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Don Rumsfeld: $1.6 Billion in PR Still Not Enough to Beat Al Qaeda
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I had to pause between a set of non-stop meetings today after briefly seeing an email from the Council on Foreign Relations highlighting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's complaint about the "globally hostile media environment."
He lamented that today's terrorist arsenal includes "e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs."
A CNN report captures his point:
Modernization is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West, Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations.The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.
"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but ... our country has not adapted," Rumsfeld said.
"For the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a 'five and dime' store in an eBay world," Rumsfeld said, referring to old-fashioned U.S. retail stores and the online auction house respectively.
U.S. military public affairs officers must learn to anticipate news and respond faster, and good public affairs officers should be rewarded with promotions, he said.
The Pentagon's propaganda machine still operates mostly eight hours a day, five or six days a week while the challenges it faces occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Rumsfeld called that a "dangerous deficiency."
He lamented that vast media attention about U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq outweighed that given to the discovery of "Saddam Hussein's mass graves."
A couple of quick points.
First, perhaps Secretary Rumsfeld ought to go back and look at the images that were PRODUCED by Americans -- not al Qaeda.
Secretary Rumsfeld, take a good look at these horrific, grizzly, and detestable depictions of what soldiers under your command did at Abu Ghraib.
Second, no one in senior levels of command has been held accountable for the Abu Ghraib outrage -- no one in your immediate circle, Mr. Secretary -- nor you, yourself.
I think it's going to take more than spin, and more than a multi-billion dollar PR budget to turn our public diplomacy around -- it's going to require a GENUINE "hearts and minds" strategy, but thus far we've been more focused with torturing and disappearing those hearts and minds.
More later.
-- Steve Clemons
I think any amount spent trying to cultivate foreign media is a waste of money. Americans weren't popular when Bill CLinton was president. Or George Bush or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan.....
Steve, --- unfortunately it is Mr. Rummy himself who needs to be "transformed" into the 21st century. By his actions and "orders" to the troops Mr.Rummy exudes the Cold War mentality. Just because his pronouncements is peppered with techno-terms does NOT make him a 21st century man. an example: say Donny is a short-order cook who pumps out those greasy hamburgers and ultra deep grease french-fries. That is all he knows---- cooking with lard. So now, with this lite and healthy cooking, Donny gets delivered to his kitchen organically grown vegetables, herbs, tomatos, potatos, etc., range-grown chicken, etc. Care to venture what comes out of Donny's kitchen?? YEP.... greasy vegi-burgers and heavy deep fried organically grown french fries!!!
He fails to understand, comprehend and accept that dictatorial, heirarchical, no-questioning directions is soooo totallllly 50's and 60's.
Here's some explanation why the media is hostile: The RNC membership is in revolt. Here's a sampling of the denial in the RNC; and the non-sense the leadership is spewing out to avoid facing facts over the NSA issue.
1. Voters see through RNC disinformation: Here's a sample of RNC membership's realization about the RNC leadership: The leadership is clueless and has no interest in finding facts, or following the law. [Click: To learn more about the RNC non-sense over the NSA issue.]
2. Voters realize there a solutions: The RNC has many reasons -- none of them compelling -- to ignore facts, not review matters, and violate the law. The RNC ground swell continues -- the membership knows its time to find new leaders, and compel the RNC leadership to pass new House rules of Congressional Conduct. [ Click ]
Global media isn't hostile to the US and Americans because of the NSA issue or because of House rules on Congressional conduct.
Unbelievable.
I am constantly in amazement of the world view of our "leaders."
The failure to adapt to change has doomed every empire, and it dooms ours as well.
Fail to see that, and fail.
Might as well take bets on who will be the last on the roof of the US Embassy in Iraq. Because it is coming.
The idea that you can deal with all image problems
with a propaganda compaign is the ultimate outcome
of the Coca-Cola marketing mentality. Corporations
are actively doing this for their own images.
Wal-Mart has a bit of an image problem
these days. Their sales have stagnated and they
would like to sell to a more afluent clientel. The very people who are most driven away by
Wal-Mart's bad image. The solution to the problem:
improve working conditions at Wal-Mart, salaries
or benifits? No! Crank up a marketing campaign.
Wal-Mart's actions are not responsible for their
image, it's the press! The problem can be countered
by getting the right kind of press out there.
The US has a pretty bad image these days. There
is a war of choice that can no longer be justified
by the argument that Iraq was a "clear and
present danger", there's torture, there's holding
people in prison without trial or any kind of
model for when, if ever, they will be released.
The solution to the problem: soul searching within
the US, trials of the high level official
responsible (heaven forbid)? No! Crank up a
marketing campaign. Put Karen Hughes on a plane
to talk about our "values". Its propaganda
devoid of substance. It's the same as selling
flavored, carbonated sugar water where
50% of the price goes into selling you the
beverage.
Perhaps our masters follow this course because
it has worked so well to sell G.W. Bush to the
American voters. We have the "CEO President"
who appears to be incompetent at almost everying
his administration puts it hand to. We have a
conservative who has run up some of the bigest deficits
in history. The solution: a marketing campaign based
on fear.
Unfortunately for the Bushies, their marketing does
not seem to translate so well on an international
scale. Increasingly people no more trust Bush's
country than they trust him. He has taken
American prestige, built up since the Second
World War and destroyed it.
Ian
This from a man who doesn't use email?!
That's about 1.2 dollar per muslim. For 1.2 dollar you can have 6 Abu Grahib pictures developed at Wall Mart. For every 6 Abu Grahib pictures perhaps 2.1 in a million (accounting done by Mr. Chertof) muslims will resort to terrorism. That's a huge return on investment knowing there are 1.3 billion muslims. All in a days work brought to you by the Department of Peace.
Halliburton = the new BCCI?
They are eager for the new war against Iran.
More profits for the corporation that knows no limits.
The war criminals continue to fool people in the US but, again, its probably not fooling all that many people in the rest of the world. When you decide to break your own countries laws, international law, and basic ethical considerations for human decency, all you've got left is lies, lies, and more lies to stay in power.
If Wal-Mart has such a bad image, how come so many people continue to shop there?
Who are the people outside the US we're trying to impress?
Rumsfeld, poor guy. He's lied so much he doesn't recognize his own lies when they come back to him.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
"He has taken
American prestige, built up since the Second
World War and destroyed it."
Oh come on. Have you completely forgotten the Cater administration? Or both Reagan administrations? Nixon?
uh, make that the Carter administration, not the Cater administration
More to the point - It will take a thousand years to undo what these motherfuckers have done to our relatively young republic.
I think that Mr. Rumsfeld has delusions if he thinks that positive propaganda can wipe out the negative facts the neocons' war have produced. No matter how much money he threw at it, how many gadgets or "with-it" words, the misadventure is what it is. No amount of PR can clean it up and send it out into the street of world opinion as anything resembling the actual truth of the mishandling.
IT's not the marketing, it's the product.
God knows the neocons just haven't been the sharpest tools in the shed, but is Rumfeld really this dense?
It's one thing to lie to Kansas and get their votes (although all signs are Kansas is waking up). But if we wrecked most all of Kansas so there was no more power, water, food, shelter or jobs, and THEN dropped bombs on Kansas, shot at Kansas, and tortured Kansas every day, well, Kansas is gonna hate your guts.
I'm sure that $1.6 billion went to a PR firm with really good K Street connections, so, oh well, who coulda known?
This administration hasn't accepted responsibility for anything it's done so far, why would we expect it to start now?
A lot of conservative pundits are also getting fed up with their management style and are regularly calling this the most incompetent adminstration ever. I don't think there's any doubt the legislation is even worse.
As a side point, when I lived in Turkey I was stationed at Incirlik. I had a lot of luck at changing the minds of locals that had been very hostile to Americans. My technique? I learned their language and listened to them.
There were maybe 10 military people on the entire base that had learned the language, and most of them were OSI agents that had gone through Monterey.
Not rocket science, but something that Americans are terrible at doing. We seem to have the belief that the universe revolves around the US.
Sounds like the dog show took place at the Pentagon with all that whining and yowling. Donald: grow up.
What can one say about such absurdity, except that Rumsfeld must really be as stupid as he seems.
Speaking of international media, John Humphrys gave former US Ambassador for War (??! Not making this up!) Pierre-Richard Prosper hell this morning on Radio 4. You can listen to it at their site, but I have no idea how to create a permanent link to it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/index.shtml and look at the 0810 interview for 2/18 (or 18/2, as we'd say here). He kept going on about how the "laws of war" supercede international law. In other words: As long as we've got a nebulous "war on terror" going on we can do whatever the heck we want.
(Oh, and he's the former ambassador for war since he's running for California AG now.)
If we had confined ourselves to hitting back at Al Qaeda, and not embarked on the gratuitous, stupid invasion of Iraq, with the unending collateral damage to noncombatants and torture, we would be in decent shape in the Muslim world today. The problem is almost entirely Rumsfeld's doing.
Off the specific topic, but related: This is to express my deep concern about port security. The United Arab Emerites should not be given contracts for port security in this country. The duplicity in this is staggering, to say nothing of the dubious "security" a UAR company could possibly afford us. How can the US government possibly vouchsafe their integrity? The mixed message of asking us to wage a war on Arabic terror at the price to the taxpayers of $105 billion dollars, combined with farming out our security contracts to them is insulting. I believe this will become a pivotal issue. Anybody out there?
KathyF, thanks for the great BBC catch. This needs to make it into any opponent's database on this guy.
Re: "hearts and minds"--If we could actually engage the minds of the American people, their hearts would surely follow and we could get rid of the BushCo monarchial maladministration.
Touching BushCo's "hearts and minds" if probably undoable.
It swould sure be great to get back to our popularity level when Clinton was president.
Irony alert: The US wasn't popular when Clinton was president (and I would've voted for the man a third time if I could have). The point is, the US isn't unpopular with foreign media because of anything it does or doesn't do.
Avaroob:
Clearly, there are things that the US can do that will result in positive coverage by foreign media.
"In his fast-moving expedition from Jerusalem to Gaza, and thence to Bethlehem and Massada, Clinton succeeded to captivate Israelis and Palestinians alike..."
"Clinton did his best to appear impartial and give during his visit precisely equal honors to his Israeli and his Palestinian hosts -- leaving quite a few Israelis uncomfortable, after so many years of taking for granted a manifestly unique and preferential treatment from Washington. By the same token, it was a heady experience for Palestinians. Even Prof. Edward Said, among the most outspoken critics of the entire Oslo Process, remarked 'I must say that Clinton's speech to the Palestinians for the first time expressed a humane sympathy for what they have endured'.
"Clearly, there are things that the US can do that will result in positive coverage by foreign media."
Not really. The US isn't going to be popular with foreign press no matter what it does. While you may find some articles that aren't anti-US, it's too much to expect the US to ever be treated fairly by foreign press. My point was, we shouldn't try. Who is it in the foreign press we think is worth trying to be popular with?
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