Uncle Sam's Makeover

SHORTLY AFTER her confirmation as the State Department's top communications whiz last October, Charlotte Beers said she hoped to create among the world's one billion Muslims an "understanding that they don't need to kill us to get our attention."

To accomplish that patronizing goal, Beers and her State Department colleagues have undertaken a "public diplomacy" campaign in the Muslim world. The effort will naturally require unceasing "dialogue" and involve lots of "listening." There will be pamphlets, CD-ROMs, public service announcements, a State Department magazine for young Muslim males. There will be trips, student and professional exchanges, focus groups, and polls. There will be English teachers, "focused and augmented activities," and even "American corners"--multimedia rooms in "partnering institutions in target countries" to "bring an American environment to key audiences."

Some of the funds for these myriad projects come from a $15 million "Emergency Supplemental for public diplomacy." Another $17.5 million comes from the "Emergency Response Fund." Still more will be drawn from the nearly $600 million in public diplomacy funding for 2003.

Beers, a top Madison Avenue advertising executive handpicked by Colin Powell to serve as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, summed up her task in an interview last fall with the Wall Street Journal. "It is almost as though we have to redefine what America is," she said. "This is the most sophisticated brand assignment I have ever had."

All of this--emergency spending, redefining America, and the rest of it--comes as a direct response to the September 11 attacks. And it demonstrates with remarkable clarity that one sure way to get our attention is to kill us.

Of course, any time terrorists murder nearly 3,000 civilians, it'll get the attention of the United States government. President Bush's response--we will hunt down and kill those who wish to harm us--avoided the namby-pamby, blame-America-first suggestion that somehow we brought the attacks on ourselves. For almost nine months, the administration, with some minor exceptions, has responded to September 11 with a strong message: We will punish our enemies and help our friends.

But the Beers effort confuses, perhaps even undermines, that core message. And it does so largely because of its failure to distinguish between good Muslims and bad. For implicit in the Beers construct is the notion that our dialogue will include even the distinct minority of Muslims who wish to do us harm.

As Beers recently told a gathering at a Washington think tank: "There's never been a time when a key group from the Islamic world has asked to see me--that I know of--that we've ever said anything but please come, we need to learn, we need to listen."

Charlotte Beers is listening, but she's listening to the wrong people.

NIHAD AWAD, for example. A Palestinian-American, Awad has repeatedly embraced Hamas, the Saudi-funded, Palestinian terrorist organization that has claimed responsibility for many of the recent bombings in Israel. In a 1994 appearance at Barry University in Florida, Awad declared: "I am in support of the Hamas movement." That same year, when Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" asked Awad if he supports the "military undertakings of Hamas," Awad told him, "The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation to defend themselves against illegal occupation." Former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver "Buck" Revell has called Awad's former employer, the Islamic Association For Palestine, "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants." And just five days before the September 11 attacks, when the FBI shut down Texas-based computer firm InfoCom citing its terrorist ties, Awad blamed the raid on the Bush administration's efforts to appease "Israel, a racist country and state."

Strange, then, that Nihad Awad--along with the group he heads, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)--is prominently featured in the State Department's much-ballyhooed effort to win the "hearts and minds" of Muslims worldwide. This is especially odd given President Bush's clear warning to would-be Islamist sympathizers: You are either with us or with the terrorists.

The centerpiece of the State Department's campaign thus far is called "Muslim Life in America," and it marks a rather dramatic shift in the nature of U.S. public diplomacy. The concept is simple and, at first blush, benign: Persuade the audience that America loves Muslims, then hope that Muslims will love America back.

But visitors to the "Muslim Life in America" website are just one click away from CAIR's website, listed under "Selected Nongovernmental Organizations." And CAIR's site gives visitors precisely the opposite impression from the one Charlotte Beers wants to promote: America doesn't like Muslims at all.

If you clicked on the CAIR link at the State Department's website last week, for example, you might have been surprised to read, over the lead story, this headline: "First Lady Says She Can't Empathize with Palestinian Mothers." Here is that story, in its entirety, as posted by CAIR:

"In her inaugural foray into the substance of international diplomacy, first lady Laura Bush turned her teaching experience to the problem of terrorism and young Palestinian suicide bombers, telling a Paris audience Tuesday that education can transform hate to hope. 'It's so easy to empathize with families in Israel and around the world who literally would be afraid to send their children to the grocery store or the bowling alley' for fear of suicide bombers, she said. Asked if she had empathy for the other side in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, she answered with reflexive bluntness: 'Can I empathize with a mother who sends her child out to kill herself and others? No . . . '"

Mrs. Bush was exactly right, of course, on the substance of the question. But the story CAIR told isn't the whole story. It is an excerpt from a much longer Associated Press story that leaves readers with quite the opposite impression from the one CAIR sought to create. Here is the paragraph directly following the quotation from Mrs. Bush:

"After a beat, she continued to say that both Israelis and Palestinians are dying. 'You have to have sympathy for both sides and all of us in the world need to urge both of them--both Palestinians and Israelis--to try to stop the violence and come to the table.'"

CAIR changed the story's headline, too. The original could have been written by Charlotte Beers herself: "The First Lady Embraces the Teaching of Values as an Answer in Turning Hate to Hope."

The same day, the "News Briefs" section on the CAIR site also was highly critical of the Bush administration. It posted excerpts of two stories suggesting the White House had publicized recent terror threats to counter political embarrassment over pre-September 11 intelligence lapses. A regular feature of the site is a running count of "anti-Muslim incidents" in America since September 11, along with an easy-to-use survey for individuals who believe they've been victims of racial or religious profiling in airports.

When President Bush shut down a Texas foundation last December, citing a decade-long FBI investigation that turned up close ties to Hamas, CAIR once again ripped the administration. CAIR warned that closing the foundation was an "unjust and counterproductive move [that] can only damage America's credibility with Muslims in this country and around the world and could create the impression that there has been a shift from a war on terrorism to an attack on Islam." Several other radical Islamic groups that are given a platform in State Department literature expounded similar views.

While no one disputes the right of CAIR and fellow extremists to voice their opinions, including their support for Hamas, some administration officials and many moderate Muslims question the wisdom of associating the U.S. government with their views. Doesn't using these groups in high-profile government outreach efforts run the risk of seeming to give them "a seal of approval"?

"Why would the State Department conduct outreach to the Wahhabi lobby?" says an administration source familiar with the effort, citing the radical strain of Islam funded and promoted by Saudi Arabia. "There are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims. We have to make these important distinctions and broadcast them to the world."

"Who gets to represent the American Muslim voice is a very sensitive issue," says Ali Asani, a professor of Indo-Muslim language and culture at Harvard. Asani believes CAIR and other "right-wing Muslim groups" have elbowed their way into the public debate because they are outspoken and politically connected. For that reason, Asani says, he "could imagine that someone in the State Department would be saying, 'Who do we talk to?' and call CAIR."

Charlotte Beers did call CAIR. According to a press release from the group, she asked for and received a "meeting to open a dialogue with Muslims on issues related to how America is perceived in other countries, particularly those with Muslim majority populations."

If Beers is developing her pro-America propaganda message by relying on groups that defend terrorism and sharply criticize life in the United States, why would anyone have confidence that she will show better judgment when it comes to communicating that message overseas?

While Beers has many detractors in the administration--even in the State Department--no one doubts that she has the full confidence of Colin Powell. The pair became acquainted while serving on the all-star board of directors of Gulfstream Aerospace in the mid-1990s. Beers, 66, had run two of the world's largest advertising agencies, Ogilvy and Mather and J. Walter Thompson. The Texas native has a well-earned reputation for being blunt, even a bit sassy. Over the course of her long career, she has persuaded Americans to buy everything from Uncle Ben's rice to Sears tools to Head & Shoulders shampoo. But she is brand new to the world of public diplomacy, and critics say she has a lot to learn. (At a speech earlier this month, for example, Beers repeatedly referred to an "Imam"--a Muslim cleric--as an "Iman"--like the model.)

Before he had announced his recruitment of her for the Bush administration, Powell seemed to offer a preview of his nomination of Beers when he testified before the House Budget Committee on March 15, 2001. "I'm going to be bringing people into the public diplomacy function of the department who are going to change from just selling us in the old USIA way to really branding foreign policy, branding the department, marketing the department, marketing American values to the world," he said. "And not just putting out pamphlets."

Beers is, in fact, putting out lots of pamphlets. But as Powell predicted, she's doing much more. Administration sources say Beers is an active participant in the White House's daily conference calls held to shape the war message. And, importantly, she has Powell's ear.

Even critics will acknowledge that it's too early for a complete evaluation of the results of Beers's efforts--she's been in the job for only eight months, and everyone concedes the challenge is huge. But starting with the "Muslim Life in America" campaign, the early indications are not promising.

Philip Van Munching, a columnist for the advertising magazine Brandweek, argued last fall that the approach was destined to fail. "The problem with using Madison Avenue in the current conflict is that advertising exists to simplify; to boil things down to a basic message, and to find cost-effective ways to communicate that message to a specific target. That's a swell approach when the subject is cola, or soap . . . but it's condescending and short-sighted when it comes to possible global conflict."

THERE ARE SIGNS, however, that things may be changing for the better. President Bush, when he met with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in March, announced that he had asked Powell "to launch a new initiative aimed at increasing both economic and educational opportunities throughout the region."

And while that directive could mean virtually anything, early reports from inside the State Department suggest that it's a serious and worthwhile effort. The initiative, to be unveiled in July, will offer an American vision of "a better tomorrow in the region," according to a senior State Department official.

Its first stage is a top-down, bottom-up review of all U.S. aid money pouring into the Middle East. Then comes a reallocation of resources designed to tie funds more directly to political and economic liberalization. The money will be focused primarily in three areas: (1) market-based economic reforms, (2) liberal education as an alternative to the anti-American schools that are increasingly popular in the region, and (3) a reinvigoration of civil society and promotion of the rule of law.

Some of the programs will be roughly based on similar ones that worked in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, such as "enterprise funds" where cash follows directly to successful reform efforts.

"There are two parts of our message to the Arab world," says the State Department source. "First, we are going to destroy the terrorists. But also, and it's a message that we all have to say very clearly, we believe that open markets and societies will improve lives throughout the region." In short--as the president put it--punish our enemies and help our friends.

The State Department has already had some help in pushing this line. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz made a similar case earlier this month in a brilliant speech to the World Affairs Council in Monterey, California. Rather than embracing all Muslims, including CAIR types and the radicals they defend, Wolfowitz framed the battle as pitting the United States and moderate Muslims against the Islamists--a crucial distinction. "We must speak to the hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world, regardless of where they live, who aspire to enjoy the blessings of freedom and democracy and free enterprise."

He pointed to several recent examples of that budding alliance. "In the last decade, the men and women of America's Armed Forces have gone into harm's way to defend people against aggression or war-induced famine. . . . As it happens, in each one of those cases--whether it was Kuwaitis, or Iraqi Kurds, or Somalis, or Bosnians, or Kosovars, or most recently Afghanis--the people we were defending were predominantly Muslim. And we helped them not because they are Muslims, but because they are human beings."

Wolfowitz highlighted countries like Turkey and Indonesia as evidence that Islam is compatible with markets and democracy. He also promised that the Bush administration would continue reaching out beyond governments to moderate Muslim individuals--who, he said, "are the real focal point of liberal democracy and the true engines of change."

There is no guarantee that the push for liberalization in the Islamic world will work. After all, there are reasons that it has never been tried in earnest before now. But if that campaign has the effect of crowding out Charlotte Beers's misbegotten effort to "redefine America," it will have succeeded in an important way.

The above article should open the eyes of those who believe that somehow Colin Powell and the State Department are playing some diplomatic game and/or "good guy" to Bush's "bad guy" in our relations with sponsors of terrorism such as Saudi Arabia. This is no game -- they are blatantly teaming up with the very organizations that seek to thwart even the most pathetic PC efforts to protect Americans from terrorism on our soil and around the world. No wonder our FBI director says the next attack is "inevitable."

From Steven Emerson's "Jihad in America" --

Seif Ashmawy, former publisher of Voice of Peace, wrote: "It is a known fact that both the AMC and CAIR have defended, apologized for and rationalized the actions of extremist groups and leaders such as convicted World Trade Center conspirator Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, Egyptian extremists, Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese National Islamic Front, and extremist parliamentarians from the Jordanian Islamic Action Front and others who called for the overthrow of the Egyptian government...As a proud American Muslim...I bow to no one on my defense of Muslim civil rights, but CAIR...champion(s) extremists whose views do not represent Islam."

"The problem with using Madison Avenue in the current conflict is that advertising exists to simplify; to boil things down to a basic message, and to find cost-effective ways to communicate that message to a specific target. That's a swell approach when the subject is cola, or soap

Madison Ave brainwashing & propaganda works swell on consumers-Not on Terrorists.

Beers will probably help election ad campaigns, though.

I'm not an Alan Keyes fan, but I enjoy his show -- mainly because he takes on the Muslim apologists and floors them with facts -- or just pulls the mike, when he can't shut them up. He's the only talking head I've seen that handles them effectively, and with the contempt they deserve.

I think I'm gonna puke. When an untrained dog bites you, you don't counsel it, coddle it or give it a time-out. You put it on its back and show it that you are the boss. To do otherwise condones its' bad behavior. Our message to these animals needs to be: If you attack the US, you face the consequences of swift and overwhelmingly brutal retribution. It is all they understand. Deport all illegals. If legal, non-citizens muslims in the US will not assimilate themselves into our society and conform to the norms of our civilized society, they MUST be sent back from whence they came. And I'll go a step further--citizen muslims of similar persuasion can get the hell out too.

After all the Bush bashing and armchair strategizing and conspiracy theories, THIS has made me re-think my take on the Bush administration. It's painfully obvious they really don't get it. There is no "selling" America to these monsters. They don't want our "attention"; they want us either converted or dead. I thought we had finally rid ourselves of the image masters. Damn.

And in the meantime, the arabmuslim organisations keep laughing at us behind our backs at our attempts to befriend them. The vitriol has increased since Sept 11, and we keep bending over backwards. One great sign is the new oil agreement signed by Putin and Bush. The first step towards a disentanglement from the ArabOil weapon.

The answer is so sensible and apparent you wonder how this "feel good" liberalism exists at all, other than taking the nature of Colin Powell into consideration. The people Ms Beers is trying to reach are in countries where their tyantical leaders control the media and it is the media who are spouting anti-Americanism. It is the state controlled schools that teach anti-Americanism. What are you going to do, send bouquets to Saddam, Yasser, Mohamar, et al., and hope the message is so touching that they have epiphenies?

Destroy the leaders and then there is a chance you can rehabilitate the masses.

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