The ‘War on Terror’: Nation-Building or Nation-Neglecting?

Now is the time to finish the job we began in Afghanistan five years ago. Last year saw a desperate and vicious onslaught by a new generation of Taliban forces with enhanced logistical and financial support. More than 4,000 Afghans, many of them civilians, were killed in military actions in 2006, a three-fold increase from the previous year. Suicide attacks -- a phenomenon unknown to Afghans before 2002 -- jumped to 118 from 21. Read More

A ‘New Paradigm’: The Private Sector and Public Diplomacy

On January 10, 2007, the State Department hosted a Private Sector Summit on Public Diplomacy. The purpose of the conference was to bring together professionals from the public relations sector to consider how U.S. public diplomacy programs and objectives could be improved by input from the corporate communications world. Given the recent BBC polls showing that U.S. popularity continues to plummet worldwide -- it's no surprise that the State Department is reaching out to organizations that are defined by their communication expertise. Read More

War of Ideas: Insurgent Channel Coming to a Satellite Near You

(Cairo) -- A controversial TV channel that is the voice of Iraq's anti-American insurgents look set to launch another front in the propaganda war against the U.S. The head of al-Zawraa, which airs footage produced by the Islamic Army of Iraq, says he has finalized a deal for the channel to be distributed on three European satellites, including one seen by American viewers. The move comes as U.S. officials are pressing Egypt to stop transmitting the channel via its Nilesat satellite. Read More

Paradoxes in Making Friends of Enemies

With attitudes toward America in practically every part of the world already ranging from distrust to violent hatred, and seeming to worsen by the day, it may seem naive to think that public diplomacy can rescue us. But because the only sure way to protect us from terrorist attacks is to become less a target of their hostility, it is worth trying a different strategy than is now being practiced in our public diplomacy. Read More

TV/Radio Marti Boost Their Volume to Cuba, Expanding Their Services

MIAMI, Fla. -- TV and Radio Marti may have finally come of age. They are now beamed into Cuba by Miami's runaway powerhouse Spanish language station, and on DirecTV to circumvent the Castro government's broadcast jamming. With Fidel Castro's decline from power, could expansion of the Martis throughout Latin America be on the horizon? You've got to be kidding, you say? Not so fast. Read More

War of Ideas: Score another one for the bad guys

(Cairo) Sunni-Shia power politics and U.S.-Egyptian relations have come head-to-head in a dispute over a satellite television station that is the latest weapon in the arsenal of Iraq’s insurgents. Al-Zawraa, a television version of the now-infamous jihadi websites, is being broadcast across the Arab world by Nilesat, a satellite provider answerable to the Egyptian government. The Iraqi station features non-stop scenes of U.S. troops being picked off by snipers, blown up by roadside bombs and targeted by missiles. Read More

Rebuilding Afghanistan: The Diaspora’s Debt of Service

Do we Afghans ever think about our debt of service to Afghanistan and actually doing something about it? I think we hardly do so. But let us begin with the basic fact that the land we call home is diversely populated, geographically landlocked, politically and economically least developed, and unfortunately located in a predatory neighborhood where at least one of our neighbors sees its raison d'être partly dependent on instability in Afghanistan. Read More

Jeane Kirkpatrick—Public Diplomacy’s Past Master of Shock and Awe

Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who died at age 80 December 8, will likely be recalled as the great master of public diplomacy shock and awe during the Ronald Reagan presidency. She was arguably the most effective champion of President Reagan's foreign policy objectives, who rivaled the president himself when it came to working the media. Read More

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