Politics and Press

From Russia, With Love

There was much glee in the West in 1989 as the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War came to its supposed end. There was considerable optimism a few years later regarding the future of democracy in Russia when Boris Yeltsin stood on a tank and successfully resisted a takeover by old-style communist apparatchiks. The conversion appeared complete to President Bush when he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. His strange friendship – or is it a kinship? – with Putin continues in the face of clear evidence that Russia is heading down a far different road than we had once hoped.

Journalists critical of the Putin regime are attacked and not infrequently murdered (42 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992), foreign–based NGOs are restricted by obscure licensing requirements, Radio Liberty and Voice of America are being forced out of long-standing re-broadcast agreements with Russian radio stations, and the Russian press has been cowed into a quiet acquiescence;  or risk an unfortunate accidental death by poison or gunshot.

The apparent murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB spy, in London is only the latest in a series of alarming events. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has reported that 42 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1992 but this apparent murder has implications of  future nuclear terrorism.

Meanwhile the Bush administration shows no interest in supporting international broadcasting into Russia at a time when its people depend on outside sources for its news. The budget for Radio Liberty, the premier American Russian language broadcaster has been seriously reduced which serves Mr. Putin’s interests. Since the money is a small issue perhaps the kinship between gut-level authoritarian leaders calls the shots.

International Broadcasting News

Al Jazeera International (AJI) begins broadcasting in English from studios in Washington, DC today with a staff that includes former “Nightline” anchor Dave Marash.  It is unlikely that AJI will attract a large listenership in the U.S. for reasons both ideological and practical.  The station will not be carried in the U.S. by cable giant Comcast and, in fact, it is difficult to find out just who will carry it. This is unfortunate since it seems worthwhile for Americans to have an opportunity to assess the network on its own merits and to learn something about the Arab world and its views on events. The U.S. administration, especially the Defense Department has been highly critical of its Arabic broadcasts and for its willingness to broadcast Osama Bin Laden videotapes. But a country that can put up with Rush Limbaugh and the O’Reilly Factor ought to be able to listen to Al Jazeera without losing its collective marbles.

In an unrelated story…President Bush has renominated Ken Tomlinson as Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and for a term on the Board expiring in 10 months.  The Board oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio and TV Marti and several emerging broadcast initiatives in the Middle East. Tomlinson has been criticized for financial irregularities, but most likely these are in part a smokescreen for more substantive issues related to the declining quality of U.S. international broadcasting. More on the general topic of U.S. international broadcasting later.

Russell Feingold’s Presidential Ambitions: R.I.P.

Senator Feingold (D, Wisconsin) has announced that he will not be running for President in 2008. I imagine Hillary has just heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Feingold joined Senator McCain in promulgating one of the great frauds on the American public in the guise of an Election Reform Bill. Maybe I was in a different country but I think I just witnessed one of the nastiest, most expensive midterm campaigns in American history. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics the cost is estimated at over $2.6 billion.  The 2000 election, which included the presidential race cost over $4.2 billion.  McCain and Feingold trumpeted their success in getting their bill passed but strangely do not say much about it in the face of the realities of current campaign spending, much of it on repulsive, insulting TV ads.

Another highlight of the Feingold record was his near-successful effort to close Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in 1993-4. Feingold was a freshman Senator who had run a campaign focused on trimming the federal budget and where better to start now that the Cold War was over?  (full disclosure: I was employed at the RFE/RL Research Institute from 1991-1994).  There is a long story here for future postings on  public diplomacy to this blog.  For now, it is enough to look at the sorry state of America’s public diplomacy program, the lack of a free press in Russia and many of its allied nations (Belarus, Uzbekistan, etc.), the emerging need for improved broadcasting to countries in the Middle East (incl. Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq) and the relatively low cost of surrogate international broadcasting as an historically effective tool of American foreign policy. Feingold never understood any of this and grandstanded his way through Senate hearings that included a mini-scandal related to salaries of some 14 managers of RFE/RL – and the fact that the then President of the Radios used company funds to have his piano tuned.

I suppose I am having a touch of schadenfreude here, but it is not in the interest of the United States to have as President a man who lacked basic understanding of the importance of soft power.

China’s “Public Diplomacy” in China

Chinese - Sudanese oil, arms, and political protection deals are sustaining the 2nd African genocide of our generation. But that is just the starting point. China has been using the Sudan as a test bed, proving and improving the beta version of mass market neo-colonialism.

It is a terrific success. No real detractors. The UN rolled over and played as dead as a Darfur baby trampled under janjaweed hooves. Oh, the US muttered a bit but then decided best not to piss off their Chinese bankers. All is going as the Chinese had hoped and now its time to go into production with a continent-wide roll out. If you liked Darfur get ready Angola. Heads up DR Congo. The good times they are just startin’ ta roll.

Click here for the story as reported in today’s NY TIMES:

More than 80% of African heads of state are lining up in Beijing to cut their own deals on the Sudanese pattern. They will get the small arms they need to oppress their domestic populations and they’ll get the buy off cash to pass around amongst themselves and argue over in civil gang fights. China will get the oil iron and cotton it needs and— as a bonus– a market for the cheaper trinkets of Chinese low paid labour. But wait, there’s more. If the Africans sign up now there is a premium to be had in the UN market place. It is a fantastic market–the UN. A place where- to quote Catch 22’s Milo Minderbinder,–everybody has a share. Well, every government has a share. Well a vote, then. What those governments do to their populations is up to them. China will see to that.

Mutual UN backscratching under the ultimate protection of China’s Security Counsel seat/veto. What a deal. Easy money for corrupt governments in exchange for rights to rape environments and plunder raw materials. It is a sweet one.

Nobody gonna mess with this.

Hey,where the fuck’s Bob Geldolf?

The Irony of Arab Public Diplomacy

The United States has reduced its public diplomacy effort to a shadow of its former self - major reductions in surrogate radio broadcasting into Iran, Iraq and Russia matched with increased broadcasts of Western pop music and a tilt towards programs that trumpet the glories of U.S foreign policy.

While this has been going on the Arab TV network Al Jazeera has been preparing to initiate an English language TV network that would present the news of the Arab world with an Arab point of view. This should not be confused with a blind propaganda effort - given the quality of some of its Western hires it would appear to be designed to be less so than the Fox network which presents the news through the prism of personalities like Bill O’Reilly. What we have then is Arab public diplomacy directed to the West, particularly the United States, at a time when the U.S. continues to reduce its public diplomacy efforts to a defense of policies which are not even an easy sell to its own citizens let alone the rest of the world.

Winning Islamic Hearts and Minds?

See the front page story in today’s Boston Globe - the third in a series, “Exporting Faith,” - for a comprehensive look at a result of Bush’s funding of ‘faith-based initiatives.’

It describes a Christian hospital (run by a Christian group called World Witness) in Sahiwal, Pakistan, where its U.S. government assisted funding is described as visible all over the institution (e.g., a USAID sticker on the “top-of-the-line medical equipment”including “the X-ray machine, the blood bank refrigerator, the auditorium for medical lectures, and the radiology computer…”). The story goes on to say that the neediest Pakistani patients can’t afford the services. So, there exists a hospital, identified as Christian, sporting clear U.S. government support, which the locals can’t afford. Doesn’t go far to ‘winning hearts and minds’, does it?

Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.

See NY Times

This comment from our Kiwi Correspondent:
Foreign journalists will be particularly charmed to learn that their sentiments about the US are being computer-synthesized into simple positive or negative digitized conclusions. A thing observed is a thing changed, as the axiom has it. The thing in this case is infinitesimal : high opinion of America. It is likely to be changed. Negatively.

Admitting at the outset that this initiative —if focused on the US press— would be of questionable legality and unquestioned impropriety, the project’s leaders have announced that it is only the foreign media that will be monitored. The demeaning arrogance in that may be lost only on those doing the study. The rest of the world
will be understandably offended. Might not that offense reasonably be expected to adversely affect the opinions held of the US?

But, ok, say the project produces a sort of relief map of global regard for America, what does the existence of that mapping data imply? One implication of quantifying and locating low opinion is that corrective action could be targeted. If that meant Congress and US politicians responded by considering the substance and rationale
behind the opinion, then maybe some positive response could be fashioned. US policy could be informed and shaped to take account of other potentially useful perspectives. Alternatively the way policies were being presented could be adjusted to address perceived
short comings. By design, however, this project appears to eliminate those possibilities by cutting out of the equation any rationale supporting the opinion. The initiative is structured only to measure opinion not substance, conclusion not argument. So what sort of “corrective action” will flow from the compilation of that data?

As it creates data that identifies and claims to quantify “a problem “it will also create pressures to “solve” that alleged problem. The methodology of the initiative actually precludes development of internal solutions and thereby makes “external” solutions more likely. Fashioning external solutions here means finding ways of silencing critics rather than refuting them. Defeating them rather than considering them. Reacting rather than listening.

The foreseeable result of this un-needed, self-defeating, and divisive initiative will include pressures for disinformation campaigns, for buying off corruptible journalists and interdicting a free press in the very places we are urging policies of enlightened democratic transformation.