WhirledView

America's Unsuccessful War in Pakistan

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Pakistan is the world’s sixth largest country, with a population of nearly 168,000,000 people, most of them Muslims, which means there are multiple deeply held divergences in the interpretation and practice of Islam, although these chasms may disappear when outside force is applied—U.S. force included. To understand this dynamic, Americans might remember how bipartisanship crops up when external threats appear. So Americans should not be surprised that even relatively secular urban Pakistanis are not enthusiastic about American efforts to vigorously pursue or eradicate “Islamist insurgents” within their northern borderland. There is certainly a problem of law and order in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a problem that is acquiring urgency because the ferment is spilling out and into other parts of Pakistan. Terrorists have threatened Islamabad and Lahore as well as the ever volatile megacity of Karachi, for example. Above all, longstanding, largely tacit understandings about cultural autonomy and spheres of influence within and across national boundaries have been abused and violated by many players.

But employing the Pakistani Army to slaughter unruly tribals by the hundreds or thousands in order to pluck Osama bin laden, America’s Enemy Number One, out of his mountainous safe haven would appear, to most Pakistanis, like swatting a fly with an atom bomb: a strategy certain to do more harm than good. And Pakistan is jealous of its sovereignty.

“Half of all Pakistanis want their government to negotiate and not fight Al Qaeda, with less than a third saying military action by the Pakistani government is called for,” according to a recent poll by Terror Free Tomorrow. They'd prefer to negotiate with the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, too. Some 73 per cent of those polled said that “the real purpose of [America's] war on terror is to weaken the Muslim world and dominate Pakistan.” Part of me wonders if a more effective Public Diplomacy effort might have led to less negativity. Part of me replies, "It's the policy, stupid."

American policymakers should pay attention to such disheartening poll results. Pakistan, as a semi-cooperative ally, is endlessly exasperating to American policy makers. Pakistan as a sullen ex-ally would be far worse, and all it would take to accomplish such a divorce is the capture and public parading of a few U.S. special forces operatives nabbed on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. The furor over America's border-crossing bombs, called in to kill alleged insurgents who turned out to be Pakistan Border Corps troops, of whom 11 died, gives a tiny hint of the likely reaction. American popularity in Pakistan is at an all time low these days, while sympathy for Al Qaeda’s goals, if not the violence with which those goals are pursued, is rising. Thus, the secular elite that has been governing Pakistan since its inception is increasingly under siege. To stay in power the non-religious parties must maintain their nationalist if not their Islamist credentials. A popular way of criticizing Pervez Musharraf, George W. Bush’s increasingly marginalized ally in the “war against terror,” is to call him an American tool.

Hands Across the Border

Once upon a time India served as the juicy scapegoat for Pakistan’s nationalists, and not so long ago outside observers worried that India (or Pakistan) might inadvertently (or intentionally) lob a nuclear device across the border. To defend the brand new country against the threat of Indian irredentism is what the Pakistan army was created for. And why did Pakistan originally encourage the activities of violent Islamists who are now, in classic blowback fashion, threatening a form of Islamic revolution within Pakistan itself? Why, to weaken India on the cheap, by forcing New Delhi to deal with incessant insurgency in Muslim majority Kashmir.

But things may be changing on the Indian front. When asked the tired old question as to whether a “foreign hand” might be “fanning trouble in the tribal belt,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani replied “yes.” Yet India wasn’t named this time. The alleged culprits were “some foreigners from Central Asian States.” No doubt American policymakers would have preferred a Gilani diatribe against Arabs, as in Osama bin Laden, or Egyptians, as in Aymen Al Zawahri, but the latest series of talks between India and Pakistan seem to be achieving some degree of trust between the traditional enemies. The still wary neighbors are discussing peach and security, confidence building measures in Kashmir, economic ties, prisoner exchanges and anti-terrorism.

Better yet, from that point of view, a recent editorial in Dawn applauds the new sanity:

....detente between Indian and Pakistan will impact positively on global politics. With no signs of Islamabad winning the “war on terror” in the immediate future and the militants recognizing no borders, a wise strategy demands that India and Pakistan join hands in their security endeavour.

However, the Dawn editorial ends with a twist that may not please Washington:

In that context their agreement...to hold meetings of their anti-terrorism mechanism regularly is encouraging. It would also reduce Islamabad’s dependence on Washington in world politics.

Speaking of Washington, when asked about making Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, available for further interrogation from IAEA as a result of recently uncovered evidence that his one-man proliferation operation was even more generous than previously known, Gilani said, “the issue of Dr. Qadeer is over.” This will displease the Americans. So will Gilani’s present position on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program: “we are not a rogue state and are neither indulging in an arms race with any one” although “minimum deterrence will be maintained in this regard.

Desperately Seeking Bin Laden

Above all, the Americans are definitely not happy with Pakistan’s failure to nab Osama bin Laden or to permit American forces to nip over the border from Afghanistan to do the job for them.

Where have all the public diplomacy specialists gone?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

You have to hand it to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy for engaging in what must have been a Herculean tooth pulling exercise with the State Department’s normally secretive Human Resources Division in an endeavor to determine what has happened to America’s public diplomacy specialists since 1999 when much of the U.S. Information Agency was slurped up by State. This is the subject of the Commission’s most recent report. It has a terrific title “Getting the People Part Right” and is the first report I’ve seen on the topic. It raises many of the right questions. Now almost ten years since 1999, this report, its approach and the resultant findings (and more) are badly needed.

Alarming

Anyone interested in learning about how the vast majority of civilian professionals tasked with tending America’s image abroad are being treated at Foggy Bottom and in US Embassies abroad should read this 45 page report. It is well written, organized and thought provoking. It explores recruiting, hiring, training, bureaucratic structures, institutional cultures as well as career advancement and the ever important question of impact - all in non-jargon laden terms.

In short, despite all the Bush administration’s rhetoric about the importance of public diplomacy and Condi Rice’s maxim that “we all do public diplomacy,” the State Department has too often neglected the very people who are tasked to “do public diplomacy.” Moreover, it has failed to provide the additional training necessary to enable Ambassadors or other high level embassy officials to “do” even a smiggen of public diplomacy right either.

It’s not for no reason that many public diplomacy specialists who could leave, left at the first opportunity or planned to leave as soon as possible after the consolidation announcement in fall 1997. And it’s also not for no reason that the US military has subsequently inserted its own information operations specialists into US Embassies abroad – presumably to pick up the slack in human capital missing from State.

State’s “Red-haired step children”

In my experience, far too often too few State Department officers ever understood how to use public diplomacy staff, programs and funding effectively. When I joined the Foreign Service in 1970, public diplomacy specialists were derisively labeled “red haired step children” by State. It’s clear that this part of the equation has not changed.

Unfortunately, this latest public diplomacy report demonstrates that public diplomacy officers remain State’s red-haired step-children. Despite the fact that the Department couldn’t wait to get its hands on USIA (in particular its budget) in its Greater State Department expansionary days under then Secretary Madeleine Albright who had made a devil’s pact with then Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jesse Helms to sell out USIA, the public diplomacy specialty remains among the two most popular among new recruits. But unless things change quickly, the reality is that if these newly minted public diplomacy diplomats want to get ahead they need to shift into some other field and rapidly.

What should be the requirements for public diplomacy specialists?

There’s much to-ing and fro-ing and tut-tutting in the report with respect to lack of specialized recruitment and training for public diplomacy officers. I don’t doubt that it is real. But I wonder: what sorts of people would make good public diplomacy officers as opposed to, say, political officers? Is there really that much of a qualitative difference?

Inang Bayan’s New Clothes – A Book Review Essay

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Shhh. This delightful children’s book may – or may not - be off-limits to Americans. So let’s pretend you didn’t hear about it from me. But it’s a best seller in the Philippines.

I first learned about Inang Bayan’s New Clothes from one of the few informative articles I’ve come across of late in State the State Department’s in-house magazine so I sent out feelers to see if I could obtain a copy.

Don’t ask how I got it but I did.

That’s best kept part of my “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy – because of an outdated law known as Smith-Mundt that restricts Americans’ access to learning what our taxpayers’ dollars are supporting overseas. Thanks to the Internet, however, you can at least see American Ambassador Kristie Kenney on the US Embassy’s webpage reading from the book to a group of Filipino girls in 2006 when it first appeared. It then took over a year for the story to appear in State – but better late than never.

Suffice it to say that I’ll bet you never dreamed that US government money would help finance a story about two Filipino girls – Feliza and Nurhana, one Christian and the other Muslim – who live in Mindanao, work in a dress shop after school and despite their families’ religious differences are best of friends.

The purpose of this book is to promote inter-communal understanding – and it is clearly aimed at Filipino girls. It is full of pretty clothes, lovely pictures, and paper dolls to dress. In so doing, it shows the multi-ethnic heritage of Filipinos and it also depicts how it is possible – two girls at a time - to play a part in overcoming the devastating religious cleavage that has bedeviled the southern-most part of the archipelago for years. The name Inang Bayan means the Philippine Motherland or Spirit. It dates back - at least - to the early 1900s. Inang Bayan is also known as the "first muse" of Philippine poets.

In short, this little paperback book with cut-outable inserts is a winner.

Its authors – Tony Perez and Agnes Caballa - are veteran Filipino public diplomacy staff at the US Embassy in Manila and its illustrator is Frances Alcaraz, a illustrator and Ateneo de Manila University professor. Perez is an award winning author in his own right and Caballa is a television script writer, lyricist and stage director, as well as co-editor of the magazine Muslim Life in the Philippines. The book was published by Anvil, a major Filipino publishing house, and its publication and production was financed by the U.S. government. Inang Bayan’s New Clothes is, apparently, still in print – or perhaps back in print because it is so popular. But don't expect to find it on Amazon. The text is in both Cebuano (the language of Mindanao) and English.

Now you might ask why the US government would invest in a children’s book of this sort. It’s not, after all, about promoting the US image abroad. But in the event you’ve forgotten, in 2002 the US sent a small number of troops to the Philippines to help the Philippine armed forces cope with Mindanao-based Muslim insurgents including those with ties to Al Qaeda. As far as I can tell, the insurgents as well as Philippine and US troops are still there and the government’s long-standing insurgency problem has yet to be resolved for numerous reasons.

Yet Inang Bayan’s New Clothes is, at the very least, a tiny – delightful - step in the right direction.

State, the blame game, the media and the Palestinian Seven

By Patricia H. Kushlis

How lower, exactly, is lower?

Blaming nameless “lower level” officials in the Department of State for taking it upon themselves to cancel Fulbright grants for seven Palestinians students just doesn’t compute.

Let’s put aside the concentration camp, shortsighted aspect of the Israeli Army’s noose around a small group of graduate students from Gaza and all the untoward ramifications that entails. I’m looking at a different dark side to this same story that my colleague Patricia Sharpe addressed on WV over the weekend.

What I raise here is the pass-the-blame game and worse - The New York Times’ willingness to buy into it. How well do the editors at The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune or Times Israel correspondent Ethan Bronner, who broke the story there, understand the operation of the US State Department or, for that matter, the Fulbright program? And why have the source or sources of this finger-pointing exercise remained anonymous?

It troubles me to see blame ascribed to unnamed “lower-level State Department officials” who, Bronner wrote on June 6, “had apparently assumed that the new stricter closing of Gaza would make it impossible to get the students out, so the officials canceled their grants.” It sounds as if, on first reading, a couple of GS-7s and 9s in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs had gone off the reservation and done something really stupid without checking with their superiors. Having worked in and with the bureau during my own lengthy Foreign Service career, I have my doubts.

A clever choice of words?

The more I think about it, however, the phrase Bronner used was “lower level officials.” Now, that’s really quite clever. I wonder if it wasn’t carefully chosen to appear to mean one thing – when in reality it may well mean something else. Yet no one, to my knowledge, has questioned it.

The uber-hierarchical State Department has multiple layers of “lower level officials” one ranking yet lower than the other. The operation is positively Byzantine. In the case of the Palestinian Seven, a “lower level official” could even have referred to the Deputy Secretary of State, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs or Public Diplomacy (if there had been one at the time), or the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. All are very high ranking but, of course, because they rank below Madam Secretary herself they themselves constitute “lower level officials.”

Alternatively, the term could have referred to mid-or even low level bureaucrats in the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. This latter meaning of the phrase is what we - Jane and John Q public - are meant to believe.

Blaming “lower-level” - presumably career government employees for incompetence - isn’t that the Republican way? Could the goal have been to make the career Washington bureaucracy appear incompetent yet again in order to cover up for a few Republican political appointee snafus – or for that matter top ranking professional diplomats - mistakes? I think the term was carefully selected precisely because it is so pregnant with meanings.

Duking it out on Turkey in The Wall Street Journal

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Wouldn’t it be a relief if The Wall Street Journal re-employed Hugh Pope, its former veteran Istanbul bureau chief, and ditched Michael Rubin’s biased, undistinguished, unenlightening, off-the-wall albeit occasional diatribes on Turkey?

On Friday, Rubin called the country’s prime minister Tayyip Erdogan a dictator ala Vladimir Putin and demanded Erdogan’s ouster. This under an inflammatory headline “Turkey’s Putin Deserves to Go.” Now I usually don’t read WSJ Op Eds because they’re too often over-the-top but there’s so little information and even less analysis on Turkey in the American media and the WSJ is far too influential to ignore completely that I did read this one.

In good part Rubin’s June 6 Op Ed was a retort to a previous one The Journal had run by former US Ambassador Mark Parris who criticized the State Department for ignoring Turkey’s impending Constitutional crisis and failing to try to avert it.

But Rubin went beyond the pale and this is not the first time.

As predicted – Rubin, who – if I remember correctly - has close ties to the Israeli military-industrial complex that sells tanks (or at least other weaponry) to the Turkish military (a major protagonist in the current domestic political fight), trashed the Turkish elected civilian leadership and charged it with undemocratic tendencies. As if the Turkish military and the Supreme Court were themselves bastions of democracy. Regardless, talk about taking sides in someone else’s domestic dispute. Moderate Islamist Erdogan is not perfect and he’s made mistakes – but the secularist opposition which wants the world to equate their actions with democratic governance isn’t a paragon of virtue either.

On top of everything else Rubin blames Erdogan for inflaming anti-American and anti-Semitic attitudes in Turkey quoting last year’s Pew Global Attitudes Survey which described Turkey as the “world’s most anti-American country." In this case, the survey’s right. But Rubin’s interpretation of it is just plain wrong. Besides, I don't recall it even including attitudes on anti-Semitism in its data.

Sorry, Mr. Rubin, those anti-American attitudes that have persisted in the country over the past five years have their roots in the Bush administration’s public trashing of the Turkish government when it refused to allow US troops to invade Iraq through Turkey’s southern border.

Maybe if W, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and your other neocon cronies had treated the Turks a little better at the time and even heeded their advice about how to deal with that troublesome neighbor to their south then the American image would not be such a disaster now. If I remember correctly, Turkish views of the US plummeted at the time of the invasion. Didn't you conveniently forget the timing? I didn’t. I’ll bet those attitudes won’t change until W has left the White House and a saner head is in command of US policy in the Middle East.

PS: A note to The Wall Street Journal. Please, your readers deserve better: Michael Rubin deserves to go.

The Sins of the Fathers: Thoughts on the Fulbright Snafu in Gaza

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Here’s the gist of it: because Palestinians in Gaza chose Hamas, Gaza has been turned into a concentration camp, and even the children of those naughty voters must be punished, according to Israel and its primary financial and moral (ahem!) backers in the Bush administration. As a result, Palestinian students can’t count on exit visas to study abroad, even when they’re awarded the full scholarships they need to do so. Not even when those scholarships are sponsored by Israel’s official friends in the U.S.

So, Palestinian children are to be punished for the sins of their fathers even unto the umpteenth generation. This sort of thinking goes back to the Bible. It’s purpose, several millenia ago, was to account for the baffling cosmic injustice by which good people suffered very bad things. The explanation: God designed it that way. You’re in trouble because you had a bad daddy or mommy ad infinitum.

Well, that explanation may work, sort of, for some people, to account for the consequences of natural phenomena like tsunamis and earthquakes and tornadoes. Unavertable catastrophes kill a lot of innocent people and even some saints, no doubt. Such premature mortality doesn’t seem fair, but people often feel better if they can find a “good reason” for the horror.

Actually death by typhoon, etc., isn’t fair, because fairness has nothing to do with nature.

But the Israeli exit visa policy has nothing to do with god or nature. It’s a political decision, and it’s hubris or sacrilege for humans to think they may act like god. On the human level, meanwhile, the notion of punishing children for the sins of their fathers is not only unjust inhuman and unjust, it’s ludicrous. It assumes that a person’s future can be predicted at a very early age. It also assumes that children always or mostly turn out like their parents.

On what sage-worthy grounds might an Israeli security staffer deny an exit visa? The kid threw stones at Israeli soldiers when he/she was 12 or 14? He/she shouted anti-Israeli slogans or scribbled anti-Israeli graffiti? He/she has a father, mother, cousin, uncle who is/was a Hamas member or supporter?

In practice, no such factors reliably predict anyone's future philosophy or behavior. For example, when I entered college, I was a Christian, a Republican and an ardent Israel supporter. I am none of these now, and I have changed no more than many people do over a lifetime.

Sometimes children adopt the parental religious orientation or profession; sometimes they don’t. Some children get more liberal as a result of travel and education. Some get more conservative. Furthermore, we all know that siblings can be as different as night and day. Thus, there is no way to know how a young or inexperienced person will react when exposed to foreign countries and cultures.

To give the devil his due, it’s true that some foreign-educated engineers and doctors have become terrorists. Yet most turn out to be beneficial members of society. Is it reasonable to punish 1000 potential agents of good in order to avert the minuscule risk of one (or less) going amok? The Israeli policy of denying foreign education to Gazans is a crude and vicious business of punishing children for the supposed sins of their fathers, a policy of totally gratuitous cruelty.

It’s cruel in another way, too. It assumes that parents will do anything you want them to do if you make life hard for their children. It assumes, in this case, that Gazans, at a certain point of deprivation and humiliation, will hug their babies, fall on their knees and beg for forgiveness, after which they will humbly vote as Israelis want them to vote. By now, it should be clear that such self-negation will not happen. Not even the Bush administration is willing to let Gazans starve.

Fortunately, then, most of the trapped children will grow up, but there’s a consequence to consider. Although the principle of non-predictability applies across the board, I strongly suspect that a larger proportion of those who never experience a more benign environment will be angrier and more vindictive than those who left to study at Harvard or Michigan State or Bryn Mawr. Or Oxford. Or Heidelberg.

How could the U.S. have slavishly acquiesced in this policy of punishing youth for the sins of the grown ups? I don’t understand it, but I am deeply grateful to those who spilled the beans and hope (not very optimistically) they will not be punished for disclosing this injustice. There is nothing like public humiliation to cause policy change. The Palestinian Fulbrighters will travel.

I am no less happy to see that exit visas will also be issued to hundreds of Gazans who had been denied the opportunity to travel to other countries for education.

However, nothing can be taken for granted. Vigilance will be required, lest the prison gates be locked again, after this little brouhaha dies down. And should an administrative “bottleneck” occur again, I suggest that the proper U.S. response should not be to revoke Palestinian grants or to plead for reversal, but to immediately reassign all Israeli Fulbright grants to Muslim students elsewhere in the world.

Not all Fulbright awards go to young students, of course, but visas for older scholars are equally defensible. Surely no Israeli official in his or her right mind can believe that a Palestine without professionals and academics will be good for Israel’s future security. Unless, of course, Israel’s true goal really is the genocide, total expropriation or perpetual serfdom that some Israelis, at least, seem to envision for the Palestinians.

New Beginnings Needed for Engaging the World

By Patricia H. Kushlis

How much do you want to bet that whichever presidential candidate – particularly the two remaining on the Democratic side - wins in November, America’s standing in the world will improve. So much of what we see reflected in opinion poll after opinion poll in country after country reflects the unpopularity of the most unpopular president this country has inflicted on the world at least since the US claimed great power status years ago.

It’s impossible to turn a sow into a silk purse – as every grade school kid should know - and it’s not only W’s policies, but also his persona – the face that appears on the front of those policies – that contributes big time to this country’s huge image problem abroad.

But how long will the international grace period last for the new president? Six weeks? Six months? One year?

Seems to me it all depends on what the incumbent does and how he or she presents himself or herself and his or her policies abroad. The further the new president distances himself or herself from W-send-in-the-bombers-unilateralist and his fellow travelers, the better this country will be received abroad. At least for a little while.

A popular new face at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might even be enough to send Osama Bin Laden scurrying to the back of his cave to rethink his strategy and Ahmadinejad to Qom to write a new script for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Now I’m not arguing that the US also doesn’t need to develop effective means of delivering a new president’s message. That’s part of the problem too. It’s just that all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men cannot begin to repair this country’s image in the world until the king himself is changed.

As I read about the latest round of public diplomacy kurfluffering on Capitol Hill just before the Memorial Day Recess, I couldn’t help but wonder about the point of these legislative activities so late in this administration’s day.

Who cares . . .

whether James Glassman is finally approved by the Senate to replace his pal Karen Hughes as the new Czar of Public Diplomacy at the State Department? Won’t make an iota of difference. Seems to me that the steam is out of this administration. In fact, it’s in the last stages of senility.

There will be no big – or even small – initiatives unless, of course, the bomb-Iran-now-folk finally get their way and are allowed to set off one last large stink in the unstable Middle East. Otherwise new proposals and new policies will have to wait until a new team comes on board – but, a warning; the new president won’t have all day.

So what . . .

if Congressman Smith is pushing a bill on information operations/public diplomacy (take your choice) calling for any number of things most of which have been thought of before – including yet another study of a badly flawed operation – yawn – and shelved. I’ll bet this is foremost another example of way too much money available to a US military that still doesn’t know how to spend it. In this case, the sad thing is that the Pentagon needs to learn when it is time to bow out – and let the civilians take over. Guy Farmer’s recent article in “The Nevada Appeal” describes well his own experiences with this same problem in Granada years ago.

Food for Thought; Pause for reflection: American attitudes towards the world

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Seems to me that the foreign policy advisors for all three still-standing US presidential candidates should take a hard look at the results of the most recent 19 nation public attitudes poll formally released today at a Carnegie lunch by World Opinion.org and coordinated by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). And in particular that section on how Americans see their government and this country’s relationship to others.

The read won’t take long, I assure you. The data’s all there on the website just waiting for readers. All in one tidy little section. To a certain extent its how one asks the question – because not all the responses are neat and tidy or play well with the others. But this survey does provide a comparative international snap-shot with which the data on Americans can be compared. Not surprisingly, it confirms that a strong majority of Americans think this country is not being governed by the will of the people. This, of course, corroborates with W’s in-the-tanks-poll ratings during much of his second term and his 66 percent unfavorable rating in an Washington Post/ABC news poll released today.

Less obvious, but far more interesting findings

But this is obvious. Three other perhaps even important findings, however, appear "below the fold:"

First, 80 percent, or four in five, Americans say the country is “being run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, rather than for the benefit of all the people.”

Second, “81% (of Americans surveyed) say that leaders should consider public opinion polls when making an important decision to get a sense of the public’s views, and an overwhelming 94% say that leaders should consider the views of the people as they make decisions in between elections.”

And third, “Asked how much their government should take into account world public opinion in developing its foreign policy, Americans give a response of 6.6 on a 0-10 scale (with 10 meaning “a great deal”), however when asked how much their government does take world public opinion into account, they give the lowest score (3.9) among all countries polled. Sixty-five percent say the government should consider world public opinion more than it already does.”

The first finding (big interests looking out for themselves) should be carefully revisited by campaign associated economists as well as those - hopefully - involved in reinstituting good government regulations, regulatory agencies and strengthening the work of Congressional oversite committees.

The sleeper question

But it is the third - almost sleeper - response that 65 percent of Americans surveyed thought that the US government should "consider world public opinion more than it does" that should give U.S. foreign policy campaign gurus the most pause for consideration. It should also spur a major rethink of how America should and could interact with the world.

This response should also give editorial boards, foreign policy columnists and the commentariat food for thought. Particularly those looking for more effective ways to pull this country back from its disastrous lead-with-the-tanks approach to foreign policy since 9/11. I’ll bet, however, this thought doesn’t find its way into Anne Applebaum, Robert Novak, Cal Thomas or Jim Hoagland’s writings – for instance. Doubtful it will make it into - let alone played up - in a FOX News or Christian right radio broadcast either. After all “winning hearts and minds” through non-military means doesn’t square with the ultra-right or the ultra-religious; but hello out there, maybe "rank-and'file" US citizens are on to something. If done right, listening to others first - before acting like Cesear's Roman Legions on the rampage - can be far more effective in the end – and lots cheaper, too.

Let Them Eat Golf Balls

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I can’t believe it. The U.S. is backing plans to build a luxury golf course adjacent to or in the Green Zone. Who uses a golf course? Mostly males. Monied males. Is this what’s needed in the center of a city that has suffered so badly?

Think of New York. What’s in the center of New York? Central Park.
What’s in the center of London? Hyde Park.
What’s in the center of Rome? The Villa Borghese.
What’s in the center of Paris? Lots of parks.

What’s in the center of Calcutta? The Maidan. Yes, the maidan was laid out by the British during the colonial period, but today it’s where kiddies ride ponies and boys play football/soccer and families picnic and lovers smooch behind the shrubbery. It’s one of the good things the British did during their long tenure. This would be a fine model for what the U.S. leaves behind in Baghdad—assuming the U.S. ever leaves, which is seldom contemplated under the Bush administration, although, in the long run, it will happen. Gracefully. Or otherwise.

Parks are a mark of civilization. They bring people together in the open air. They serve as lungs for a crowded city. They remind people caught up in the stressful necessities of urbanized life that there’s something called nature, which forms the bedrock of our existence. They give people as deep sense of freedom and ease.

Parks bring people together and, something very important, they don't come with entrance fees (as in Disneyish amusement “parks”) or greens fees. People stroll. They sit. They play with children or watch their children play. They chat. They debate. They laugh. They flirt. The enjoy the play of the seasons. When they leave the park, they feel relaxed and happy.

But instead of gifting the people of Bagdad with a spacious central park for the enjoyment of all Baghdadis, what is the Bush administration pushing? A golf course, where a handful of (mostly) middle-aged, VIPish males can hit a ball around velvety lawns while making deals with the same (and sometimes a few women, if they’re really really important or don’t mind inconvenient tee times).

Yes, the American cast of thousands and the other bigwigs who work in the Green Zone will be able to play nine holes or maybe even 18 right in the center of the city and then, no doubt, have drinks (alcoholic) in a luxurious clubhouse thereafter.

There’s a possible upside to this scheme. Maybe, if there’s a golf course next to the monster embassy in the Green Zone, the U.S. State department won’t have so much trouble filling all its Baghdad slots. I guess a golf course is a good way to bribe people into putting up with life in a sealed off, privileged enclave in the middle of a war zone.

And the jehadis can practice making holes in one with their occasional rockets.

I’m not making this up. The American military promoters admit that they are thinking very much of themselves and not the long-suffering people they’ll be posted among.

The $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some with deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, according to the lead military liaison for the project.

For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy, whose total cost will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.

"When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are," said Captain Thomas Karnowski, the U.S. Navy officer who led the team that created the development plan. "You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time."

The U.S. has done so many inept things in Iraq. The golf course project will be one more indication that the U.S. is totally out of touch with the needs of real people.

How about putting the golf course money into building parks along the river banks? Parks for everybody. Oh? A river park wouldn’t be safe for Americans? Stupid me!

On the other hand, Iraqis too have raised their eyebrows.

Some Iraqi leaders even have drawn parallels to the U.S.-backed development plan and what Saddam Hussein did in the area. During his reign, the neighborhood was dominated by family and tribal allies, political loyalists and members of his elite Republican Guard.

Furthermore, and I can't emphasize this too much, all this smacks of the dirty O-word. That’s occupation.

That aside, the project is being whitewashed as having the blessing of the mayor of Baghdad. And how was that blessing obtained? How much did it cost under the table and how was the money channeled? I’d like the opinion of a courageous inspector general here, an inspector general of proven integrity and independence. Perhaps I am being a tad too cynical here. But the process of rebuilding Iraq has been, to a very large extent, a tale of corruption and irresponsibility. The benefits to ordinary Iraqis have not been commensurate with the sums laid out by the U.S.

What’s more, it’s hard for me to see that any mayor who favors investment in golf courses run for profit over parks provided freely to the people of the city can be cited as a man who has the best interests of his electorate at heart.

And I wonder if anyone still serving in what's left of the public diplomacy sphere at the State Department was consulted on this move? Probably not. Diplomacy has mostly been handed over to the Pentagon, which is of course the sponsor of the golf course project.

What the hell! Let them eat golf balls.

Smith-Mundt is a Moot Case - Except It's Not

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Why is it that the U.S. government still operates its overseas information activities as if the Internet had never been invented? Or actually, it operates them with increasing impunity as if Smith-Mundt, the law that came into being in 1948 and was strengthened during the Vietnam War that separates information aimed at foreigners from information designed for American consumption, had been repealed years ago. Except it wasn’t. This artificial and meaningless firewall – supposedly to keep the executive branch of the U.S. government from “propagandizing” the American people – should have been repealed once the Internet took hold.

By 1996 when I worked in the US Information Agency’s Information Bureau and we published quarterly electronic journals on national security issues, developed our own subject-specific web pages as well as a regular news service called the Washington File, it was clear the Smith-Mundt designated separation between information and information had become meaningless.

Fast forward to today: Just look at a few reader statistics for America.gov.

America.gov is the latest product of the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) which ten years ago was USIA’s Information Bureau. IIP products supposedly come under the restrictions of Smith-Mundt in contrast to the State Department's Bureau of Public Affairs webpage (state.gov) which is supposedly for Americans. I find State.gov to be one of the most complicated and confusing webpages on the Internet not to mention sporting more pictures of Condi, left and right, than even the satirical anti-Condi Princess Sparkle Pony blog.

Now I can’t access State or IIP internal data, but I can access America.gov and when I last looked at America.gov’s traffic details on Alexa, an internet ranking service connected to Amazon.com, I noted that 31.2 percent of the hits come from within the United States. India follows with 12.2 percent, then the UK with 4.5 percent, Germany with 3 percent and Canada with 2.7 percent. So much, in my view, for Smith-Mundt. It is outdated and unenforceable. The Internet is the 13 foot ladder used to scale Smith-Mundt’s 12 foot fence as our Governor Bill Richardson once said in reference to the immigration issue. Besides, I think Americans should know what their government tells others and how it presents itself abroad. It’s our taxes that pay for this stuff after all.

In comparison, 48.7 percent of State.gov's traffic comes from the U.S., the website ranks higher in Iran than the US and 58 percent of State.gov viewers are looking for travel information(47 percent) or/and electronic visa forms (11 percent).