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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
The Shared Values campaign "did not do anything," says Khaled al Maeena, editor in chief of the Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Maeena says that the U.S.'s role in bombing Iraq and its inaction in trying to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinian territories are far more significant than any television commercials. "Actions speak louder than words," he says.
Then there are other complications -- ones rooted in policies. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., suggested to Beers at the same February hearing that "some developments at home may be undermining your work abroad," citing national security measures that in his view "in some cases unfairly target Muslims for harsher treatment by law enforcement officials." Those included the post-9/11 "roundup of hundreds of Arab and Muslim individuals," the interviewing of "8,000 male visitors from Arab or Muslim nations for questioning," last year's announcement of "a special call-in registration program that selectively targets male students, businessmen and tourists from two dozen Muslim or Arab nations plus North Korea." Feingold asked Beers what her office was doing to respond to concerns about these policies.
Beers cited the new stringent visa regulations as "a symbol of the tension that we will have to live with ... We have to put security first. We can make no apologies for it." That said, Beers pointed out that she had recently met in Kuala Lumpur with Marie T. Huhtala, the U.S. ambassador to Malaysia, and learned that while the "huge backlog" of visa applications was causing a controversy in that Muslim nation, Huhtala nonetheless approves 92 percent of the applications. "We need to get that word out, that we are open and we make no apologies for being secure."
For the so-called queen of branding, this was hardly a bumper-sticker-worthy slogan.
In an interview with Salon, Harold Pachios, chairman of the State Department's Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy -- who opposed the war in Iraq -- agrees that our foreign policy has a great effect on the perception of the U.S., but he argues that U.S.-run communications operations will be an essential tool.
"If, in fact, it was reported by Radio Sawa, let's say, 'American diplomats arrived in Israel yesterday to try to put pressure on [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon to try to start dismantling settlements,' I think that would resonate in the Arab world," he says. "If it was reported that 'the U.S. Congress is looking at an aid package for the Palestinian territories tied to the reform of its government I think that would resonate. And it might not get reported on Al Jazeera the same way."
Is the U.S. doing those things? he is asked.
"I don't know," Pachios says. "I don't think so. But when we do, if we report that on Radio Sawa and report that on the American Middle East Network, I think it will have a great effect." But Pachios, of course, is correct: The U.S. isn't doing any of the hypothetical acts he mentions.
When policies loathed in the Arab world are ignored by people running information campaigns, it creates a disdain for -- and a distrust of -- anything U.S. officials say. After Beers announced that she was stepping down from her State Department job because of health reasons, for instance, an editorial in the Straits Times of Singapore speculated that "maybe she was sick of all the spin she doctored."
Compounding the resentment of U.S. policies is the constant denial by the U.S. government that it is dirtying its hands with spin at all. Nancy Snow, a communications professor at the California State University at Fullerton, and the author of "Propaganda Inc.: Selling America's Image to the World," says that U.S. officials "should acknowledge that we do propaganda. It might be better propaganda, it might be closer to the truth, but it's still propaganda."
To be sure, not all of America's image problems are of its own making. The U.S. is caught in a perpetual Catch-22. Some critics of the U.S., for instance, decry the lack of law and order in Iraq and call for more soldiers to ensure the peace, while others call for an immediate end to the "occupation." Some criticize the U.S. military for allowing museums to be looted -- but isn't it possible that had armed U.S. soldiers guarded every museum and government office, some pillaging Iraqis would have been killed, arousing even greater international ire? "You might ask why were the museums still standing," notes Stuart Holliday, coordinator of international information programs at the State Department's public diplomacy office. "Why were all these wonderful and important sites essentially untouched in the midst of a major military campaign? It's because the United States took great care to avoid bombing the historic treasures of Iraq."
Moreover, while Muslim and Arab-American civil rights groups may have issues with certain policies, the United States is clearly a far better place to practice religion than virtually anywhere else in the world. "Look how the Muslim religion is treated in France!" a clearly frustrated Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, exclaimed at the Feb. 27 hearing. "It is outrageous. If we treated the Muslim minority ... like the French do, we would be justifiably vilified in the whole world. So why is it that France gets no criticism in the Muslim world?"
