Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 6 - 2007
Can the U.S. Rebuild Its Image? from Parade 
Can the U.S. Rebuild Its Image? One of the first things Karen Hughes wants PARADE readers to know is that the U.S. is the largest single donor of food and medicine to the Palestinian people - even though their Hamas government won't renounce terror - and that our tax dollars are teaching women to read in Morocco. Hughes, 50, is struggling to spread that same message across the Islamic world. Best known as George Bush's communications guru, Hughes became Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department 18 months ago. Her job is to promote America and its good works in a hostile world. "I view my job as waging peace," she says in her determined yet sunny style during our exclusive interview in her office. After the usual niceties - such as saying that we are reaching out to other nations based on common values, friendship and respect - Hughes is upfront in declaring that it will take at least a generation before hard-core attitudes about the United States even begin to change. She acknowledges that the U.S. can't reach those already radicalized. "What we are competing for is the broad mainstream of responsible people of all faiths and all cultures," she says. To that end, Hughes is using outreach programs - from teaching English in more than 90 nations to breast-cancer detection for women in the Middle East. She's especially pushing to rebuild educational exchanges so young people from abroad can study here, and she's starting a people-to-people exchange to reach out to Iranians and bring them to our country. Hughes also has initiated a "citizens' dialogue" that sends Muslim-Americans to talk with Muslims in Islamic countries. "Islam is a part of America," she stresses. But can mammograms, English classes and even a college education combat calls of "death to America!" and images of violence in Iraq? "What we're up against essentially is a death cult that says, 'Our way or no way, and death to all who disagree with us,'" declares Hughes. "We've got to aggressively challenge that and say it's not right to murder those who disagree." Hughes acknowledges that today the U.S. is fighting just to be heard: "In the Cold War, we were trying to get information into largely closed societies where people were hungry for information. Today, no one is waiting to hear from us. With satellite TV, there are about 250 different channels available in the Arab world. We're competing for attention and credibility." Hughes recalls meeting with Saudi women who were upset about their portrayal on an Oprah Winfrey show on domestic violence. "They thought that I, as a government official, could control what Oprah ran on her program." In today's world, she adds, "people's impression of us depends on what American they met or was quoted or what American movie or product came into their home." And here Hughes places some of the responsibility for America's image on us. She talks about how - before 9/11 - people abroad perceived the U.S. as being uninterested in the rest of the world. Our military, cultural and economic power "buy resentment around the world," she says. "It will take all of us to address that. Any American who travels abroad is an ambassador for our country, and I hope you'll demonstrate the respect America has for different countries and cultures." She'd like more U.S. students to study abroad and more Americans to learn a foreign language. The State Department has less than $500 million (about 1/10th of one percent of our nation's official defense budget) to devote to its efforts at building better global relations. Even Karen Hughes isn't completely sure if more contact with Americans - whether it's students, tourists, businessmen or aid workers - will make potential enemies reassess us. But she's hopeful it will work in time. "I saw a quote about planting a tree whose shade you'll never sit under," she says. "And I feel like maybe that's what I'm doing here." |