Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 6 - 2007
U.S. losing battle for Muslim hearts and minds by P Dine 
U.S. losing battle for Muslim hearts and minds, critics say By Philip Dine POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU 05/08/2007 WASHINGTON - As debate continues over the war in Iraq, the United States appears to be faltering on another front: the battle for hearts and minds in the Muslim world. In the effort known as public diplomacy - winning friends through good works and international public relations - the U.S. appears to be losing to radical Islamists, critics say. One of the chief critics is Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., who returned Monday from a brief trip to Iraq with other congressional Republicans. Bond said he saw a mosque that soldiers had rebuilt, calling it the "type of assistance in Iraqi communities that is critical to winning the broader war on terror." Advertisement But he doesn't think the administration is doing enough to publicize such efforts in the Islamic world. "We can't win in this war if there isn't a strong voice out there saying what the United States is trying to do," he said in an interview last week. Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, agreed. "Right now our image in the Arab world and the rest of the world is that of a man in a tank," Kean said. "Instead of opening libraries in that part of the world, we've been closing them, cutting exchanges, reducing educational programs." Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress says the U.S. has done "a staggeringly bad job" of explaining itself to the rest of the world. For example, he says the U.S. failed to capitalize on its newfound popularity in the areas engulfed by the 2004 South Asia tsunami by not explaining to other Muslim nations what it had done to help and why, and then responded insufficiently to the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Others cite more examples: - The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction recently reported that many Army Corps of Engineers projects were poorly designed or maintained or had suffered from looting. But the corps acknowledges that even when projects are successful, it has not managed to effectively communicate that to the Iraqi or American public. - A new report for the Senate Homeland Security Committee says extremist groups are making sophisticated use of tools such as the Internet to recruit and train, appeal for donations, and spread their radical ideology and message of a clash of civilizations. - Lagging resources and infighting within the government are hampering radio and television broadcasts to Muslim countries. Some U.S. legislators contend that programs have so little oversight that radicals are using them to spread anti-American sentiment. - Agricultural and land grant programs have not been established in Afghanistan, a missed opportunity to help improve life for struggling Afghanis and show the benefits of an alliance with the United States. - A report by the General Accountability Office found shortcomings, including substandard language ability of diplomats that prevents them from interacting with people in countries where anti-American sentiment is high. 'War with Islam' Favorability ratings for the U.S. are plummeting around the Middle East and Muslim world. A recent poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org and the University of Maryland found that in four Muslim countries whose governments are friendly to the U.S. - Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Indonesia - an average of 79 percent of people believe the U.S. seeks to "weaken and divide the Islamic world" and control Middle East oil. The poll's editor says most Muslims "perceive the United States as being at war with Islam." Bond is a strong supporter of the Iraq war but says more must be done to enlist broad support among people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and throughout the Muslim world. "We've got a whole lot of government agencies stalking off in different directions, but not one of them talking strategically. Nobody's focused on it," Bond says. Bond has met separately with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs; they cited budgetary constraints or limits on their authority, he says. Bond also has spoken to Afghan officials and has scheduled a congressional hearing on public diplomacy in two weeks. Hughes' spokeswoman, Rena Pederson, outlined a number of programs Hughes has recently initiated, including an outreach to young people abroad "before their views get hardened" and a rapid response unit that every morning alerts senior U.S. officials of "what is driving world news." Hughes also is developing a "communications counterterrorism center" in which State Department officials will work with Pentagon and CIA counterparts "to react more quickly in a more coordinated fashion" to get the American message out as events require. Policy, or PR? Bond rejects any link between the Iraq war and a lowered U.S. standing around the world, and adds: "Pull out of Iraq precipitously, and you can really watch it do a nose dive," he said. The point is to focus on positive programs, he says, such as a $20 million land grant college consortium for Afghanistan he is working on with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and others that would include the University of Missouri at Columbia. Some experts contend that communications and image aren't the issue. Among them is Hady Amr, a former Defense Department and World Bank official now with the Brookings Institution. "You can't market what you don't have," Amr says. "We don't have policies that people like. No amount of spin is going to get people to like American foreign policy." |