapons of mass destruction, Iran is being associated with ‘threat’,
‘nuclear weapons’, ‘nuclear holocaust’, ‘terrorism’, and ‘destruction of
Israel’.
Perhaps coincidentally, the sanctions
followed an investigation into Halliburton practices. In 2004, Halliburton was forced to release a
report to the managers of the New York City Police Pension Fund and the New
York City Fire Pension Fund that regarding its activities in Iran through the
operations of Halliburton Products & Services, Limited, a Cayman Islands
company, headquartered in Dubai, U.A.E. (hereinafter HPSL) which indicated that
it had performed between $30 and $40 million annually for 2002, 2003 in oilfield
service work in Iran [i]. This
was in direct violation of Executive Order 12957 given by Clinton
which specifically banned any "contract for the financing of the
development of petroleum resources located in Iran" proposed by Martin Indyk’s
"dual containment" policy for Iran and its troublesome neighbor, Iraq
(Fairbanks 2001, p447-465)[ii]. The sanctions had remained in place. Halliburton was forced to close shop.
In 2005 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
labeled Iran a growing danger and called
for the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. In 2006, Iran was sent to the UN Security
Council.
Although the United States can win influence with world leaders, it must
remember that the masses cannot be influenced as easily. This is in spite of the efforts reported by U.S. News and World Report in April 2005:
“In at least two dozen countries, Washington has quietly funded Islamic
radio and TV shows, coursework in Muslim schools, Muslim think tanks, political
workshops, or other programs that promote moderate Islam. Federal aid is going
to restore mosques, save ancient Korans, even build Islamic schools… The CIA is
revitalizing programs of covert action that once helped win the Cold War,
targeting Islamic media, religious leaders, and political parties. The agency is receiving ‘an exponential
increase in money, people, and assets’ to help it influence Muslim societies”[i] . In spite of these efforts, according
to a 2006-07 World Public Opinion Poll,
Muslims believe that the U.S. seeks to undermine Islam, and the
majorities want U.S. forces out of Islamic countries. According to the poll, they approve attacks
on U.S. troops[ii].
The failure of the efforts is easily understood. As the Djerejian report observed “Arabs and Muslims have a surfeit of opinion
and information about the United States.” America has not changed its policies; it
simply wishes to gloss them over. It is
worthwhile remembering that during the Cold War years, America won the battle
of ideology, the battle of ‘hearts and minds’ because it offered a more
attractive alternative to the communist ideology and way of life. This is no longer the case. Islam in itself, is an antithesis to capitalism. The Muslim society, accustomed to dictators
and censorship backed by America, is skeptical of news outlets. This has served to make the masses critical
thinkers and to send them in search of alternate news in the age of information
technology. Every news bite is evaluated. In sharp contrast to the American public
which for the most part, is under the impression that it has free press and it is receiving
‘fair and balanced’ news, not mindful that corporations often work in
conjunction with each other, and serve as the government mouthpiece.
Toda
y, when
information technology has made America’s actions so transparent, what we say
about ourselves is no longer important, what we do is observed and speaks for
us. No amount of public diplomacy will alter
the fact that a war was waged based on false information, and corporations were
the beneficiaries of this war. Perhaps
none have articulated it as well as the ‘Madison Queen’ herself, when she was
leaving her post of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, she mocked
the idea of marketing a foreign policy.
During her interview with the NBC’s Today
Show audience, she told them:
“I’m afraid we’re always going to
have disappointed people if you think we can sell a policy. What we can do is articulate it well, get it
out in thirty languages overnight, which we do.
We can have every one of our rather articulate officials in the U. S.
government talk about it. We can use
third parties… But you don’t sell policy, you articulate it, make it clear, put
it in context”.[i]
Anti-Americanism is not abating simply because American policies remain
the same. The administration
underestimates the Moslem understanding of current affairs; and attempts to exploit their divisions (Hamas
and Fatah, Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian) in order to further its the
Middle East Agenda, neglectful of the fact that the Moslems are far savvier and less prone to
State Department propaganda than the average American. Their leaders and ruling elite tend to
cooperate because their very existence depends on American ‘muscle’, as polls
have indicated, the anti-American sentiment is growing.
The American masses are led to believe that Islamic
fundamentalist/terrorists pose a threat to their lifestyle, giving the
president the indulgence to curb the liberties to question his actions, while
spending billions on ‘security’, and wars of choice. More than any other president,
Mr. Bush has put corporate interest
before the nation’s national interest. In the age of information technology and
instant reporting, what America is seen doing, is perhaps more transparent in
the Moslem world than it is on its own soil.
Until such time that Americans
can decouple national interest from corporate greed, corporate wars will
continue and public diplomacy will remain ineffective.
[i] Beers interview with Katie Couric on NBC: Today, tx 6 March 2003, 7:00 ET. “
[i] Nicholas J. Cull, Ibid
[ii] Fairbanks, Stephen. “Iran: No Easy Answers”. Journal
of International Affairs 54.2
(2001): 447-465
[i] Nicholas J. Cull.,Ibid
[i] Meron Rappaport. “IDF Commander: We fired more than a million
cluster bombs in Lebanon”. 9 December 2006
[i] Nicholas J. Cull. Ibid
[iii] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3207101,00.html
[iv] Robert Wielaard “EU
Ministers back Palestinian aid freeze”. 10, April 2006
[i] Walter Pincus,
“Lawmakers want more data on contracting out intelligence” Washington Post. 7
May 2006 p. A07
[ii] Nicholas J. Cull,
Ibid, Ch. 5
[i] Nicholas J. Cull. Ibid
[ii] Nicholas J. Cull. Ibid
[iv] Charles J. Hanley,
“U.S. bases built in Iraq with an air of permanence”. The Seattle Times. 21
March 2006
[i] Editorial: ‘Powell’s Mideast Moment,’ Los Angeles Times, 30 April 2003.”
[ii] Suzanne Goldernberg,
“Bush appoints anti-Muslim to peace role”. The Guardian, 23, August 2003
[iii] Tim Gospill, ‘Target the Media,’ in David
Miller (ed.), Tell Me Lies: Propaganda
and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq. Pluto: London, 2004, pp.
251-261, also Slobodan Lekic, ‘U.S. troops said to be more hostile to
reporters,’ Associated Press, 13
November 2003 and Reporters without Borders press release, ‘Reporters without
borders outraged at bombing of al-Jazeera office in Baghdad.’ 8 April 2003.
[i] Susan Miligan,” GAO investigator rips Pentagon on Iraq war finances”, The Boston
Globe, July 15, 2005
[ii] Jeremy Scahill. “Mercenary
Jackpot”. The Nation 10 August 2006
[iii] Christine Spolar, “14 `enduring bases' set in Iraq; Long-term
military presence planned” Chicago Tribune.
23 March 2004
[i] Neil King Jr. “Bush Officials Devise a Broad Plan For
Free-Market Economy in Iraq “ The Wall Street Journal. May 1, 2003
[ii] Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One
Economy at a time (Regan, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006).
[ii] James Glanz “Bribery
network to bloat war costs is alleged” The New York Times, 21 July 2007
[i] Sheldon Rampton and
John Stauber, “Weapons of Mass Deception: the uses of propaganda in Bush’s war
on Iraq.” Penguin, 2003
[i] VOA press releases, ‘Rice to VOA: “Offering
more time at this point only plays into Saddam’s hands,”’ 26 February 2003;
‘VOA interviews Powell on Iraq,’ 28 February 2003.
[i] Nicholas J. Cull. Ibid
[ii] Michael R. Gordon, ‘A nation challenged:
seeking support US tries to sway worldwide opinion in favor of war,’ New York Times, 6 November 2001, p. A1.”
[i] Time Europe. “Candle Power: Iran Mourns America’s dead”.
18, September, 2001http://www.time.com/time/europe/photoessays/vigil/
[ii] Nicholas J. Cull,
“Selling America. (ch 4, p2)
[iii] Nicholas J. Cull,
Ibid.
[iv] Nicholas J. Cull, Ibid
[v] Marc W. Herold. “A Dossier on
Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan:
A Comprehensive Accounting [revised]”. Departments of Economics and Women's
Studies. University of New Hampshire http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
[ii] Michael Kranish and Sue Kirchhoff, “Thousands Protest ‘Stolen’
Election,” Boston Globe, January 21, 2001.
[iii] Richard L. Berke, “G.O.P. Defends Bush in Face of Dip in Poll
Ratings,” The New York Times, June 29 2001
