WhirledView

That Dangerous (and Ineffectual) Czar Complex

By PLS

Was “Brownie” given a script for his post-Katrina Senate testimony? To wit: take a fall and look ridiculous, but introduce the debate-defining concept, a skill at which Republicans have excelled recently.

Here is what the feckless Brownie testified: he couldn’t do his job as FEMA chief because the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans (note: both headed by Democrats) are “dysfunctional.”

Maybe I’m catching the despicable conspiracy bug, but his crony boss in the White House had already floated the idea that the Pentagon should be lead agency in responding to major hurricanes and earthquakes as well as terrorist attacks—meaning that the Army should be able to jump in, right away, without consulting local or state authorities, without the tiniest figleaf of an invitation.

In short, the President is suggesting that we should have a Disaster Czar.

Strange...Updated

that Judith Miller couldn't have made this call to Scooter Libby 12 weeks ago.

As Wonkette says,

What gives with the hanging out in the pokey and not watching CNN and not eating? Too cheap to spring for Canyon Ranch?

I suspect, with PHK, that Arianna is on the right track on this one. There's more than meets the eye.

The special prosecutor's report is supposed to come out in October.

Update: More speculation and links from Dan Froomkin.

Killing the Goose That Spoke Arabic

By PLS

As I was working with colleague PHK to craft a response to the recent 2005 Report of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy, I found myself thinking about Public Diplomacy tools that had been foolishly discontinued as the budget axe cut deeper and deeper. Every time a tried and true program had to be eliminated, it was like killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Once upon a time USIA published a number of magazines that were admired throughout the world. Each was targeted for a very well defined audience, but all were intelligently edited, beautifully composed and printed on quality paper. One of the most widely admired was designed for Africa. Another addressed highly educated English-speaking elites everywhere. The one I want to talk about was published in Arabic. It was called Al Majal and I used it extensively in countries that were primarily Muslim, even if the everyday language wasn’t Arabic. It also turned out to be useful in countries that had considerable Muslim enclaves or minorities, like Tanzania and Nigeria and Sri Lanka.

Here’s how the old magazine publishing venture worked. USIA editors selected articles/photos/cartoons from the full range of magazines and journals published in the US, then called on a team of five very tough USIA negotiators to buy the rights, always for a very good price. The magazines were printed in the Philippines or elsewhere abroad, to keep costs down, after which they were shipped to posts and distributed, free, to carefully selected contacts. These magazines, which singly and collectively represented the best of American culture, were so good that embassy contacts would get very upset if they missed an issue–or weren’t on the list.

People actually clamoring for PD materials!

It can’t get better than that!

But they were axed none the less.

Tuesday Cactus Blogging

I'm supplementing the cactuses already in my yard with others that are native to this area. A man at last Saturday's farmers' market had three each of this nice little opuntia and another that he called "Black Hills cactus."

I had heard about this opuntia from another friend who is much more serious about collecting cactuses than I am. It's supposed to be rather limited to my area, but the two chollas that were already in my yard were the standard large-limbed purple-flowered kind. This kind is supposed to have orange flowers and grow into a rather dense, rounded bush.

Let Me See If I Can Get This Straight

by CKR

FEMA says it's going to reimburse faith-based groups that have offered food and shelter to hurricane victims. This is the first time such a thing has been done.

The hardline free-enterprise theory is that people will contribute voluntarily to charities so that the government doesn't need to run programs that provide food and other kinds of support to people in difficult circumstances. But it's "our" taxes that FEMA plans to use--you know, the ones they want to give back to "us," or at least the more privileged among us.

Cultural Diplomacy Matters–and It Works

By PHK and PLS

Hello there! What does it take to get through?

Cultural diplomacy, a subset of Public Diplomacy, promotes understanding and good will.

You’ve seen the evidence here on WhirledView. Again and again. (See below.)

So why is it that the Bush administration (and the Clinton administration) and the U.S. Congress seem determined to study America’s image problem ad infinitum?

Terminal ethnocentrism?

A failure to note that organisms unwilling to adapt to changing habitats die–assuming they aren’t already dead?

Since 9/11 and particularly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, opinion poll after opinion poll has told the world, informed the U.S. administration and demonstrated to the American public that the image of the U.S. abroad is in the sub-cellar, the absolute dungeon of international esteem.

The U.S. government’s response has been study after study, each corroborating the results of the previous study and all leading nowhere. Some 31 studies have been conducted by well informed, responsible people who have made well founded, practicable suggestions for how to address the problem, but these studies and their authors have been routinely ignored.

Follow the money. That’s how you tell whether a report has been taken seriously or not in America. The past decade has shown us how to destroy a highly motivated professional public diplomacy cadre by devaluing and dispersing personnel while gutting or starving programs of proven effectiveness. The defunding began as a post Cold War misjudgment well before the U.S. Information Agency was dissolved; the dismantling accelerated after USIA was folded into a hostile, uncomprehending State Department. If U.S. policy makers really cared about the U.S. image abroad, the budget numbers for public diplomacy programs and personnel would have curved sharply upward, especially after the post 9/11 soul-searching, but they didn’t. They plummeted. Read this report - when the State Department decides to post it - for an update on the shocking statistics.

Read this report also to absorb the simple truths that target audiences (and competitors in the cultural diplomacy field) can teach us.

“The problem is sustainability,” according to a jaded Southeast Asian diplomat quoted in the report. “During every international crisis, you open a library, and then, when the crisis passes, you close it down and disburse the books. When you close this library, don’t bother to distribute the books. We have plenty already.”

EPA Sediment Analyses

by CKR

The EPA has released preliminary results on 18 soil samples from across New Orleans. The samples were taken before Hurricane Rita hit.

E. coli bacteria were found in the samples, which suggests the presence of other fecal bacteria. The other big finding was diesel and fuel oils, probably from the flooded vehicles and homes. Metals found in the sediments were typical of those found in cities.

The EPA is allowing the samples to dry and will monitor the gases given off as they do. This will give an indication of what returning residents might breathe in.

I suspect that the reflooding won't make much of a difference in what's there. If anything, it'll probably wash some of the bad stuff away.

The Oil Revenues Will Pay for Reconstruction…

by CKR

The LA Times today has a long story on what’s happening (and not happening) in the Iraqi oil fields. It appears that KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, isn’t doing a very good job with its sole source contracts.

The article contains a certain amount of finger-pointing between KBR and US and Iraqi officials.

1. Injection water treatment plant at Qarmat Ali. The LAT alleges that the contract with KBR covered refurbishing the plant while ignoring an equally decrepit pipeline system. KBR says that they “can't emphasize enough that it performs all work at the direction of the U.S. government. We only do what we are tasked to do."

This is true, in a strict sense. But any reasonable contract officer would discuss the contract first with the potential vendor(s). Not to mention that it’s not unknown for the vendor to write the statement of work. Although maybe the contract officer was the guy who “jokingly described his knowledge level as ‘Oil for Dummies.’”