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John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.

PDPBR FOR SEPTEMBER 22-24, 2007
by John H. Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, SEPTEMBER 22-24 “$1,000 a day” —What the private security company Blackwater pays bodyguards assigned to the US ambassador in Iraq; cited in David DeVoss, “Iraq’s ‘Dirty Harrys’ (Los Angeles Times, September 23) LINK “$500,000 a minute” —Cost of the war in Iraq, according to the American Friends Service Committee; cited in Kari Lydersen, “War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says” (Washington Post, September 22) LINK “the question of focusing on how much money we are spending there [in Iraq] is irrelevant.” —Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, cited in above article “You don’t need to invade countries to get oil from them. Just send them a check.” —Gwynne Dyer, “Is the Iraq war really about oil?” (Jerusalem Post, September 23) LINK COMMENTS ON TODAY’S US PUBLIC DIPLOMACY FROM A VALUED PDPRB SUBSCRIBER Preferring to remain anonymous, this valued PDPBR subscriber briefly comments on programs directed by Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes. Please scroll down to to section C. SITE OF INTEREST Psyop and Military links LINK VIDEOS Classic Anti-Fascism Propaganda Films – Smiles (Anomaly Television, september 21) LINK A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY (1-12) 1. LAURA BUSH TO TRAVEL TO MIDDLE EAST IN OCTOBER – REUTERS (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24): US First Lady Laura Bush plans to visit the Middle East in October on a public diplomacy tour, the White House said on Monday. The White House would not say which countries she would visit but said that among the themes of the trip will be her effort to promote awareness about breast cancer. She will also discuss education initiatives, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. LINK 2. AMERICA’S FADED IMAGE - ROBERT ANTON MERTZ (LETTER TO THE EDITOR, WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 22): Karen P. Hughes [“Sinking in the Polls,” op-ed, Sept. 17] wrote that only a minority of people in the Middle support terrorist activities and that support has been declining since 2001. But she barely mentioned that the formerly positive view of America held by an overwhelming majority of people in the Middle East has dropped precipitously. In Turkey, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, those with a favorable view of America dropped from 52 percent of residents surveyed in 2002 to 9 percent of those surveyed today. In large part this is due to hostility to U.S. foreign policies in the region, but it is also due to the ineptitude of public diploma under Hughes’s leadership at the State Department. Better outreach would help. LINK HUGHES ARTICLE AT LINK 3. SINKING IN THE POLLS: KAREN HUGHES’ PUBLIC DIPLOMACY MOMENT -  JOHN BROWN (HUFFINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 23): Public diplomacy—programs “engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences,” to quote the State Department homepage—can now have a greater impact than before because the world’s view of bin Laden “is turning darker than [his] newly dyed beard,” according to Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes in her recent Washington Post…... FULL TEXT
 
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