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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA 'OWN GOALS' IN THE GWOT
American values are under attack by C Roberts and S V Roberts 
American values are under attack BY COKIE ROBERTS AND STEVEN V. ROBERTS Napa Valley Register, Monday, December 12, 2005 1:04 AM PST "The bad guys shoot us in the head and we shoot ourselves in the foot." That's how one senior Bush administration official responded to the Pentagon practice of surreptitiously paying Iraqi newspapers to print stories written by the U.S. military. The attempt to plant "good news" has created another "bad news" story about America. Here's the deal: people in Iraq and other Muslim countries suspect that the United States invaded the region to occupy it, to get rid of Saddam Hussein and capture the oil. President Bush keeps telling them, and us, that instead America sought to liberate those oppressed by a tyrant and bring democracy to the beleaguered nations of the Middle East. U.S. soldiers in Iraq complain that no one is writing about their successes -- the work they've done to establish power grids, and, most important, civil society. So the Pentagon decided to "fix" the problem. Some genius hired a public relations firm to plant stories in Iraqi newspapers touting the progress made since the U.S. invasion. By paying off newspapers in Baghdad, the military is undermining one of the basic democratic values the United States is trying to export -- that of an independent, free press. For years, the State Department has recognized the importance of press freedom and has enlisted American journalists to educate their counterparts abroad in the concepts of fairness and objectivity. But this effort to encourage one of the fundamental lynchpins of a free society is subverted by stupid policies adopted in the name of safety. Tinkering with the press in Iraq is nowhere near as harmful to U.S. interests, and safety, as the creation of an environment that enabled the horrors of Abu Ghraib, or the Bush administration's opposition to a Congressional measure outlawing cruel treatment of detainees held by the U.S. military, or the revelations of hidden CIA jails operating outside of America, where prisoners don't have the rights they would have here. Still, the corruption of the fledgling Iraqi newspapers will do harm. The new head of public diplomacy, Karen Hughes, was reportedly furious when she learned of it because it gives the lie to U.S. efforts to implant democratic institutions in Iraq. Defenders of the Pentagon practice argue that the truth is exactly what they are trying to get out. They point to distortions and downright lies in Iraqi papers and on Arab television and contend that someone needs to provide the other side. That was one of the arguments the CIA used during the Cold War when dozens of American reporters secretly ended up on the spy agency payroll. When the government is allowed to tamper with the press, all journalists become suspect. Just try to convince people to trust you when some Americans wearing press credentials are actually spies. And it's not just the press corps that's affected. Courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, programs in countries around the world, especially Muslim countries, are providing food and health care, saving babies, building housing, halting sex trafficking. Those programs should be "selling" American values all on their own; no public relations firm need apply. Instead, these true apostles of American values are finding themselves under siege, having to answer for the policies that subvert those values -- detention without a lawyer, prison abuse or tampering with the press -- all done in the name of safety, and, by infuriating much of the world, making us all less safe. That administration official is right -- his colleagues are shooting the country in the foot and those un-American policies can kill off efforts to spread democracy as surely as a shot in the head. |