Bush-Appointed Panel Finds U.S. Image Abroad Is in Peril

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/politics/01DIPL.html?hp

The United States must drastically increase and overhaul its public relations efforts to salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs abroad, a panel chosen by the Bush administration has found.

"Hostility toward America has reached shocking levels," the panel stated in its report, which will be released Wednesday. "What is required is not merely tactical adaptation but strategic, and radical, transformation."

The report added that "spin" and manipulative public relations "are not the answer," but that neither is avoiding the debate. A copy of the report was made available Tuesday to The New York Times.

The panel warned that the war in Iraq and the intensified conflict in the Middle East had increased anger at the United States, and that people throughout the world were ignorant of or misinformed about American policies.

[JPace]

1. Yep AWOL sure changed things.....

now instead of some of them wanting to kill us,
all of them want to kill us!

Thanks AWOL!

[saigon68]

30. Kill em all--Let God sort them out!!!--unnamed U.S. General Viet-Nam 1968

Been the official policy for some time now.

[saigon68]

35. BRING EM ON !!!!! ---The Chimpanzee--July 2003

Our guys will send them to Allah--unnamed U.S. General ---Kuwait March 2003

[loudnclear]

37. US image abroad IS NOT in PERIL!!

It is totally ruined!!

[goforit]

2. We didn't need a panel to tell us this one.

Heaven help us all.

[IndianaGreen]

22. How much money did it cost the taxpayers to have this panel?

What's next, a Presidential panel to find out if we get wet when it rains?

[rooboy]

3. One thing the US could do to help itself...

is get someone to drive to the shed behind the Fox News channel and yank the plug out.

[Coventina]

4. Bush-appointed panel finds their asses with both hands

results dubbed "shocking"

:eyes:

[Corgigal]

OK

How much did taxpayers pay for this crap?

[peacetalksforall]

5. Maybe it takes money...

people traveling around the world to learn what we already know. Tickets, hotel rooms, meals, meeting rooms. A waster. So will arrogant and dangerous people believe them when told they are arrogant and dangerous?

I just hope that more people around the world make distinctions between those Americans who are devestated by our leaders and the actual leaders.

Leaders? Yeah, right over the cliff. Don't follow. Educate others, one by one.

[tinnypriv]

6. How about changing the policies, instead of the lies used to sell them?

Just a thought. :shrug:

At least this panel seems to be approaching sanity by noticing that is required. It'll probably be mothballed thanks to that...

[ithacan]

39. people abroad know ALL TOO MUCH about US policies!!

That's exactly the reason for these attitudes.

You are right on target tinnypriv!

Arguments about not having enough good PR, ignorance about the US, etc. is such bull****!!!

People in the rest of the world know very well and very intimately what the US government is doing, much much better than most Americans, who are, I find, totally clueless about what their government does and has done in the rest of the world.

And of course the Bush attitude to the rest of the world -- basically "F*** you" -- has just intensified this experience.

[freeforall]

7. US Public Image

"The United States must drastically increase and overhaul its public relations efforts to salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs...and Canadians and Germans and Britons and Italians and French and Spanish and ...

[jenk]

8. no worries, Laura Bush is on the case!

.

[thebigidea]

21. OPERATION: CODENAME PICKLECHASE

[0007]

36. Great photo!

Is that Mrs. Welch, Lauar's mother?

[DrBB]

9. What we need here is a PR campaign!

Let's just shout even louder at 'em about how great we are. What's the matter with these damn Ay-rabs, don't they know how to listen?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

10. Well, Duh!

No shit, Sherlock.

(Sarcasm toward the authors of the article, not toward the DU poster...)

[Stupdworld]

11. No!

Like hell you say!

[young_at_heart]

12. But...but...but....we're creating a democracy!

I'll never forget Bush stating for reporters, "Isn't freedom wonderful". Thanks to Bush we can feel so much safer now.

[leesa]

13. Nah, ya think?

I simply can't fathom how that could possibly be? I guess it's that misinformation about how when the US bombs and murders your family and friends that such an action might make one mad.

[Mal]

14. They got one part very wrong

"...people throughout the world were ignorant of or misinformed about American policies."
The people hostile to the US are not necessarily ignorant or misinformed at all. I have personally found the less ignorant and the less misinformed I become, the more hostile I get.

And in answer to someone else; if a bully hits someone, it may be that bully's brain directing his hand to do the striking, and therefore not the hand's fault, but that's not a distinction the victim feels it worthwhile making. It's not practical for people outside the US drawing distinctions between the leadership of the US and the people of the US; the missiles kill you all the same.

[priller]

32. That struck me as wrong, also

In fact, many people in other countries are MORE aware of US policies than the folks here at home, especially trade and foreign policy, simply because those policies affect them more than they do us.

[Vikingking66]

15. it's not just the image, and they're not ignorant per se

America conquered Iraq, bombed Afghanistan, and installed puppet regimes there. That doesn't sit well with Muslims, especially those who remember how the U.S pulled down an elected nationalist government in Iran to reinstall the brutal Shah and how the U.S backed the overthrow of democracy in Iraq to create a strongman to defend against the Iranian revolution. Or for that matter how the U.S used the first Gulf War to install troops in Saudi Arabia to prop up the hideously corrupt autocracy.

Memories in post-colonial countries go back a long way.

[bpilgrim]

16. and you should see his POLL NUMBERS here at home ;-)

going to hell on a bobsled :evilgrin:

peace

[hatrack]

17. Our tax dollars at work!

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

What do they think they're dealing with, a bunch of Americans sitting in front of a TV, crying out for a PR campaign to give them that final market-test focus-group nudge so they can decide whether to vote for Britney or Cristina? Do they honestly think that this kind of Pepsi-versus-Coke marketing spin makes a single solitary bit of difference when peoples' lives are at stake?

Do they really think that any of this PR BULLSHIT matters a damn? Do they really think that the rest of the world is as stupid as they think Americans are?

[underpants]

40. Exactly a complete waste of YOUR money

Remember it is YOUR money or at least it was they pretty much gave all of OUR money away.

[sistersofmercy]

18. Duh! They needed a panel for this!

Hey, let's waste some more taxpayer's money! How STUUUUUPID!

[tabasco]

19. Maybe they can appoint a panel now...

to determine that farts stink. We will not have improvement in our international relations until we have sincere patriots in charge of our country. We must oust this corporate cabal and NEVER let this happen again!

[FlemingsGhost]

20. Well, what do you know... Junior is a "uniter," after all.

Somewhere, Saddam and Osama are laughing their asses off.

[rocktivity]

23. And in a related story, cold white stuff piles up after a snowstorm

The panel warned that the war in Iraq and the intensified conflict in the Middle East had increased anger at the United States...
Yeah, that's late-breaking news, all right.

...and that people throughout the world were ignorant of or misinformed about American policies.
It's the EFFECTS of those policies that's increasing the anger, not ignorance. And they clearly understand the Bush Regime all too well.


rocknation

[Dover]

24. That ugly horse has already left the barn. It began in earnest

during the first Gulf War. I know because I was in Europe at the time and had to start telling people I was English because the anti-American feelings were so strong in some areas. I was shocked how little the American people knew about this broad reaction by our European neighbors. There was nothing but gung-ho war crap in the American papers when I returned home.

[cliss]

25. OMG, The Big

what a funny photo. I almost choked on my ice cream.

Re: Public Relations. This is so typical for this administration. Image is everything. Substance is meaningless. This is the reason they've accomplished nothing in the 3 years they've been in there.

They've focused all their energy, time and creative talent into a media blitz. And what did it get them, in the end?

[dArKeR]

26. How much was the panel paid? Anyone overseas could have told you that.

I've got children coming up to me to practice their English, often. What some have been saying to me is, 'Why do Americans want to kill people.' This is surely what I'd call 'peril', coming from children. From the adults, I've heard of nothing but, 'Bush wants the oil' or 'America doesn't like dark skin, lucky I have yellow skin.' or 'Bush is just stupid'. In all of my travels from the run up to the war until now, I've never heard a foreigner take a pro war position. NEVER.

But the children are what shocked me so much it brought tears to my eyes a few times where I couldn't even get out an 'I'm sorry.' I've never felt so much shame and disgrace in my life.

[Paschall]

27. "Hostility toward America has reached shocking levels."

But, but, but... Dubya said we are "safer" with Saddam gone.

This "report" sounds extremely naive. One panelist visited a slum in Casablanca and said it was her "worst nightmare." No plumbing, but they had satellite dishes. Doh! Sorry, babe, but what planet have you been living on? You had to go to Casablanca to discover this?!? You really need to get out of your gated community more often.

This thing is produced by Bush 1 cohorts--who generally <ahem> are not known for their trustworthines. I suspect it is (1) primer for heftier propaganda appropriations (which will be funneled to GOP contributors), and (2) intended to flame Congressional/national fervor for more US straight-arming in the global media markets. Sounds like they want to establish the Fairness Doctrine... in Qatar.

ON EDIT: It also looks like they're trying to blame Clinton's administration. "'A process of unilateral disarmament in the weapons of advocacy over the last decade has contributed to widespread hostility toward Americans and left us vulnerable to lethal threats to our interests and our safety,' said the panel, the United States Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World."

I'd be curious to know what they might be referring to here. By the way, H.R. 1757, which folded the US Information Agency into the State Dept. was vetoed by Clinton, but must have passed on Congressional ballot. (The bill contained controversial measures regarding limits on the dues the US pays the UN, and one that would have reinstated the famous "Mexico City" gag rule on abortion, a measure that must have been scrapped.) Anybody remember the history of this reform? And got figures on Clinton's "advocacy" record?

[LevChernyi]

28. Here's a brilliant idea for them

We actually act like the benevolant, nice people we try and make ourselves out to be in these infomericals :shrug:

[booksenkatz]

29. Heaven forfend!

Well, let us all get down on our knees and be thankful that Pickles: European Tour 2003 is underway to remedy that. Soon everyone will love us again, just like they always have. *coff coff*

[Dead_Parrot]

31. No Shit, Sherlock! n/t

[priller]

33. Here's an example of their clueless PR

The Bush administration, for example, started a program called "shared values" last year, a series of television commercials showing that Muslims in the United States lead lives of dignity and equal rights. The advertisements were suspended after several Arab countries refused to show them.

Many in the administration were privately critical of the commercials, agreeing with Arab and Muslim spokesmen who said they were irrelevant to Muslim concerns about American policies toward Iraq and Israel.

Why golly, I can't believe that didn't work!

[laylah]

34. Well

DUH :silly: Like we needed to spend money to find out the obvious? Idiots!

jenn

[RedEarth]

38. I'm shocked that people in the rest of the world don't buy into spin

Tragically, a large percentage of US voters are still buying this bush garbage.

[underpants]

41. Panel also finds sun to rise in the East, taxes due annually

:eyes: