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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.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, DECEMBER 4-5, 2007
by John H. Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, DECEMBER 4-5 “Call it public diplomacy, or public affairs, or psychological warfare, or—if you really want to be blunt—propaganda. But whatever it is called, defining what this war is really about in the minds of the 1 billion Muslims in the world will be of decisive and historic importance. ... How can a man in a cave outcommunicate the world’s leading communications society?” —Former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke, October 28, 2001 LINK “As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, ‘How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?’” —Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, November 26, 2007 LINK SITE OF INTEREST Concerned Foreign Service Officers, “a group of current and former employees of the U.S. Department of State who are concerned about recent abuses of the security clearance process in the Department of State.” LINK NOTE The link cited in PDPBR December 1-3,  “Dead Men Working,” was temporarily inoperative but is now accessible at LINK NEW BOOK “Dissent: Voices of Conscience,” co-authored by Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon LINK A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY (1-19) 1. ENCOURAGING INTERFAITH DIALOGUES - KAREN P. HUGHES (YEMEN OBSERVER, YEMEN, DECEMBER 4): America wants to be a partner in interfaith dialogues. We are working to highlight the many voices speaking out against terrorist violence and for greater interfaith understanding. We are encouraging conversations among cultures. In a new program called “Citizen Dialogue,” we’ve sent Muslim American citizens across the world to engage with citizens in Muslim communities. We’ve sponsored summer programs for young people, teaching respect for diversity. We’ve sent out musicians to promote tolerance and to show that differences can enrich rather than divide. LINK 2. U.S.-PALESTINIAN PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP HOLDS INAUGURAL SESSION - MEDIA NOTE (OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, DECEMBER 4): President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice officially launched Monday, December 3, the U.S.-Palestinian Public Private Partnership, a new initiative creating economic opportunity for the Palestinian people, with a special focus on providing opportunities for Palestinian youth. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen P. Hughes participated in the inaugural meeting Monday at the Aspen Institute to set priorities and plans for the initiative. SEE ALSO ITEM 18. LINK 3. LOSING THE WAR OF IDEAS? – ROBERT REILLY (CLAREMONT INSTITUTE, DECEMBER 4): Karen Hughes has frequently suggested that Iraq is the source of U.S. unpopularity, since “we are engaged in a war that much of the world disagrees with.” However, the deeper reason is that we have failed to address the larger issue of moral legitimacy—our own and the enemy’s—which is the real nub of the conflict, which began well before Iraq. The problem is that Hughes seemed to concede the very point of moral legitimacy—without even realizing she had done so. We do not bother to demonstrate that there is an indispensable moral meaning to freedom. In fact, we often unintentionally do the…... FULL TEXT
 
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