I wrote last week... "The U.S. military has been working hard to provide flood assistance, but most of that is invisible to Pakistanis," I noted. That seemed to me to be a missed opportunity -- and characteristic of a weird misfire in U.S. public diplomacy. For a superpower, we can be oddly shy about advertising our good works.

Supported by NTM-A advisors, Afghan forces have established a basic, but rapidly growing, communication capability. During the course of the last twelve months they have more than tripled their number of trained Public Affairs Officers - from fifty-five to over two hundred...

Conveying information and selling a positive image is often best accomplished by private citizens; today, the soft sell may prove more effective than the hard sell. The main strength of the government broadcasting and mass media approach to public diplomacy is its audience reach and ability to generate public awareness and set the agenda

Today's ugly Islamophobia painfully recalls the bigotries of earlier times. Now, as then, "culture wars" are energized less by what is known about the other than by what is not known or not understood.

Beyond the harsh rhetoric on who is to blame for 9/11, this appearance on BBC Persian has a few notable implications for U.S. public diplomacy apparatus in general and its policy towards Iran in particular.

The head of public affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development leaves the agency today to join the public diplomacy shop in Foggy Bottom. Lynne Weil, who started as the top communications staffer for USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah in March, turns over the press shop to her deputy Lars Anderson, who is also in charge of communications matters involving Afghanistan and Pakistan.