"I put it before Congress because I could not honestly claim that the threat posed by Assad’s use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians and women and children posed an imminent, direct threat to the United States.”

--President Barack Obama, speaking in Russia on Friday; image from

VIDEO

How to Spot a Communist Using Literary Criticism: A 1955 Manual from the U.S. Military - openculture.com. Via KY on Facebook

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Kristol Urges GOP To Authorize War With Iran After Syria Measure Passes - Ben Armbruster, thinkprogress.org: "The Iranians ...  have surprised the American foreign policy establishment in recent days with a series of tweets sending Rosh Hashanah greetings to Jews celebrating the new year and distancing Iran from former President Mahmoud Amadinejad’s Holocaust denial. This new ‘Twitter Diplomacy,’ one unnamed Hill staffer told Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen, ‘will go down in history.’ Rozen added that the staffer also expressed ‘the wider sense of amazement heard from many veteran Iran watchers at the display of tolerance and public diplomacy initiative coming from Tehran.’”

The Real Reason We Need Declarations of War - John Sides, themonkeycage.org: "[Comment by] Eric September 5, 2013 at 5:58 am [P]residential addresses (esp. the address to Congress asking for a declaration of war)


or other forms of public diplomacy count as fulfilling the function of making reasoned, conditional statements. The crucial concern is meeting moral burdens and not the form meeting those burdens takes." Image from entry

The Gospels of Public Diplomacy - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "From The Blog of Paul: The Gospels of Public Diplomacy [:] Let all who are tired come rest in the hostel of many nations. Let all who are hungry come eat at the table of many lands (Warning: you may have to eat stinky tofu to gain entry into the gastrodiplomacy kingdom of heaven)[.] Let all who are thirsty come drink from the ambrosia of French wines, Belgian beer, Brazilian caiprinhas and all other nectars that slake the thirst. Let all who love music come dance and sing in the pale moon light, and till the sun rises over the fecund day. This holy church we build is on the foundations of cultural diplomacy. There is nothing new to offer: connecting people through music, food and culture is as old as the hills. Come engage. This is the last temptation of public diplomacy."

RELATED ITEMS

White House website launches propaganda page for Syria attack- Cheryl Carpenter Klimek, bizpacreview.com: While the debate ramps up over what to do about Syria, the White House has launched a page on its website to promote moving toward military action. “Explore this page to learn more about President Obama’s response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria and get the latest news from the White House about the situation,” the website says. It features news updates, statements from the pressroom and videos of Obama’s effort to gain support for his position.


On Aug 30, the administration released the report, “Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013,” which begins this way: [‘]The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting. Our classified assessments have been shared with the U.S. Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place. [‘]  The unclassified assessment provides background and a detailed account supporting the belief that the Syrian regime is behind the chemical weapons attack. A statement from the press secretary notes that the administration “will continue to work with Congress to build on this bipartisan support for a military response,” but there is no mention of other countries supporting Obama’s position or planning to join the military action. Image from entry

On Syria, Egypt and propaganda - James Lemons, theupcoming.co.uk: The drums of war beat in Washington and London. Cameron abandoned his holiday (he is always on holiday when something’s afoot), and Obama has led the call for action to bomb Syria. Yet various polls conducted show that the majority of the British and American public is sensibly opposed to another US-led intervention in the Middle East. An American-European attack on Syria will supposedly “send a message.” Exactly what sort of message will it send? No one can claim to know the extent to which any attack will have, nor of its ultimate consequence.


The Syrian Army is large and well-trained and could exact further terrible massacres of its own people, and, given the chance, Western intervention will be the catalyst for this, do absolutely nothing for the Syrian public, and cause untold damage to Syrian posterity. Image from article, with caption: The West must prove Syria’s president Assad (pictured) is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt before action should be taken.

Propaganda Alert: Peace with Syria Will Crash the U.S. Economy: Moronic Drivel from Clueless Warmonger - washingtonsblog.com: Former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission – and now Kyocera copier salesman – Peter Morici argues that failure to attack Syria will destroy the American economy. In reality, it is the threat of yet another unnecessary, counterproductive war in the Middle East – and not any delay in approving such a boondoggle – which is destabilizing the economy. Moreover, far better-known and more impressive economists than Morici have shown that – contrary to long-standing myths – war is horrible for the economy.

To strike, or not to strike, Syria? Three arguments for and three against taking military action - Doyle McManus, latimes.com: First, the case for intervention. The most basic reason to attack is the one advanced from the beginning by President Obama and his aides: to deter Syrian leader Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons again. The second major argument for a military strike involves a broader principle: shoring up the international prohibition against the use of chemical weapons. The third chief reason for acting is that America's credibility is at stake, especially since Obama declared large-scale use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces a "red line" that would compel a U.S. response. Good arguments against: First, as even Kerry has acknowledged, there's no guarantee that a single round of U.S. strikes would succeed in stopping Assad from using chemical weapons; second, military action almost always produces unintended consequences; third and most compelling -- the prospect that even limited military action could be a slippery slope to another war.

A dilemma for Syria's minorities: The mostly Sunni Muslim rebels' inability to win over the country's Kurds, Alawites and Christians raises the question of whether their victory is even desirable- Peter Galbraith, latimes.com: The United States should be cautious about a strategy involving military support, including airstrikes and arms supplies, to a Syrian opposition that has neither the ability nor the inclination to reach out to Syria's minorities.


Such a strategy is not likely to succeed and, more important, we may not want it to succeed. Image from article, with caption: Mourners attend a Kurdish funeral in northern Syria, where the Kurds declared their own autonomous region in July

Barry’s War Within - Maureen Dowd, New York Times: As commander in chief, Obama knows that if he doesn’t punish Bashar al-Assad, America and his presidency will be forever reduced. He thinks a limited strike — not a war, as some are calling it — is the right thing to do. But as Barry talked to the press in St. Petersburg, his lack of enthusiasm came across. He was not thundering from the top of the moral ramparts. He made his usual nuanced, lawyerly presentation, talking about the breach of international “norms.” It’s a weak, wonk word.

Same War, Different Country - Thomas L. Friedman, Washington Times: Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting since the 7th century over who is the rightful heir to the Prophet Muhammad’s spiritual and political leadership, and our credibility is on the line regarding Syria?

Pulling the Curtain Back on Syria - Nicholas D. Kristoff, New York Times: "I favor a limited cruise missile strike against Syrian military targets (as well as the arming of moderate rebels)."

Syria’s al-Qaeda threat - Editorial, Washington Post: The way to counter the threat posed by the jihadists is not to leave the Assad regime in power, but to empower the moderate and secular majority. The U.S. failure to support moderate forces one and two years ago helped to pave the way for al-Qaeda in Syria. A congressional decision not to act now will make the jihadists stronger still.

Does the United States have a ‘responsibility to protect’ the Syrian people? - Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post: Our best chance to rid the world of genocide and other forms of mass atrocity will be in trying to make sure they don’t begin.

Obama's Syria push stymied by Iraq fatigue - Aamer Madhani, USA Today: Obama, whose opposition to the Iraq War was a cornerstone of his 2008 campaign, now finds himself in a somewhat ironic position of fighting back against perceptions that his call for a limited military strike will be the war in Iraq redux.

Grassroots pressure surges against Syria attack - Dave Nalle, Washington Times: There is a contrast between the increasingly vocal masses opposing intervention and the more widely reported politicians taking the other side.


Who is a member of Congress more likely to listen to — thousands of irate constituents posting angry comments on their Facebook walls, or party leaders on television? As members of Congress become more media savy, and as social network activism becomes more sophisticated, the balance is moving in the constituents’ favor. Image from article

All Gov’t lies Stem From The Mother of all Lies ~ The 9/11 Official Story - Allen L. Roland, veteranstoday.com: “Trust me” attitude by Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama towards the flimsy evidence that Assad and Syria were responsible for chemical attacks on their own people is reminiscent of the charlatans Bush, Cheney, Rice, Tenant and Powell as they pushed their Weapons of Mass Destruction lies and deceptions on the American public with the same “trust me” attitude which masked their obvious goal of Regime Change in Iraq, at any cost.

Bomb Scare [Review of UNTHINKABLE: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy By Kenneth M. Pollack] - Leslie H. Gelb, New York Times: Pollack doesn’t desire a nuclear-armed Iran, but at bottom he feels a war would only temporarily delay Iran’s weapons program, while stirring up a host of other terrible problems in the Muslim world. And so he stumps for living with a nuclear Iran and trying to contain it. By playing down the chance of negotiations in favor of containment, Pollack ends up proposing too little, rather than too much.

How the CIA Secretly Funded Abstract Expressionism During the Cold War - Josh Jones, openculture.com: The work of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning wound up as part of a secret CIA program during the height of the Cold War, aimed at promoting American ideals abroad. The artists themselves were completely unaware that their work was being used as propaganda. On what agents called a “long leash,” they participated in several exhibitions secretly organized by the CIA, such as “The New American Painting” which visited major European cities in 1958-59 and included such modern primitive works as surrealist William Baziotes’ 1947 Dwarf (below).


The one-way relationship between modernist painters and the CIA—confirmed by former case officer Donald Jameson—supposedly enabled the agency to make the work of Soviet Socialist Realists appear, in Jameson’s words, “even more stylized and more rigid and confined than it was.” (See Evdokiya Usikova’s 1959 Lenin with Villagers below, for example).


How to Spot a Communist Using Literary Criticism: A 1955 Manual from the U.S. Military - openculture.com: How to find those hidden communists? Not to worry, the US military had that covered. In 1955, the U.S. First Army Headquarters prepared a manual called How to Spot a Communist. Later published in popular American magazines, the propaganda piece warned readers, “there is no fool-proof system in spotting a Communist.” “U.S. Communists come from all walks of life, profess all faiths, and exercise all trades and professions. In addition, the Communist Party, USA, has made concerted efforts to go underground for the purpose of infiltration.” And yet the pamphlet adds, letting readers breathe a sigh of relief, “there are, fortunately, indications that may give him away. These indications are often subtle but always present, for the Communist, by reason of his “faith” must act and talk along certain lines.” In short, you’ll know a Communist not by how he walks, but how he talks. Asking citizens to become literary critics for the sake of national security, the publication told readers to watch out for the following: [']While a preference for long sentences is common to most Communist writing, a distinct vocabulary provides the more easily recognized feature of the “Communist Language.” Even a superficial reading of an article written by a Communist or a conversation with one will probably reveal the use of some of the following expressions: integrative thinking, vanguard, comrade, hootenanny, chauvinism, book-burning, syncretistic faith, bourgeois-nationalism, jingoism, colonialism, hooliganism, ruling class, progressive, demagogy, dialectical, witch-hunt, reactionary, exploitation, oppressive, materialist. ['] This list, selected at random, could be extended almost indefinitely. While all of the above expressions are part of the English language, their use by Communists is infinitely more frequent than by the general public. Rather chillingly, the pamphlet also warned that Communists revealed themselves if and when they talked about “McCarthyism,” “violation of civil rights,” “racial or religious discrimination” or “peace.” In other words, they were guilty if they suggested that the government was overstepping its bounds.Via KY on Facebook

From stamps to social media, the history of propaganda - Dan Hancox, The National: Propaganda has acquired a pretty terrible reputation over the years, and it's not hard to see why. This summer's exhibition at the British Library in London, entitled Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, seeks to explore this most maligned of concepts, its roots, differing manifestations and future. The exhibition has been a great success because it rejects any narrow, uncritical definition of the word. "Propaganda is ethically neutral," says Professor David Welch, who wrote the exhibition's accompanying book and advised the British Library on curation - it is not intrinsically good or bad, for it is simply the communication of a message; what is important is to spot persuasion, bias and untruth when it occurs, and to think about who might have a monopoly on its dissemination, and thus on power.


Historically, it's almost always been a pejorative word: "our side" produces information, "your side" produces propaganda. Our government tells the truth, yours tells lies. Propaganda has been compelled to change in recent decades, not least in that governments naming their output as such has become entirely unfashionable since the Second World War; in recent years citizens have instead become sceptical of "spin" and "public relations", and they are right to be, for it serves the exact same purpose: to shape information in the interests of those holding the megaphone. Propaganda has had to adapt to meet its audience in much the same way as commercial advertising has done: the human brain in the consumer age has evolved to become much more resistant to the simplistic messages of the 1930s. Political communications must now drive at the heart of an individual's desire and aspiration, as modern advertising does, rather than simply and plainly stating the merits and specifics of a particular politician, policy or party, as they would've done in the past. This is in part thanks to the work of Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, the so-called "father of PR", who is quoted in the exhibition - the dovetailing of sophisticated commercial messaging and political messaging is no coincidence. Whatever we call it, propaganda is everywhere in our lives. Image from article

Update: More Patriotic 'Captain America' Propaganda Posters - Michael Arbeiter, More Captain America propaganda art is here, in the form of a "Support Our Troops"


poster that highlights Captain America as the ultimate soldier. On the other side of the fight is a poster that insists obedience

to the rising order of Hydra.

MORE VIDEOS

Official releases video showing Syria victims - USA Today

Obama's Propaganda Blitz: More False Flags Need Before WW3 - youtube.com

VIDEO- Fat Libertarian Loses It Over Syrian War Propaganda - youtube.com

AMERICANA

Iowa grants gun permits to the blind- Jason Clayworth, USA Today. Image from article, with caption: Michael Barber and his wife Kim shop for a gun in August 2013.


Kim is showing him how the gun lock fits on the gun. "I think it's perfectly within the realm of possibility and within our rights that a blind person can safely carry a weapon if he or she decide they want to do that," Barber said.

Marine Corps retreats on court-martial charges in Taliban urination case - Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times: The Marine Corps has suddenly dropped criminal charges against an officer in the infamous Taliban urination video case, heading off what promised to be an embarrassing pre-trial hearing for the commandant on Wednesday.


Image from article

"115,109"


--The number of the largest crowd in college football history, for the recent Michigan-Notre Dame game; image from

FAMILY LORE


--PDPBR compiler personal note: My poet-diplomat father, quite an extraordinary man, while posted in France on behalf of the American people and its government, in the early 1950's made sure that my older brother and I attended a local school -- in the above case, anécole maternelle near Paris. Here is a photo, recently sent to me by my brother, of our early years in France. He's in the fourth row, I in the third: same shirts, as you can tell.

"You can watch a little bit of war from your nice living room - 30 seconds of what's going on in Syria - and when you've had enough, switch over to some celebrity programme. We live our life through screens and images in this way, and we don't know what is real or fake anymore."

--Alison Jackson; on Jackson, see; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Revealed: US Plans for Syria, 2006 - Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, pravda.ru: "Going through Wikileaks is a depressing yet telling experience, and the more you look, the more you can see why the USA preaches freedom of expression then tries to incarcerate or kill whistle-blowers. Below is a document showing the United States of America had plans for Syria as far back as 2006. ... Reference ID 06DAMASCUS5399. Created 2006-12-13 16:03. Classification: SECRET. ... [A]n honest description of the cable itself: 'This cable summarizes our assessment of these vulnerabilities and suggests


that there may be actions, statements, and signals that the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising. These proposals will need to be fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities. Many of our suggestions underline using Public Diplomacy and more indirect means to send messages that influence the inner circle'. ... 'CONCLUSION: ... the bottom line is that Bashar is entering the new year in a stronger position than he has been in several years, but those strengths also carry with them -- or sometimes mask --vulnerabilities. If we are ready to capitalize, they will offer us opportunities to disrupt his decision-making, keep him off-balance, and make him pay a premium for his mistakes.'" Image from entry

Former Hogan High student participated in German exchange program - Irma Widjojo, Times-Herald: "A 22-year-old Solano Community College and former Hogan High School student, recently returned from a one-year exchange program in Germany through a fellowship funded by Congress and the German parliament. Jose Gonzalez of American Canyon was chosen as one of 75 U.S. students of 630 applicants nationwide to be sent to Germany on the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals program. 'It was really incredible,' Gonzalez said. 'I don't know how to word it. ... So many things happened in one year.' Gonzalez is in his last semester studying business at Solano Community College, and hopes to transfer to San Francisco State University or Sacramento State University for his bachelor's degree.


The exchange program is a public diplomacy initiative between the two countries, said Nele Feldmann, associate program manager. We want the students to benefit in many ways, professionally, culturally and personally,' Feldmann said. ... The program began in 1984, and was initiated in 1983 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the first German who immigrated to the United States, Feldmann said. ... For more information about the program, visit www.CBYX.info or www.culturalvistas.org." Image from article, with caption: Jose Gonzalez, 22, is wearing a traditional German costume in his host family's yard in Germany. Gonzalez returned to the United States in July after spending a year in Germany on an exchange program funded by the U.S. Congress and the German parliament.

Public diplomacy on Syria: Germany's (and Europe's) Tinker [Google "translation"] - Thomas Wiegold, wiegold.wordpress.com: "Bottom line: Syria seems to be no no issue as important as how the federal government handles it.


Or is it too important for that could bother the citizens so that in terms of policy. Would have made ​​a statement. Of public diplomacy, or even by trying this internet, of which one hears so much for giving facts and quite simple to use, is somehow not much to see there." Uncaptioned image from article

Israel lone enemy of Jordan - L. M., themostaziz.blogspot.com: "A Jordanian delegation in Tehran for a public diplomacy visit says Jordan’s lone enemy is Israel.


The delegation made the remarks in a statement issued on Monday. The delegation is visiting Tehran upon the official invitation of Iran-based Society in Defense of the Palestinian Nation (SDPN). The statement touched on the Syrian crisis and said it would soon spread to other regional countries, Jordan in particular." Uncaptioned image from entry

The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima - Layne Hartsell and Emanuel Pastreich, truth-out.org: "The Fukushima disaster is a crisis for all of humanity, but it is a crisis that can serve as an opportunity to construct global networks for unprecedented collaboration. Groups or teams aided by sophisticated computer technology can start to break down into workable pieces the immense problems resulting from the ongoing spillage. ... In his book Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Michael Nielsen describes principles of networked science that can be applied on an unprecedented scale. The breakthroughs that come from this effort can also be used for other long-term programs such as the cleanup of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the global response to climate change. The collaborative research regarding Fukushima should take place on a very large scale, larger than the sequencing of the human genome or the maintenance of the Large Hadron Collider. Finally, there is an opportunity to entirely reinvent the field of public diplomacy in response to this crisis. Public diplomacy can move from a somewhat ambiguous effort by national governments to repackage their messaging to a serious forum for debate and action on international issues. As public diplomacy matures through the experience of Fukushima, we can devise new strategies for bringing together hundreds of thousands of people around the world to respond to mutual threats. Taking a clue from networked science, public diplomacy could serve as a platform for serious, long-term international collaboration on critical topics such as poverty, renewable energy, and pollution control."

The Olympics go downtown for Tokyo 2020 - theconversation.com: "It is Tokyo, after all. It was nearly 6am when a few thousand supporters gathered at Komazawa stadium, one of the key venues for Tokyo’s 1964 games, exploded in celebration as International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge held up the winning envelope marked 'Tokyo 2020'. ... [T]he focus of the Olympics in Tokyo will be even more centered on the role of the city as a vehicle for development, celebration, connectivity and more generally as the future of humanity.


The Olympics offer a unique window for sub-national authorities such as the Greater London Authority or the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, allowing for substantial public diplomacy initiatives. While the UK had pledged to make London 2012 a 'cutting edge example of sustainability,' and the 'greenest games ever, Tokyo promises us to allow people to 'discover tomorrow' in a celebration of 'dynamic innovation'. Uncaptioned image from article

Arab Spring Countries, Russia and Zimbabwe Among Case Studies in New Edition of A Diplomat’s Handbook - virtual-strategy.com: "The Handbook ... tracks changes in diplomacy itself toward people-to-people channels of public diplomacy and outreach. 'Democratic governments know they need to invest for the long term in their relationships with peoples.


This is markedly true for the global experience of democracy development. The primary role of civil society in this landscape is vital and multiple,' according to the Handbook." Image from article

Michele Acuto - theconversation.com: "Michele Acuto is Senior Lecturer in Global Networks and Diplomacy in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) at University College London.


He is also Fellow of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California." Acuto image from entry

RELATED ITEMS

U.S. on Syria chemical attack: What's the evidence? - Josh Levs, CNN: The gruesome images are clear. There's little doubt Syrians suffered a chemical attack last month. But videos of the aftermath -- including 13 shown to Congress -- do nothing to show who was responsible. As Obama engages in a full-court press to build U.S. support for strikes, some Americans hear echoes of a different basketball analogy: "slam dunk." That's how then-CIA Director George Tenet described what turned out to be flawed intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war 10 years ago. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said the intelligence passes a "common sense test." "Now, do we have a picture or do we have irrefutable, beyond a reasonable doubt evidence? This is not a court of law. And intelligence does not work that way," he told CNN's State of the Union. See also John Brown, "common-sense test," Notes and Essays; and "What is a "consequential action"? Your guess is as good as mine ...," Notes and Essays

Syria and the Iraq Syndrome Responding to Assad is about more than our interests. It is 'about who we are' - William A. Galston, Wall Street Journal: The stark fact is that the U.S. is the only country in the world with the capacity to respond to Assad's outrageous use of chemical weapons in a way that might deter him from repeating it.

President Obama’s Brilliant Strategy No One Seems To Recognize - Wayne Bomgaars, freakoutnation.com: Only a month ago the GOP was accusing Obama of being weak for not acting when the “red line” was crossed. There was pressure for him not only from the US but from the world as well. The reputation of the great American defender was on the line. Still it was obvious at the time Obama did not want to rush into another quagmire, bogging down the rest of his tenure as our nation’s leader. But the evidence kept rolling in.


He had to do something not only for his reputation as a world leader but for the United States as well. Cue the British Parliament to provide Obama with the perfect out. Just days after Britain’s governing body eliminated any joint action with the US to participate in a coalition to strike the Assad regime, Obama made a surprising and decisive move. Against the advice of all his advisors, he put any US participation in the hands of our do-nothing Congress with no chance they would give him the approval he needed. Not because it isn’t the right thing to do but because Obama was asking for it. The outcome is a given if you just take a step back and look at the situation rationally. And there is no way Obama is going to launch this attack once Congress says no. It would be political suicide. Via JMK on Facebook.  Image from

To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad - Stephen J. Hadley, Washington Post: U.S. military action in Syria must go beyond a few missile strikes designed to deter or degrade future chemical weapons use. It must be robust enough to erode the Syrian regime’s military advantage. This does not mean U.S. troops on the ground or a Kosovo-style weeks-long bombing campaign. But it does mean hitting aircraft, missile and artillery systems and their bases — the weapons Assad uses to cause mass casualties among innocents.

Forget Syria, target Iran: Tehran is a much greater threat to American lives - Daniel Pipes, Washington Times: By all accounts, the mullahs in Tehran are getting ever closer to the point where they at will can order nuclear bombs to be made and readied for use. Unlike the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, this prospect is a matter of the most direct and vital personal concern to Americans, for it could lead to an electromagnetic pulse attack on the electrical grid, suddenly returning the country to a 19th-century economy and possibly a couple of hundred million fatalities.

Our New Isolationism - Bill Keller, New York Times: The U.S. still has an important role to play in the world, and sometimes you have to put some spine in your diplomacy.

Obama's Successful Foreign Failure: The president may look incompetent on Syria. But his behavior fits his strategy to weaken America abroad - Norman Podhoretz, Wall Street Journal: The problem for Mr. Obama is that at least since the end of World War II, Americans have taken pride in being No. 1. Unless the American people have been as fundamentally transformed as their country is quickly becoming, America's decline will not sit well.

IMAGE


Via BB on Facebook

AMERICANA

SWAT team kills 107-year-old man after shootout - Fox News: Police in Pine Bluff, Arkansas say a 107-year-old man was killed in a shootout with a


SWAT team Saturday afternoon. Via JJ on Facebook. Image from entry

MORE AMERICANA



Miley Cyrus cries, swings around completely naked in 'Wrecking Ball' music video: The singer, who is best known for twerking as of late, momentarily shows a softer side with tearful eyes as she sings of lost love before returning to her raunchy ways - Zayda Rivera, New York Daily News. Image from entry, with caption: Miley Cyrus rides the wrecking ball in a music video that is sad and raunchy.

"What's all this fuss I keep hearing about military action against cereal?"

--From; image from

"If Assad is eating Cheerios, we're going to take away his spoon and give him a fork. Will that degrade his ability to eat Cheerios? Yes. Will it deter him? Maybe. But he'll still be able to eat Cheerios."

--A "senior official" involved in the White House's Syria planning

VIDEO

Breaking down Obama’s Syria address - Washington Post

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Personifying America outside the perimeter: Diplomats gamble with their lives to win friends - Taara Sonnenshine, Washington Times: "The public piece of diplomacy is important and often overlooked. We don’t see on our television screens the process of relationship-building that diplomats do with ordinary citizens in extraordinary places, particularly interactions with youth overseas whose ideas and perceptions of America will influence how they behave and the degree to which we can sustain robust trade and interactions with other nations. ... Embassies build relationships around the world that echo.


The relationships that our public diplomacy officers build with local religious figures, for example, are invaluable in a crisis when you need to tamp down anti-American feelings. In Washington, we often lose the context. What [murdered American diplomats committed to public diplomacy] Stevens and Smedinghoff did gets more attention because of the events that surrounded their deaths than the work that animated their lives — particularly in the case of Libya. Public service is hard. Venturing outside fortified embassies to meet ordinary citizens in conflict zones is risky. However, if we lose that invaluable tool of outreach, if we dissuade our diplomats — young and old — from participating in the societies in which they operate, we become irrelevant at best and insecure at worst. Regardless of political debate, let us remind ourselves why we want our sons and daughters to go overseas. Let us honor the memories of our diplomats by ending the partisan bickering over the past and moving on to the present and future of America’s global engagement in the world." Via MS. Image from entry

Sunday Morning's Programming 9/8/13 - www.allthingscnn.com: "RELIABLE SOURCES – Airs LIVE Sunday 11:00AM – NOON Topic: Recent news coverage of Syria Guest: Arwa Damon, CNN Senior International Correspondent Guest: Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland professor Guest: Christina Bellantoni, politics editor at PBS NewsHour Guest: Tara Sonenshine, undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of State [sic]."

U.S. diplomats need disciplined message from home - "Judith McHale, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, developed a way almost three years ago to integrate public diplomacy professionals into all of the department’s geographic bureaus — teaming policy closely with communications. She also attempted to better align State and Defense Department public communication efforts by including a detailed assessment on where Pentagon dollars were going to support U.S. diplomacy at posts worldwide. McHale’s successor, Tara Sonenshine, strengthened that mission through the newly established Center of Strategic Counter-Terrorism Communications, which was created to counter Al Qaeda’s propaganda. She also made concerted attempts to integrate activities in Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Both achieved some significant successes but ultimately met the same bureaucratic resistance. The Pentagon has also offered some good ideas. Assistant Secretary George Little, the secretary’s chief spokesperson, dissolved the department’s internal strategic communications entities late last year. Ten years of experimenting proved that this tangle of bureaucracies was unworkable. Some confusion persists about how these functions should be assigned, but it is clear that the solution does not lie in adding more organizations. The dust has settled on Benghazi, and one lesson is that [murdered Ambassador] Stevens’s public diplomacy work was critical and inherently dangerous.


Another wider lesson is that the U.S. government is not organized to meet the long-term imperative of countering violent extremism with its own message. Instead, we’re wasting millions on uncoordinated communications and a confederacy of competing bureaucracies. Many very capable public affairs and public diplomacy professionals at the State Department and Pentagon have tried to fix this and failed, victims of turf fights within and among their bureaucracies. The White House, Congress and the federal interagency need a deliberate, disciplined and integrated process for national security communications. ... Brian Cullin and Matthew Leatherman, politico.com: Brian Cullin served most recently as senior adviser to Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine. He was previously assistant White House press secretary in the Clinton administration. He is a retired military public affairs officer." Image from entry

Russia to Syria: Put chemical weapons under foreign control - Fred Weir, minnpost.com [09/10/13]: "Russia on Monday called for putting Syria’s chemical weapons under international control, in a surprise move aimed at averting threatened US missile strikes designed to punish Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad for allegedly using them. The proposal, which was quickly welcomed by Syria’s foreign minister, comes amid a flurry of negotiations and public diplomacy aimed at heading off looming US military action. In interviews with CBS and PBS, broadcast Monday, President Assad denied government forces used chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack that prompted the White House to rally support for military action."

Obama has given Assad a voice in the debate - David Lesch, Financial Times: "While the diplomatic drama between Moscow and Washington plays out, Mr Assad is playing an unusual gambit: an attempt at public diplomacy. Syria has traditionally been bad at persuasion, primarily because it has not had much practice at it. However, for the Damascus government, the time lag brought on by democratic processes in the west has been something of a gift. Mr Assad and his allies have been allowed time to make their argument and to cast doubt on the claims that Syrian government forces carried out the August 21 chemical weapons attack – and to move military assets out of harm’s way. ... [T]he crisis could produce a long-awaited diplomatic breakthrough (and UN Security Council co-operation) on Syria. But it is more likely that Syria will return to the mutually destructive stalemate that preceded all the recent posturing and threats. Mr Assad’s public diplomacy might just have done enough."

Venezuela's New Take on the Future - Editorial, geopoliticalmonitor.com: "[T]his is the time when highly positive outcomes can happen in Venezuela and transform the country into an open market economy and establish close ties with Western economies, and cease to support rogue nations such as Syria and Iran.To do so will be no easy feat, as the domestic situation in Venezuela is not overly positive. Politics continue to be polarized and the nationalisation of strategic sectors formerly run by private corporations remains a drag on the economy; it recorded the 12th-lowest economic growth in the region in 2011. The Venezuelan ruling class has gradually absorbed the ideological indoctrination of its Cuban communist strategists, whose country has been highly interconnected with Caracas during the last decade, owing to the extenstive oil shipments to the island. With Chavez


fading from the region’s political picture, Cuba will begin to strengthen and establish new alliances and partnerships, in addition to Venezuela, with other Caribbean countries. This is also the perfect chance for the State Department to rise up to the opportunity and embark on an intensive public diplomacy compaign, among with other elements of statecraft, and develop a proactive strategy that would increasingly attract Venezuelan opposition leaders and former Chavista legislators who can lead the way to establish a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Caribbean, a potential success story that would inspire change and reforms in Havana and throughout the wider region." Uncaptioned image from article

Why Secretary Kerry has not yet designated anyone to represent him at BBG meetings? - BBG Watger, usgbroadcasts.com: "As far as we know, Secretary of State John Kerry has not yet designated anyone to represent him and vote at formal Board meetings of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasting, which includes media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA). The Secretary of State is an ex-officio member of the nine-person, bipartisan Board, but no Secretary of State has ever attended any formal BBG Board meetings, which in itself is highly unfortunate considering that the agency has been badly managed in recent years. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the agency 'defunct,' yet she herself had not attended any BBG Board meetings, although she did have a get-acquainted meeting with other BBG members. The Secretary of State usually appoints a high-level State Department official to attend BBG meetings. Former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine represented Hillary Clinton and briefly John Kerry. She had left her post last July.


No one has been appointed since her departure to represent Secretary Kerry at BBG meetings, although a lower-ranking State Department official usually attends these meetings and takes notes. The absence of a formal State Department representative at meetings of the Broadcasting Board of Governors is very unfortunate for several reasons and it has been made worse by the current crisis over Syria." Image from entry, with caption: Secretary of State John Kerry with Lyudmila Alexeeva in Moscow, May 8, 2013. Alexeeva was boycotting Radio Liberty after human rights reporters had been fired. The BBG Board resolved the crisis, which was being ignored by IBB officials. Alexeeva is again cooperating with Radio Liberty. RFE/RL has a new president, Kevin Klose, who was appointed by the BBG Board.

On Obama’s Syria address, Voice of America far behind Russia Today, BBC and Al Jazeera in social media outreach - BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com: "After President Obama’s address to the nation on plans for military actions against Syria, the Voice of America English home page showed a video of illegally trafficked monkeys


instead of the presidential speech. A very short VOA report on the speech without a video got only 15 (fifteen) Facebook 'Likes' and 5 (five) Tweets in about three hours while a much longer Russia Today report with video got 792 Facebook 'Likes.'" Image from entry, with caption: VOA Featured Video after President Obama’s speech to the nation on Syria. See also (update).

Big news about the BBG chairman. Except that it doesn't mention the BBG  - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting:  "New York Times, 9 S[ep]t 2013, Brooks Barnes: 'Jeff Shell, an


NBC Universal television executive, will soon take over day-to-day operations at Universal Studios, according to three people briefed on the development. ... [Elliott comment]: Unmentioned in this piece is that Mr. Shell is the recently appointed chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.'" Uncaptioned image from entry

Al Jazeera America may still have more detractors than viewers - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Israel’s i24 Fights for Space in Crowded Global Cable TV Market- Joshua Mitnick, Wall Street Journal: "Alongside CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera, is there room for another international news channel with an Israeli voice? That is one of the key questions facing i24, an upstart Israeli news channel based in Tel Aviv which began broadcasting in July. The channel will have to demonstrate that an Israeli take on the news around world can draw mass audiences from the Jewish state’s Arab neighbors, Europe and the U.S. Broadcasting in English, French and Arabic, the channel is being financed by French-Israeli communications mogul Patrick Drahi and its operations spearheaded by


Chief Executive Frank Melloul, a former French Foreign Ministry spokesman who helped found France’s government-owned news channel, France 24. Acutely aware that many suspect i24 as Israeli public relations foil, Mr. Melloul and station executives are quick to remind listeners they are privately owned and don’t receive any funding from the Israeli government. Mr. Melloul acknowledges that his roots are in public diplomacy, not journalism, and he isn’t shy about i24′s Israeli identity and mission: serving as an 'alternative' to Al Jazeera and enhancing Israeli soft power by playing up the country’s democracy. 'I am not a journalist, I am a diplomat,' said Mr. Melloul. 'My mission is to help Israel change its image.'” Image from entry, with caption: CEO of the Israeli-based TV channel i24 news Frank Melloul.

Israel and BuzzFeed: When Government PR Goes Viral -- User-generated content isn't just for everyday people anymore - theatlantic.com: "Two weeks ago, Israel expanded its robust ‘public diplomacy’ efforts, which include an active Twitter presence and a popular military Instagram, with a post written by its American embassy (@IsraelinUSA) on the redoubtable viral news and entertainment juggernaut BuzzFeed.  Instead of something in line with the light fare normally found on the community section of the website, which is home to such items as ‘15 Ways That Cats Are Trying To Take Over Our Lives,’ ‘18 Inappropriate Places to Twerk,’ and other ephemera created by readers, the Israeli embassy's debut tackled a more solemn subject. Headlined, ‘Threats Facing Israel, Explained In One (Sort of Terrifying) Map,’ the post outlined and detailed the menacing perils on the country's borders."



The World From Here: Defeating ‘cocktail terrorism’ - Dan Diker, Jerusalem Post: "Israel faces a more complex challenge in its intensifying war against radical Islamic terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, whose dual identities as 'semi-terror, semi-government organizations' – Hamas as the de facto government in Gaza and Hezbollah a major power in Lebanon’s government – constitute a complex and potentially deadly 'cocktail' terror threat. Paradoxically, the upgraded threat to Israel is embedded in the international legitimacy accorded to Hamas and even Hezbollah as hybrid terror organizations. ... This is why this two-headed threat requires a multidimensional public diplomacy strategy as part of an overall counter-terror strategy by Israel. Dr. Boaz Ganor and the IDC’s International Institute for Counter Terrorism’s major forthcoming book on Israel’s counter-terrorism doctrine plays a pioneering role in this line of thinking. 'Cyber ops' should also focus on social networks. The enemy attacks with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Israel and its 'family,' friends and supporters must wage the same online counter-terror campaign. This means positive branding of Israel and negative branding of its adversaries. The bottom line is that Israel’s security, political and diplomatic echelons must work together, in a unified, synchronized strategic campaign that moves from tactics and response to strategic initiative. The Netanyahu government has taken important steps in this direction. There is still much work to be done."

Where Are the Borders? - Jerold S. Auerbach, algemeiner.com: "Palestinian Authority officials, evidently terrified that talks with Israel might actually lead somewhere, have predictably placed yet another obstacle on the way. They are now claiming that they received a guarantee from Secretary of State Kerry that negotiations over a two-state solution would be based on the 1949 Armistice lines, before they were obliterated during the Six-Day War. Even such a promise, if it exists, would be all but worthless. It blatantly contradicts United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, ratified five months after the war, which set the parameters for future negotiations and agreements between Israel, Arab states, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. According to the Resolution, 'the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' required 'withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict' – but not from 'the territories' or 'all the territories.'


The absence of 'the,' the famous missing definite article, was neither an accident nor an afterthought. It resulted from what American Undersecretary for Political Affairs Eugene V. Rostow, who played a major role in drafting Resolution 242, described as more than five months of 'vehement public diplomacy' to decisively clarify its meaning. Rostow correctly asserted that according to international law 'the Jewish right of settlement west of the Jordan River' was 'unassailable.' ... Unless Secretary Kerry unilaterally decided to unravel Resolution 242, which he is not empowered to do, Israel retains the international assurance that any eventual withdrawal from 'occupied territory' need not be total." Image with caption: Unless Secretary Kerry unilaterally decided to unravel Resolution 242, which he is not empowered to do, Israel retains the international assurance that any eventual withdrawal from “occupied territory” need not be total. Image from article, with caption: A neighbourhood in Ariel, Israel.

Iranian Conservatists are Angry at FM's Media Diplomacy: Tweet Diplomacy No Substitute for Ahmadinejad's Courage - Firoozeh Matin, Rooz Online: "The continued presence of Iran's new Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif on Facebook and Twitter, the latest encounter involving well-wishes to the Jews on Rosh Hashanah ... has received wide international coverage. ... Hyper reactions to Zarif's exchanges on Facebook heightened when the foreign minister personally responded to Christine Pelosi's remark that the Jewish 'New Year would be sweeter if ... Iran ended its Holocaust denial' by responding that Iran had never


denied the Holocaust and that the man who had denied it was gone. ... Raja news agency - associated with supporters of Ahmadinejad - for example called Zarif's response 'disgraceful.' It wrote, 'While those individuals who judge and interpret public diplomacy with such events as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at New York's Columbia University, and the great wave it produced across the world, are now disappointed to see the level of events drop to such low dimensions as messages on Tweeter, but it appears that this Tweeter event has fully pre-occupied the foreign minister and his associates, so that if they called Ahmadinejad's great and global action 'populism', what shall this humiliating Tweeter event be called?'" Image from entry

Iran: Senior officials join Facebook, Twitter - Michael Purcell, scotsman.com: "Iran’s entire 15-member cabinet has opened Facebook pages in recent weeks. Spearheading the cyber charm offensive has been US-educated foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who used his new English-language Twitter account last week to wish Jews a happy new year and to proclaim that his country did not deny the Holocaust. A day earlier, president Hassan Rouhani appeared to issue a tweet wishing 'all Jews' a 'blessed' new year on the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Yesterday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put on his Facebook page unexpected praise for French novelist Victor Hugo’s most famous work. 'Les Miserables is a miracle in the world of novel writing, in the world of book writing; it is really a miracle … I recommend all young people to read it once,' he wrote, in comments translated into English.


Ayatollah Khamenei’s love of western literature is known, but he has not previously aired his views to a global audience. Iran’s public diplomacy drive is preparing the ground for key events. Tehran is due in coming weeks to resume high-stakes talks on its nuclear programme with six world powers, including the United States. Mr Rouhani, who is regarded as a moderate pragmatist, has transferred the handling of those negotiations to Mr Zarif’s foreign ministry, taking the portfolio away from hardline security officials. And later this month, Mr Rouhani will make his debut on the international stage when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The Jewish new year greetings were clearly aimed at distancing his administration from that of his pugnacious predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose reckless denials of the Holocaust made him toxic to western public opinion, tarnished Iran’s image abroad, fuelled fears over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and embarrassed many Iranians." Image from article, with caption: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif took to Twitter to reach out to Jews around the world.See also.

20th anniversary of Indo-Russian Friendship Treaty observed in Delhi: The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed by Russia and India on January 3, 1993 - Russia and India Report: "On September 9, the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in New Delhi (RCSC) jointly with the Indian Association of Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Russian Embassy in India held a seminar titled 'Russian-Indian Relations: Achievements and Perspectives,' which was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Russia and India.


The programme’s participants included Indian diplomats, political scientists and representatives of socio-political and scientific communities from different regions of India, including Delhi, Punjab and Kashmir. ... The participants ... discussed increasing Russian investments to India, strengthening of the public diplomacy and the encouraging growth in the number of Indian students going to study in Russian universities. The panelists, however, agreed that the potential of the Russian-Indian privileged strategic partnership in these areas is far from exhausted, and the two countries should continue to exert concerted efforts for their further sustainable development." Image from entry, with caption: Speech by Mr. Kanwal Sibal.

German elections: don’t mention the EU - Rainer Wend, "A new ‘European Public Diplomacy’ could spur a dialogue with German civil society beyond the borders of the member States."

Johuiyong metabolism, Canada official visit to the eastern region [Google "translation"] - dongponews.net: "Johuiyong (photo) 2013, and Ambassador to Canada - "Cave and the 50th anniversary of the Korean War, the 60th anniversary of a power failure ('Year of Korea in Canada, Year of the Korean War Veteran') comes on the occasion of 12 to 19 PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, including an official visit to three weeks in eastern Canada, for the Korean War Veterans delivery company with one-caching relations between


the two countries is expected to discuss development plans. ... Opportunity to visit eastern Canada, Ambassador Joe has a meeting with the local Korean Association of Personnel, and the Korean War, the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations 60 anniversary of a power failure while sharing the special meaning this year, one-way cache relations will be exchanged views on. ... In addition, Ambassador Joe geumbeon visit eastern Canada during the Canadian college students, opinion leaders and the general Canadian citizens targeting '2013 Year of Korea in Canada; A path toward a Strategic Partnership' one unloading-cache status and prospects for relations between the two countries to lecture By doing Canada for the development of bilateral relations, support and cooperation of the general public to encourage active Public Diplomacy activities will be carried out." Uncaptioned image from entry

Foreign Office journals speed up the "going out" 8 Languages ​​9 Chinese version to achieve localization [Google "translation"] - news.china.com.cn: "'Public Diplomacy Quarterly': Quarterly, Chinese. June 2013 publication. Chinese version, the English name for the Public Diplomacy Quarterly. Folio of 16, page number 134. Expected circulation of 10,000 / issue. Aims to promote the development of public diplomacy, serving China's overall diplomatic strategy."

Uzbekistan, China Aim for New Horizons of Strategic Partnership- uza.uz: "As it was reported earlier, at the invitation of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping arrived in our country on September 8 with state visit. ... Relations in culture, science and technologies have been actively advancing between our two countries. The first monument to the representative of the Uzbek culture – the great miniature artist Kamoliddin Behzod was opened in China in 2003 in the city of Chanchun of the Jilin province within the frameworks of the 6th Forum of World Sculpture.


The Uzbekistan-China Friendship Society and the PRC-Central Asian Countries Friendship Society have been instrumental in advancing mutual contacts. On 15 May 2013, the city of Shanghai hosted the opening ceremony of China’s first Center for the Study of Uzbekistan and the education exchanges at the base of the Public Diplomacy Research Institute of SCO at Shanghai University." Uncaptioned image from article

‘s [sic] diplomacy closely around the central task of the Party and the state - webcoms.nevadastateblog.org: "China successfully held the third meeting of the leaders of the BRIC countries, BRIC to further strengthen coordination and cooperation between countries. We focus on 'second five' planning and implementation, the 90th anniversary of the 100th anniversary of Revolution and other major activities, carry out public diplomacy, to show the world China’s determination to take the road of peaceful development and sincerity, sing the bright prospects of China’s development. Three prospects in 2012, the growth and decline of international forces, changes in the international system to adjust, international relations, interaction will run commenced at a deeper level, peace, development and cooperation, the trend will be more robust."

Bonaire, WWII, Netherlands Information Bureau, Philip Hanson Hiss, (I), 1942-1943 - globedivers.org: "The establishment of the Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB) in June 1941 relates to the notion of public diplomacy as a wartime necessity as explained by David Snyder in 'Dutch Cultural Policy in the United States. ... The connection with the Netherlands East Indies


was especially valuable to the NIB as this territory played an important role in the public diplomacy of the early years of the war, because of the strategic importance of the Indies’ location." Image from entry

The Age of Phantom Diplomacy - thinkingdice.wordpress.com: "Dear Reader, Greetings and Good Day, '…in the newly minted 'field' of public diplomacy– a hybrid 'discipline' that draws upon the social sciences, journalism, foreign language and cultural expertise.Public diplomacy is foremost a skill, like it or not, that is most effectively learned from practitioners and best acquired on the job'. It is unprecedented in international affairs to witness such a velocity in current diplomatic happenings. Perhaps we should call it the Age of phantom diplomacy. Can this rapidly evolving international diplomatic climate represent a promise for a political platform in Syria or it will pave the way for military escalation?"

Public diplomacy vital - iipmeducation.wordpress.com: "[F]oreign policy is not merely aimed at the government and elite sections of another nation-state but also at its people and the larger sections of its civil society. Public diplomacy has gained critical importance since it relies on the use of soft power to covertly influence significant sections of foreign population in order to enhance the impact of hard power if ever required during times of confrontation. ... [T]he more participatory nature of foreign policy has given space for the media to emerge as a powerful and influential player. Today, nation-states are using the media as a platform to indulge in information warfare which is intrinsically linked to public diplomacy. The state is also being thrust increasingly under the spotlight while making decisions which has put it under immense pressure and prone to making mistakes."

Ethiopia: Annual Diplomats' Conference Concludes - allafrica.com: "[T]he conference ... set a direction to deploy strong public diplomacy constituting: elite, media personnel, authors and other artists for the current year."

Beirut, France and the History of Cultural Relations - Robin, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence: "Lebanon, and the Levant more broadly, is the founding site of modern cultural relations work."

Unrest causes St. James native to return from Cairo: St. James grad worked in Yemen, Egypt - Amanda Dyslin, mankatofreepress.com: "Matthew Kuehl isn't sure where his fascination with the Middle East and northern Africa came from. ... [F]or the past eight years, Kuehl worked for university programs in Yemen and Cairo. But recently, the ongoing unrest in Egypt led to the cancellation of his program for fall and spring semesters at America-Mideast Educational and Training Services Inc. in Cairo. (AMIDEAST is a private American nonprofit organization engaged in international education, training and development assistance work.) ... [I]n the majority of the city of 20 million people, Kuehl


said Americans are welcomed. For eight years, what he enjoyed most was the public diplomacy aspect of his job, he said — having those meaningful conversation with students and Egyptians that help show the complexity and depth of both cultures." Image from article, with caption: John Cross Matthew Kuehl, a St. James native, worked the past eight years for university programs in Yemen and Egypt. The ongoing unrest in Egypt resulted in the cancellation of his program for this year.

Obama Announces His Intent to Nominate Esther Kia’aina as DOI Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas - pacificnewscenter.com: "READ the release from the White House below: ... President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts . ... Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, Nominee for Alternate Representative of the United States to the Sixty-eighth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations [.] Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley is a Special Adviser at the Department of State. From 2010 to 2012, she served as Special Representative for Public-Private Partnerships in the Global Partnership Initiative at the Department of State. From 2008 to 2011, Ambassador Bagley was a Member on the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy."

RELATED ITEMS

The world now has a chance to end war in Syria - Jimmy Carter, Washington Post: The only way to be assured that Syrian chemical weapons will not be used in the future is not through a military strike but through a successful international effort. If fully implemented in dozens of sites throughout Syria, the effort to secure the chemical weapons would amount to a cease-fire, with a large U.N. peacekeeping force deployed. In the best of circumstances, this could lead to convening the Geneva peace conference, perhaps including Iran, that could end the conflict.

Obama lifted his Syria speech from Bush - Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post: If Bush was so bad, then why did Obama lift so much of his speech making the case for military action in Syria from Bush’s speech making the case for military action in Iraq?

Obama argues stronger Syria case, belatedly: Tuesday's speech, hastily rewritten to reflect fast-moving diplomatic developments, is better viewed as a fresh starting point - Editorial, USA Today: If Obama's so-far unsteady Syria policy causes concern — and it should — a wary public should at least find some comfort in his ambivalence. Unlike George W. Bush or Lyndon Johnson, who were hungry to go war, there seems no doubt that Obama wants to avoid one. Ironically, he's most likely to attain that goal only if he can make the threat.

Nice try, Mr. President, but no sale on Syria - Matt Miller, Washington Post: Putin may have bought the president the breather he craves. But between the long-running box he’s now put himself in on Syria, and the prospect of the White House botching another debt ceiling showdown just ahead, the president’s authority in his second term is in danger of collapse .

The Speech - Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: He should have canceled the speech. It was halfhearted, pro forma and strange. It added nothing, did not deepen or advance the story, was not equal to the atmosphere surrounding it, and gave no arguments John Kerry hasn’t made, often more forcefully, in the past 10 days. Image from


A Child’s Treasury of Tweets on Syria - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: The policy on Syria is in such disarray that it’s obvious Kerry is just making things up as he goes along. Pathetic: Susan Rice citing Bush officials who sold the WMD scam to Americans on Iraq as supporters of Syria strikes. Obama in Egypt: OK to kill your own people. Obama in Syria: Killing your own people means war. UN says will take weeks to analyze Syria samples for evidence of chem weapons; Kerry says US already has proof.

A clearer sense on the mission in Syria is still missing - Stephen Stromberg, Washington Post: Obama wants to make it clear that mass murderers will pay a price for extreme brutality, even if America can’t respond to every outrage across the planet. But we should also have a clearer sense of how the United States will approach the larger Syrian conflict, which had already resulted in 100,000 deaths before the latest gas attacks, along with an explanation of whether and why it matters to the United States, morally or strategically.

Five reasons not to attack Syria, and one elegant solution - Doyle McManus, latimes.com: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed putting Syria’s chemical weapons under international control and then destroying them. Now that would be an elegant solution to the Syrian crisis.

Chemical weapons deal may end up strengthening Assad - Jim Michaels, USA Today: A deal allowing Bashar Assad to surrender Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles runs the risk of extending his stay in power and undercutting support of rebels who have been fighting his regime with U.S. support, some analysts say.

On the eve of 9/11, team Obama blinks while Putin strengthens his hand - Charles Ortel, Washington Times: One year following triumphant shouts of progress in America, tumult reigns throughout the Middle East. Across the region and throughout the world, a power chasm yawns as Russia advances and America retreats.

Obama administration uses grotesque images to sell Syria strike - Ben Wolfgang, Washington Times: In selling a strike against Syria to a skeptical American public, top administration officials repeatedly have evoked the chilling videos and images from the aftermath of the deadly Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus. During his prime-time address to the nation Tuesday night, President Obama became the latest to use that strategy, actively encouraging Americans to view the gruesome footage of dead children, killed by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.


U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made a similar case during remarks last Friday at the Center for American Progress. “We share the deep conviction that chemical weapons are barbaric, that we should never again see children killed in their beds, lost to a world that they never had the chance to try to change,” she said. Image from, with headline: b-activists: Where is the “Napalm girl” that was burned in South Vietnam 37 years ago?

Stumbling toward a solution on Syria - Editorial, Washington Post: The president’s approach to Syria remains muddled.

Kerry’s not-so-clear sailing on Syria - Dana Millbank, Washington Post: The administration has lost control of the Syria situation and is now watching developments much like everybody else.

The Syrian deus ex machina - David Ignatius, Washington Post: Obama, Kerry and the Russians have been talking about control of Syrian chemical weapons for many months.

The road to Damascus: Obama needs to weigh Syria's offer on its chemical weapons, even as he presents evidence of Assad's wrongdoing - Editorial, latimes.com: Obama will presumably continue his struggle to build support for a military strike, a plan that has divided the country and that faces an uphill climb in Congress. But this much is certain: The president will be more successful in that appeal if the government makes public the evidence it says it has amassed showing that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb last month that killed hundreds of civilians. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said over the weekend that the attribution of the attack to Assad passed the "common-sense test." But that won't be enough for many Americans who remember how the U.S. invaded Iraq a decade ago on the flawed assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. See also John Brown, "The Common-sense test," Notes and Essays

Obama Rescues Assad: The President lets Putin outmaneuver him on Syrian chemical arms - Review and Outlook, Wall Street Journal: What could be worse for America's standing in the world than a Congress refusing to support a President's proposal for military action against a rogue regime that used WMD? Here's one idea: A U.S. President letting that rogue be rescued from military punishment by the country that has protected the rogue all along.


That's where President Obama now finds himself on Syria after he embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to take custody of Bashar Assad's chemical weapons. What a fiasco. See also John Brown, "Kerry and the State Department." Image from entry

Putin's diplomacy overshadows Obama's Syrian war cry - Thomas Mullen, Washington Times: Why was it Russia that proposed a diplomatic solution, while the Nobel Peace Prize-winning U.S. president would consider nothing but war?

Making Sense of Syria - Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: The president has backed away from a military strike in Syria. But he can’t acknowledge this or act as if it is true. He is acting and talking as if he’s coolly, analytically, even warily contemplating the Russian proposal and the Syrian response. The proposal, he must know, is absurd. Bashar Assad isn’t going to give up all his hidden weapons in wartime, in the middle of a conflict so bitter and severe that his forces this morning reportedly bombed parts of Damascus, the city in which he lives.

The Syria speech Obama should have made - Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: President Obama was most convincing tonight when he made the moral argument for a strike on Syria. He was least convincing when he claimed an attack would involve “modest effort and risk.”

Threaten to Threaten - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times: It is impossible to imagine a solution to the conflict in Syria without some outside force putting boots on the ground.

Finally, Obama gives a reason to take action in Syria - Richard Cohen, Washington Post: Did Obama warn Bashar al-Assad that American would hold him accountable for what he was about to do? Did he say that America would blow the Syrian military sky high? If Obama said any of those things he did not mention it tonight. Instead, he confessed to be a witness to crime -- mute, inert and morally culpable. It has taken this president too long to understand that evil must be dealt with.

Obama’s Syria speech: An illogical argument from a paralyzed president - Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: By throwing the ball to Congress and then to Russia, Obama has effectively taken the use of force off the table, letting the Russians and Assad set the ground rules. From a moral and geopolitical standpoint, this is a debacle that will extend throughout the Middle East and beyond.

America’s Not-Always-Disastrous Middle East Record - Ross Doubthat, New York Times: There is a lot of wisdom in the anti-interventionist idea that we have more to gain by letting some of the region’s ongoing conflicts — Shi’a versus Sunni, Assad versus Islamists, Egypt’s generals versus the Muslim Brotherhood — play themselves out rather than pushing money and arms hither and yon in pursuit of an illusory sense of mastery.

The Cuban missile crisis’s lessons for Syria, and Obama - Michael Dobbs, Washington Post: The most useful lesson that our current president could draw from the Cuban missile crisis would be to emulate Kennedy in slowing down the seemingly inexorable rush to war.

Paris through a Nazi's lens: Propaganda pictures of Occupied France taken by photographer ordered to prove city was thriving under German rule - Becky Evans, dailymail.co.uk: Andre Zucca's images of Paris in the Second World War have remained controversial; they appear to show Parisians carefree and jubilant under Nazi occupation and Vichy rule; photojournalist took images of fashionable women, smiling soldiers and happy families in the capital. Images:





AMERICANA

Top 1% take biggest income slice on record  - Matt Krantz, USA Today: The gulf between the richest 1% of the USA and the rest of the country got to its widest level in history last year. The top 1% of earners in the U.S. pulled in 19.3% of total household income in 2012, which is their biggest slice of total income in more than 100 years, according to a an analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics at Oxford University.

MORE AMERICANA

Pizzaburger gives new meaning to eating American - Bruce Horovitz, USA Today: Two American favorites — pizza and burgers — are being rolled into one for a wacky sandwich


that's giving one casual dining chain -- Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar's 40 U.S. locations -- a sales boost. Image from article

AND MORE AMERICANA


Photos of New York City politicians Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer from "Double Loss For Frowny Sucked-In Lips Face," Princess Sparkle Pony's Photoblog; see also Cheryl K. Chumley, "Anthony Weiner exits NYC mayoral race with middle finger to crowd," Washington Times

SEXUALITY

Size matters? Testicle size linked to nurturing: Men with smaller testicles are more involved in bringing up their children, a study finds - John Bacon, USA TODAY: Some researchers question the study's findings. Abass Alavi, a researcher with the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN that size doesn't even determine how much sperm is being created. "What is important is how much sperm the testicle is making," he said. "Some geniuses have very small brains."Beirut, France and the History of Cultural Relations

"Is eradicating terrorism more difficult or less difficult than making a newsweekly profitable in 2013?"

--Juli Weiner, "Obama White House on Hiring Spree," Vanity Fair, noting that "The White House has confirmed that Obama has tapped Rick Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine since 2006, to serve as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, a job that involves 'communications with international audiences, cultural programming, academic grants, educational exchanges, international visitor programs, and U.S. Government efforts to confront ideological support for terrorism'”; Stengel image from

LATE NIGHT POLITICAL HUMOR (via Bulletin News, LLC)

Jimmy Fallon: “Putin said it’s dangerous for Americans to see themselves as exceptional, and said that, quote, ‘God created us equal.’ Then, he got back to arresting people for being gay.” Image from



Stephen Colbert: “Thinking are you exceptional is not extremely dangerous. It’s exceptionally dangerous. Folks, I was on the fence before this, but now it’s clear we’ve got to bomb Syria. I mean, massive air strikes. And just to stick it to Putin, I say we use lesbian pilots flying the Enola Gay.”

VIDEO

US conservatives smitten with virile Putin - Rachel Maddow, video.msnbc.msn.com: "Rachel Maddow reviews the unabashed gushing American conservatives are doing over Russian President Vladimir Putin, who so reinforces their disdain for President Obama that they're apparently willing to overlook the fact that he's the president of Russia." Via MP

Ron Paul: Intel Briefings ‘Propaganda Tool’ - freebeacon.com: "September 9, 2013 7:50 am During an interview Sunday night on Al Jazeera America, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul called Congressional intelligence briefings nothing but a propaganda tool. Paul went on to say that after a couple years he just stopped going to the intelligence briefings."

EVENT

Freedom Theatre from Jenin Refugee Camp, Palestine, Gives Historic Performance of “The Island” Sept. 16-17 at Georgetown University as Part of its Inaugural U.S. Tour - "Following sold-out performances at its community-based theatre and cultural center in Jenin Refugee Camp, Palestine, Freedom Theatre will perform THE ISLAND Monday and Tuesday, September 16 and 17 at 7:30 p.m. at Georgetown University as part of its inaugural U.S. tour. This historic event is presented by the Davis Performing Arts Center in partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, a collaborative initiative between the Theater and Performance Studies Program and the School of Foreign Service. Each performance will be followed by discussions with the artists and leading policymakers/officials." Via CS

PHOTOESSAY


What Vladimir Vladimirovich does not realize about God ... - John Brown, Notes and Essays; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

The Road from Benghazi - Mieczysław Boduszyński, project-syndicate.org:  "Last year, on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, an assault on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, led to the deaths of four American diplomats, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The attack, which caused the US government to cancel public-diplomacy programs, evacuate offices, and tighten security substantially, was a massive setback for American diplomatic efforts in Libya. At the time, I was the public affairs officer at the US embassy in Tripoli, responsible for strengthening US-Libyan ties, which were minimal, at best, during Muammar el-Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. Libya’s new government allowed me access to civil-society actors – including journalists, academics, writers, activists, and representatives of minority groups – who were off limits to US diplomats under Qaddafi’s regime. These interactions revealed that most Libyans hold positive views of the US, owing to America’s support for Libya’s 2011 revolution. Given this, the US seemed to have a tremendous opportunity to build strong bilateral ties, nurture robust people-to-people connections, reduce the appeal of extremism, and contribute to capacity-building in many areas, including security. After the Benghazi attacks, I grieved not only for my fallen colleagues, but also for the loss of the chance to deepen a relationship that had, in Qaddafi’s final years, consisted mainly of counterterrorism efforts, limited commercial relations, and historical issues, such as the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.


Stevens, who championed a more comprehensive approach, would have been devastated to witness the fortress that the US embassy became after his death. To be sure, tightening security and reducing the scope of public-diplomacy efforts was the right move in the wake of the Benghazi attacks. But, as time has passed, it has become increasingly apparent that US politics is paralyzing diplomatic operations in Libya as much as security concerns are. ...While Libya’s current security situation, circumscribed by institutional paralysis and societal confusion, is undoubtedly worrying, it should not obscure the efforts of countless Libyans to build a new Libya. They want desperately to connect with America, but they are being given remarkably few opportunities to do so. For example, my interviews with Libyan professors applying for Fulbright grants to study at US universities underscored how limited the linkages between American and Libyan scholars and institutions were. Qaddafi’s government largely neglected Libya’s universities, depriving faculty of the kinds of international contacts and collaboration that are central to academic life. As Ethan Chorin recently highlighted, although Esso (Exxon) fellowships enabled hundreds of Libyans – many of whom went on to play integral roles in the 2003-2007 US-Libya rapprochement – to study in the US in the late 1970’s and 1980’s, such programs were shuttered through the early 2000’s. Ultimately, almost all contact between Libya and the US was cut off, depriving an entire generation of the opportunity to cultivate people-to-people exchanges. Changing this will require significant political will, greater diplomatic engagement, and a stronger policy focus. But restoring US-Libya ties cannot be left only to government; universities, foundations, and other organizations must also do some heavy lifting. One promising initiative (in which I am involved) aims to establish an American Institute of Maghreb Studies in Libya – similar to existing institutions in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia – that would facilitate the kinds of institutional and scholarly exchanges that are the hallmark of US public-diplomacy efforts." See also. Putative image of Ambassador Stevens from, with caption: Final moments of Chris Stevens, Us ambassador to Libya. He died of wounds after mob and Islamist attacked U[S] embassy in Benghazi with rocket launchersFinal moments of Chris Stevens, Us ambassador to Libya. He died of wounds after mob and Islamist attacked U[s] embassy in Benghazi with rocket launchers.

Rick Stengel Is at Least the 21st Journalist to Work for the Obama Administration - Elespeth Reeve, theatlanticwire.com: "Time managing editor Rick Stengel (pictured above) is leaving journalism


to go work for the State Department, making him at least the ... 21st reporter to go to work for the Obama administration. Stengel will be the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Politico and Capital New York report. The last high-profile journalist to leave Time for the Obama administration is Jay Carney, who is currently White House press secretary. [Note: Articles lists journalists-turned-bureaucrats]. Stengel image from article. See also (1) (2) (3) (4).

From Time to State PR: A Big Jump? - Peter Hart, fair.org:  "The latest media-politics revolving door news is that Time managing editor Richard Stengel is leaving the magazine and heading over to the State Department to be the new undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs. That’s PR–or maybe propaganda, if you prefer that term. It makes news when journalists jump into politics, and it seems like many have done so during the Obama administration. (Cue the usual noise about this proving liberal media bias!) But it’s worth asking whether this is as big a jump as it might seem; one can, after all, serve U.S. foreign policy interests while editing a national political magazine. Back in 2010, the WikiLeaks cables about the Afghan War served to portray a conflict that was in far more trouble than the U.S. government was willing to admit publicly. So at that very critical moment, Stengel’s magazine put a dramatic image


on the cover: A young woman who was brutalized, as the cover text told readers, 'on orders from the Taliban.' And the cover headline sent the intended message: 'What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan.' ... In the magazine, Stengel wrote that the cover story explained 'how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban.' ... Responding to the WikiLeaks disclosures about the war by highlighting atrocities allegedly linked to the Taliban, and wrapping that around a call to prolong the U.S. military occupation, is less like journalism and more like propaganda. Which is the job Stengel’s taking now–formally." Image from entry. Headline from AConservativeEdge citing above theatlanticwire.com piece: "21st Journalist to Join Incestuous Orgy With Obama Administration."

Obama-Lover Gets Government Job! - rabidrepublicanblog.com: "He spent over 7 years brainwashing you. Now he’ll be John Kerry’s State Department PR guy. Richard Stengel spent the last seven years as top Editor at Time Magazine– picking Obama as ‘Person of the Year’.


He worked hard to shape public opinion – none of that old-fashioned honest journalism for him! Now – with Time’s revenue and circulation [3.2 mil] dwindling – his new job will be UnderSecState for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, i.e. Kerry’s other script-writer…" Image from entry

Richard Stengel leaving Time for State Department - Joe Pompeo and Dylan Byers, Politico: "Richard Stengel, the top editor of Time magazine for the past seven years, is planning to step down as managing editor for a new job at the U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with the situation tell POLITICO and Capital New York. If confirmed, Stengel will serve as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the role responsible for leading 'America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences, cultural programming, academic grants, educational exchanges, international visitor programs, and U.S. Government efforts to confront


ideological support for terrorism,' according to the State Department’s website. ... At the State Department, Stengel will find himself in the company of other veteran journalists. Last week, as first reported by The Huffington Post, the White House announced that Douglas Frantz, late of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, has been named the State Department’s assistant secretary for public affairs. Glen Johnson, formerly The Boston’s Globe’s political editor, took a position as a senior state department advisor earlier this year. Tara Sonenshine, who was the previous undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, left the post in July after a little more than a year. Ann Stock has been in the role in an interim capacity." Image from article, with caption: Stengel’s title will be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Via LJB

Richard Stengel to Leave Time for the Obama Administration - Christine Haughney, New York Times: "Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time magazine, is leaving to become under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State Department, according to people with knowledge of the appointment. Mr. Stengel succeeds Tara Sonenshine, who held the post with Secretaries of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry before leaving in July. Before that, the position was occupied by Judith A. McHale, a former chief executive of Discovery Communications, who worked under Mrs. Clinton and left the position in 2011. Mr. Stengel has said that his deputy editor, Nancy Gibbs, would succeed him.


Daniel Kile, a spokesman for Time, declined to comment about either job move. Mr. Stengel became Time’s 16th managing editor in 2006, after serving as a writer who covered the 1988 and 1996 presidential campaigns. He got a glimpse of the responsibilities that are to come when he traveled with Secretary Clinton to the Middle East in 2012." Via JD on Facebook. Comment on Facebook re this article: "Richard Hoagland [:] What's really needed is a total re-imagining of the public diplomacy function. While it still does good work, it continues to drift toward the Peace Corps end of the spectrum. Part of the ill-handled integration of USIA into State." See also (1) (2)(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17). Image from, with caption: Transition: Here's where we moved from one party to the next, thanks to Rick Stengel, who briefly played camp counselor, figuring out who needed a ride and then sending a few ahead in Ron Silver's SUV. See those sunglasses in the background? We're not saying he put them on and wore them around for the rest of the night, refusing to take them off and insisting that everyone call him "The Ricker," but we're not saying he didn't.

R Episode VIII: A Tale of “Time” | Public Diplomacy - Matthew Wallin,  - americansecurityproject.org: "Charged with leading America’s efforts to 'inform, influence, and engage' foreign publics in support of foreign policy objectives, the Under Secretary position comes with its set of challenges. Issues of audience reach, effectiveness, and State Department bureaucracy have continuously faced those taking the reins of U.S.public diplomacy."

Mahtab Farid - Facebook: "Is being a well connected Time's magazine editor to the senior officials in DC enough to run our country's public diplomacy efforts? Richard Stengel has been nominated to do this prominent job. He has not worked in government, or served as a civilian or a solider. Doesn't speak a foreign language. Doesn't have any cultural or international experience, except to travel to South Africa to help write Mandela's bio and followed Hillary Clinton to a few countries so he can write a story. Why can't we have a seasoned foreign service diplomat or experienced individuals with more international knowledge to lead this effort? Public diplomacy happens oversees not in Washington..."

A Passion for Service - James Costos, Huffington Post: "This post contains the statement of James Costos, Ambassador Designate to Spain and Andorra, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 25, 2013 in Washington, DC, followed by Ambassador Designate


Costos' August 22nd swearing-in ceremony remarks. ... [Costos"]If confirmed, I look forward to relying on my extensive business experiences to encourage more commerce between Spain and the United States. With the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations just beginning, I will work with Spain to move these free trade negotiations forward by meeting and listening to the concerns of government officials and the Spanish people, traveling the country to raise awareness about the economic benefits of this agreement, and use traditional and social media to engage in public diplomacy on America's behalf." Costos image from entry

A Global Venture to Counter Violent Extremism: Policy Innovation Memorandum No. 37 - Ed Husain, cfr.org: "A global venture that identifies and funds counterradicalization projects in strategically important countries would be a first step in reversing the grip of the al-Qaeda narrative. Worthy efforts have been undertaken in the past, such as the State Department's public diplomacy initiatives and the appointment of a U.S. special representative to Muslim communities, but they have come up short by failing to address the ongoing funding crisis among anti-extremism organizations. A global venture, however, would build on existing efforts and financially strengthen Muslim civil society against extremism. The money to seed this project should come from a wide variety of individuals, organizations, and governments that share an interest in countering extremism. Public and private funding is readily available in Turkey and Gulf countries, from Muslim American communities, and from Western development and philanthropic organizations. Rooting this venture in a diverse network of partners would bolster the program's appeal while heading off the al-Qaeda allegation that it is an American plot."

Ambassador Eklil Hakimi welcomes career Afghan diplomats participating in training program- embassyofafghanistan.org: "Afghan Ambassador Eklil Hakimi welcomed 13 career Afghan‬ diplomats to Washington this week as they began an extensive, two-week long, multi-nation training program sponsored by a partnership between the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. Department of State, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Hakimi, along with U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador James Dobbins and Chinese Charge d’Affaires Lu Kang, welcomed the group at a reception at the State Department Monday morning. 'With a strong trilateral relationship supporting the Afghan Diplomat Training Program, we can better prepare young diplomats to take on these important areas of development and become agents of real and lasting change at home and abroad,' said Ambassador Hakimi.


'This program is the first step toward comprehensive trilateral cooperation. It will be followed by similar programs in the agriculture and health sectors.' Thursday evening, Ambassador Hakimi and Embassy staff invited the early-career diplomats and the program coordinators from Meridian International and the U.S. State Department to the Embassy for a formal dinner to celebrate their accomplishments and discuss the opportunities afforded by this important program." Image from entry, with caption: Ambassador Hakimi stands with the Afghan diplomats participating in the training program in his office that the embassy after talking with them for some time. Via JJ on Facebook

Bloated Bureaucracy - BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com: "Two recent articles posted on the website of the Broadcasting Board of Governors’s (BBG) employee union, AFGE Local 1812, pointedly describe the management  crisis and its causes at the federal agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasting. The first article, re-posted here, is titled 'Bloated Bureaucracy,' and is based on investigative reporting by BBG Watch. The AFGE Local 1812 article shows how the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) has expanded its executive and bureaucratic ranks while eliminating news programs and language services. The second article, titled 'A New Campaign of Truth,' shows how IBB management is failing in its mission to deliver news from the United States and from countries without free media to international audiences."

Are you learning English from BBC Learning English or from VOA Learning English? - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting:  "VOA's Special English has changed its name to VOA Learning English. So now we have two major international broadcasting organizations with a product called 'Learning English.'" See BBC Learning English and VOA Learning English.”

RT (Russia Today) "is a never-ending, forever-repeating documentation of the American tragedy" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Putin's PR blitz - win or lose? - Tara Sonenshine, CNN: "All this excitement over recent Russian public diplomacy on Syria is a bit odd to those of us who have been following that diplomacy strategy for over a decade. That Vladimir Putin chose to write an op-ed in The New York Times this week is not at all shocking. It is part of a broader pattern of Russian outreach that began in 2001. What confuses people about Russian public diplomacy is that it often veers from a closed fist approach to an open handshake depending on its narrow objective -- all the while testing America as it seeks to build its own popularity around the world. Since the end of the 1990s the Russians have been aware that America and other nations see a weakened former Soviet empire behaving badly in the world, and they have sought to correct that perception beginning with the hiring of an American public relations firm back in 2006, which generated interest at the time. For years the Russians have worried about how they are portrayed in American media, about Hollywood's depiction of Russians as mobsters and thugs, for example. Scholars of Russia have written often about Russia's near-obsession with its place in the world, including a fixation on polls -- like Gallup's -- about Russia's popularity with the outside world. Over the years, Russian officials have looked for opportunities in the media to portray Russia as helpful and constructive -- even when it was not. They attempted to use Russian television, and later the Internet, to brandish a better image in the West -- creating a news agency, RIA (The Russian Agency for International Information) which operates 80 news bureaus around the world and Russia Today which boasts a following of 630 million people in over 100 countries.


The Russians are also fans of inserting newspaper supplements of Russia Today in American newspapers just to remind readers of their relevance. Let's face it. Russia remains relevant but its image in the world has suffered throughout the last decade, for good reason. ... [L]et's not forget Russia's hosting of NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Russia often finds itself in the odd situation of doing negative things and trying to get positive press. It cracks down on dissidents one day but then bids for the Olympics the next. It woos the United States and then bashes it. And then its leader writes an op-ed. ... For Americans, there is something emotional about Russia. It inevitably evokes fear and fascination in the United States and the West perhaps because of its long and complex history, its culture, and memories of Cold War days when so much time, effort and money was spent defending ourselves against the Soviet Union. Russia's latest attempt to win hearts and minds is intriguing and is likely to be effective if the result is some kind of interim deal over chemical weapons. ... If the diplomacy fails, and the U.S. decides to strike Syria, Russia will lay the blame for any damage on America. So either way, the gamble makes sense from Putin's view." Image from article, with caption: Russia's President Vladimir Putin is a popular but polarizing figure who has dominated Russian politics for more than a decade. Image from article

Obama, Kerry, Hagel: Why Antiwar Hopefuls Make War - Daniel McCarthy, theamericanconservative.com: "Even Putin is now teaching us a lesson about the power of diplomacy—including public diplomacy in his New York Times piece—that we would do well to learn. American diplomacy has long been reduced to an adjunct to our coercive power, used too often to make excuses for a policy defined by the cruise missile. That has to change, for strategic reasons as much as moral ones. But it will take time."

Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked - Max Fisher, washingtonpost.com: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has an op-ed in today's New York Times urging President Obama not to strike Syria. It's a fascinating document -- a very Russian perspective translated into American vernacular, an act of public diplomacy aimed at the American public and the latest chess move in the U.S.-Russia standoff over Syria, one in which we the readers are implicated. Putin does make a number of valid and even compelling points, but there is an undeniable hypocrisy and even some moments of dishonesty between the lines."

Is it possible that Putin wrote the New York Times op-ed himself?- Max Fisher, washingtonpost.com: "A spokesman for Ketchum, the public relations firm that helped place Russian President Vladimir Putin's op-ed in Thursday's New York Times, tells Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray that Putin wrote it himself. On its face, that obviously sounds pretty implausible. Putin is very busy running one of the world's largest countries. Even if he did have spare time to craft carefully worded op-eds, his English is good but not that good. And even one of the world's more narcissistic heads of state is unlikely to take a step this high-stakes without bringing in the Kremlin communications/propaganda staff he surely keeps on hand for precisely such occasions. In any case, the claim that he wrote it also sounds like exactly the sort of thing that a professional PR shop -- one that does a whole lot of business with the Russian government -- is paid to say. Of course we can't know for sure who crafted the op-ed. My immediate reaction was certainly to think: No way would Putin write it; this is an act of public diplomacy and official messaging, and surely he left it to his professionals. Except. Except for one paragraph at the very end that seemed so at odds with the op-ed's diplomatic and political mission -- so likely to irritate Americans rather than persuade them -- that it almost makes me wonder. Here it is: [‘]My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’ It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. [‘] ‘Americans aren’t special’ is a terrible way to persuade Americans to hear you out. But this idea of ‘American exceptionalism’ is a sore point for Putin, exactly the sort of thing he’d struggle to resist poking at." See also.

Putin’s Public Diplomacy Over Syria in the NYT - Stanislav Budnitskiy, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "Putin is no pacifist or impartial peacemaker. Just like Obama, he is a commander-in-chief and head of state, naturally, pursuing a certain geopolitical agenda. It is still encouraging to see him turn into a public diplomat on the pages of The New York Times, hopefully giving diplomacy another chance at a time when 'cases for blowing things up' are prevailing within the U.S. information landscape."

Putin’s Op-ed on Syria: Public Diplomacy without Listening - Matthew Wallin, americansecurityproject.org: "[E]ven without the insulting rhetoric, Putin’s op-ed represents a perfect example of the idea that the message one sends doesn’t matter nearly as much as the message received. Russia can try to paint any narrative it wants about what’s going on in Syria, but so long as it bolsters Assad on the international scene, its actions will matter more than its words. Even though Putin made some points that are sure to appeal to the American public, his focus on trying to criticize the U.S., and being dishonest about the Russian role in the conflict completely deflates his arguments."

Putin's Op-Ed, Syria, and the New World Order - Yelena Osipova, Global Chaos: "Putin came up with yet another idea of giving a piece of his mind to the American public. Directly. This time, in a form of a New York Times op-ed. 'Sovereign' public diplomacy, if you will. Nonetheless, it was a deliberate attempt at trying to make the Russian case to the American public, and weigh in on what seems to be an increasingly sloppy debate in this country. As an attempt at public diplomacy, the op-ed did very little. If anything, it did the exact opposite. The op-ed managed to succeed in getting intense coverage and scrutiny by Americans of every creed and political conviction, most of it -- even when justified -- simply hateful. ... However ... [c]riticizing Americans for this [the problematic exceptionalist stance that Americans hold on to so dearly: the invincible, messianic attitude towards the world, and political affairs especially] is a plain bad move in terms of public diplomacy (whether you look at it in mere propaganda terms, or in terms of actual persuasion and appeal); yet it is a valid one. After all, the US does not exist in a vacuum and the 'rest' (including the aspiring rest) are increasingly making their presence known, too. The fact that Putin states this so bluntly only demonstrates his perception of power: how he sees Russia, Russia's role in the world, as well as that of the US and others."

The West Just Doesn’t Get Putin - Dmitri Trenin, carnegie.ru: "Unfortunately, many Americans rejected Putin’s arguments this week because they have developed a caricatured view of the man making them. Putin may deserve that caricature in some areas, but not in this case. The very fact that a simple op-ed article became the top news item around the globe is a significant achievement for Russia’s president, in his new role as public diplomat in chief." Via RM on Facebook

Syria and true news - buenosairesherald.com: "Russia’s public diplomacy and media mastery showed the country’s Cold War professionalism intact this week. With President Obama busy on a pre-speech TV interview blitzkrieg at home seeking to convince the US public of the important of gunning Syria, Russian diplomats were listening into the cracks of an improvising Secretary of State John Kerry in a press conference in London. Kerry’s line that Syria could avoid being attacked if it turned over its chemical weapons was immediately dismissed as 'a rhetorical argument' by the very State Department, only to be reclaimed as White House policy a few hours later."

The New York Times promotes Putin’s propaganda - Sarah Lee, unitedliberty.org: "In trying to determine something new to say about what’s happening in Syria and how, with his charmingly offensive op-ed in The New York Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin


is essentially trying to do the job of the American President by telling us how we should all view events in the eastern Mediterranean, it became clear to me that what’s potent about these events from a domestic perspective is how they shine a light on something that conservatives and libertarians have long been yelling into the wind: the use of propaganda via media to misinform the public is pervasive and very dangerous. ... [T]he U.S. — while no stranger to persuasion through media — holds at least a different opinion of such blatant bastardization of events and we tend not to present it in our 'papers of record,' preferring at least some modicum of balance from a respectable outlet. Now, since it’s an op-ed, it isn’t held to the journalistic standard of 'fair.' It doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be. And maybe it’s good that Putin’s contempt — veiled though it was — was on full display." Image from entry

Gary Rawnsley - Facebook: "I recently heard a Russia specialist claiming Putin subscribes to the Millwall school of public diplomacy: You hate us, we don't care."

Russian PD by American PR - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "Russia and Ketchum: A reminder of when PD is conducted by PR firms."

Russia's strategy on Syria is about 'public diplomacy' [video: Fox interview] - "Description Amb. Stuart Holliday: Putin is trying to 'reassert' the country's leadership position."

"The proposal is a true diplomatic breakthrough long in the making" - immasmartypants.blogspot.com: "[Comment by:] RT September 11, 2013 at 8:06 AM [:] In the early 1980s Nightline ran a role-playing simulation of the President and his national security advisors resolving a crisis with the Soviet Union over Iran. Arguably the most important discussion didn't occur in the Cabinet room. Back-channel discussion between lower-level people in the US and Soviet diplomatic services, who already had a working relationship and met on a regular basis, established the terms for high-level public diplomacy without fear that either government would be embarrassed."

Prof. Gilboa: The Time to Decide is Now, Obama: Leading scholar says 2013 is the time for decision, otherwise Iran will become a nuclear powerhouse - Kochava Rozenbaum: "As a leading scholar in the field of public diplomacy, Professor Eytan Gilboa has said Obama has mishandled the situation in Syria and potential negotiations with Iran."

US won't let Sri Lanka escape 'Accountability and Reconciliation' - Daya Gamage, Asian Tribune: "At the confirmation hearing for the newly nominated assistant secretary for South Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal reiterated that she will 'continue to stress the importance of reconciliation and accountability


and for the government to meet its commitments to all of its population'. ... The Asian Tribune, in assessing this scenario ... believes that the handlers of the external affairs have been put on the spot for this lapse which has further created a public affairs and public diplomacy issues for Sri Lanka." Image from entry, with caption: Ms. Biswal at Senate hearing on September 12

Sri Lankan Sanje Sedera: Rising star in US politics enters Nevada State poll - Daya Gamage - Asian Tribune: "The Sri Lankan-American Sanje Sedera has the knack of reaching to policymakers not only in his native state Nevada but also in Washington and the Obama White House. ... Sanje Sedera just announced his candidacy for the State of Nevada State Assembly District 34 as his party's nominee. ... Sedera's entry to the fray in next year's Nevada State Assembly election


has already energized the Asian-American community in Las Vegas and obviously will draw attention of those who handle public diplomacy for Sri Lanka, and of course not forgetting the Sri Lankan Diaspora spread in other nations in the West." Image from article, with caption:
Sanje Sedera addressing a gathering convened for his candidacy

East-west balance keeps geopolitics stable - Liu Zhun, globaltimes.cn: "China should insist on its bottom line when developing relationships with neighboring countries. As long as China's core interests are respected, friendships and cooperation will ensue. China also needs to make breakthroughs and build a multi-layered diplomatic approach. Public diplomacy, involvement into global governance and providing public goods should be given more emphasis."

Public Diplomacy Council September Forum: “Public Diplomacy as a Global Phenomenon" - publicdiplomacycouncil.org:




Image from entry, with caption: Public Diplomacy as Global Phenomenon: The Council and its partner the University of Southern California held the first of a series of Lunch Forums on public diplomacy around the world. In the picture: Noam Katz, Minister for Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Israel (at left); Timur Söylemez, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Turkey (center); and Moderator and Organizer John Brown. The discussion took place Monday, September 9 in Washington at the American Foreign Service Association.

Japan protests over French paper linking nuclear crisis to Olympics - Kyoto News International: "The Japanese government on Thursday protested over French newspaper cartoons satirically depicting the potential impact of the Fukushima nuclear crisis on the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. ... Senior Japanese officials expressed displeasure over the cartoons, urging the Foreign Ministry to increase public diplomacy to counter such 'inappropriate' reporting."

Turkey's cultural diplomacy in Hungary more effective with Yunus Emre Institute - turkishweekly.net: "Turkey's cultural diplomacy in Hungary will be more effective with Yunus Emre Institute, said Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Omer Celik Wednesday speaking to the journalists at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport. Celik emphasized the importance of Yunus Emre Institute, a Turkish soft power initiative, which he said was accepted as the backbone of the country's cultural and public diplomacy. Pointing out that a quite nice building was constructed in a historical place in capital Budapest for the Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center which will be opened on Thursday, Celik said cultural diplomacy in the region would become more concrete with the institute's going into action."

Panelists analyze how the world sees the US America - David Ahia II, dailytrojan.com: "Richard Wike, associate director of Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, gave a presentation on global opinions of the United States on Wednesday at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The event, hosted by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD), took place from 12 to 1 p.m. Accompanying Wike was Annenberg adjunct professor Robert Banks and CPD Director Jay Wang.


The event was part of the center’s Conversations Series. ... The full discussion, along with a one-on-one interview with Richard Wike conducted by Lauren Madow, a graduate student in public diplomacy, will be posted to the CPD website, uscpublicdiplomacy.org on Monday." Image from entry, with caption: Global view · Richard Wike, associate director of Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, speaks as Professor Robert Banks looks on.

A Modest Proposal Before Bombing Syria - Robert Schadler, westernjournalism.com: "Robert Schadler is Senior Fellow in Public Diplomacy at the American Foreign Policy Council. He has degrees in International Relations from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the University of Pennsylvania."

Syria Direct Brings Authentic News From The Frontlines - “Syria Direct ... trains Syrian journalists in Amman, Jordan, in professional newsgathering, while using their connections and understanding of Syria to verify information and single out each day’s significant stories. ... Many times the organization’s trainees see stories posted on Facebook, then track down the post writer and verify information from them, said Gabriel Bernadett-Shapiro, graphic designer and content strategist with Syria Direct. Shapiro is a second-year student at USC’s Masters of Public Diplomacy program."

RELATED ITEMS

Trying diplomacy in Syria: Obama is right to pursue Russia's proposal. But it must not be a long and winding road to nowhere - Editorial, latimes.com: Obama's decision to explore a diplomatic solution is a prudent one. We continue to believe that the use of chemical weapons against civilians requires a response from this country, ideally in concert with other nations.


But, like the president, we hope that message can be effectively delivered other than by military might. Image from

The Putin Doctrine: To build up Russia, he's trying to tear down the U.S. - Ilai Saltzman, latimes.com: The Obama administration should realize that Putin's objectives are diametrically opposed to most American interests and come up with a doctrine of its own to deal with him if it wishes to maintain U.S. national interests over time.

The American people’s reply to Putin - Dana Milbank, Washington Post: Did Edward Snowden help you with your letter?

Putin has a good time at Obama’s expense - Kathleen Parker, Washington Post: Actually, Vlad, millions around the world do see the United States not only as a model of democracy but also as exceptional because, among other things, we let everybody talk. Even clowns.

Putin’s Audience - Peggy Noona, Wall Street Journal: Why would Vladimir Putin take such an aggressive tone in parts of a piece supposedly addressed to Americans and supposedly explaining his views on Syria and, more largely, U.S. foreign policy? Because he’s not really writing to America. That’s not who he’s talking to. He chose as a venue a major American newspaper, but he’s writing to the world. He is telling the world he knows how to correct America, tell it off, criticize it for its conceit.

We can stop Syria by using lessons from Iraq - Jessica T. Mathews, Washington Post: The Syria crisis presents a great opportunity: If an international effort disarms Syria’s chemical arsenal, and that success is recognized and built upon in ways that success in Iraq was not, the positive repercussions would be felt far beyond the Middle East.

Vladimir Putin Takes Exception A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an op-ed piece - Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: The steely-eyed geopolitical strategist has reminded us that he's also the media-obsessed operator who plays to his base back home by tranquilizing bears, wrestling alligators and riding horses shirtless, like Yul Brynner in "Taras Bulba."

Here's What Went Unmentioned in Putin's New York Times Op-Ed - Julia Ioffe, New Republic: The fact that Putin is not the most credible messenger when it comes to the rule of law or pacificism is one thing, but this has always been his strength: taking words and concepts with generally agreed upon meanings—laws, elections, constitutions—and redefining them for his own strategic benefit, and then cloaking himself in their legitimizing powers. And if the last week has shown us anything, it is that there is one man in the game who has a strategy, and it is not Obama. So far, Putin has played it all right, and accomplished two goals: standing up to U.S. aggression, which will play nicely at home, and keeping Assad in power. Via PR

How Assad Wooed the American Right, and Won the Syria Propaganda War - David Kenner, Foreign Policy: Even before President Barack Obama put his plans to strike the Syrian regime on hold, he was losing the battle of public opinion about military intervention. Part of the credit, no doubt, goes to a successful media blitz by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and its supporters.

In an interview aired on Monday night, Assad himself advanced his government's case to Charlie Rose, saying that the United States had not presented "a single shred of evidence" proving the Syrian military had used chemical weapons. One of the most common ways for pro-Assad propaganda to find its way into reputable newspapers is through Christian news outlets. Arab Christians have many legitimate fears of how Islamist takeovers in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East could affect them -- but nonetheless, some of the outlets that cover their plight regularly trade fact for fiction. Image from article

Why Syria’s images of suffering haven’t moved us - Philip Kennicott, Washington Post: We have arrived at a double crisis: a dissolution of agreement about what is civilized behavior and a dissolution of faith in the meaning of images — a crisis of politics and a crisis of representation. Given how closely photography and video have been linked to defining those international norms, this is a frightening moment. Concern over the failure of images to elicit compassion has been around for decades.

When the best chance for peace means war - Sebastian Junger, Washington Post: If you have a bumper sticker that says “No Blood For Oil,” it had better be on your bike. The United States is in a special position in the world, and that leads many people to espouse a broad American exceptionalism in foreign affairs. Even if they’re correct, those extra rights invariably come with extra obligations. Precisely because we claim such a privileged position, it falls to us to uphold the international laws that benefit humanity in general and our nation in particular.

American Ineffectualism: Every American ally is cringing with embarrassment at the amateurishness of the last month - Mark Steyn, National Review: In the Obama era, to modify Teddy Roosevelt, America chatters unceasingly and carries an unbelievably small stick. In this, the wily Putin saw an opening, and offered a “plan” so absurd that even Obama’s court eunuchs in the media had difficulty swallowing it. A month ago, Assad was a reviled war criminal and Putin his arms dealer. Now, Putin is the honest broker and Obama’s partner for peace, and the war criminal is at the negotiating table with his chances of survival better than they’ve looked in a year. Via MC on Facebook

Russians Read Putin's Op-Ed - Masha Lipman, New Yorker: On Thursday, he published an Op-Ed in the Times that was transparently meant to emphasize his advantage. He called it, ironically enough, “A Plea for Caution from Russia.” The Op-Ed is presented as an attempt to speak “directly to the American people,” but even without that note there are signs that it was not meant for domestic consumption. At home, Putin and his government have long engaged in anti-American propaganda, portraying the United States as a force that seeks to harm Russia; in the Op-Ed, he reminds readers that Russia and the United States “defeated the Nazis together.”


Ignoring the current very low level of relations between the two countries and their leaders, Putin has friendly words for Obama: “My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this.” But the best part comes at the very end. After expressing concern about “American exceptionalism,” Putin calls for humility: "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." “God” is not part of the Russian political language. Putin and others in the Russian political establishment do not end their speeches with an equivalent of “God bless America.” Special kudos for the ghostwriter, or whoever helped adapt the Russian leader’s message for American rhetorical tastes. Image from article

A Good War - Uri Avnery, outlookindia.com: 'Jewish joke: A hungry young Jew sees an announcement outside a local circus: anyone who climbs to the top of a 50 meter pole and jumps onto a tarpaulin below will win a prize of a thousand rubles. Out of desperation he goes in, climbs the pole and shudders looking down. “Jump! Jump!” the ringmaster shouts. “Jumping is out of the question!” the Jew shouts back. “But how do I get down again?” That’s how Barack Obama was feeling, a moment before the Russians provided the means. Actually, Obama comes out of this crisis rather well. His hesitation, which evoked so much contempt in Israel, does him credit. It is right to hesitate instead of rushing into war. In war, people get killed.

Pentagon Memo: Pentagon in Back Seat as Kerry Leads Charge - Tom Shanker, New York Times: Pentagon budget cuts, including billions ordered by the White House, have already constricted a Defense Department that grew in size and power after Sept. 11, 2001. To many Pentagon officials, the cuts are another assertion of centralized control over decision-making by the White House. After all, when Mr. Obama first pressed the pause button on military action against Syria — and sent the question to Congress for a vote to authorize the use of force — Mr. Hagel and Mr. Kerry learned of it only after the president had reached the decision with his White House inner circle. Neither cabinet secretary was involved.

The Duty to Protect, Still Urgent - Michael Ignatieff, New York Times: In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty developed the idea that all states, but especially democracies, have a “responsibility to protect” civilians when they are threatened with mass killing. Let’s be clear what the problem is: it’s not just compassion fatigue, isolationism or disengagement from the world. It’s more than war weariness or sorrow at the human and financial cost of intervention. It goes beyond disillusion at the failures to build stability in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. The core problem is public anger at the manipulation of consent.

The end of U.S. exceptionalism: The debate over intervening in Syria says a lot about present-day America - Timothy Garton Ash, latimes.com: "Isolationism" is the lazy term often applied to the attitude now found among Democrats and Republicans alike. It is true that the United States has a history of periodically withdrawing into its own vast continental indifference, as it did after World War I. But this time feels different. Although the current withdrawalism undoubtedly drinks from some of those traditional wells, it flows through a country not brashly rising on the world stage but fearfully conscious of relative decline.

In America, not isolationism but skepticism: Americans have often been reluctant to go to war. But on Syria, they may look and sound more anti-interventionist than they really are - Doyle McManus, latimes.com: Most Americans are willing to support military action when they are convinced that U.S. security is directly threatened — as they did, for example, when they were convinced (wrongly) by President George W. Bush that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. On the flip side, most Americans will not support military intervention for purely humanitarian reasons — as Bill Clinton learned in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, operations that were all widely unpopular at the time.


That's a problem Obama hasn't solved when it comes to Syria. Americans are often tempted toward disengagement from the world, especially at the end of a long and costly war (in this case, two wars ), and especially when the question involves military action. It happened after Vietnam, it happened after the Cold War, and it's happening again today. But after those earlier episodes, public opinion bounced back. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton made the case for American intervention abroad, and in cases when intervention succeeded, public support grew. Image from article, with caption: Syria protest: An anti-war demonstrator is seen outside the White House before President Obama addressed the nation on Syria Tuesday.

Opposing the Syrian War Propaganda - Michel Chossudovsky and James Corbett, globalresearch.ca: With the latest diplomatic negotiations on Syria, unilateral US military intervention has been stalled for the moment. But as part of a decade-long Pentagon plan to overthrow the Assad government, a US-led armed strike on Syria remains an ever-present threat to stability in the region.

Syria's Christians become propaganda pawns - Bill Weinberg, ww4report.com:  The ancient Syrian Christian village of Maaloula has changed hands at least three times in the past week of fighting between government forces and al-Qaeda franchise Nusra Front—and Syria's Christians are becoming propaganda fodder in an international war of perceptions. Nusra Front issued a video clip showing a commander urging his men not to harm Maaloula's historic churches and monasteries. The Assad regime countered with images of the rebels shooting in the air and at buildings in in the village, and of a church damaged by mortar fire, Haaretz reports.

Saudi Arabia bans ‘terrorist’ propaganda on Internet - Agence France-Presse, rawstory.com: Saudi Arabia said Monday it will outlaw the dissemination of information on the Internet for the benefit of “terrorist” groups, in line with a decision taken by Gulf Arab monarchies. The official SPA news agency said the cabinet approved the “unified legislation against cybercrime,” which the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopted in December.


The legislation targets those who “create sites and publish information on the Internet or a computer network for the benefit of a terrorist group to enable contacts among its leaders or its members, to promote its views or funding,” said the agency. It also prohibits “the dissemination of ideas that could affect public order or morality,” said SPA, without providing further details.
Most members of the six-nation GCC — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have tightened their laws against cybercrime in recent years. Image from entry

Iran's State Press Stole Our Article -- and Turned It Into Blatant Propaganda - Uri Friedman, Katelyn Fossett, Foreign Policy: Fars News Agency, the state-run Iranian news outlet famous for picking up an Onion story and presenting it as news, has apparently decided that plagiarizing satirical articles isn't brazen enough. On Thursday, the news agency's editors reprinted a Foreign Policy article on the debate over chemical weapons in Syria.


And by "reprinted" we mean they lopped off entire paragraphs, changed key words, and added others to turn the argument into a case for why the U.S. shouldn't take military action in Syria -- and why the rebels, not Syrian President and Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad, have committed unspeakable atrocities (oh, and Iran comes off looking pretty good too). Image from article

Music doubling as propaganda: The recent classical music concert that the Indian government promoted as bringing a "message of hope" to Kashmiris is no such thing - Nagesh Rao, socialistworker.org: The "EHSAAS-e-Kashmir" (Feelings for Kashmir) concert held at the ShalimarGardens in Srinagar on September 7 was a ham-handed and clumsy attempt by the Indian tourism department and the German Embassy to give a glossy sheen to the ongoing military occupation of Kashmir. The German Embassy billed the concert as a "cultural tribute to Kashmir and its warm-hearted and hospitable people." The German ambassador claimed that the concert, set in "one of the most enchanting places in the world," would bring to Kashmiris "a message of hope and encouragement." The concert was promoted by "benevolent sponsors mainly from the business world in India and Germany": the "Incredible India" campaign and the German Foreign Office.


It featured music by Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky performed by the Bavarian State Orchestra of Munich and conducted by Zubin Mehta, music director for life of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. As for who got to watch this performance live, the embassy website was unambiguous: "1,500 guests from Kashmir and beyond will listen to the timeless music of Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky...The entry to the concert is by invitation only." According to a press release by activists opposed to the concert, the performance "seeks to promote an image of a peaceful and normal Jammu and Kashmir. The pain, suffering, courage and bravery of the resistance will find no place in this concert." The people of Shalimar, and indeed Srinagar, were under surveillance, and invitees to the concert were verified by the intelligence agencies. Certain Kashmiri civilians were blacklisted from attending the concert. "Anti-national" elements weren't welcome. A proposal to invite 230 Kashmiri students was turned down by the state. The occupation was therefore amply reflected in the demographics of the audience of the proposed concert. Image from article, with caption: Zubin Mehta

Krispy Kreme opens first Russia store - Kathy Lally, Washington Post:  On Thursday, in an opinion article published in the New York Times, President Vladimir Putin scolded the United States for considering itself exceptional. Off in America, President Obama was being criticized by some for handling Russia badly.


Has no one told them that here in Great Russia American calories rule? A Subway sandwich shop operates at the other end of lovely old Nikolskaya Street, which also has a Beverly Hills Diner tucked in among expensive Italian clothing stores and elegant restaurants. A nearby McDonald’s dishes out one Big Mac after another to a stream of customers. Dunkin’ Donuts dot the city. Image from

WWI propaganda lives in gas revulsion - Neil Steinberg, suntimes.com: People associate poison gas with the horrors of World War I, but its use in warfare was already illegal according to international law — and already produced by most major powers anyway — in the late 19th century. What World War I did was loosen qualms against using poison gas. To top it off, while all nations had it, gas had been first used effectively by the Germans, one of the “heinous devices created by these demons of depravity,” to quote W.C. King’s post-war book “Germany’s Crime Against Humanity.” The British called mustard gas “H.S.,” for “hun stuff.” The bottom line is that any weapon that depends on the wind is of limited strategic use. Thus it is gas’ undependability, more than anything else, that places it in a special category of disapproval. If it worked better, we’d find it in our hearts to use it. Land mines are devastating against civilians, too, in a sense worse than gas, since they remain a threat for years after being deployed. The world is nearly united against land mines, but the U.S. feels it needs mines to hem in the North Koreans, so we refuse to join all land mine bans. Morality has its limits. Gas is bad because all weapons of war are bad. That President Barack Obama would single it out in this fashion is more a quirk of history than any absolute ethical point. Odd that we would risk war over some century-old propaganda. Then again, it’s been done before.

AMERICANA: EXCEPTIONALISM AND ISOLATIONISM

American isolationism/exceptionalism - John Brown, Notes and Essays: If there is a recurrent pattern in American history, it is the tension between the U.S.'s isolationism and its exceptionalism. Of course, some would say, American "isolationism" and "exceptionalism" are


two sides of the same coin: American provincialism masquerading (unintentionally?) as superiority. Image from

MORE AMERICANA


Melting pot: This map shows the ethnic heritage of Americans - dailymail.co.uk; via JH on Facebook

KOREANA


"Seoul's New Tower Seems Familiar, and Not in a Good Way" - curbed.com: Set to be finished in Seoul, South Korea, in 2015: two 850-plus-tall residential towers connected by a 10-Story "pixelated cloud." Designed by Rotterdam-based architecture firm MVRDV, the complex will include housing, restaurants, green space, a hotel, and a gym.

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyze them."

-- William James

"You know, I don’t need to talk to the camera."

--President Barack Obama, responding to the request of CNN interviewer Wolf Blitzer to "look into the camera, talk directly to President Bashar al Assad." From;  image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Messaging Is Hurting Obama - Albert R. Hunt, mcall.com - "On public diplomacy, There is no coherent message, little explanation of the complexities and contradictions created."

War of words over Syria - Jules Witcover, chicagotribune.com: "While the slaughter goes on in the Syrian civil war, a remarkable war of words has broken out over the threatened use of American force there, led by of all people Russian President Vladimir Putin. ... [A] war of words remains preferable to the releasing of missiles that can't be recalled, as the two sides spar for advantage. In the last somewhat similar East-West confrontation of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, secret diplomacy played a key role. The Russian leaders finally agreed to pull their weapons out of the Caribbean island, on the then-undisclosed condition that U.S. missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union would later be dismantled, as subsequently was done. The challenge to both Obama and Putin now, as the public war of words continues, is to pivot to less public diplomacy to extricate all parties from a dangerous confrontation that both sides want to avoid."


Ironically, many seemed more consumed with Iran's flashy new public diplomacy campaign — including Rouhani's semi-official Twitter greetings and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's Facebook debates — to pay much attention to its more traditional modes of official outreach. As a result, under the cover of plain sight, it would appear that Washington and Tehran began the opening steps in a delicate dance of arms-length bilateral diplomacy. ... For the first time, it appears that Washington and Tehran are capable of carrying on a direct conversation between their respective leaders. Let's hope it continues, and even more so, that it leads to real progress on the most urgent differences between the two governments, particularly the nuclear issue and Syria." Uncaptioned image from article

Iran's foreign ministry struggles with online PR - Siavash Ardalan, bbc.co.uk: "President Hassan Rouhani has already found that the greatest challenge to public diplomacy is an apparent lack of discipline, rather than a lack of influential allies or favourable laws in a country where Facebook and other social networks are banned but not illegal. From conducting diplomacy via Twitter to appointing its first female spokesperson, the foreign ministry has not shown a particular aptitude for online PR. This is important for Mr Rouhani because he has convinced the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to allow the foreign ministry to take charge of negotiations with the international community over its nuclear programme, starting in New York later this month. The new man at the helm of the foreign ministry is Mohammad Javad Zarif. As Iran's permanent representative at the United Nations between 2002 and 2007, Mr Zarif earned the respect of senior US officials when he worked to ensure talks between Washington and Tehran took place despite the efforts of hardliners on both sides. Mr Zarif is one of the few cabinet members with his own Facebook page and Twitter account, which he used last week to wish Jews a 'Happy Rosh Hashanah'. He also used Twitter to assert that the Iranian government had never denied the Holocaust, adding: 'The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone.' He was referring to Mr Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who during his eight-year presidency frequently claimed the Holocaust was a lie. Mr Zarif's tweet made headlines, but not as many as an earlier one that also wished Jews a happy new year, which appeared to come from the president.


Mr Rouhani's office was swift to tell reporters that the message had come from an account set up by a supporter, and was not an official statement. However, some critics expressed scepticism, claiming that Iran's reformist politicians were intentionally muddying the waters over who operated social media accounts in their name so they could test public opinion and disavow messages that angered hardliners. The foreign ministry's decision to appoint a female spokesperson was a deliberate signal to both its domestic audience and the international community. But it began with a PR blunder. Within a week of Marzieh Afkham's appointment, her supposed Facebook page received 25,000 'likes' - a huge figure in a country where access to the site is blocked. As it turned out, a week later the whole venture was a hoax carried out by an exiled activist. ... Hardline rivals were quick to ridicule reformist politicians for 'reducing public diplomacy to absurdity', arguing that they could not handle internet freedom, for which President Rouhani has campaigned. Hoping to prevent confusion and achieve more clarity and discipline in its conduct on social media, the government set up a special committee to deal with unofficial social media accounts. However, this suggested that they had never considered the issue to begin with. When it comes to social media, Iranian intelligence and law enforcement are on top of their game. The same cannot be said of the foreign ministry and reformist politicians, whom after eight years away from power are just beginning to realise what social media can do. The Afkham affair may also present a lesson for hardliners as well, considering that the Supreme Leader's own Facebook page, with 56,000 likes, is also officially not his own. Image from article, with caption: Marzieh Afkham and Mohammad Zarif are realising the power of social media

Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "So I hear Stengel [see] has been named to be the new Undersec for Public Diplomacy. Didn't he used to coach the Yankees? 'Can't anybody here play this game,' bellowed mighty Casey after he came out of retirement to coach the 1962 Mets, one of the worst teams of all time. In all seriousness, I am a tad apprehensive of the pick. If they were not going to keep Sonenshine (who did a fabulous job, and really understood PD), then go for a professional diplomat. This man has no public diplomacy experience, and no government experience.


Communicating news in the middlebrow press that is Time is not the same ballgame as communicating policy, culture and values to foreign audiences. Just look at the Time cover differences, and then tell me I don't have a reason to be slightly apprehensive. I am worried this could go more McHale (McHale's Navy was anemic at the PD helm) than Sonenshine or Glassman -- two very capable PD chiefs who did not have long enough tenures. But...as The Old Professor famously said, 'never make predictions, especially about the future,' so I will reserve my judgement to let Mr. Richard take the helm and show the PD community his PD chops." Image from entry

Barack the Terrible has Hired Fifteen Prominent Journalists Since 2009- libertyfight.blogspot.com: "If you are going to slant your reporting to favor Barack the Terrible and his incompetent, corrupt administration, why not just be on their payroll? Turns out Jay Carney wasn't the only media crook who decided to accept this offer. Fourteen other journalists have taken Barack the Terrible up on his offer of employment: The news that Time magazine editor Richard Stengel is leaving his post to become the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs prompted Atlantic Wire reporter Elspeth Reeve to examine how many reporters had left their jobs for positions in President Barack Obama’s administration. It turns out that quite a few journalists have found second careers working for the president. ... We're not talking about journalists fresh out of their college internships. ... [M]ost of the folks ... have gone f[ro]m the dark side of journalism to the darker side of the Obama Administration are prominent journalists."

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres - ronmwangaguhunga.blogspot.com: "Rick Stengel, Time magazine’s top editor for the past seven years, is leaving for a job with the State Department. While the appointment has yet to be confirmed by the US Senate, Stengel is in line to become Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs."

Rick Stengel to Leave 'Time' for the State Department - Steve Cohn, minonline.com: "Richard ('Rick') Stengel, Time managing editor since June 2006, will be leaving the 90-year-old newsweekly once his expected appointment as U.S. State Department undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. ... Stengel clearly has the international qualifications. As Time m.e., he met and interviewed leaders from around the world, including former Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he anointed Person of the Year in 2007. He is an acclaimed scholar on South Africa and especially Nelson Mandela in having known Mandela since his 1990 release from 28 years of imprisonment by the then-apartheid regime. Stengel, who lived in South Africa in the 1990s (he was a Time staff writer), collaborated on Mandela's 1993 Long Walk to Freedom memoir. That, in turn, led to Stengel's 2010 Mandela's Way (Crown), which he called 'my memoir of working with Nelson on his memoir.' Since Stengel ended two years as CEO of the Philadelphia-based National Constitution Center to succeed Jim Kelly as Time m.e., the magazine experienced much change. ... But newsstand still weakened, as did ad sales, because of the double-barreled effect from the poor economy and the increased emphasis on the Internet, social media, etc., for news. ... Stengel's awareness of social media changing the world landscape was been seen in his Person of the Year selections of You (2006), an early indicator how all of us communicate more swiftly and powerfully in the digital age; Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg (2010); and The Protester (2011), where Facebook and Twitter helped ignite the 'Arab Spring' and other calls for change throughout the world."

Already a star at Model U.N. conferences, Alma College helps another country start its own - Linda Gittleman, themorningsun.com: "When India decided it wanted to form its own Model United Nations conference – just like the one in New York – the U.S. State Department wanted to help. But the department required a little help too and called upon Alma College for assistance. The choice of Alma College was something of a no brainer.' (The school) has won top honors at the U.S. national competition in New York City for 17 consecutive years,' Alma College spokesman Mike Silverthorn said. (It’s) the longest winning streak of any college or university in the nation. Alma College’s all time 32 'outstanding delegation' awards are the most of any college or university in the 90 year history of the conference.' Professor Derick Hulme who has overseen the program noted that the State Department had learned about Alma’s success and extended the invitation. He and seven students will leave for New Delhi on Oct. 2. 'The State Department designed this as a public diplomacy initiative to try to strengthen the younger generation’s appreciation of the importance of international organizations and multilateral diplomacy,' Hulme said in a written statement. 'India is becoming more economically capable and is one of the most populous countries in the world. It is in the interest of the United States to engage young people in countries like India and show them the importance of working collaboratively with people around the world.' The best way to do that, Hulme said, is through a Model U.N conference. ... Alma College received a $20,000 grant from the State Department to help pay for the expenses."

Recalling a life lost too soon in the service of her country - Tara Sonenshine, philly.com: "[F]or one family, this September is a season of sadness mingled with pride as they remember a beautiful young diplomat who gave her life protecting ours. Anne Smedinghoff would be turning 26 on Sept. 18 were it not for a bomb blast that took her life miles from home, in Afghanistan, in April. ... Like so many young Americans, Anne wanted to serve her country. In 2010, she joined the foreign service - no easy feat. Many young people want to be diplomats; only a few pass the exam, get through the rigorous interview process, and complete the training required for a first-tour assignment overseas. Anne made it. ... So when Anne heard there was an opening in Afghanistan, she raised her hand. She was assigned to the public diplomacy office in the embassy in Kabul in 2011 - a difficult and dangerous job, but an ideal one for someone who loved being with people, fostering relationships with local youth, engaging with citizens to improve education, and building bridges between Afghanistan and America. ... In March 2012, Anne got the chance of a lifetime. The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, was going to Kabul.




She was able to prepare his visit, coordinate the schedule, and meet her new boss as a member of the host delegation. Kerry later recalled Anne's energy, enthusiasm, and warmth. Just weeks after meeting Kerry, Anne traveled to Zabul province to deliver books to a school in the town of Qalot. As the convoy of American soldiers and civilians arrived, a suicide bomber approached. Witnesses describe a horrific blast, the shattering of glass and debris, and the cries for help. Anne was among those killed outside the school, along with four other Americans - three soldiers and a civilian. ... Although we never met, I supervised


all the public diplomacy officers around the world, of which Anne was one. Hence, when it came to her memorial service at the State Department, I was among those who gave the remarks. We hear about casualties of war - about the injured and the dead - counted in the hundreds, even the thousands. These are staggering statistics. But behind these numbers are individual - often young lives, lost too soon in the line of duty." Above uncaptioned image from article

Winning the War of Ideas for Islamic Hearts and Minds - Andrew E. Harrod, americanthinker.com: "The 'war of ideas is the primary arena of conflict,' stated Jamestown Foundation Senior Fellow Stephen Ulph at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on September 6, 2013.  Ulph spoke as part of an all-star expert lineup discussing the international struggle against militant Islam during a daylong briefing by theWestminster Institute (WI) entitled 'al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood:  A New American Strategy.' ... Cold War public diplomacy veteran Robert Reilly, another Fighting the Ideological War contributor, drew as well from the past in order to confront Islamism.  Reilly advised, 'Don't get into a war of ideas unless you understand those ideas' and 'unless you have an idea.'  Echoing Katharine's 'center of gravity' comments, Reilly in particular noted that a failure to debate Islamic religious ideas gave al-Qaeda, in the words of one commentator, a 'theological safe haven.'  The ineffectiveness of various public diplomacy efforts experienced by Reilly at the Department of Defense after September 11, 2001, however, was sometimes 'personally too painful to relate.'  The American government, for example, launched the Arabic-language Radio Sawa, yet Reilly dismissed its programming as largely 'youth pop music' with 'lyrics so offensive they had to be changed.'  The 'war of ideas cannot be fought by the battle of the bands,' Reilly criticized.  In particular, Saudi Arabia's king has indicated that he does not listen to Radio Sawa, a damning indictment for any American attempt to influence Arab policymakers. Reilly's experience with the American regime change in Iraq was also disappointing.  In a Middle East dominated by state-owned media, satellite phone possession was a capital offense under Saddam Hussein.  Amidst this intellectually arid environment, initial air attacks against Hussein's regime in 2003 destroyed the Iraqi Information Ministry, and 'there went the broadcasting infrastructure' for any post-Hussein American initiatives, Reilly lamented.  Into the media void came Arabic-language television from Iran.  American forces also gave no thought to any 'Iraqi Federalist Papers Project' discussing concepts of free government in an Iraqi context.  Yet a wildly popular Iraqi television show called Light or Overcoming the Legacy of Evil exposing Hussein's crimes cost only $1.2 million to produce. Reilly similarly noted that NATO forces in Afghanistan took no efforts to expose Taliban atrocities to the Afghan people."

UK web user bemoans Voice of America’s decline, hopes for reforms to restore VOA’s former news reporting power- BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com: "The commentator bemoans the lowering of reporting standards, increasing repeating of already aired broadcasts, use of vulgarities on Twitter by editors of one of VOA programs, dismal audience engagement through social media, and minimal number of views for VOA news videos on YouTube."

A lesson in BBC propaganda - Louis Dowes, presstv.ir: "Of course, the BBC wants us, the pathetic gullible members of the British public to give it money for its survival; feeding it with our Broken Britain money like a demanding media beast.


Well, I say the BBC wants us to give it money. Actually, it orders us to give it money; it commands us to give it money; it threatens us to give it money." Image from entry

U.S. greatly instrumental in the defeat of Sri Lanka Tigers - Defense Secretary - Daya Gamage, asiantribune.com: "In these columns we have been questioning the wisdom of those who are handling external affairs for the Government of Sri Lanka in the areas of public affairs, public diplomacy and strategic communication."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the 11th one-EU Joint Committee Meeting [Google "translation"] - newswire.co.kr: "Additionally, the two sides Marine Fisheries, SME support and consultative body established to support our business activities and the 'one-EU Public Diplomacy Forum (Korea-EU Public Diplomacy Forum)' chujinkiro creation was the first year in the Committee held one-EU agreement on cultural cooperation was geumbeon Park Geun-hye one-EU Joint Commission was held for the first time since the government launched one-EU as regular meetings between the senior, the third one was held last 7.26-EU political dialogue with senior 'one-EU strategic partnership' for further development build a foundation that is estimated."

Double Your Money Scholarship Winner: Hannah Weigle - morethanatestscore.com:  "Congratulations to our latest Double Your Money winner, Hannah Weigle! Hannah was awarded the Foundation for Global Scholars General Scholarship for $1,000, and because she found and applied for the scholarship on Zinch, we’re staying true to our word and matching it for an additional $1,000. ... [Q:] What career path do you see yourself taking after school? [A:] After school, I hope to participate in a program such as Peace Corps or Teach for America.


Afterwards, I would like to pursue a degree in International Relations, Foreign Service, or Law. My ideal career would be working as a Foreign Service Officer for the US government in the field of Public Diplomacy or Foreign Analysis. I love traveling, learning about history and culture, and discussing politics, so my future job will hopefully encompass all of these interests." Weigle image from entry

RELATED ITEMS

Five myths about cruise missiles - Eliot A. Cohen, Washington Post: Conceivably, cruise missiles could be used to target the children of Assad, his senior military commanders and the crews that load rockets and artillery shells with sarin. That would be a form of retribution, albeit one more suited to the most vicious of street gangs than the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. The slaying of 400 children with sarin, and thousands of others by less exotic but no less brutal means, poses a moral as well as a political problem. It might call for justice; it might call for exemplary punishment (which handing over a fraction of one’s arsenal is not). Or it might be a tragedy best lamented and then ignored. In any event, cruise missiles are no magical solution to a horror.

Analysis: Putin scores diplomatic win on Syria - Jill Dougherty, CNN: Taking Syria's chemical weapons out of government control and preventing another horrendous attack on civilians is too serious an issue to reduce to political one-upmanship. But after Putin's bombshell opinion piece in the New York Times in which, among other things, he takes America to task for an "alarming" pattern of intervening in the internal conflicts of foreign countries, it's obvious something has shifted. "It absolutely is a diplomatic win by Putin right now," said Fiona Hill, expert on Putin and director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. "If we think about this as judo, which is of course Mr. Putin's favorite sport, this is just one set of moves," she said. "And right now, he's managed to get Obama off the mat, at least, and get the terms set down that play to his advantage."

Putin throws America on the rhetorical mat- Charles Ortel, Washington Times:  Vladimir Putin has spoken truth to America’s fading power using The New York Times as his medium.


Make no mistake, it is “throw-down” time here on the world stage. Our government and even our sense of national identity lie gasping for air, sprawled backwards, legs akimbo on the mat as a shirtless, gleaming Putin prances before the global audience. We can admit that President Putin expressed his concerns plainly and forcefully Wednesday night, even as elites in America are not amused by his effrontery. Yes, it is certainly a bit odd for Putin to cloak himself as a pious advocate for “democracy” and “rule of international law.” That said, he makes an excellent set of points in his op-ed piece. Image from article

Hearing You Out - Nicholas D. Kristoff, New York Times: Syria is a hard case, with uncertain consequences. But if we are broadly retreating from the principle of humanitarian intervention to avert mass atrocities because of compassion fatigue in a tumultuous and ungrateful world, then we’re landing on the wrong side of history, and some day we will look back in shame.

What War Means - Frank Bruni, New York Times: The way that we can best thank our good soldiers for their service is to keep in mind, whenever contemplating the next military engagement, the ravages of the last one.

The World after the Kerry-Lavrov accord on Syria - Juan Cole, Informed Comment: The agreement reached by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry at Geneva on Saturday regarding the sequester of Syria’s chemical weapons is a little unlikely to shorten the civil war or save many lives in Syria. But it did signal winners and losers in the region and the world. The big losers were the anti-Baath Syria hawks, who were hoping that a US attack on Syria with cruise missiles would draw the Obama administration inexorably into the conflict on the side of the rebels.


Thus, the agreement deeply disappointed Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who wanted a US strike. In Europe, the French government had been hoping the US would go in with French help, allowing Paris to assert itself in its former Syrian colony and to insert itself into the center of world affairs again. The agreement likewise disappointed the hawks in Washington, including Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinin (R-FL) among the few US federal legislators who wants yet another war. The winners were the Shanghai Cooperation Council and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which overlap somewhat. Image from article

When Complexity Is Free - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times: "Fortunately, there is another, still “exceptional,” American reality out there. (I am talking to you, Putin.) It’s best found at the research centers of any global American company."

Cuba: Singer who sang lyrics calling for free elections during Castro propaganda concert banned indefinitely - Alberto de la Cruz, babalublog.com: During a state-organized propaganda concert this past Thursday in front of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Robertico Carcasses, singer for the bandInteractivo, took the liberty of adding a few lyrics to a song that called for free elections, freedom to access information, and civil rights for all in Cuba. Perhaps the usually servile artist might have gotten away with this act of defiance if it were not for the fact that the concert was being televised live on state-run television to the entire island. Naturally, it did not take long for Cuba's repressive apartheid dictatorship to react. According to a DIARIO DE CUBA news report, Carcasses has been banned from performing indefinitely in retaliation for deviating from the official Castro propaganda script.

Book review: ‘The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed’ by Marvin Kalb - review by William J. Dobson, Washington Post: In his timely book, “The Road to War,” veteran journalist and diplomatic correspondent Marvin Kalb explores the tangled history of the foreign policy commitments that modern presidents have made and the knots these leaders have turned themselves into trying to rationalize or escape their words. The fact that these commitments, whether uttered privately or publicly, are often no more than words, rather than congressionally approved resolutions or declarations, is one of their defining features. Indeed, on only five occasions have American presidents requested declarations of war from Congress, the last being Franklin Roosevelt’s action during World War II.

Amazing new film on birth propaganda: The Motherhood Archives - bluemilk.wordpress.com: "You started this project? What’s your background and how did it lead you to work on this archive?  I got pregnant. I’m a filmmaker; I’ve worked a lot with propaganda and archives—my background is in communist, post­communist stuff, and my previous work is a trilogy of films in China, Romania, and Russia that thinks through that set of historical questions and engagements, a lot of it through propaganda material. I’m very attuned to propaganda. So when I was pregnant it became immediately, abundantly obvious to me that almost everything I was reading or seeing or being exposed to was telling me how to give birth or how to be pregnant or how to mother or look after my child. It was clear to me immediately that all of this is an intense space of propaganda."

Propaganda: What it is and what it isn't - WB Reeves, What's clear from the applicable definitions is that propaganda isn't a synonym for lies or falsehoods. It is, in fact, a politically, ethically and morally neutral term. Propaganda can be either true or false. Legitimate or illegitimate. It is defined not by its content but by its polemical intent. Essentially, it simply means that someone is trying to convince you of something. Denouncing something as being "propaganda" is nothing more than fallacious rhetorical posturing, serving no purpose other than to avoid engaging arguments on their merits. See also John Brown, "Two Ways of Looking at Propaganda," USC Center on Public Diplomacy (2006)

AMERICANA

"[T]he United States now ranks 12th among developed nations in higher education of young adults. (In 1995, we were first.) ... [T]wo out of five students now have a GPA of A- or better — nearly six times as many as in 1969."

--From Katharine Whittemore, "Higher education: At what cost?" Boston Globe

MORE AMERICANA

"1. United States Millionaire Households: 5,220,000 [;] Ultra High Net Worth Households: 2,692 [;]GDP (millions of USD): 14,657,800 (highest) The United States has by far the largest amount of millionaire households, as well as ultra-high-net-worth-households. The U.S. is home to the largest economy in the world — almost three times the size of China's, the next biggest. There is also a growing income gap in the country. In 2009, the top 20% of earners, or those making $100,000 or more a year, made half of all income generated in the country, according to the US Census. The bottom 20% made only 3.4%."

--From Charles B. Stockdale, "24/7 Wall St.: Countries with the most millionaires," USA Today Countries with the most millionaires

AND MORE AMERICANA

"During Sunday’s Miss America pageant, televised September 15 at 9 p.m. on CBS, [Sergeant Theresa] Vail will be the first contestant not to cover her tattoos during the bathing suit and evening gown portion of the competition. Vail’s body art is not subtle.


The serenity prayer is tattooed on her right side, and covers the area from just under her arm all the way down to her hip in large old English style writing. Vail has another tattoo of the army medical corp. insignia on her shoulder. Both will be visible."

--From Susan L Ruth, "Tattooed National Guard Sergeant Theresa Vail takes on Miss America," Washington Times

SOVIETICA


"The descriptions of meals are delightful, despite the anomaly at the heart of her book: during the Soviet period, there was almost nothing decent to eat, unless you were a party official."

--From "Beyond Borscht: ‘Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking,’ by Anya von Bremzen," review by Sara Wheeler, New York Times; image from article

IMAGE


--Gennady Blohin; via FW on Facebook

ONE MORE IMAGE


--Patty Struik; via KA on Facebook

“I think John Kerry has been one of the best secretaries of state in the history of America!”

--Vice President Joe Biden; image via BB on Facebook; re Obama and propaganda, see John Brown, "The Reluctant Propagandist -- Barack Obama," Notes and Essays

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Obama invites Rouhani to join great game - M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times: "Putin's scathing criticism of US policies in his controversial op-ed in the New York Times last week in full view of the American public did touch a raw nerve in the White House - especially his mockery of America's exceptionalism. Putin may have scored in public diplomacy but it may prove a short-lived success."

Spot The Odd Edition Out - zerohedge.com: "While Miley Cyrus, Twerking, and X-Factor remain record-breakers on every social media platform, the following covers of Time Magazine's four regional issues this week, perhaps more than anything else, highlight just how 'in control' the media is - and how important it is to keep the 'exceptional' US public on message. Or off as the case may be. ... [Comment by Alpo for Granny Alpo:]


Shockingly, the managing editor of Time is leaving for a job as under secretary of state for at the State Department." Image from comment

Time magazine hides Putin’s success from US voters - Neil Munro, dailycaller.com: "Time magazine’s cover for its Sept. 16 issue features a picture of contented-looking Russian president Vladimir Putin, complete with a black background and a damning caption that declares 'America’s weak and waffling, Russia’s rich and resurgent.' But Time’s editors are shielding Americans from the demoralizing picture, putting a cheerful, sky-blue photo on the covers of magazines distributed in the United States.


'It’s time to pay college athletes, says the chirpy, non-political U.S. cover, which shows a ball-carrying football player with arm outstretched. ... The foreign covers acknowledge Putin’s triumph over Obama, telling foreigners that Putin 'doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him.' The protective covers arrive as Time’s managing editor departs for a job working for one of the architects of the Syrian debacle, Secretary of State John Kerry. In 'early summer,' editor Rick Stengel was asked by Kerry, and immediately accepted, the job of running the department’s public diplomacy mission, according to Politico." Image from article

Rick Stengel loves big government and it loves him back - Robby Soave, dailycaller.com: "Richard Stengel, long-serving editor of TIME magazine and preacher of the inherent goodness of government, was getting a long-needed promotion last week when he announced he would leave the venerable newsweekly for a State Department job. The Obama administration officially hired Stengel as under secretary of public diplomacy for the State Department, the New York Times reported last week. Stengel is a single-issue journalist who has relentlessly pushed compulsory national service as a panacea for the country’s social, moral and economic problems. In 2007, he wrote an article for TIME endorsing the view that 'devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, should become a countrywide rite of passage, the common expectation and widespread experience of virtually every young American.' To implement national service, Stengel proposed a vigorous expansion of federal programs like AmeriCorps, a new Cabinet-level service department and increased public funding for health and environmental advocacy.


He estimated the cost of growing government to accomplish these initiatives would be at least $20 billion. The article triggered a negative reaction from fellow TIME journalist Michael Kinsley who wrote, 'As it happens, we already have a system for inducing truly voluntary activities that benefit the public. It’s called free-market capitalism.' Stengel was particularly ill-served by free market competition. The magazine’s circulation dropped from 4.1 million to 3.3 million during his seven years in charge, while advertising revenue shrank from $295.8 million to $159.4 million, according to POLITICO. This is not Stengel’s first foray into government. He was a speechwriter for the failed presidential campaign of far-left former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley in 2000. Given his interests, Stengel may prove to be better at growing government than he was at growing TIME’s business model. Before taking over at TIME in 2006, Stengel was briefly president of the NationalConstitutionCenter, a museum in Philadelphia. Prior to that, he worked for TIME in various roles. He has authored numerous books, and co-wrote the biography of Nelson Mandela, who was compelled to spend 27 years under direct state authority." Image from article

HUFFPOST HILL [09/12/2013], huffingtonpost.com: - America Offended By Shirtless Bear Wrestler Foe - huffingtonpost.com: "John Boehner was so incensed by Vladimir Putin's New York Times op-ed that we have to give the Russian strongman three-out-of-four Luke Russerts on our patented Boehner impudence scale. ... And Richard Stengel will leave Time Magazine, shaking up both the newsroom and what's on your parents' coffee table when you visit for Thanksgiving. ... RICHARD STENGEL LEAVING TIME MAGAZINE FOR STATE DEPARTMENT - Capital New york: "Richard Stengel, the top editor of Time magazine for the past seven years, is planning to step down as managing editor for a new job at the U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with the situation tell Capital New York and POLITICO. If confirmed, Stengel's title, these sources said, will be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the role responsible for leading 'America's public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences, cultural programming, academic grants, educational exchanges, international visitor programs, and U.S. Government efforts to confront ideological support for terrorism,' according to the State Department's website.

PR firm Ketchum places Putin op-ed in New York Times: Russian President Vladimir Putin got a solid assist from U.S. public relations giant Ketchum Inc. in placing his commentary in The New York Times’ op-ed page Thursday just as a meeting of Russian and U.S. representatives in Geneva, focusing on Syria and chemical weapons, got under way, notes Grumpy Editor - grumpyeditor.typepad.com: "In the op-ed --- titled A Plea for Caution From Russia --- which grabbed heavy print and broadcast headlines in the U.S., Putin portrayed himself as a peacemaker, criticized the U.S. and lectured the U.S. for its tendency to use 'brute force' in world disputes. Reuters pointed out Ketchum has earned more than $25 million working for Russia, according to documents filed with the U.S. Justice Department. The PR firm, with 74 offices and 56 affiliates in 70 countries, is a unit of New York Stock Exchange-listed Omnicom Group Inc. Several sources said Putin himself wrote the op-ed. On the day the op-ed appeared, a Senate panel narrowed the definition of a 'covered journalist' as an independent contractor, employee or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. So, as the writer of an op-ed piece, does that put Putin (as a 'freelance writer') in the same category as other contributors to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and other publications? Meanwhile, in a 'fair and balanced' response to Putin’s N.Y. Times material, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) will write an op-ed for Russia’s Pravda, with a paltry paid circulation of 49,000, dwarfing that of the N.Y. Times' total circulation of 1.9 million.

Opinion: The Baltic States inspiring the land of Gaudí and Dalí - Lithuania Tribune: "The Lithuania Tribune presents an opinion article by Jordi Arrufat, a public diplomacy advisor who takes a keen interest in Lithuania and the Baltic States, about a public action


in Catalonia, when a human chain in support of the region’s independence – The Catalan Way – was stretched." Image from article, with caption: The Catalan Way

Martial Arts: So What? By Adam D. Frank - chinesemartialstudies.com: Image from entry, with caption: 


The Chinese state has adopted the traditional martial arts a part of their public diplomacy effort, effectively free riding off of the good vast good will that its “Brand” has accumulated.

'Diplomacy is more than Ferrero Rocher parties': The Local speaks to Pierluigi Puglia, head of press and communications at the British Embassy in Rome, to find out what it's really like to move in Italy's diplomatic circles - thelocal.it: "[Q:] How did you come to work at the British Embassy in Rome? [A:] ... I've been working at the embassy for almost nine years now - time flies when you enjoy what you're doing! I started in 2005 as a press officer, then in 2007 I was promoted to senior press officer. One year later I got the job as the head of press and communications. ... [Q:] What is the most challenging part of your job? [A:] The real challenge is to come up with new ideas for effective delivery of the UK Foreign Office objectives. I work in public diplomacy; engaging with


the wider Italian audience through press articles, events or digital campaigns. It may not seem obvious but this work can be instrumental in delivering an ambitious set of targets, including the strengthening of bilateral relations, promoting economic opportunities in Italy and the UK, preventing international crime in the two countries and supporting British nationals in Italy." Image from entry, with caption: Pierluigi Puglia outside 10 Downing Street, London

The Openness Index - Arnie Weissmann, travelweekly.com: "[T]he ways in which travel is on the side of openness are self-evident. In fact, the industry has been saying for decades that public diplomacy is an unsung benefit when governments facilitate inbound and outbound travel."

Former ambassador to discuss U.S. diplomacy in East Asia - kpax.com: "MISSOULA - The first female U.S. ambassador to Korea, will present 'U.S. Public Diplomacy and Leadership in East Asia'


on Tuesday at the University of Montana. ... Stephens will discuss how the United States can face these changes and challenges through public diplomacy and leadership to achieve its strategic goals in Asia." Uncaptioned image from article

RELATED ITEMS

The Syrian Pact - Editorial, New York Times: President Vladimir Putin of Russia has undoubtedly elevated his stature in the Middle East with this diplomatic move. But he is now on the hook as he never was before to make sure that Mr. Assad does not use chemical weapons. Mr. Putin has drawn a line at poison gas, but it will be cynical and reprehensible if he continues to supply Mr. Assad with conventional arms, which have killed the vast majority of Syria’s civilian victims. President Obama deserves credit for putting a focus on upholding an international ban on chemical weapons and for setting aside military action at this time in favor of a diplomatic deal.

Chemical weapons deal changes Syrian equation: Our view - Editorial, USA Today: Some critics see the chemical weapons agreement as unreliable and inconsequential. It is neither. Rather, it is a worthy goal on its own merits and perhaps a step toward achieving greater ends.

Ex-KGB officer talks Nobel Peace Prize winner out of launching war - Jim Picht, Washington Times: Former KGB officer Putin has helped Nobel Peace Laureate Obama avoid a war that his own foreign policy made more likely.


The Russian-American negotiations will produce terms more favorable to Putin’s foreign policy than to Obama’s, and America’s credibility in the Middle East will not be enhanced. Russia’s will. Image from article, with caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin, then and now

Into the Syrian Bazaar: Even if Assad gives up his chemical weapons, he escapes unpunished for using them - Review and Outlook, Wall Street Journal: The accord takes President Obama and the U.S. ever deeper into the Syrian diplomatic bazaar, with the President hostage to Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin as the friendly local tour guides.

Why the Russians Can't Be Trusted in Syria: Moscow isn't even complying with a commitment to destroy its own chemical weapons - John Barrasso, Wall Street Journal: When the Obama administration announced its "reset" of relations with Russia in 2009, Americans never expected that it would include making Vladimir Putin the de facto U.S. ambassador to Syria in 2013. Yet the Russian president has in effect taken over U.S. diplomacy with the Bashar Assad regime in Damascus. Moscow's military support of the Assad regime is one of the main reasons that more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed in the current conflict.

Obama’s ‘unbelievably small’ presidency - Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post: There is no plan, no coherence to anything this administration is doing on Syria.

America invites parade of Middle East horribles - Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The president has made avoiding war his highest priority. That’s an admirable goal in a world without aggressive, evil regimes. But on the global stage, advertising one’s determination to use any device (even a phony deal with a tyrant) to avoid protecting our interests and values is to open the door to a parade of Middle East horribles (e.g. use of weapons of mass destruction, mass atrocities, expansion of Iranian access, collapse of neighboring regimes).

Try as he might, Obama can’t dodge the Mideast’s bullets - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post: The problem is that the attempt to disengage, to claim that the United States need not take sides in the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites or generals and Islamists, only leads back to the same cycle of passivity and ad-hoc reaction in which Obama is now stuck.

The Missing Partner - Bill Keller, New York Times: If the Iranians help stabilize the situation in Syria, and if that in turn creates a better climate for a nuclear deal, then the world is a safer place. On the other hand, if we engage the Iranians and they don’t reciprocate then it becomes clearer than ever that the problem is Tehran, not Washington.

Treaties -- as American as Ben Franklin: The Founding Fathers made a push for 'international norms' of human behavior - Barry O'Neill, latimes.com: Some see George Washington and other founders as wanting an isolationist foreign policy. Indeed, they were wary of political or military alliances with other states.


But they also pioneered an international agreement on the conduct of war. Such treaties fit American values. They are part of the country's heritage, in line with the aspirations of the founders. Image from

AMERICANA

At least 12 dead in Navy Yard shooting; possible suspect at large - Carol Morello, Peter Hermann and Clarence Williams, Washington Post:


Image from article, with caption: Rampage at Navy Yard: At least 12 people are dead after as many as three shooters opened fire in a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, police said. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said in a midday news conference that one of the suspected shooters is dead and that authorities are looking for two other suspects. At least two police officers were among those shot.

"America is defined by its resilience. No matter what mistakes we make, we pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves off, and come together with the courage to deny that we ever made a mistake.”

--Political satirist Stephen Colbert, cited at Bulletin News, LLC (September 17); image from

WEBSITE


Oral History Interviews - Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Image from website

VIDEO

Timi Komonibo Interviews Dr. Nancy Snow About Japanese Public Diplomacy - soundcloud.com: "Timi Komonibo interviews Dr. Nancy Snow about Japanese Public Diplomacy. Nancy Snow is a Visiting Professor and Abe Fellow at Keio University in Tokyo. She is working on a book about Japan’s image in the world since the Fukushima disaster. Her latest book is Truth is the Best Propaganda: Edward R. Murrow's Speeches in the Kennedy Years (Miniver Press)."

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Syria: Has Obama Finally Forsaken the Insurgency? - Phil Greaves, globalresearch.ca: "Current events surrounding the Syrian conflict appear to be on the brink of a partial agreement toward peace. Brokered by the United States and Russia, the new quick-fire round of talks in Geneva between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov


have been promoted as a bilateral effort to disarm Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile and move forward with talks to help end the crisis (Geneva II). Yet parallel to the alleged chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta – which subsequently led to the diplomatic breakthrough between Washington and Moscow – a chain of events largely ignored may provide equally justifiable explanations as to why the United States chose to renege on its threats of overt military intervention, and towards public diplomacy and reconciliation." Image from

John Kerry to host Chinese counterpart on 19th September for discussing bilateral issues - post.jagran.com: "'While this meeting has been planned for some time, we do expect the Secretary and Foreign Minister to discuss current issues such as the DPRK and Syria,' US State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Marie Harf, told reporters at her daily news conference. This is a bilateral meeting and working lunch as part of US-China regular consultations on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, she said. The Kerry-Wang meet comes in the immediate aftermath of the public diplomacy unleashed by the Secretary of State and his just concluded meetings with his Russia, French and British counterparts on the Syrian issues."

Ecuador is one of the targets of U.S. invasive military strategy - ecuadornews.blogspot.com: "After Barack Obama, U.S., took office, he planned a military strategy in which irregular warfare was one of the new intervention mechanisms. According to his precepts, the new battlefield is limitless; tactics and strategies differ from the traditional ones.


Simultaneously to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon was involved in a secret 'public diplomacy' war against Ecuador and other South American countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru." Image from entry

MSM covering for Obama's Syria disaster - Thomas Lifson, americanthinker.com: TIME Magazine ... may not be around that long. But that didn't stop it from essentially whoring itself by publishing one cover


for the rest of the world and another



for an American readership the editors obviously regard as low information voters. ... Update: Richard Baehr observes that the appointment of TIME magazine managing editor Rick Stengel as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs look awfully bad when juxtaposed to this shocking behavior."


TIME magazine puts Putin on its cover … just not in U.S.- Howard Portnoy, libertyunyielding.com: "Diehard followers of TIME magazine (one assumes the breed still exists) know that two of its regular columnists were brutal last week in their handling of President Obama. ... What is not known to dedicated TIME readers — at least those with U.S. postal codes — is that the century-old news magazine subjected the American president to one more visit to the woodshed by affixing a likeness of his arch-nemesis, Vladimir Putin, to the cover of its current issue. ... The decision may have had less to do with the editorial staff’s guilt pangs over taking Obama to school ... than with fact that the president is the new boss of outgoing managing editor Richard Stengel. Stengel, who has been at the helm of TIME since 2006, announced last week that he was leaving that post to take a job as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs." See also

Offensive Charm: Why Vladimir Putin Tried -- and Failed -- to Woo the U.S. Public - Jeremi Suri, Foreign Affairs: "[I]f there is a long history of outside leaders intervening in U.S. foreign policy debates, there is also a long history of them doing so poorly, the latest example being Putin’s op-ed. Although it is natural that the U.S. political elites would bristle at being lectured to in public, they can rest assured that Putin, like his many foreign predecessors, is unlikely to have won over many American hearts or minds. It is no accident that such efforts to influence public opinion usually end up failing. The first instance occurred in the early years after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In 1793, the French revolutionary government appointed Edmond-Charles Genêt as its minister to the United States. ... When Washington rebuffed him, Genêt took his case to the American people through newspapers, speeches, and other efforts at what we would today call public diplomacy.


Genêt had a wide following across the eastern seaboard, and he had many sympathetic listeners. But Washington’s calls for neutrality, rather than alliance with France or Great Britain, remained more popular. ... During the decade after the Grand Alliance of World War II, Moscow’s image in the United States rapidly deteriorated. Despite repeated failures in their public diplomacy, Soviet leaders remained convinced that there existed a core of 'working-class opinion' in the United States they could turn to their advantage. In the fall of 1959, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev launched a new effort as part of a 'goodwill' tour of the United States that year that included a famous visit to the 'heartland' of American corn farming in Coon Rapids, Iowa. ... As in the case of Genêt more than 150 years earlier, Americans detected treachery and manipulation in the idealistic language of a foreign leader. ... The ongoing debate surrounding U.S. policy in Syria shows ... the importance of 'short-term trends of public opinion.' Those trends have always been defined by the words of prominent Americans, not those of foreign leaders." [Comments on Facebook: Marie Ciliberti Offensive as in attack or as in disagreeable? 5 hours ago · Like Aimee Fullman Ahem...its called Public Diplomacy. We are just as guilty. 4 hours ago · Like] Image from

US pop culture a diplomatic tool - Zhang Xiaoli, China Daily: The two-term election of Barack Obama, the first African-American US president, has been widely hailed as a popular cultural rather than a political development in the United States. The mainstream mass media in the US have made full use of this development to push their public diplomacy goals, that is, to promote the idea that the US is a land where dreams are realized through personal efforts. US pop culture a diplomatic toolObama's political success mirrors an important theme, that of American pop culture - self-made heroes' success stories, which have long replenished the American dream. Obama's success has greatly enhanced the US' image in Africa, something its official diplomacy had failed to do. This is a classic case of a personal success enhancing a country's global image because of its cultural connotations.


The case has found reflection in a US State Department report, Cultural Diplomacy: the Linchpin of Public Diplomacy. The report says that 'cultural diplomacy is the linchpin of public diplomacy, because it is through cultural activities that a nation's idea of itself is best represented'. Indeed, history is likely to record that the US' cultural riches played no smaller a role than its military might in shaping its international leadership, including the 'war on terror'. The values embedded in our artistic and intellectual traditions form the bulwark against the forces of darkness. The core idea of the design and implementation of US public diplomacy is to use cultural diplomacy, exemplified by Hollywood movies, NBA games, Disneyland characters and jazz music, as the best weapon for its success. Not surprisingly, Obama's personal success has added a 'feather' to the US' cultural cap." Image from article

Radio Farda reporters' relatives in Iran still intimidated despite new government - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Is Al Jazeera America Simply CNN, Minus Wolf Blitzer? - Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer, Foreign Policy: "The PewResearchCenter's Project for Excellence in Journalism is out with a new reportthat addresses these questions through the lens of Al Jazeera's handling of its first big story: Syria. And after viewing 21 hours of cable news on Syria



across five networks, measuring coverage using five metrics, the researchers have arrived at an answer: So far, anyway, Al Jazeera America is more or less CNN -- minus Wolf Blitzer, and with a snazzier logo." Image from article; via RM on Facebook

Social media becomes weapon in Middle East propaganda battles- Lina Saigol, Financial Times: "'If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em' seems to be the Turkish government’s new approach to Twitter, which it had earlier blamed as 'the worst menace to society'. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has enlisted thousands of supporters to take to the internet, training about 6,000 people to set out the “correct” version of events, using outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Here is a look at how other governments in the Middle East are using the microblogging site both to harass activists as well as promote their own views. IRAN @HassanRouhani, 41,211 followers @JZarif, 21,336 followers The new president, moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani, has used his account to signal that he will adopt a much different approach to his hardline predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad. Mohammad Javad Zarif, foreign minister, is also an active tweeter.
But Mr Rouhan’s experience with Twitter has not been without problems. Earlier this month, a dispute over tweets claiming to be from the president caused confusion over who was writing the posts. One tweet from an account wished Jews a happy new year, but officials were then quoted as saying Mr Rouhani did not have a Twitter account. Twitter users in Iran were able to access the service on Monday for the first time since 2009, when the government blocked the internet after Mr Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election victory sparked massive protests. But an Iranian official later claimed a technical hitch had allowed access, denying suggestions that a ban on social media had been lifted. ISRAEL and the PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY Israeli Defence Force: @IDFSpokesperson, 221,518 followers Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades: @AlqassamBrigade 40,461 followers. An Arab-Israeli Twitter war broke out in November 2012 after the IDF tweeted a warning to Hamas commanders to lay low. The mouthpiece of Hamas’ military wing tweeted back that Israel had 'opened the gates of Hell on itself'. More recently, the Israeli government, which has been extremely adept at using social media, said it planned to offer scholarships to hundreds of students at the country’s seven universities, in exchange for their making pro-Israel tweets to foreign audiences to 'strengthen Israeli public diplomacy and make it fit the changes in the means of information consumption'. SYRIA The Syrian Arab Republic: @Presidency_Sy, 10,455 followers The Syrian Electronic Army: @Official_SEA16, 6,391 followers President Bashar al-Assad announced in July he had added Instagram to his social media sites via his Twitter account, using it to post a series of staged publicity shots designed to show normality during a conflict which has seen more than 100,000 dead. Pictures included some of Asma al-Assad, the president’s wife, helping out at a food line and hugging civilians while wearing the latest wristband pedometer.
On September 10, @Presidency_Sy tweeted: 'An opposition, opposing a government by beheading, barbecuing heads and eating the hearts of your victim? Is that opposition?' The Syrian Electronic Army, a collective of anonymous hackers described as supporting Mr al-Assad, scored a coup in April when it managed to hack the Twitter account of the Associated Press and publish a false report of explosions at the White House to the news agency’s 1.9m followers.

The group, or people claiming to represent it, has also hacked the websites of several media organisations, including the New York Times and Financial Times. EGYPT Interim President Adly Mansour @Adly_Mansour, 91,957 followers @Ikhwanweb (The Muslim Brotherhood), 108,990 Egypt has been credited by some as being the first Twitter revolution, after organisers used the service to start protests in January 2011 which helped oust former president Hosni Mubarak. In July, Twitter said it would put in place a new tool to translate accounts of some prominent Egyptians into English in light of the political crisis in the country. 'As part of our experiment with tweet text translation, we’ve enabled translation for some of the most-followed accounts in Egypt, so people around the world can better understand and keep up with what’s happening there,' Twitter said. In August, some Egyptian media commentators criticised the Muslim Brotherhood for using different language in tweets to English-speaking audiences to that they used when messaging in Arabic." Image from

£3000 Visa Bond: Downing Street’s Downside Public Diplomacy- Oke Epia, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "In June of 2013, reports revealed contemplation by the United Kingdom to impose a £3000 (US $4,715.4) bond on visa applicants from some five countries; India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ghana, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.


According to the plan, this bond program and the visa applicants from the target countries will participate in a pilot scheme of a broad plan aimed at checking illegal immigration into the UK. ... However, the tide of public opinion has risen against this proposed policy. The bond idea has drawn strong opposition from governments and citizens of the targeted countries, with Nigeria for instance, threatening reciprocity if the policy is brought into effect. ... Given the wide-scale disapproval that has trailed the bond policy, the Cameron Administration may do well to avoid public diplomacy crisis by thrashing the plan." Image from

Romanian President denounces draft bill for gold and silver Rosia Montana project - balkans.com: Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Monday the draft bill giving the green light to RMGC to start mining for gold and silver in Rosia Montana is unconstitutional, as the Parliament plans to set up a special commission to debate the project. The president claims that the Rosia Montana debacle will harm Romania’s image in the eyes of foreign investors. 'We know that an unconstitutional bill has been pushed in Parliament, which can not be passed by the Constitutional Court. Based on it we generate a debate that will conclude with an unconstitutional law. How can we have a good image, when even the foreigners know our constitution?', said the president during the European Forum for Public Diplomacy. He urged the government to withdraw the bill."

China’s reputation as a global power  -  Andrew Hammond, dailytimes.com.pk: "China’s image would ... benefit from enhanced public diplomacy to win more foreign ‘hearts and minds’. At a symbolic level, example measures might include utilising the country’s growing capabilities in space travel for high-profile international cooperation projects. Surveys underline that many international publics admire China’s strength in science and technology. A broader reform needed is reducing the role of the central government, whose communications often lack legitimacy and credibility with foreign publics, in Chinese outreach efforts. Here, the country would benefit instead by expanding the role of non-state groups — including from civil society networks, Chinese diaspora communities, sporting groups, student, academic groups and business networks."

[ACUNS] Review of Geoffrey Hale’s So Near Yet So Far: The Public and Hidden Worlds of Canada-US Relations by David Borys - Kirk Goodlet, canadianmilitaryhistory.ca: Since many


American politicians consider cross-border issues as sub-sets of American policies, public diplomacy, as Hale points out, becomes the most appropriate course of action in swaying American opinion towards policy decisions that favor Canada. Image from entry

Professor advocates for diplomatic soft power - Sarah Joh, Daily Trojan: "Naren Chitty, the founder of the Soft Power Advocacy and Research Centre at Macquarie University in Australia, visited USC on Monday to speak about the role of power and the importance of soft power in contemporary diplomacy. Before founding the research center, Chitty, who has a doctoral degree in international relations from American University, spent time as a public diplomat in Washington, D.C. and currently teaches at Macquarie University. In addition to researching soft power and public diplomacy, Chitty


also advocates the use of ethical soft power. In international relations, hard power is usually the use of military force. Soft power is distinct from hard power in that it is less concrete and stems from outside perceptions of a country’s behavior. Throughout the presentation, Chitty discussed the definition and usage of soft power and elaborated on the ethical use of soft power. Combining his own personal experiences with academic theories, Chitty addressed how the use of ethical soft power can solve social and political problems on an international level." Chitty image from

“Windokia” or “Nokrosoft”? Neither - Siyu, "Buy the Way…" Insights on Integrated Marketing Communication: "About Siyu [:] Siyu is a second year graduate student in the Master of Public Diplomacy program.


Originally from Canton (Guangzhou), China, she had worked for Reuters Beijing, National Development and Reform Commission of China and Ruder Finn Public Relations. Siyu’s interest is corporate diplomacy, which includes government and community relations of multinational corporations, especially in the global marketplace." Image from

Edwin J. Neumann, cultural attache, dies at 90 - Adam Bernstein, washingtonpost.com: "Dr. Neumann was English department chairman at the American University of Beirut before joining the State Department as a cultural attache in 1956. His assignments included Bombay (now Mumbai); Linz and Vienna, Austria; Kano, Nigeria; and West Berlin. He left the Foreign Service in 1972 and worked for the Office of Higher Education at what became the Department of Education. He helped decide on funding for grants affecting innovative programs for higher education. He retired in 1990." Via LJB

The cultural Diplomacy Project - bestessaywriters.com: "THE CULTURAL DIPLOMACY PROJECT [:] You will create a plan for a new cultural diplomacy project for the UAE: This could be an institution, an exhibition, and educational program, a film series, a fellowship program. The plan will include: 1. Mission Statement of Project, including purpose and goals 2. Key Message(s) 3. Target Market (with SWOT analysis) 4. Anticipated duration and cost of project 5. Expertise and staff needed to run the project 6. Media and Public Relations Plan (including first press release) 7. How you will assess success of project [.] This project will be due on Oct. 7, with in-class presentations in order to get feedback from classmates.


You may work on this project on your own or with someone else (if together, you will share the same grade, no matter who worked harder). The goal is to come up with a viable proposal the might actually be implemented by an organization in the UAE. instruction: 1- before you start, you have to suggest at least 3 topics and send it to me, I discuss them with the profesor [sic], then when she approve it, I will confirm to you with topic you will work on  2- ... PUBLIC DIPLOMACY refers to government-sponsored programs intended to inform or influence public opinion in other countries; its chief instruments are publications, motion pictures, cultural exchanges, radio and television. (U.S. Department of State, Dictionary of International Relations Terms, 1987)" Image from

RELATED ITEMS

Obama's bait-and-switch on Syria: The White House's emphasis on chemical weapons rather than Bashar Assad's ouster is a huge victory for the Syrian leader - Jonah Goldberg, latimes.com: The Russian deal


Obama just agreed to amounts to a huge boon to Assad in that it brings him into the so-called international community America has spent the last two years trying to kick him out of. Image from

A Very Productive Chemical-Weapons Attack: President Obama has created a U.S. interest in preserving Assad in power to oversee Syria's WMD disarmament - Douglas J. Feith, Wall Street Journal: Bashar Assad may have pulled off the most successful use of chemical weapons in history. For the two years leading up to the Aug. 21 Damascus sarin gas attack, President Obama was saying that the Syrian dictator "must go." No longer. In one month, Assad has risen from outlaw butcher to partner in disarmament. America's Syria policy today focuses not on mass murder, or on the metastasizing humanitarian and refugee crisis, or on combating the interests of Iran and its Hezbollah proxies in keeping Assad in power. Rather, with Russian President Vladimir Putin's help, U.S. policy under President Obama is concentrating on chemical-weapons disarmament.

The Price of Ignoring Mideast Reality: President Obama's plan on Syria will fail for the same reason the Oslo Accord did - Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal: The Obama administration peddles the concept that a deal with Russia will lead to disarmament by Syria—as a reason to call off military strikes.But agreements are not achievements, wishes are not facts, and theory is not reality. The Obama administration has given up on exacting some tangible price on Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons, in exchange for a promise by Russia that it will intervene to remove those weapons.

Obama's Syria fiasco degrading America's global currency - Armstrong Williams, Washington Times: President Obama’s gross mishandling of the Syria situation


has dramatically weakened America’s power in the world. Image from

Obama is Bush 2.0, but it’s no upgrade - Richard Cohen, Washington Post: "Obama has so lost control of his foreign policy — if he ever had one — that he must now wait on Assad to go through with a deal the Russians, of all people, made possible. He must continue to threaten force, but the American people, Congress and, most important, the Russians will not permit it and — here’s Bush smirking — don’t believe him. In the end — and the end could be months down the road — the Syrians may well surrender their stock of chemical weapons, but Assad has literally gotten away with murder. Because of Obama’s fecklessness — abetted by a Congress that has turned darkly isolationist — the world is now a less safe place.

What Putin Doesn’t Have to Say About Syria - Masha Gessen, New York Times: The civil war in Syria will continue to rage, claiming more lives and robbing the Syrian people of hope with every passing day. Ultimately, the United States and its good-faith partners will have to admit the chemical-disarmament project has failed, as Syria lies in ruins — still ruled by Assad.

Foggy Bottom and the Fog of War - Room for Debate, New York Times: Secretary of State John Kerry, not Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, has been leading American efforts to confront the aggression of the Assad regime in Syria militarily.


What is gained or lost when the secretary of defense takes a back seat to the secretary of state in pursuing military interventions? Image from

A superpower on strike: Americans have not really turned isolationist - Economist: According to Gallup polling, most Americans now call the Iraq war a mistake. But by 51% to 44% they still think that going to war in Afghanistan was the right decision. Today’s America is not so much pacifist as fed up. But even a fed-up America is a big deal, as the world is now finding out. Via MP on Facebook

Note to the right-wing propaganda noise machine: Putin is not that into you - AzBlueMeanie, blogforarizona.com: Many on the right urged Obama to engage in saber-rattling against Syria, then complained when the president did just that. Many on the right urged Obama to take the issue to Congress, then complained when the president did that, too. Many on the right said they supported military intervention, right up until Obama agreed with them. Now Republicans seem to be complaining ... just for the sake of complaining. Putin image ffrom entry

Putin’s propaganda was an invitation for a U.S. response - Letters to the Editor, Washington Post: William C. Watts, Leonardtown: Mr. Putin’s letter was a well-crafted, carefully worded piece of propaganda making many valid points. President Obama can respond with valid points of his own.


Sue Udry, Silver Spring: Politicians and pundits who are arguing that diplomacy will work only if the threat of a U.S. attack remains credible are ignoring Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s motivations. His diplomatic push has immeasurably raised his stature on the world stage; he is demonstrating that Russia, not the United States, is the exceptional country, able to bring Syria in line and make it give up its chemical weapons without firing a shot.

Syrian children lethally injected before cameras for war propaganda videos - voiceofrussia.com: Thierry Meyssan, a French journalist and political activist, gives an account of the Syrian chemical gas attack concluding that the attack was fabricated.


In his research he cites the contradictions which appeared in the reports on the attack made by the US, Britain, and France.

The CIA, the Press and Black Propaganda - Doug Valentine, CounterPunch: Simply stated, black propaganda is one of many criminal but legally deniable things the CIA does. It often involves committing a heinous crime and blaming it on an enemy by planting false evidence, and then getting a foreign newspaper to print the CIA’s scripted version of events, which sympathetic journalists in America broadcast to the gullible public. In the case of Syria, the CIA is using cooked Israeli “intelligence” as a catalyst.

Russian doctored photo brings accusation of racism - Timothy Whiteman,Wilmington Conservative Examiner: It’s appearing that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t the only Russian official who's enjoying poking Barack Obama in the eye. Only this time it’s with a banana and more than slightly on the racist side, as reported by left-of-center The Guardian (of London, England) on Sept. 16, 2013.


Obviously meant as an insult, former triple Olympic champion figure-skater and current Member of Parliament Irina Rodnina has posted on her personal Twitter account a photoshopped picture of The First Couple hungrily eying a banana waved in their direction. The American ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, fired back at Rodnina on Twitter with his own less-than-140-character salvo: “Outrageous behavior, which only brings shame to her parliament and country.”  A member in good standing with Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party, an angry Rodnina keystroked a second assault at the Land of the Free insisting she had done nothing wrong with her banana slap: “Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and you should answer for your own hang-ups.” Via MC on Facebook

Protestors Accuse Al-Jazeera of Zionist-American Propaganda - Palestine News Network: The Fatah Youth movement organized a peaceful protest outside the Qatari Al Jazeera TV channel offices in Ramallah last week. The demonstration was in response to an Al Jazeera guest speaker’s verbal attack on the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, also known as Abu Ammar.

Tehran Propaganda Murals -- Harvard Collections - amirmideast.blogspot.com: A part of daily life in contemporary Iran, propaganda murals appear throughout Tehran on both public and


private buildings and contain powerful iconographic imagery.  This selection of over 130 propaganda murals photographed in the capital city during the summer of 2006 is among the first “born digital” special collections to come to the library and represents one of the first efforts to systematically document such public murals."

AMERICANA

A Lot Of People Are Very Upset That An Indian-American Woman Won The Miss America Pageant: “And the Arab wins Miss America, classic” - Ryan Broderick, BuzzFeed: When her win was announced,


Twitter immediately exploded with hateful tweets, with people calling her Arab. Image from entry

Miss South Carolina embarrasses her state with trailer joke- Jessica Chasmar, The Washington Times: South Carolina residents were outraged after the woman who represented them in Sunday’s Miss America pageant suggested that 20 percent of them live in a trailer.


“I’m from the state where 20 percent of our homes are mobileImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. because that’s how we roll,” said Miss South Carolina, Brooke Mosteller, from Mount Pleasant. Image from article

NOT FOR STARVING ACADEMICS

"You Are Cordially Invited To The Middle East Institute's 67th Annual Banquet ... Tickets $200." Via email

"She can't dance, her body looked like hell, the song wasn't great, one cheek was hanging out. And, chick, don't stick out your tongue if it's coated."

--Cher on Miley Cyrus' notorious MTV performance; Cyrus image from


"I believe to blow a bunch of stuff up over a couple of days to underscore or validate a point or principle is not a strategy."

--Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; image from; see also Philip Seib, "The Case for Blowing Things Up," PD News – CPD Blog,  USC Center on Public Diplomacy

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

It Isn't the Military's Place to Weigh In on the Syria Debate: Far too many servicemembers have made their opinions public -- a violation of both ethics and the fundamental principle that in the U.S., civilians make policy - James Joyner, theatlantic.com: "A recent and completely unscientific Military Times survey found 75 percent of troops opposed to air strikes and 80 percent believing intervention in the war at all is not in America's national-security interests. ... Many reports in recent weeks have expressed frustration from serving officers . ... For the record, I tend to share much of the skepticism about the now-on-hold operation and frustration with the public diplomacy that got us here.


For that matter, I sympathize with members of the armed services, many of whom have been deployed multiple times to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in being hostile to the idea of yet another engagement -- even one that would ostensibly be limited to a few airstrikes. But while service members are human beings and will naturally have private views on proposed military action, they have a professional duty to refrain from public commentary on decisions that are the purview of Congress and their commander-in-chief." Image from article, with caption: President Obama, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and General Martin Dempsey


Time magazine names Nancy Gibbs first female managing editor, Richard Stengel leaves to work for Obama - Daniel S Levine, thecelebritycafe.com: "While Time’s newsstand sales have fallen 39 percent over the past year, it still has 3.3 million subscribers. It’s [sic] Twitter presence is also big, with 4.9 million followers. On Tuesday, it was also announced that



Stengel, who held the same position for the past seven years, is going to the State Department. He has been nominated to be an under secretary focusing on public diplomacy and public affairs. A senior official close to Stengel told Capital New York before the news was confirmed by Time that Stengel's focus at Time on national service makes him a great candidate for the job. 'Now he’s taking his own advice and moving on to a senior role at the State Department, where he will have the chance to serve his country,' the official added." See also: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9); Stengel image from

VOA Is 'Not a Mouthpiece of the White House,' Director Says (VIDEO) - Nicholas Kralev, huffingtonpost.com: "'The Voice of America is not a propaganda organization and is not a mouthpiece of the White House or anybody else' -- in fact, its reporters don't enjoy great access to high-ranking U.S. officials, VOA Director David Ensor says on this week's episode of 'Conversations with Nicholas Kralev.' At the same time, VOA is a tool of U.S. public diplomacy -- after all, it reaches over 140 million people around the world, Ensor says. He also talks about VOA as a news source for Americans through its English-language website, and about covering controversial stories like the National Security Agency leaks and Syria's civil war. Ensor spent 31 years as a broadcast reporter at NPR, ABC and CNN. Before his VOA appointment, he was director of communications and public diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan."

Yet another personnel change at PNN – Voice of America Persian Service – is a sign of deep leadership crisis at VOA- BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com: "Observers of U.S. international broadcasting see the latest personnel change at PNN (Persian News Network), the Voice of America (VOA)


Persian Service, as yet another sign that VOA Director David Ensor and his deputy, Executive Editor Steve Redisch, have failed to provide leadership, solve problems and win respect of VOA journalists. Ensor denies these charges and says that 'real progress was made.' But critics say that continuing problems at the Persian Service are typical of the entire organization." Image from entry


"Why China is making a big play to control Africa's media" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: [Elliott comment:] "The Chinese English 24-hour TV news channels, CCTV and CNC World, are good examples of the futility of mixing public diplomacy with journalism. Because they are state-controlled, they are predictable and relatively boring.


This disadvantage is countered by their state subsidies, which make the Chinese channels available without carriage fees. CCTV News and CNC World are therefore available even on the cheapest packages of DStv and on other multichannel television platforms in Africa. Among 24-hour English news channels, CNN International is the US player. It is self-funding and for-profit, and cannot give its content away to multichannel providers. Accordingly, CNN International tends to be available only on the more expensive channel packages. Many television viewers in Africa have access to the Chinese channels and Al Jazeera English, all subsidized, but not the CNN International and BBC World News, each self-funded." Image from entry

Study in the UK -- Change the World! - Sir Peter Westmacott, British Ambassador to the United States, Huffington Post: Yesterday evening, I had the privilege of hosting the 2013 class of Marshall Scholars, just before they jet off to begin their studies in the UK. It was no surprise to learn that they are, as always, a collection of exceptional young Americans. ... Parliament set up the Marshall Scholarships in 1953, with the express aim of extending the close ties between Britain and the United States that had developed during the Second World War. They were named after one of the greatest American generals of that war, and one of the most important architects of the peace that followed, George C. Marshall. ... Bringing such remarkable individuals to the UK early in their careers, and putting them in touch with their British counterparts, is an enormous benefit to the links between our two countries. That's why, even at a time when budgets face pressure across the board, the UK government has opted to maintain -- and even increase -- funding for the Marshall Scholarships. The Marshalls are an essential part of British public diplomacy in the United States. I am proud to support them."

Analysis || Rohani's correspondence with Obama signifies winds of change in Iran: Expectations high that Rohani will use his upcoming UN speech to lay out concrete proposals for advancing negotiations on Iran's nuclear program - Zvi Bar'el, haaretz.com: "Iranian commentators have been writing about the direct dialogue between the U.S. and Iran as a done deal that Khamenei has signed off on. ... The new wind blowing out of Iran is not immune from criticism. For example, conservatives attacked Zarif for using Facebook and Twitter to conduct 'Holocaust and Jewish new year diplomacy.' Zarif explained in an interview to the conservative Tansim website that his comments on the Holocaust are a response to a tweet written by Christine Pelosi, the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. She wrote: 'Thanks. The new year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran's Holocaust denial, sir.' Zarif responded, saying: 'Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone. Happy New Year.' In response to his conservative critics, Zarif told Tansim: 'The issue came up after my response to a tweet, which later turned out to be from the former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's daughter. We must not allow them to present a fabricated image of Iran. Iran has always denounced any killings of humans and in line with that has denounced the killing of Jews by Nazis, just as it denounces the killing and suppression of Palestinians by Zionists, and we will not allow Zionist murderers to cover up their crimes by misusing this event [i.e. the Holocaust].'



The big issues revolve around Tehran - Rami G. Khouri, The Daily Star: "Riyadh and Tehran do not do public diplomacy or meaningful press conferences. They negotiate and make war in the same way – in the shadows, via proxies, using their ample money and guns for all to see, and never very far from home."

Another Sad Tragedy in a series of tragedies - egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com: "Mostafa El Gendy ... [is] the leading member of The Constitution Party who called to people to kill Syrians and Palestinians on the spot at the popular Checkpoints!! El Gendy is the head of the Public diplomacy delegation in Nile Basin countries by the way."

Somalia and Somaliland Dialogue: Preventive Diplomacy To Potential inter-State Wars -
Adam Muse Jibril, somalilandpress.com: "Both official and public diplomatic efforts are needed as long as looming violent conflicts remain imminent threat to the peace and stability in the world. That is why we need to look at the issue of


Somaliland and Somalia dialogue, from its practical dimension as well as from its historical, present and future perspectives." Image from

Media as a Driving Force in International Politics: The CNN Effect and Related Debates - Piers Robinson, e-ir.info: "In addition to the power of ideological narratives, it is also the case that governments have devoted increasing resources and time to attempts to shape and influence public perceptions in ways conducive to their preferred policies. Referred to variously as perception management, strategic communication, public diplomacy and, recently, global engagement, these activities involve the promotion of policy through carefully crafted PR campaigns, exploitation of links with journalists and media outlets and, most generally, taking advantage of the considerable resources at the disposal of governments in order to attempt to dominate the information environment. Some scholars argue that such activities amount to nothing less than propaganda."

Career Diplomat To Make Presentation At Wku On Sept. 26 - wkunews.wordpress.com: Michael McClellan, a career diplomat, author and photographer who grew up in Bowling Green, will present Successful Careers in the Age of Globalization: Expert Advice from a Career Diplomat at 5 p.m. Sept. 26 at Gary A. Ransdell Hall Auditorium. The presentation and discussion, sponsored by the Honors College at WKU, is free and open to the public and the campus community. McClellan, a Senior Foreign Service Officer, most recently served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Juba, South Sudan, the world’s newest independent country.  He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1984 and served in Yemen, Egypt, Russia, Serbia, Kosovo, Germany, Ireland, Iraq, and Ethiopia as a Public Diplomacy Officer, as well as Spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.


As the first diplomat from any country assigned to Kosovo, McClellan opened a diplomatic office and, with the Rochester Institute of Technology, organized and opened the AmericanUniversity in Kosovo.  In Iraq he served on the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction Team, a civilian-military interagency effort that provided the primary connection between U.S. and coalition partners, and the provincial and local governments of Iraq’s provinces. In Ethiopia, McClellan’s work focused on “Faith Communities Outreach” as a means of confidence-building a nd conflict resolution between Ethiopia’s Christian and Muslim communities. McClellan’s book, Monasticism in Egypt: Images and Words of the Desert Fathers, was published in 1998 by the AmericanUniversity in Cairo Press and is in its third edition. Image from entry

TIEDE Chronicles: The Komonibo family Legacy - mynakomo.blogspot.com: "Meet the Komonibo family: ... 2. Timi - a graduate student in Public Diplomacy/International Relations at Syracuse University. [1st degree was in Corporate Communications in The University of Texas at Austin and then 2 years as a Teach For America Corp member] Hobbies - blogging - http://naturalechronicles.com/"

RELATED ITEMS

On foreign policy, a consistently inconsistent president: Obama's rhetoric tends to outrun his willingness to use U.S. power - Doyle McManus, latimes.com: Obama may like the idea of promoting democracy, but his first priority has been reducing U.S. commitments around the world, especially in the Middle East. Obama still hasn't quite reconciled the two faces of his policy for American voters or anyone else, including Syria's disappointed rebels and Iran's ruling clergy. And that leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding.

New York Times on Syria: All the propaganda fit to print - Bill Van Auken, wsws.org: In a front-page article Tuesday, the New York Times reported that a United Nations report released the day before on the August 21 chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus “strongly implicated the Syrian government.” In fact, the report did no such thing. The story’s headline, “UN implicates Syria in using chemical weapons,” is a cynical distortion of reality tailored to meet the needs of the US government for war propaganda.


In more than 10 years, the stench from the journalistic crimes carried out by Judith Miller and Bill Keller in promoting the lies used to justify the Iraq war to the public has still not left the offices and newsroom of the New York Times. Now it is at it again in Syria, functioning today as an even more open and direct propaganda arm of the US government. Image from

Brazil snubs Obama by refusing White House state-dinner honor - Dave Boyer, The Washington Times: In an unprecedented snub to President Obama, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has canceled her official state visit to the White House scheduled for next month, angered by revelations of U.S. spying on her and on major Brazilian state institutions.

Top 10 Sin Cities in the World - banoosh.com. Via MT on Facebook

The Nation on the Hill - Room for Debate, New York Times: In his Op-Ed essay in The New York Times last week, President Vladimir Putin of Russia criticized President Obama’s assertion of “American exceptionalism,” the idea that the U.S.’s heritage and policies make it uniquely able to do what it feels is right. All nations are equal, Putin said. Some say the concept is crucial to America’s ability to protect national interests. Others say it has led the U.S. into military and diplomatic quagmires. Does the sense of American exceptionalism help the U.S. or hurt it?

Manufacturing and Exploiting Compassion: Abuse of the Media by Palestinian Propaganda - Philippe Assouline, jcpa.org: Israel, a liberal democracy caught between tyrannies and sectarian violence, is increasingly perceived as uniquely evil. In the struggle for hearts and minds, feelings trump facts. Imagery and accusations that automatically trigger public compassion are incomparably more compelling than dry, defensive argumentation. We are “wired” by evolution to support those we perceive as innocent victims in distress, even when the facts do not mandate such support. The portrayal of Palestinians as innocent victims in distress has been the key to Palestinian propaganda’s popular success. Through the mass-production of heartrending imagery centered on children, staged “news,” manipulative rhetoric, and rigid censorship, Palestinian propaganda has successfully used the media to recast Palestinians as entirely blameless victims. Moreover, a number of prominent journalists for international news agencies have concurrently been salaried employees of Palestinian administrations. Both Agence France Presse and the Associated Press have employed journalists with close ties to the Palestinian Authority. Israelis have long tried to win minds with a multitude of defensive arguments and legal justifications, and have lost. Israel will have to define itself to the world in a way that is at least as emotionally appealing as the Palestinians’ saga of victimhood. Rather than fighting spurious accusations with impersonal facts, Israel must fight Palestinian propaganda’s exploitation of public compassion with a touching but morally correct narrative of its own.

Parade Propaganda on Display - Lee Sang Yong, dailynk.com: The large-scale military parade held yesterday to mark the 65th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK aimed to promote the legitimacy of third generation succession. Unlike previous parades, little in the way of heavy weaponry was on display.

Chinese Real Estate Mogul Does Anti-Rumor Propaganda for Party - Lu Chen and Matthew Robertson, Epoch Times: The Chinese authorities have stepped up their propaganda against rambunctiousness on the Internet, most recently by enlisting a well-known real estate developer to participate in a 15 minute video segment where he expresses support for the Party’s ongoing crackdown.


Pan Shiyi is a real estate mogul with 16 million followers, known as a Big V, meaning a verified account, on the Sina Weibo microblog. The term Big V is often synonymous with celebrity and some degree of influence in Chinese society. Pan was one of the first group of users on Weibo to test the platform. Image from article, with caption: A screen grab of Pan Shiyi in an interview with China Central Television, the state broadcaster. He appeared in support of the Chinese Communist Party's recent campaign against what it calls rumorous [sic] speech on the Internet.

RUSSICA

"Marriage proposals have been pouring in over the summer as well. The most interesting offer


so far, however, came from a 50-year-old woman, [Snowden attorney] Kucherena confessed. She offered to adopt the fugitive American."

--"In Snowden’s footsteps: NSA leaker’s new life in Russia," RT; image from; see also John Brown, "What if Snowden wants to attend the U.S. Embassy Moscow Fourth of July celebration with ex-Russian spy Anna Chapman?" Notes and Essays

WASHINGTONIANA

At PIJAC, every day is bring-your-pet-to-work day [includes video] - Patrick Gavin, politico.com: While there are plenty of quirky offices around Washington, few can match the accommodations at the Dupont Circle offices of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, which advocates on behalf of pet ownership. There is the coffee table reading material, which consists not of National Journal or Time magazine but instead such magazines as Practical Reptile Keeping. There are the bags of dog food lining the conference room.There is, for instance, PIJAC’s president and CEO, Mike Canning, who held a pet corn snake in his hands during our sit-down interview. (QUIZ: Pair the pet with the president) And then, there is the office rule: “You have to sample the various dog foods we represent before you start working here,” Canning said. “I’ve tried a wide variety of dog food myself, particularly with milk in the mornings.” But his product testing experience doesn’t stop there; he admits to being a regular user of puppy shampoo on his own hair, saying, “It does a great job.” He’s even promoted the habit to his colleagues. “We do recommend animal shampoo for the first day of work,” he said. And the pet policy? Do you really need to ask? It’s simple: “Bring your pet to work.” “We just close doors and only have one person walking an animal at a time,” Canning said. The fish in the conference room, however (a conference room rimmed with pictures of presidential pets), can be shared by all, anytime. “When a staff member is having a bad day, they’ll come in; they’ll sit near the fish tank, watch the fish, and you can just see their blood pressure drop.”


The group is home to all sorts of pets — dogs, cats, snakes, hamsters, you name it. Anything but those other animals. “We typically don’t deal with a lot of the animals that you would find in a zoo — lions and tigers and bears. We don’t really consider those proper pets for a household.” But for the pets that do fit their model, PIJAC works Capitol Hill with one primary mission: “We stand for promoting the human-animal bond.” “We feel that whenever there’s interaction between animal and human beings both parties benefit,” Canning said. So that means promoting pet ownership broadly but also some more specific issues, like the group’s latest effort to persuade Amtrak to allow pets on board. “There’s not really parity between airlines and trains when it comes to taking your pet along,” he said. PIJAC was out in full force last week for the annual Pet Night on Capitol Hill on Sept. 12, featuring lawmakers and their little ones. “Many members of Congress are pet owners themselves, so they make natural allies,” said Canning. He’s proud of that really visible pet owner on Pennsylvania Avenue — President Barack Obama — but he thinks that all presidents could expand their definition of what a pet is — remember: Canning said all of this holding a snake. Snakes “make marvelous pets. You don’t have to walk them everyday,” he said. “I think there should probably be a good balance in every White House between the various pet groups, so maybe we’ll see a pet bird or a pet boa constrictor.” Image from

IMAGE


--Roman Rukos; image via FW on Facebook

DOCUMENT


Image via FZB on Facebook

--Words from a bumper sticker on a car parked in yet another litter-infested neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C.

VIDEO

The US/Russia Public Diplomacy Battle for Syria - youtube.com

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Former defense secretaries Gates, Panetta fault Obama on Syria, Criticize former boss’ mixed signals - Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times: "Now, even the president’s men don’t like his Syria policy. At a forum Tuesday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, former defense chiefs Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta found fault with how the man they worked for — President Obama — has zigzagged on Syria. They criticized the president’s mixed signals — first threatening to bomb Syria for its use of deadly gas Aug. 21, then announcing a delay to seek Congress‘ permission, and then stopping that process and handing the issue to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two are not alone. The White House could expect criticism from internationalist Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But lately even the president’s allies see him as weak on Syria and his ballyhooed speech to the nation last week as a punt to Russia. In Washington, the Republican Party has taken to issuing news releases with a roll call of offended liberals. One is Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt, usually a reliable basher of Republicans and defender of Democrats. But not in his Sunday column. 'On public diplomacy, Obama is failing,' Mr. Hunt wrote. 'There is no coherent message, little explanation of the complexities and contradictions created by difficult circumstances. By taking on the role of the agonizingly reluctant warrior on Syria, he has reinforced the country’s skepticism.'”

Washington Post: Obama Isn’t A Catasrophic Mess, This Is All Standard Negotiation On Syria - thepiratescove.us: "Here’s one of those articles I promised would be forthcoming which would show that no, Obama’s not a screwup, that he’s not getting played and owned by Putin and Assad, in fact, he’s super awesome and things are going according to plan [:] '(Washington Post [:]) Watching the maneuvering between the United States, Russia and Syria over the plan to remove Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons, it can look like a catastrophic mess. No one seems to be on remotely the same page, everyone is making crazy demands and it looks functionally impossible that everyone could actually reach an agreement. ... Almost every single thing you’re seeing these three countries do right now, no matter how crazy it looks, is about getting as close to their desired outcome as possible. But these are high-stakes negotiations, which means they’re starting from maximalist positions, making crazy, unfulfillable demands, trying to game the process. That’s actually all normal. It’s just part of the game.['] Put [Washington Post  reporter] Max Fisher in the Obama Fan Boy Club, a club that is devoid of any sense of reality. He goes on to discuss Putin’s op-ed in the NY Times and how, no, it’s not giving Obama a massive wedgie followed by flushing his head in the toilet, it’s just an 'act of public diplomacy'. ... [O]nly a complete Obama zombie would think this is standard negotiation, and that Obama doesn’t come off looking weak and a fool internationally."

Warfare of Ideas: There is an alternative to Obama diplomacy - Elliott Abrams, weeklystandard.com: "Christian Whiton occupied several posts at the State Department during the administration of George W. Bush, all of them at the juncture where realpolitik meets ideology. Or would meet, anyway, if the department were able to recognize the importance of ideas in international politics. Whiton served under Jay Lefkowitz when Lefkowitz was Bush’s special envoy for human rights in North Korea, where he learned what the department can do to corner and undermine a foreign body it views as dangerous. From his years at State comes this book, half memoir of what the United States government does wrong and half proposal for fixing it. ... As someone seeking recognition of the role of ideology in world politics, and of the new agencies and programs that can use 'smart power' best, Whiton ought to realize that he is most likely to find support among neocons—and incomprehension almost everywhere else, in the government and in both political parties. There are also a few too many snarky personal comments here, such as an attack on John McCain (Whiton backed Newt Gingrich in 2012), that add nothing to the serious arguments he is making.


 [']If U.S. espionage today is the 'pull' of information that America’s opponents do not want it to have, political warfare is the 'push' of confrontational ideas, people, forces, and events with which America’s opponents would rather not contend. That push is aided by a strong military posture, whether or not it is engaged in outright combat.['] Smart Power is not, then, a paean to replacing hard power with the Internet. ... But in order to conduct political warfare, the United States will need political warriors—and agencies that allow them to work together effectively. Whiton’s experience tells him that there are very few such people in the government, and that our agencies are incompetent and, in fact, flee from the very idea of political warfare. He spends many pages telling horror stories about the bureaucracy and describing how America successfully engaged in political warfare in the past. During and after World War II, we seemed to be good at it, able to fight the Communists on their own intellectual and ideological turf. Whiton recalls the success of the CIA and the Congress for Cultural Freedom in combating Communist parties and ideology in Europe. Indeed, Smart Power begins with the tale of a CIA agent delivering bags of cash to Italy’s Christian Democrats in the years after the war, allowing them to take on the Soviet-backed Italian Communist Party. Whiton despairs of teaching new (or, actually, old) tricks to the State Department, though, and argues that 'no instrument is available to presidents to initiate and manage political warfare. .  .  . The closest operation the United States ever had to a peacetime political warfare agency was the U.S. Information Agency.' But the USIA was a victim of success and closed down when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended. The best model he examines is the Political Warfare Executive, created in London during World War II as part of the Special Operations Executive, whose mission Winston Churchill said was 'to set Europe ablaze.' Today, Whiton laments, 'the United States has neither the tools nor even the serious inclination to engage in a war of ideas against Washington’s adversaries,' a 'deficiency [that] represents a no-show for a major part of the smart power spectrum. There is no updated Congress for Cultural Freedom for China today.' Whiton does not suggest reopening USIA, but wants a new agency instead, one capable not only of information operations but of covert activities. It needs 'the ability to act covertly and at times even support political forces that might not want U.S. help but whose progress would advance U.S. interests (e.g., the opposition movements in Iran).' ... Whiton’s own experiences in the intelligence bureaucracy should suggest to him that this is very unlikely to happen: The CIA and the State Department would fight it to the death." Image from

Obama’s officials to revamp digital diplomacy at State Department -spent more than $600,000 on social-media ads trying to increase foreign viewership of the department’s Facebook pages - Philip Rucker, Washington Post:  "But according to an inspector general’s report, the effort had limited success: Just 2 percent of users shared or liked what they read in a given week. The episode illustrates the difficulties that the U.S. government has long faced in trying to sway public opinion abroad. The Obama administration is launching a new strategy aimed at revamping America’s 'digital diplomacy' efforts. Secretary of State John F. Kerry has hired Macon Phillips, the 2008 Obama campaign’s digital guru and the man behind many White House digital innovations, to develop ways to expand engagement with foreign audiences. ... Phillips


will be taking over the  Bureau of International Information Programs — also known as the government’s 'propaganda arm' — at a time when disseminating messages is increasingly complicated. 'It’s a double-edged sword: It’s easier to get information out, but also harder to correct misinformation that’s out there,' said Phillips, who is slated to report to former Time magazine managing editor Richard Stengel, who has been nominated as undersecretary for public diplomacy. During the Cold War, the government could plant a column in a friendly newspaper, drop pamphlets from airplanes or produce radio shows to get out the U.S. message. But now, most foreign nationals have dozens if not hundreds of news sources from which to choose. 'Propaganda doesn’t work well on the Internet; people smell it a million miles away,' said Alec Ross, who oversaw digital strategy as a senior adviser to Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Rodham Clinton. You can’t just belch out a radio show anymore. You’ve got to be sophisticated analysts and integrate yourself into conversations happening across platforms.' ...  [M]uch of the department’s A-list digital talent has moved on: Katie Jacobs Stanton directs international strategy at Twitter, Jared Cohen runs Google Ideas and Ross is writing a book. A challenge for Phillips and his team is not simply reaching foreigners, but persuading them to change their views about the United States. In 2011 and 2012, after the bureau spent the money to promote its Facebook postings, the number of fans on the State Department’s English language Facebook pages grew from about 100,000 to 2 million for each page, according to the May inspector general’s report. But “buying fans” did not necessarily translate into engagement. For instance, the report found that many postings had fewer than 100 comments or shares. ... Another challenge for Phillips will be to change the culture at the tradition-bound information bureau. The inspector general’s report found that morale was low and that 'leadership created an atmosphere of secrecy, suspicion and uncertainty.'” Image, evidently of Phillips, from article

Presidential Nominations Sent to the Senate - whitehouse.gov: "... Richard Stengel, of New York, to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, vice Tara D. Sonenshine."

This Obama Nominee Questioned If The Constitution Even Matters - Fred Lucas, theblaze.com: "As managing editor of Time magazine, Richard Stengel questioned if the Constitution even matters. If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll take an oath to uphold it. The day after Constitution Day, President Barack Obama sent the nomination of Stengel to the Senate to be the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Stengel has had a long career in journalism, and also worked briefly in politics. But his essay published in July 4, 2011 issue of Time was the cover story with a picture depicting the Constitution being shredded and asking 'Does it Still Matter?' The article, that ran about 5,000 words, was the main feature of the magazine’s 10th annual History Issue.


'We can pat ourselves on the back about the past 223 years, but we cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle to the U.S.’s moving into the future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, an evolving sense of civil and political rights,' Stengel wrote. Stengel wrote the piece as litigation had ensued challenging the constitutionality of the Obamacare health law and as tea party members of Congress helped make the Constitution a key point of public debate. Stengel went on to write, 'The Constitution does not protect our spirit of liberty; our spirit of liberty protects the Constitution. The Constitution serves the nation; the nation does not serve the Constitution.'” Image from entry; see also (1)

Hivos, US Government, Indigo Trust, provide US $280k for tech hub in Harare - techzim.co.zw: Indigo Trust, a UK based grant making foundation, announced today that they, the US government and Hivos, have granted at least $280,000 to Hypercube, an organisation we wrote about here last month.


The money is for the organisation to establish a technology hub in Harare. The hub, according to the announcement, will support tech entrepreneurs working on both commercial and social projects. Indigo Trust is contributing £30,000, Hivos €40,000 annually for 3 years, and the US government – through a State Department Fund for Innovation in Public Diplomacy administered by the US Embassy in Harare – is contributing $75,000. The total amount, converted using the current rate, comes up to about US $280,000. Image from entry

State Department’s Andrew Rabens nominated for Service to America Medal - Jessica Schulberg, Washington Post: "Rabens, a special adviser at the State Department, contacted U.S. embassies and consulates in the Middle East with a simple request: Select the top political movers and shakers between 18 and 35 in each country to participate in a 10-day program promoting youth empowerment and leadership.


Fifty-five were ultimately selected. He welcomed them at the San Francisco International Airport last October to the inaugural Active Citizen Summit. 'From the beginning of the program, he treated us like his extended family,' recalled Amani Ogbi, 28, a Libyan. 'It was a person who wanted the best for his country, but also to extend bridges of communication between all cultures.' The delegates represented 18 Middle Eastern countries, several of which do not have diplomatic engagement with each other, much less with the United States. ... In recognition of his youth engagement efforts in a region that is strategically significant to U.S. interests, Rabens has been selected as a finalist for a Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal. Winners of the awards, sponsored by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, will be announced next month. ... In 2008, armed with a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and professional experience working for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and at the United Nations, Rabens became a Presidential Management Fellow in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs." Rabens image from article

Ming Tsai's World Premiere of the "Simply Ming" Collection Launches on HSN on September 20, 2013 - consumerelectronicsnet.com: "Celebrity chef and restaurateur Ming Tsai will debut his collection of 'Simply Ming' cutting edge kitchen tools and accessories on HSN, HSN.com and HSN mobile live on Friday, September 20, 2013 at 12 A.M. EDT. ... In 1998, Ming opened Blue Ginger in Wellesley, MA and immediately impressed diners nationwide with his innovative East-West cuisine. His success led him to open Blue Dragon, a 90 seat Asian gastropub in Boston in 2013. Ming also represents the United States with the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Initiative/American Chefs Corps, where chefs around the country participate in official government programs that use food as a foundation for public diplomacy efforts at home and abroad."

Government must preserve national parks - Todd Davidson, thehill.com: "Last year, President Obama called for a national travel and tourism strategy to make the United States the world’s top travel and tourism destination, as part of a comprehensive effort to spur job creation. The White House released the strategy just over a year ago — an important step that officially elevates the travel and tourism industry to what it should be: a national priority. It also recognizes the industry for its fundamental contribution to our economy, national security and public diplomacy. Our national parks can play an important role in making the U.S. a top travel destination."

TV Martí transmitter plane, grounded by sequester, stored for $79,500 per year (updated) - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: [Elliott comment:] "The people of Cuba are not getting complete and reliable news about Cuba and the rest of the world from their domestic media. It is appropriate for the United States to provide such a news service. It should be a comprehensive, balanced news service, not a "gotcha" bad-news-about-Cuba news service. And it should be rebranded."

U.S.-China Relationship Starts from Mutual Understanding - infozine.com: “'What brings us together is mutual need, common interest and a shared future,' Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai said [at a panel discussion]. China is currently the third largest export market for U.S. goods (after Canada and Mexico), and the United States is China’s largest export market. 'Today, both of our two people enjoy a life of peace,' said Li Zhaoxing, president of the China Public Diplomacy Association and former Chinese foreign minister. 'We have one thing in common: to join the rest of the world to maintain world peace and to resolve issues that disturb the peace, such as, at the moment, in Syria.'”

Letter from America: Madiba statue symbolic of his long walk to freedom - Simon Barber, bdlive.co.za: "On Saturday, International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane will dedicate a statue of Nelson Mandela outside South Africa’s embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, an artery down which many of Washington’s most powerful denizens (not least, the vice-president) pass on their daily commutes. Mr Mandela’s daughter Zindzi will be there, as will African National Congress (ANC) chairwoman Baleka Mbete. ... The Mandela statue is a tribute to its subject, obviously, but also to Mr Rasool’s [South Africa's ambassador Ebrahim Rasool] tenacity. The original blueprint for the embassy’s refurbishment was statueless. Changing it has been no cakewalk. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have had to be raised, architects engaged to redraw plans and multiple layers of approval sought on both sides of the Atlantic. Sceptics might cavil that the time and money could have been better spent. The ambassador’s answer has been to make the statue just one facet of a sustained public diplomacy campaign using Mr Mandela’s 'life, legacy and values' as examples of South Africa’s 'inspiring new ways'."

What Are the Motives Behind Iran's 'Charm Offensive'? - PBS NewsHour: GWEN IFILL [PBS]: When President Rouhani won and was installed in office, there was much discussion about how he was a moderate, a centrist. What does that mean in Iran? KARIM SADJADPOUR [Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars]: Well, the bar of public diplomacy was set very low by the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So, as long as Rouhani comes in and doesn't deny the Holocaust, doesn't call for Israel to be wiped off the map, vis-a-vis Ahmadinejad, he is perceived as a moderate. But historically within Iran, he has been a constant regime insider. But his focus has always been kind of foreign policy and national security. And I think, in that respect, he has shown himself someone who is interested in putting Iran's national interests ahead of revolutionary, ideological interests. cAnd for the Obama administration, which is looking a the Middle East and almost every country seems to be unraveling, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, a lot of negative examples there, I think that Iran, ironically, is perhaps one of the few sources of hope for Obama to leave a positive diplomatic legacy."

Facing Islam Blog: An Orthodox Christian Confronts the Religion of Muhammad - facingislam.blogspot.com: "The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, which is the oldest public organization in Russia, 'intends to continue giving humanitarian aid to the Syrian people no matter what circumstances which may arise in Syria', reports ITAR-TASS.


This has been stated today at a press conference by its deputy chairwoman Elena Agapova. Syria 'now relies on Russia and our people,' she said, stressing that the society intends 'to extend its humanitarian activity, to bear the spirit of peacemaking to the Biblical region using public diplomacy as a means of mild force'. Since the beginning of this year, the Imperial Orthodox Society has sent humanitarian aid to Syria in the amount of 58.8 million rubles. This was reported today at the press conference by the chairman of the IOPS Moscow office Sergei Baidakov." Uncaptioned image from entry

Buzzfeed Changes Community Guidelines In Response To Personhood USA's Controversial Listicle - Lane Florsheim, bustle.com: "BuzzFeed has decided to update its community contributor post guidelines after facing anger last month for running the piece, '8 Outrageous Things Planned Parenthood Was Caught Doing,' by the anti-abortion group Personhood USA. It has also pulled the piece in question, and searches on the website for the group returned nada — though the group had several published listicles


as recently as last month. ... The Personhood USA listicle isn't the only time the site's community section has come under fire: Three weeks ago, Israel expanded its 'public diplomacy' efforts to include the presence of its American embassy on BuzzFeed. It published a post entitled, 'Threats Facing Israel, Explained In One (Sort of Terrifying) Map,' which received more than 3,000 likes on Facebook, more than 400 shares on Twitter, and more than 23,000 on the website. The problem? As the Atlantic describes, the 'menacing perils on the country's borders' illustrated by the map blur reality — dramatically.  If you were to take the post at face value, the magazine explains, you'd think Iran and Israel's Arab neighbors were just about to strike Israel with a torrent of rockets and nuclear weapons. It's an issue for the site, because readers often confuse community-generated content with content published by the BuzzFeed staff. 'Since when does Buzzfeed act as a propaganda outlet for Israel?' one reader commented on the map post." Image from entry

Roger Waters discusses boycott with Israel's 'newspaper of the nation': The interview with rock ‘n’ roll’s lead boycotter of Israel was published in Yedioth Ahronoth, but it could have been put out by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy - 972mag.com: "I love when Israelis describe the media here as “leftist,” and when polite foreigners describe it as 'robust' and 'independent.' It goes along with our 'vibrant democracy,' and our citizens who 'all want peace,' especially, of course, our young people. On Wednesday, Yedioth Ahronoth – the 'newspaper of the nation,' by far the best-selling, influential paper in the country - published a long interview with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, the unofficial leader of the rock n’ roll chapter of the boycott against Israel. Presumably the writer, Alon Hadar, is young, presumably at least some of the editors of the holiday supplement it appeared in are young, yet the interview and its packaging had no youthful, open-minded spirit. It could have been put out by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy. ... The writer accuses Waters of 'hurting the feelings of the Jewish people' with the Star of David on the inflated pig, though he stops short of accusing him outright of anti-Semitism, and lets Waters answer his critics. 'There are various symbols on it,' Waters says, 'not just the cross and the Star of David, also the hammer and sickle, all the symbols are symbols of oppression.' (Aside from the cross and the Star of David, his show has also used the Muslim crescent as a symbol of oppression.)"

“He declares a boycott against us,” reads the intro, “floats a toy pig at his concerts with a Star of David on it and demands of his musician friends not to come to Israel. Now Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd, explains for the first time what he has against the government of Israel and why he automatically takes the Palestinians’ side, yet is in no rush to get involved over the massacre in Syria. Yedioth Ahronoth’s writer accompanied one of the greatest musicians in history, and examined why he insists on building a wall around us. ...

Will post-Morsi Egypt live up to great expectations? - H A Hellyer, thenational.ae: [F]ar-right wing Republican members of the American Congress ... [were] feted by different parts of the Egyptian media and elite, on a recent visit to Cairo – undoubtedly due to the anti-Islamism of that portion of the American political elite. Their views on other issues that Egyptians might generally find questionable, were left uninvestigated. More normal modes of public diplomacy, however, have also been pursued. Many pro-government Egyptians are travelling to western capitals to promote what they see as the correct narrative, one that nullifies what they perceive as pro-Muslim Brotherhood sentiment in those cities.


The official chatter around “no foreign interference” notwithstanding, the Egyptian political elite does care a great deal about the public image of Egypt abroad – and it will go to much effort to advance its view in the international media. That holds true at home in Egypt too, where political figures in favour of the interim government’s road map are engaging with different western media. At home, the pro-government forces have a monopoly on the narrative, where the military remains very popular, and the Egyptian media, while not completely giving the interim government a free ride, has hardly been deeply critical of it. Abroad, however, there is competition – from supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood reside in western capitals and engage as heavily as they can, wherever they can be listened to. Beyond their own members, they have allies in members of other Muslim Brotherhood movements, as well as a variety of Islamist groups." Image from

The Lessons And Hurdles In Branding Our Country - Mary Kimonye, the-star.co.ke: "In March 2008 Kenya took a bold step to put in place a national branding program. By so doing Kenya joined a small circle of Nations that have dared to undertake this awesome and challenging journey. The Brand Kenya board was put in place to steer the process. Two years down the line the board completed the national brand master plan. ... Countries often make the mistake of promising similar generic things like educated work force, youthful population, great sites and locations without regard to how potential customers perceive the country. Most potential customers want more than these. They want stability, security, ease of movement, acceptance, respect etc. Finally, country branding needs coordination and cooperation across all levels and sectors: trade, tourism, public diplomacy culture, investment, FDI and citizens."

Tisha Korea’s ‘goodwill ambassador’ - bdnews24.com: "Bangladeshi actress Nusrat Imrose Tisha has been appointed by the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a ‘goodwill ambassador’ for its Dhaka mission. According to the Korean embassy, Ambassador Lee Yun-young will hand over her appointment letter in a ceremony on Sept 23. For the next two years, she will work for the mission’s ‘public diplomacy.’ Tisha is an acclaimed television actress, model and producer."

Islamabad’s political incorrectness - Hiader Mehdi, nation.com.pk: Leading social-psychologists all over the world are in complete agreement that political actors, the majority of them, tend to fall victim to “Group-Think” when faced with a conflict situation and led by a strong central leadership. This is exactly what happened at the recent APC held in Islamabad at the invitation of Nawaz Sharif’s government. ... The APC was conducted, in large measure and in essence, to gain political legitimacy in the eyes of the masses. It was a political thriller organized with the explicit purpose of public diplomacy and well-intended political declarations for public consumption. The APC was skillfully crafted to convey the message: Look, this government cares. This government is on the move."

Mayor deplores 'gross erosion of democracy' - southernstar.ie: "[T]he office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come up with a terribly clever wheeze. It is paying university students to tackle newspapers and online blogs that carry disapproving evaluations of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. ... The Israeli government has allocated $778,000 to the campaign – already dubbed good money for old rope – and refuses to acknowledge that the hacks’ phony messages are nothing but twisted propaganda, preferring to describe the activity as ‘public diplomacy.’ The problem for Israel, of course, is that its image as a pariah state is so strongly entrenched that nobody any longer swallows what it says."

The Olympic Games selection site and doping - Basil Ince, trinidadexpress.com: "On the question of doping, the newly-elected head of the IOC [international Olympic Committee] , Thomas Bach, immediately issued his zero tolerance policy. ... Chemists dealing in prohibited substances are constantly finding new drugs and techniques to evade detection. Incredulously WADA [World Anti Doping Agency], the organisation created to weed out drug cheats, refused to publish the study although the researchers were prepared to do so.


WADA said the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) needed to review the study, and do blood tests to combine with the results of the study. The thinking in some quarters is that the results of the study shocked WADA and the IAAF and its release would be harmful to the sport. Neither organisation comes out smelling roses in this situation. In the meantime our organisations involved in the solution of our drug issue should lower the decibel level in their discourse. It does little credit to public diplomacy." Image from

Communication professor takes students on trips across the globe - Agatha Kereere, Berkeley Beacon: "Dr. Gregory Payne, associate professor in the communication studies department ... started taking students on self-funded trips in and outside the country in 1986. 'Students should not only have theoretical perspectives of the classroom but also have a sense of what’s happening in the world,' he said. 'It’s an opportunity for them to put the skills they’ve acquired to use in projects that are related to marketing and public diplomacy in different cultures.' ... In Barcelona, students roamed the city and Ramon Llull University to learn more about public diplomacy, said Payne."

CBS’ Major Garrett to Influence Today’s Youth - Betsy Rothstein, mediabistro.com: "CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett and former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine will be distinguished fellows at GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs. A release sent out today says the duo will share 'expertise' and 'real life experiences' with students for the 2013-2014 academic year. ... Sonenshine: 'My career has always been at the intersection of media and international affairs, which makes this fellowship at GW perfect,' Ms. Sonenshine said. 'I have a chance to take all of these experiences with government, and my experiences with media and non-profits, and bring it together in an academic environment.'”

New media focus of UNK Conference: Chinese dissident, human rights activist keynote speaker at Midwest Conference on World Affairs - Josh Moody, kearneyhub.com: "Tuesday ... 2-3:15 p.m. — 'The Centrality of New Media to Public Diplomacy.' Parvathaneni Harish, consul general, consulate general of India, Houston, Texas; Maya Karmely, consul for public affairs, consulate general of Israel, Chicago; Ricardo Valencia, expert in strategic communications, Embassy of El Salvador, Washington, D.C. Ponderosa A/B."

Dunmore native, CNN correspondent Jill Dougherty to speak locally - Josh McAuliffe, thetimes-tribune.com: "On Friday, Sept. 27, Ms. Dougherty, the foreign affairs correspondent for cable news giant CNN, will give a talk at the University of Scranton as part of its Schemel Forum World Affairs Luncheon Seminars series. Titled 'Putin's Soft Power Strategy,' the talk Titled "Putin's Soft Power Strategy," the talk will take place in the McIlhenny Ballroom of the university's DeNaples Center from noon to 1:30 p.m. ... Russia, of course, is a major player in the recent tensions between the U.S. and Syria over the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons on its people. ... This is just the kind of high-profile role on the world stage that Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking via his 'soft power diplomacy,' a campaign focused on culture, language and ideas to attract more international support.


Basically, Ms. Dougherty said, the thinking is that if the things you promote are attractive to other countries, then those countries 'are more likely to do what you want them to do.' The whole idea of soft power is nothing new for Russia. During the Cold War, the Soviets used a similar strategy of public diplomacy and propaganda. There's hard power, which is guns and war and bribes. And then there's soft power, which is more the power of attraction,' said Ms. Dougherty, who devoted her recent master's thesis at Georgetown University to the topic." Dougherty image from entry

The Last Days of Kim Jong-il [The Last Day’s of Kim Jong-il: The North Korean Threat in a Changing Era by Bruce Bechtol, Jr., Potomac Books, Inc., 2013] - Review by William Maurer, American Diplomacy: "Bill Maurer was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania and joined the Foreign Service with the U.S. Information Agency in 1967. Over the course of some thirty years Maurer served in a variety of domestic and overseas positions. His assignments include stints as press attaché in Seoul, press attaché in Tokyo, cultural attaché in Seoul, public affairs officer in Sri Lanka and public affairs officer in Korea; tours as chief of VOA’s Korean language service, Director of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Office in USIA and Director of the Public Diplomacy Office in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He retired in September 2000."

NACA appoints new director of administration - ngrguardiannews.com: Secretary to the Government of the Federation has confirmed Mr. Chenge Emmanuel


as the substantive Director of Administration of the National Agency for Control of AIDS (NACA), effective June 1, 2013. ... He is a fellow of several professional bodies, among them Institute of Public Diplomacy and Management; Institute of Professional Managers and Administrators (IPMA)." Uncaptioned image from article

RELATED ITEMS

A kinder, gentler Iran? Its new president, Hassan Rouhani, speaks softly but still carries a big stick - Ray Takeyh, latimes.com: Cleverly manipulated by the United States and Israel, the United Nations censured Iran and imposed debilitating sanctions on its fledgling economy. The new government's soothing words have not lessened its determination to forge ahead with its nuclear program.

Why Iran seeks constructive engagement - Hassan Rouhani, Washington Post: Hassan Rouhani is president of Iran. We must pay attention to the complexities of the issues at hand to solve them. Enter my definition of constructive engagement. In a world where global politics is no longer a zero-sum game, it is — or should be — counterintuitive to pursue one’s interests without considering the interests of others. A constructive approach to diplomacy doesn’t mean relinquishing one’s rights. It means engaging with one’s counterparts, on the basis of equal footing and mutual respect, to address shared concerns and achieve shared objectives. In other words, win-win outcomes are not just favorable but also achievable. A zero-sum, Cold War mentality leads to everyone’s loss.

Radical Islam: The New Cold War - Conor Higgins, Washington Times: By arming al-Qaeda linked Syrian rebel groups the US has made it clear that it does not have a workable foreign policy.

A New Kind of 'Credibility' Gap Americans and their leaders have different ideas about what that word means - Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: The old, Washington definition of credibility, which involves the projection of force in pursuit of ends it thinks necessary, and the American people's definition of credibility, which is to become stronger and allow the world, and the young, to understand you are getting stronger, are at variance.

Saudi woman’s acclaimed film ‘Wadjda’ breaks down cultural barriers - Kelly Jane Torrance, The Washington Times: “I grew up watching a lot of film,” Haifaa al-Mansour told The Washington Times during a visit to the District this month to promote that breakthrough film, “Wadjda,” which opens in the Washington area and across the U.S. on Friday. 
Ms. al-Mansour now lives in Bahrain with her American diplomat husband. “I fell in love with America through him,” she said.

'Hitler's Reign Of Terror,' First U.S. Anti-Nazi Film, Found In Belgian Film Archive Cinematheque - Robert-Jan Bartunek, Huffington Post: The first U.S. film to warn about the dangers of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime has been found in a Brussels film archive, having lain unnoticed for some 75 years. "Hitler's Reign of Terror" was produced by Cornelius Vanderbilt, an heir to the wealthy American industrialist family, who visited Germany as Hitler was voted into power in 1933.

ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR A (MISPLACED?) ACRONYM?

Aaron Alexis Background Check Done By Same Firm That Scrutinized Edward Snowden - Tabassum Zakaria, Hunffington Post: The


same company that scrutinized former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden for a U.S. government security clearance said on Thursday it also checked the background of the Navy Yard shooter, allowing him to obtain a "secret" clearance. USIS, working as a contractor for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), conducted


a background review of Aaron Alexis, identified by law enforcement authorities as the shooter who killed 12 people at the Navy Yard before he was shot dead. On USIS/USIA, see. Above image from; below image from

RUSSICA



--David Burluk Давид Бурлюк (1882 - 1967); image via IK on Facebook

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Op-ed diplomacy: Ink-stained presidents - bostonglobe.com: "First, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin, outlining his Syria strategy and decrying American exceptionalism in an op-ed in The New York Times. Then newly elected Iranian president Hasan Rouhani spelled out his views on foreign relations — and plugged his country’s nuclear energy program — in an op-ed Thursday in The Washington Post. In the age of WikiLeaks, is back-channel communication


dead? Are the leaders of controversial governments simply going to pitch to the American public directly, via newspaper columns? For Americans, who generally look well on promoting US-style democratic values around the world, it’s odd to be on the receiving end of some other government’s public diplomacy. (In contrast, Senator John McCain’s anti-Putin column in a Pravda-affiliated website was closer to the norm.) Critics of these efforts are wary of giving foreign dictators an audience; imagine if Mao Zedong had written for, say, the Houston Chronicle, trying to put a positive spin on his rule ('let 1,000 flowers bloom, y’all'). Still, many American readers will find it useful to hear at length from foreign leaders in their own words, and there’s always the comment section to keep would-be propagandizers in line."  Image from article, with caption: Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed for The New York Times.
Putin’s Address to the American Public: What It Means Beyond the Syria Crisis - Molly Krasnodebska, PD News – CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "Putin’s op-ed, which appeared in The New York Times on September 11, 2013, showed that from Russia’s perspective it is a contest after all. By directly addressing the American people in this, a piece of carefully drafted public diplomacy, Putin attempted to alter the way his diplomatic victory is perceived in America. Whereas in conventional diplomacy, decisions can be based on pragmatism, the very nature of public diplomacy does not allow pragmatism. Engagement with foreign publics through creation of dialogue and appeal to common values and emotions always entails a normative component. With the op-ed, Putin has begun an ideological battle – one that, as I will argue, has little to do with the issue of Syria itself, but concerns Russia and the United States. There is no doubt that American readers found Putin’s op-ed a little bizarre. Showing his readers that this time it was not America but Russia who resolved a crisis and prevented a war, Putin intended to undermine the perception of American moral superiority over Russia and establish the two nations as ideologically equal partners. This might not be the Cold War, but the Russian leader’s use of emotional words to paint America black, while presenting Russia as a peaceful nation, certainly brings back memories of Soviet propaganda speeches."

McCain's Op-Ed in Pravda -- The Other Side of the same Coin - Yelena Osipova, Global Chaos: "After Putin’s bashing op-ed in the New York Times last week, Senator McCain was so distressed, he decided he absolutely had to respond. ... Just as in the case of Putin’s op-ed, McCain’s piece [in Pravda] did the exact opposite of 'public diplomacy'."

Operation Discretit Russia - http://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2013/09/operation-discredit-mccain-mission-almost-accomplished.html:  "A certain kind of Moscow correspondent, and a certain kind of hipster journalist, and a certain kind of IR Realist pundit and a certain kind of twitterer is mocking Sen. John McCain right now for supposedly being backward and out of it, and still living in the dark, old days of the Cold War -- thinking Pravda is still important and mixing up Pravda and Pravda.ru  in placing his op-ed --- and then 'getting it all wrong' when he talks to the Russian people. But while I didn't vote for McCain and opted to vote for Obama in 2008 for lots of reasons, I don't think he deserves to be mocked over this and the claims about his backwardness or need for public realtions skills tutoring or Russian area studies are way overblown. ... Only a figure as bad-faithed as Max Fisher could write that Putin's op-ed in the New York Times was "ever-so-slightly" merely nudging: [']Putin's op-ed, in other words, was an act of savvy if cynical public diplomacy. [']"

What’s Behind the New Iranian Charm Offensive - Karl Vick, world.time.com: "Close students of Tehran recognize that the most encouraging development in months was the behind-the-scenes role Iran evidently played in the deal to bring Syria’s chemical and biological arsenal under international control, to which Obama alluded. The stars were aligned for that cooperation, what with Iran’s wrenching history with chemical weapons and weariness with Assad. In terms of public diplomacy, it’s just possible the mullahs don’t realize they’re talking as loudly as they are — simply because they’ve never before been saying the same things, together, at the same time. Khatami’s elected reformists was constantly at war with the appointed mullahs who held the top positions in Iran’s sprawling system of governance, which was the main thing Khatami aimed to reform. Rouhani’s primary aim is transforming Iran’s image with the outside world, a goal that’s easy to rally behind, especially with the rial at a fraction of its value and the government paying its contractors a dime or two on the dollar. Another, more likely explanation: Iran is letting the world know just how very eager it is to talk because it knows perceptions matter a great deal just now."

World Musicians Kick off Cultural Diplomacy Tour in Orlando - "A group of young musicians from all over the world will begin a US concert tour with a performance in Orlando tonight.


Play Audio Story One Beat is a "cultural diplomacy" program organized by the US State Department. 25 musicians from 16 countries have spent two weeks rehearsing in New Smyrna Beach for the concert tour. 90.7's Matthew Peddie spoke to One Beat co-director Elena Moon Park, and Mpumelelo Mcata, one of the program fellows and a guitarist in the South African band BLK JKS. Mpumelelo will join other musicians from the residency in a concert at the Timucua White House in Orlando this Friday night." Uncaptioned image from entry

White House’s Macon Phillips To Get New Digs at State Dept’s Bureau of International Information Programs - Domani Spero, DiploPundit: “Macon Phillips, the Director of Digital Strategy at the White House will reportedly get new digs at the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs.  That’s the same bureau involved with buying FB likes and almost plunking a $16.5 million contract on Kindles [sic] ... Mr. Phillips ran the new media program for the Presidential Transition Team (Change.gov) and served as the Deputy Director of the Obama campaign’s new media department (BarackObama.com). Prior to the campaign, Phillips led Blue State Digital’s strategy practice, working with clients like the Democratic National Committee and Senator Ted Kennedy. His WH bio says that he is 'a proud Americorps*VISTA alum,'  is a Huntsville, Alabama native and a graduate of Duke University. He is on Twitter @Macon44. ... [M]uch of the department’s A-list digital talent has moved on: Katie Jacobs Stanton directs international strategy at Twitter, Jared Cohen runs Google Ideas and [social media enthusiast Alec] Ross is writing a book. A challenge for Phillips and his team is not simply reaching foreigners, but persuading them to change their views about the United States. Another challenge for Phillips will be to change the culture at the tradition-bound information bureau. The inspector general’s report found that morale was low and that ‘leadership created an atmosphere of secrecy, suspicion and uncertainty.’ Administration officials said they’re counting on Phillips to turn the page.”

William Vincent Astor and L. Ron Hubbard – British Spies and American Traitors – 10 – Final Segment - mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com: “'Throughout his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt liked dispatching personal representatives to foreign countries to accomplish important tasks. The sensation created by these 'special envoys' enhanced the reputation of several figures in U.S. public life who were regarded as mysteriously clever and intriguingly powerful. This dramatic public diplomacy reached its high point at the end of 1940 and beginning of 1941, when Roosevelt simultaneously dispatched three such emissaries to the most troubled spots of the globe.
'The inclusion of William Donovan among FOR’s special emissaries seemed to affirm the already publicized friendship between the two men.'”

Anniversary of the mass firings of Radio Liberty journalists in Russia - BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com: "Exactly one year ago, the previous American management of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) had fired almost the entire Internet team of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty in Moscow together with Mumin Shakirov, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and multimedia journalist, and some radio producers. The firing operation continued on the following day when a number of best known reporters and other producers from Radio Liberty’s radio service in Moscow had also lost their jobs. This mass firing of some of the best independent journalists in Russia began the worst crisis of the history of the Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda) and a public diplomacy embarrassment for the United States in Russia and elsewhere, a story that has been well documented by BBG Watch.


RFE RL acting president Kevin Klose greets Lyudmila Alexeeva at a party in Moscow. Thanks to efforts of many people and organizations — starting with the courageous Radio Liberty journalists themselves who organized Radio Liberty in Exile; human rights leader Lyudmila Alexeeva; former President Mikhail Gorbachev; BBG member Ambassador Victor Ashe; his colleagues Susan McCue, Michael Meehan, and Tara Sonenshine; Ann Noonan and Ted Lipien from CUSIB; journalists Mario Corti and Zygmunt Dzieciolowski, and others, too numerous to mention — the crisis was partially resolved and Radio Liberty’s reputation as a serious independent journalistic institution was largely restored. Much of the credit goes to Kevin Klose, who was eventually selected by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) as Acting RFE/RL President and later named to a full-time position of chief executive. He was able to sort certain things out and brought back many of the fired Radio Liberty journalists." Image from entry, with caption: RFE RL acting president Kevin Klose at a party in Moscow with Radio Liberty’s fired journalists shortly after being appointed to his post.

President Heather Wilson Inauguration Set for Oct. 4 at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology - digitaljournal.com: "She was president of the International Women’s Forum and chairman of both the Secretary of Commerce’s Export Conference and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy."

RELATED ITEMS

Syria: The propaganda blitz: More than a decade after the war in Iraq, have global media outlets learnt to look beyond the spin? - This week on the Listening Post: Presidents, propaganda and channelling the media to get the message out: a look at the similarities and differences


between Syria in 2013 and Iraq 10 years ago. Image from entry

How easy is it to subvert America’s foreign policy in the Mideast? - Charles Ortel, Washington Times: The Obama Administration has embraced


Islamic organizations like no other Administration in history. Uncaptioned image from entry

Six Principles Of Propaganda Lenin Used To Consolidate Power - Monica Showalter, news.invesgtors.com: Having attained power in late 1917 on a raft of promises — land to Russia's peasants, bread to Russia's starving cities and peace to Russia's World War I-weary soldiers — V.I. Lenin was able to dispense with every one of them by advancing civil war from 1918 to 1921 to justify his acts by crisis.

Studying the Effects of War Propaganda on Combatants in Serbia - Kenneth Best, today.uconn.edu: Jordan Kiper, now a doctoral student in anthropology at UConn, who is


focusing his dissertation on the effects of war propaganda on combatants of campaigns involving human rights violations, particularly in Serbia." Kiper image from entry, wiht caption: Jordan Kiper, a graduate student in human rights, gives a presentation in Konover Auditorium on Sept. 18, as part of the 10th annual Human Rights Institute Conference. Above item from entry, with caption' below item from entry, with caption:

Some Exceptionally Vivid Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda - Rebecca Onion, .slate.com: In a post on the excellent Web archive Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, historian James von Geldern catalogs the steps that the new Communist Party took during the 1920s to dismantle the cultural power of the Orthodox Church (as well as that of the Islamic and Jewish authorities in Ukraine and Belarus).


The early years of the decade saw officially sanctioned destruction of church buildings and property, as well as violence against priests. Later, the government attempted to persuade people to leave religion behind through culture: films, books, newspapers, and art. Soviet officials focused, in particular, on the rural peasantry, thought to cling more closely to religious belief. These four caricatures appear to appeal to the class-consciousness of this group of laborers. Images from entry

AMERICANA

An American dilemma: Your clutter or your life: The United States has more storage facilities than McDonald's. Why? Because we have too much stuff - Howard Mansfield, latimes.com: There are 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space in America, or more than 7 square feet for every, man, woman and child in the country.

RUSSICA


(Rough translation: "Prestige Hairdresser").Via RS on Facebook

THIRD REICH-EEKA


--From "Эротические фотографии Третьего Рейха" (Erotic photographs from the Third Reich); via LP on Facebook

MORE AMERICANA

--From

DEFINITIONS

Hard power: Pre-orgasm male orgasm  [POMO] (Rome before its decline)


Soft power: Post-orgasm male orgasm [POMO] (Rome after its decline)

--From an opinionated but valued PDPBR subscriber; image from

"Specifically, your product contained content which infringes upon the intellectual property rights of National Security Agency. We have been contacted by legal representatives from the National Security Agency, and at their request, have removed the product from the Zazzle Marketplace."

--E-mail from the custom goods marketplace Zazzle to entrepreneur Dan McCall, who put up a handful of the above T-shirt; cited in Peter Van Buren, "NSA Cites 1959 Law, Claims Use of Their Seal and Name is Illegal," We Meant Well

VIDEOS

--The Social Media and Loneliness. Via SO on Facebook

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Savir's corner: The limits of power and the power of diplomacy - Uri Savir, Jerusalem Post: "Diplomacy, above all, is the creative attempt to achieve goals by peaceful means. It therefore complies with the good of society, and not with the triumph of the nation. In the modern diplomacy era, societies must not only be listened


to by the leaders, but also, should partake in the process which is defined as public diplomacy. Obama’s decision to seek a diplomatic solution to the Syrian chemical arms attack and arsenal stemmed also from his being attentive to American public opinion. ... In the Syrian crisis, Obama has both learned and and has taught a lesson in adapting to today’s world." Image from

Voice of America on Mute: VOA supervisory board seeks to slash editorial broadcasts in FY2014 budget- Alana Goodman, freebeacon.com: "Voice of America (VOA) is on track to eliminate all of its Persian-language editorial broadcasts to Iran if its supervisory board’s 2014 budget recommendation is approved by Congress, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The development is part of a larger effort by management to quietly phase out the airing of official U.S. government policy positions on the taxpayer-funded international broadcast services, sources say. The Office of Policy, a five-person department at the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) that produces the official U.S. government editorials aired on VOA, would have its budget slashed by nearly half if the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ proposal goes forward. ... Critics argue that the editorials detract from VOA’s efforts to appear objective. 'A lot of the management [previously worked at] CNN. They see their function as a pure news organization and resist being looked at as a tool for U.S. public diplomacy,' Helle Dale, a senior fellow for public diplomacy at the Heritage Foundation, said. ... Public diplomacy experts said they were puzzled by the broadcasting board’s proposal. 'It is insane.


Here we are trying to figure out what to do to prevent Iran from going nuclear, and the single most effective thing we can do is to encourage dissident forces within Iran to bring about regime change internally,' John Lenczowski, founder of the Institute of World Politics and a former State Department official during the Reagan administration, said. ... Dale said she considered international broadcasting 'to be one of the primary tools for U.S. public diplomacy.' ... Lenczowski said the policy office budget cuts are part of a larger problem of the U.S. government failing to prioritize public diplomacy. 'The larger public diplomacy policy questions address the problem of whether it is going to be Al Jazeera, or Russian radio, or Chinese television, or whoever it is, out there that’s going to explain to the world what American policy is. Or are they going to hear it from us?' Lenczowski said. 'These broadcast stations and internet sites are the only unfiltered news that gets into the minds of millions of people.'” Image from article

VOA going silent in Iran? - voapnnwatchdog.com: “Hotair, September 19, 2013 by Ed Morrissey Earlier today, I mentioned the significant role that the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe played during the Cold War, undermining the credibility of oppressive regimes in Russia and eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain by broadcasting objective news and American viewpoints.  One might think that such an effort would be worth making in Iran, where people rose up once to attempt to shed themselves of the mullahcracy. Apparently the VOA doesn’t believe in that mission, at least not for the editorial broadcasts in Farsi: Voice of America (VOA) is on track to eliminate all of its Persian-language editorial broadcasts to Iran if its supervisory board’s 2014 budget recommendation is approved by Congress, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The development is part of a larger effort by management to quietly phase out the airing of official U.S. government policy positions on the taxpayer-funded international broadcast services, sources say. The Office of Policy, a five-person department at the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) that produces the official U.S. government editorials aired on VOA, would have its budget slashed by nearly half if the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ proposal goes forward. The proposed cuts would 'gravely impair' VOA’s ability to fulfill its public diplomacy mission, gut the office staff, and potentially violate federal law, according to a May 31 memo sent from IBB’s Office of Policy Director Charles Goolsby to IBB Director Richard Lobo. Congress mandated in 1998 that VOA broadcast editorials reflecting the U.S. government’s position as part of its public diplomacy mission. Two points. First, putting forth the US government’s position is almost the literal definition of American diplomacy. The VOA is supposed to serve that purpose, not its own organizational ends. Second, anyone who thinks that removing the editorials will make people think the the Washington-run VOA is more independent is fooling themselves. If the VOA wants to just be an independent news agency, then perhaps its board should resign, raise private funds for its operation, and let the VOA get back to its mission."

Remind Me Again… - bobcesca.thedailybanter.com: "[Comment by:] muselet MrDHalen • 5 days ago − "Dilma Rousseff is engaging in a little show for O Globo and the more credulous members of the Brazilian public. Rousseff's government had to have known the US was intercepting its communications. It's what governments do. The press knew it too, or at least strongly suspected it, but—presumably to boost circulation—O Globo chose to make a big deal of it. Ignoring the outrage, however manufactured, over the US SPIES ON BRAZIL! story would have been terrible politics for Rousseff. She had to make a grand gesture of displeasure, and cancelling a scheduled state visit was just the thing. I'll bet you a cookie that 20-minute phone call was cordial or even friendly, and that the state visit has informally already been rescheduled.Public diplomacy isn't always pretty.–alopecia"

Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo meets with US senior official Reeker - Tinka Kurti, balkaneu.com: "Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo, Petrit Selimi has met with the US Department of State senior official, Philip Reeker. Ministry of Foreign Affairs also informs that Mr. Selimi also met with Val Fowler, vice assistant of the US Secretary of State for Media Engagement, Vinay Chaula, director in the State Department for Digital Diplomacy.


Reeker praised Kosovo Foreign Ministry for the work done in inter religious dialogue, public diplomacy and lobbying." Fuzzy image from entry, with caption: Pristina, September 16, 2013

21 Journalists Make it Official: Leave News Media to Work Directly for Obama - Kyle Becker, ijreview.com: "The revolving door from left-wing activist news media to political positions in the Obama administration is direct and undeniable. ... The Atlantic, far from a 'right-wing' publication, documents those who have defected from 'journalism' to work in government. ... Rick Stengell


was the former Managing Editor of Time until leaving journalism to become the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the State Department." See also (1) (2) (3) (4) (5: "Media whores become Washington prostitutes: TIME mag editor to join Obama administration") (6) (7); image from entry.

Op-ed diplomacy: Ink-stained presidents - Editorial, Boston Globe: "First, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin, outlining his Syria strategy and decrying American exceptionalism in an op-ed in The New York Times. Then newly elected Iranian president Hasan Rouhani spelled out his views on foreign relations — and plugged his country’s nuclear energy program — in an op-ed Thursday in The Washington Post. In the age of WikiLeaks, is back-channel communication dead? Are the leaders of controversial governments simply going to pitch to the American public directly, via newspaper columns?


For Americans, who generally look well on promoting US-style democratic values around the world, it’s odd to be on the receiving end of some other government’s public diplomacy. (In contrast, Senator John McCain’s anti-Putin column in a Pravda-affiliated website was closer to the norm.) Critics of these efforts are wary of giving foreign dictators an audience; imagine if Mao Zedong had written for, say, the Houston Chronicle, trying to put a positive spin on his rule ('Let 1,000 flowers bloom, y’all'). Still, many American readers will find it useful to hear at length from foreign leaders in their own words, and there’s always the comment section to keep would-be propagandizers in line." Image from article, with caption: Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed for The New York Times.

The Two Faces of the U.S. Role in World Affairs - Vasily Likhachev, Moscow Times: "[T]he U.S. — the world's 'leading democracy' — is attempting to play the role of global arbiter. However, it has become a 'repeat offender' for violations of its legal obligations, including those it holds as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. ... All states, regardless


of their size and political or economic influence, must contribute to global security by continuing to respect the UN and international law. The members of the international community have a great deal of work ahead. It is very important that Russian parliamentary and public diplomacy work wisely and actively during this period. Both the executive and legislative branches of Russian government must work in sync to prevent the threat of a direct military intervention in Syria." Image from article

Roses really smell like poo-Putin - Developing Tomorrow: "President Putin’s ‘letter’ in the New York Times is nothing more than empty Russian words. ... While strategic communication and public diplomacy are American definitions to these concepts, it is a practice that has been other names and by other countries."

China intensifies public diplomacy efforts - wantchinatimes.com: "Chinese officials have stepped up their public diplomacy efforts by contributing more articles to international media organizations in order to reach out to the wider public in the international community. One such article, authored by Chinese premier Li Keqiang and entitled China Will Stay the Course on Sustainable Growth, was published in Britain's Financial Times on Sept 9, according to NewsChina, an English-language news magazine published by the Chinese government. ... In recent years more Chinese high-ranking officials have had their articles published before making foreign visits and attending important international meetings, according to NewsChina. Since most of their articles are related to economic and trade topics, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal have become two of their favorite newspapers for getting their views published. ... These developments indicate that Chinese leaders are attaching greater importance to expressing their views, which will help boost diplomacy, experts said."

Why Do World Leaders Still Write Op-Eds? - Joshua Keating, slate.com: "With all the talk of how public diplomacy has been transformed in the Twitter age, world leaders still rely to a remarkable extent on the good old-fashioned newspaper op-ed. ... Putin has been particularly prolific. His first Times op-ed appeared while he was still prime minister in 1999 and his writing and since appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy. Op-eds can be a useful way to communicate directly with interested parties and policymakers—if not the general public–in other countries, but there are also some pitfalls involved. For one thing, it’s important to choose your venue wisely. John McCain may have been under the impression that Pravda.ru enjoys equivalent influence in Russia to the New York Times and is the modern successor to the Soviet-era Pravda newspaper. Not exactly. ... For now, the op-ed may still be the preferred method for world leaders looking to stake out a public position, but Iran has actually been at the forefront of exploring some of the newer alternatives."

American Hypernationalism and Foreign Influence: A Last Word on Putin - Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence: "The literature on the US as target for foreign public diplomacy is pretty substantial."



Michael Oren: Obama passes the 'kishka test' - Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post: "In a candid interview with the ‘Post,’ outgoing ambassador to the US looks not only at the last 3 anxious weeks dominated by the Syrian crisis, but also at the US president’s relationship with Israel. ... [Q:] What was the highlight of your tenure there? [A:] Certainly Obama’s visit to Israel was a highlight. I often use a public diplomacy line that there is one country in the Middle East that is politically stable; that has never known a second of non-democratic governance; that is exceedingly robust militarily, technologically and academically; and which is unequivocally pro-American. That was the line, and I think Obama’s visit was the ultimate demonstration of that line. It is true. Obama is up there giving a speech before 2,500 Israeli students who are cheering him, and he is surrounded by American flags. ... [Q:] I asked about the highlight of your tenure. How about the lowest point? [A:] I think that when 5 million Israelis were under rocket fire, that was a low point. The flotilla incident in May 2010 was a tough period. [Q:] Why was that difficult in Washington? [A:] It wasn’t difficult in Washington; it was just difficult in terms of public diplomacy. You had people writing full-page op-eds against us."

Prejudice is why Istanbul lost Olympics: Minister: Same prejudices bear on Turkey's accession negotiations with European Union, says Bagis - worldbulletin.net: "Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bagis blames European 'prejudices' for Istanbul's failed bid to host 2020 Olympics. 'The reason why Istanbul, the city that bridges Asia and Europe, couldn't get the Olympics is prejudices,' Bagis said Saturday in the Ukrainian city of Yalta, which he visits for the tenth annual meeting of Yalta European Strategy (YES), a public diplomacy forum for countries of Eastern Europe. 'We see the same prejudices in our EU membership process,' he said.


Bagis said the European Union should admit countries like Turkey and Ukraine as full members, while calling the EU as the 'biggest peace project in the history of mankind.' 'The EU should leave aside all prejudices, and embrace dynamic developing states. The French, Germans, and Belgians once warred with one another. Now they are able to live together in peace. The EU is the biggest peace project in the history of mankind,' he said. YES, which hosts more than 250 leaders from politics, business, society and media representing 20 countries, is held between 19-22 September in Ukraine." Uncaptioned image from entry

Nepal: China’s Grand Diplomacy Framework - Upendra Gautam, telegraphnepal.com: "Hu Jintao, in his report delivered at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on November 8, 2012 ... [e]xplaining both the state and non-state diplomatic ways and instruments and the role these will play to achieve the goal of great renewal of the Chinese nation, Hu said, 'We will take solid steps to promote public diplomacy as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and protect China’s legitimate rights and interests overseas. We will conduct friendly exchanges with political parties and organizations of other countries and encourage people’s congresses, national and local committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, local governments and people’s organizations to increase overseas exchanges so as to consolidate the social foundation for enhancing China’s relations with other countries.' ... Public Diplomacy: A state pursues this type of diplomacy to advance or smoothen issues considered sensitive for state agencies for historical political reasons. Contacts and exchanges between the think tanks and the civil societies in the two countries reflect a form of organized public diplomatic behavior. Growth of this particular type of China’s diplomacy in Nepal is slow and irregular. Some activities have been noted in the electronic and media fields. The public strength and impact of these activities is constrained by traditional individual-focused behavior. Public diplomacy is yet to be recognized at the level where it receives respect and clout and is properly institutionalized with work-efficiency and group values. Unlike China’s public diplomacy with the major countries, in Nepal, it is almost seen as an addendum to the type of state diplomacy. Cultural Diplomacy: This type of diplomacy is carried out between or amongst the counties to highlight the most ancient, profound and all-pervasive cultural link between or amongst the countries. China has used this diplomacy type in Nepal at times very effectively. But this type lacks regularity, expansion and promotion. Evidence of this type of diplomatic exchange was participation of Komojo, considered a most learned person at that time in China, in the coronation of King Birendra in 1975.

Diplomacy institute inducts 450 new members - blueprintng.com: "Institute of Public Diplomacy and management has inducted 450 new members into its rank at the weekend which brings it membership to about 10,000. The training and induction ceremony with the theme: 'Establishing the order of Diplomacy: Key Issues in 21st Century Global management Practices,' which was held in Abuja was, according to the president and chairman, Council of Fellows of the institute, Chief Cliff Ogbede, to draw attention to the 'expedience of creating a process of order and stability within the management influence.' Ogbede said the adoption of diplomacy in managing conflicts with the work environment 'is in line with the demands, challenges and prevailing realities of our day.' According to him, the aim of the institute is to promote public diplomacy and management in the country and to instill the culture of discipline and accountability among its members. Chairman of the occasion, Dr. Patrick Njoku, said most Nigerians stumbled into positions of leadership without proper training in management and diplomacy and that the institute 'offers the opportunities for Nigerians to be trained to manage properly.' He said the institute is open to all Nigerians, adding that proper training of it members is one of the ways of sanitizing the public service of corruption. Director, Center for Asian Studies, University of Abuja, Dr. Y.M. Damagum, during his lecture, said diplomacy is no longer restricted to level of interaction at governmental levels but has become vividly clear that organisations have to take seriously the relevant of diplomatic approach to attaining their objectives."

Free Performance of U.S. Army Band at the Kennedy Center Tonight!- quanticolive.com: "The U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” will present the Washington, DC premiere of James Stephenson’s The Devil’s Tale, an adventurous sequel to the iconic Soldier’s Tale by Igor Stravinsky, scored for seven instruments, actor, and narrator. The performance starts at 6pm. The United States Army Band ‘Pershing’s Own’ has been the premier musical organization of the U.S. Army since 1922 when Army Chief of Staff General John J. 'Black Jack' Pershing directed that it be formed to emulate the premier European military bands he had heard during the First World War.



‘Pershing’s Own’ provides musical support for the leadership of the United States, to include all branches of government, and to a wide spectrum of national and international events in support of Soldiers and their Families, public diplomacy, community and international relations, recruiting initiatives, and music education programs. No tickets are required. This is a free event." See also John Brown, "A Modest Proposal: Make the Pentagon Our Very Own Ministry of Culture!" Huffington Post (October 27, 2009).Image from entry

Turkish Study Trip Review - Joshua Noonan, saisobserver.org: "Over the summer I went with Paul Sturm, SAIS ‘14, on a two-week study trip to Turkey, which focused on the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Turkish state. ... One real value of the trip was the lectures by various experts and public diplomacy specialists on issues important to Turkey. In many ways, these lectures appeared to be an attempt at soft-power influencing by the Turkish government. ... For many SAIS graduates who will be involved in public diplomacy, one of my main take-aways from this trip was knowing one’s audience is the best way to tailor a message. Let people and sights do the storytelling without unnecessary and heavy-handed prodding from government minders or organizers."

President Heather Wilson Inauguration Set for Oct. 4 at South Dakota School of Mines and  Technology - virtual-strategy.com: "Heather Wilson, D.Phil., will be inaugurated as the 18th president of the South Dakota School of Minesm and Technology during a 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 4, ceremony on the university quad. Former U.S. Ambassador to Finland Barbara Barrett will deliver the inaugural address. Dignitaries representing state and local offices will also participate, along with SDSM and T students, faculty and alumni. ... Until November 2012, Barrett was interim president of Thunderbird School of Global Management. ... She was president of the International Women’s Forum and chairman of both the Secretary of Commerce’s Export Conference and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy."

Alexey Dolinskiy - - training.dw.de/ausbildung: "Mr Alexey Dolinskiy, PhD, is a Partner at Capstone Connections consultancy and Director of Ward Howell Talent Equity Institute. He combines private and public sector communications, consulting and academic experience. He spent several years working in Russian public diplomacy and taught a class on public diplomacy at MoscowStateUniversity. His research experience includes contributing to HarvardBerkmanCenter for Internet and Society and United Nations Peacekeeping Situation Centre.


Current Historiographical Research at the History and Civilisation Department, European University Institute, Florence, Italy - sergenoiret.blogspot.com: "The essays published in Zeitenblicke 12 (2013), Nr. 1 and completing this series of interviews are the following: Frank Gerits, 'An International Approach to the Cultural Cold War. French Public Diplomacy Towards Africa (1945-1965).'"

U.S Consulate General Karachi Job, Political Assistant required 22 Sep 2013 - friendsmania.net: "U. S. Consulate General Karachi is seeking applications from qualified individuals for the PoliticalAssistant position. Attractive salary package and other benefits will be offered to the selected candidate. Qualifications Required: University degree (14 years of education) in political science, history, journalism, public diplomacy, sociology, anthropology or law is required."

RELATED ITEMS

President Rouhani Comes to Town - Editorial, New York Times: The next few weeks will be critical for capitalizing on a new sense of promise created by a recent flurry of remarkable gestures: Iran’s leadership


has sent Rosh Hashana greetings to Jews worldwide via Twitter, released political prisoners, exchanged letters through the Swiss with President Obama, praised “flexibility” in negotiations and transferred responsibility for nuclear negotiations from conservatives in the military to the Foreign Ministry. Mr. Obama eased restraints on humanitarian and good-will activities, including athletic exchanges between the two countries. Image from

Both opportunity and peril over Iran - David Ignatius, washingtonpost.com: The opportunity for a breakthrough with Iran after 34 years of isolation is tantalizing for Obama and his foreign-policy team. For a battered White House, it’s a time to think big — but mind the vexing little details.

Obama's Strategy Of Talking To Countries Instead Of Going To War Might Just Be Crazy Enough To Work - Joshua Hersh, Christina Wilkie, Huffington Post: While it's true that Obama hasn't always held true to the ideals of his early campaign days -- first-term talk of engagement "grounded in mutual respect" eventually gave way to tough rhetoric about "painful sanctions" and nuclear red lines -- he consistently resisted the hardline pull, from hawkish members of Congress and Israeli allies, toward a preventative military strike.

Rouhani could help U.S. national security interests - Katrina vanden Heuvel, washingtonpost.com: President Obama, who wrote directly to the Iranian president (contents of letter still unknown), now has a historic opportunity — one firmly in the United States’ national security interests — to craft an accord with the country’s new leaders. Yet it remains an open question as to whether, given his foreign policy team and the fractious politics of Washington, he will be able to do so.

The heroes inside Syria - No matter one’s stance on military intervention, there are other ways to help — washingtonpost.com: Even if only for the health, shelter and education of the people injured and displaced in Syria. Many humanitarian groups can aid with things as simple as clean water, gauze and blankets. There are ways Americans can make life in Syria better, if only for a few people. One day, in remembrance of kindness and generosity, those few survivors might be able to change their region for the better.

U.S. has not addressed real threat of strategic terrorism - Nathan Myhrvold, washingtonpost.com: It’s quite possible that a strategic terror attack in the next decade or so will kill 100,000 to 1 million Americans. Surely, we then will get serious about strategic terrorism.

America’s hip-hop double-standard - Gilbert Newman Perkins, washingtonpost.com: Similar to writing a Constitution that ignored the institution of slavery, or going abroad to spread the gospel of democracy while stifling the right of women and black people to vote, ignoring the literary genius in hip-hop’s 40-year-old body of work is so negligent that it is as flagrant as a bald-face lie.

Taliban using internet in propaganda war - xinhuanet.com: Taliban militants fighting Afghan government and NATO-led forces to regain power in the militancy- plagued Afghanistan, contrary to the past, have been enormously using the internet in the propaganda war, a change of mind unthinkable 12 years ago.


The armed outfit which was dethroned by the U.S.-led military coalition invasion in late 2001, had outlawed internet, television, video player, cinema, photography and all kind of entertainment during its six-year rule which collapsed in late 2001, nowadays is largely relying on internet to send out its activities and messages to the world. Today, the Taliban outfit has several websites to publish their military and political activities and put on wire for its readers across the globe. Image from entry

Turning Chinese Propaganda Against Itself - wantchinatimes.com: Through striking red banners hung by the Chinese governement, future evictees of Shanghai’s poor neighborhoods are asked to welcome the wrecking ball of progress as a social improvement, not a potential life catastrophe.


The government doesn’t hang banners in upscale shopping districts or blocks of high rent towers, just the grim neighborhoods of the urban poor who stand in the way of more malls and condos. This juxtaposition is the subject of French photographer Eric Leleu‘s project, Subtitles. But not only does Leleu document these contrasts, he takes them one step further by satirizing the practice with his own banners. Image from article, with caption: Wang Qishan speaks at a meeting in Tianjin.

Central Asia: Propaganda Show Spotlights Soviet Push in Muslim Lands - eurasianet.org: A new exhibit in Moscow offers a colorful way to trace early Soviet history in Central Asia and the Caucasus. “Posters of the Soviet East: 1918-1940,” which opened this month,


features 241 original propaganda placards that targeted the Muslim lands of the former Soviet Union with exhortations on public health, industrialization and class consciousness. The 1920s saw an unfettered flowering of creativity in these regions, especially among Russian-trained artists based in Tashkent and Baku. While central publishing houses in Moscow and Leningrad were shifting to Socialist Realism, artists in the periphery continued the avant-garde movement, combining it with local traditions, according to the exhibit’s curator, Maria Filatova. She sees the colorful posters from the 1920s and early 1930s, with their longer texts and multiple figurines, as direct decedents of local calligraphy and miniature traditions. “Posters of the Soviet East” was organized by the Mardjani Foundation, which sponsors research and cultural programs focusing on the Muslim populations of the former Soviet Union, and the StateCentralMuseum for the Contemporary History of Russia. The exhibit, accompanied by a full-color catalogue, runs at the museum through October 6. For more information, click here.

AMERICANA

Grandparents and retirees get tattoos, fulfilling lifelong dreams and raising eyebrows - Tara Bahrampour, washingtonpost.com: Once the domain of sailors and Maoris and now a staple for younger Americans of all ethnicities and professions, tattoos are trickling up to the older set.


While most who get them still tend to be young — a 2010 Pew study found that 38 percent of millennials and 32 percent of Gen Xers have them — their elders are increasingly joining the party. Fifteen percent of baby boomers have tattoos, and 6 percent of the Silent Generation do. Image from article