[Senate Hearing 107-692]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-692
AMERICA'S GLOBAL DIALOG: SHARING AMERICAN VALUES AND THE WAY AHEAD FOR
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 11, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland JESSE HELMS, North Carolina
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia
BILL NELSON, Florida SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
Virginia
Antony J. Blinken, Staff Director
Patricia A. McNerney, Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Beers, Hon. Charlotte, Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of State, Washington,
DC............................................................. 7
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Responses to additional questions for the record............. 61
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared
statement...................................................... 4
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, prepared
statement...................................................... 64
Gingrich, Hon. Newt, former Speaker, U.S. House of
Representatives; senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute,
Washington, DC................................................. 33
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Ginsberg, Hon. Marc, former Ambassador to Morocco; CEO and
managing director, Northstar Equity Group, Washington, DC...... 39
Prepared statement........................................... 42
Hoffman, David, president, Internews, Arcata, CA................. 45
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Keith, Amb. Kenton W., chair, Alliance for International
Education and Cultural Exchange and senior vice president,
Meridian International Center, statement submitted for the
record......................................................... 73
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts,
prepared statement and a series of letters in support of the
Cultural Bridges Act of 2002................................... 65
Pattiz, Hon. Norman J., Governor, Broadcasting Board of
Governors, Washington, DC...................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Surroi, Veton, chairman, KOHA Media Group, Pristina, Kosovo...... 50
Prepared statement........................................... 53
(iii)
AMERICA'S GLOBAL DIALOG: SHARING AMERICAN VALUES AND THE WAY AHEAD FOR
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:55 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R.
Biden, Jr. (chairman of the committee), presiding.
Present: Senators Biden, Dodd, Boxer, Bill Nelson, Lugar,
Hagel, Chafee and Brownback.
The Chairman. The hearing will come to order. As I just
explained to our first panel and I will say to the audience, we
apologize for getting started late. The Foreign Relations
Committee had a private meeting with Prime Minister Sharon and
it ran a little late, but in fact what we are about to speak to
today quite frankly will have some serious impact on how well
we do on many various issues we discussed with Prime Minister
Sharon today.
As we consider public diplomacy in the 21st century, we are
very mindful that our voice competes amidst the cacophony of
voices shaping global opinion in a way that has never occurred
before. Today, with the Internet, satellite, radio and TV
networks providing instantaneous and often unfiltered and
selectively unfiltered information, public diplomacy is more
important and more difficult than it has ever been before, in
my view. No matter how powerful our military, we will not be
able to achieve all of our foreign policy objectives if we lose
the war of ideas. In public diplomacy we must use our most
powerful tool, truth. Truth, credibility and openness.
As the legendary journalist and former USIA Director Edward
R. Murrow said, and I quote, ``truth is the best propaganda,
and lies the worst.'' I cannot emphasize that enough. What we
are about here today, what we have been about, and what the
Secretary has been about, is not about trying to shape an
incorrect image of our views or ideas and our people, but the
truth, openness, and credibility which will flow from the
former truth and openness.
We are going to have to reach out to people in their own
language and in their own terms, and we must foster the free
flow of ideas, even if it is sometimes critical for the United
States of America. We do not expect anyone to like us, or
everyone to like us, I should say, but there is no good reason
for us to be so misrepresented and misunderstood. We are one of
the most advanced centers of communication in the world. We
should be more successful when we reach out. We should be
better able to get the facts out, and if we do a better job,
those who question our motives and reinterpret the facts will
have a much tougher time getting traction in public opinion in
other parts of the world. Today, I hope to explore what we can
do to explain ourselves better and promote understanding, and I
hope we will learn what more we can do, and how we should
organize to do it.
All we want is a real chance for the facts to come before
the people of the world, particularly, I would say at this
moment, the Muslim world, 1.2 billion people, and let them make
up their own mind. I am not asking to be loved. I am not asking
to be embraced. I am just asking that we have a fair chance to
be understood.
There are countless examples of where we do this well. I
know the State Department's Web site, for example, offers
content in Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, Russian, in
addition to English. It gets more than 4 million hits a month,
I am told. After 9/11, the United States and our allies set up
coalition information centers in London, Islamabad, and
Washington to coordinate messages, combat misinformation, and
to stay ahead of the 24-hour global news cycle.
USAID worked with NGOs like Open Society Institute to
support the development of independent media organizations in
the former Yugoslavia in the Milosevic regime, which I am now
happy to say he is in jail and being tried. The now-famous
Radio B-2 in Belgrade played a critical role in forming the
opposition to and the eventual ouster of and arrest of
Milosevic. The U.S. Government's assistance to the American
NGOs search for common ground helped create multi-ethnic
versions of Sesame Street that has promoted tolerance between
the children of Macedonia and Cyprus.
Despite these successful programs and others I could
mention, the hard work of people like Under Secretary Beers and
her predecessor, Evelyn Lieberman, America's public diplomacy
still falls short of where it needs to be. Four years ago, this
committee led the way in devising a merger of the former U.S.
Information Agency into the Department of State. The goal of
this reorganization was to integrate the policymakers and
public diplomacy specialists. The merger of two different
cultures has taken time, and is not yet complete.
Public diplomacy considerations are still not, in my view,
fully incorporated into the public formulation process. There
is still not adequate interagency coordination, although it is
much better, and we still do not have a national information
strategy providing the long-term vision of where the American
public diplomacy needs to be, and we are still doing public
diplomacy on the cheap, with funding cuts half what it was in
1994 and today. As I always say, if you want to know what we
value, follow the money. Take a look at the budget.
Today's hearing will look at what the State Department and
other agencies are doing and should be doing to promote our
public diplomacy agenda. We consider developments in U.S.
international broadcasting, particularly the Middle East Radio
Network, the brainchild of one of our witnesses today, and the
Broadcasting Board of Governors. It is an FM and AM digital
satellite network that spans the Arabic-speaking world,
targeting young audiences with innovative programming. Early
indications are that it is going swimmingly well and
impressively gaining adherence and customers who want to
listen.
We have two people before us, by the way, who in their
private lives have demonstrated they know how to get people to
listen. They know how to make it work, and Norm Pattiz has made
a moderately good living at knowing how to do that.
Should this radio model be replicated elsewhere, is one of
the questions we want to talk about today. Should we establish
a companion U.S. satellite television network?
We will also examine what the United States can do to
encourage the development of indigenous independent media where
it does not exist today. As we have learned, for better or
worse, people tend to trust local sources of news and
information more than they do foreign sources. Without a free,
fair, and open flow of information in these societies,
propaganda and misinformation are able to flourish. It is in
our interests to have professional journalism abroad promoting
the internal dialog that serves their interests as well. Public
diplomacy is not just about what we say. It is about promoting
an environment in which multiple voices, including our own, can
be heard.
We will hear today from two panels of witnesses to advise
us on these issues. Our first panel includes Under Secretary of
State for Public Diplomacy, Charlotte Beers, and in full
disclosure my personal friend Norm Pattiz, representing the
Broadcasting Board of Governors. Under Secretary Beers has
served as CEO for two of the world's largest advertising
agencies, J. Walter Thompson, and Ogilvy and Mather. Norm
Pattiz is the founder and chairman of Westwood One, America's
largest radio network company, and some other interests as
well.
Our second panel includes Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, a
former Ambassador to Morocco and now CEO and managing director
of Northstar Equity Group. We will be joined by a man who, to
use the old cliche, needs no introduction in this town, the
former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and we are happy to
have the Speaker here. Speaker Gingrich is now the CEO of
Gingrich Group, an Atlanta-based communications and management
consulting firm, and serves as senior fellow of the American
Enterprise Institute, and I would like him disseminating
information abroad and not in Delaware for a long time. I wish
him well. I would like to have him go full-time on dealing with
other countries.
But welcome, Mr. Speaker. We love you in Delaware, but they
love you too much in Delaware.
David Hoffman, the president of Internews Network, a global
nonprofit organization that supports open media worldwide, will
be our next witness, and he will be followed by a man for whom
I have great respect and I have met numerous times during our
efforts in the Balkans, Veton Surroi, chairman of KOHA Media
Group in Kosovo and a leading advocate for democracy and
independent media in Kosovo, and a man who I could go on for a
long time to talk about. Had we listened to his advice, in my
view, in 1994, we would have made progress even faster in the
region.
I would also now like to invite Senator Lugar to make any
opening comments he has, and then we will proceed with the
witnesses. Again, I say welcome to all the witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
As we consider public diplomacy in the 21st century, we are mindful
that our voice competes amidst the cacophony of voices shaping global
opinion.
Today, with the Internet, satellite radio and TV networks providing
instantaneous and often unfiltered information, public diplomacy is
more important and more difficult than ever before.
No matter how powerful our military, we will not be able to achieve
all our foreign policy objectives if we lose the war of ideas.
In public diplomacy, we must use our most powerful tools: Truth,
credibility, and openness. We must reach out to people in their own
language and in their own terms. And we must foster the free flow of
ideas, even if it's critical of the United States.
We don't expect everyone to like us, but there's no good reason for
us to be so misrepresented and misunderstood.
We're one of the most advanced centers of communications in the
world. We should be more successful when we reach out. We should be
better able to get the facts out. If we do a better job, those who
question our motives or misrepresent the facts will have a much tougher
time getting traction with public opinion.
Today I hope we will explore what we can do to explain ourselves
better and promote understanding. And I hope we'll learn what more we
can do, and how we should organize to do it.
All we want is a real chance for the facts to come before the
people of the world. And let them make up their minds.
There are countless examples of where we do this well. I know the
State Department's Web site offers content in Chinese, Arabic, Spanish,
French and Russian in addition to English. It gets more than four
million hits a month.
After 9-11, the United States and our allies set up Coalition
Information Centers in London, Islamabad, and Washington to coordinate
messages, combat misinformation, and stay ahead of the 24 hour global
news cycle.
USAID worked with NGOs like the Open Society Institute to support
the development of independent media organizations in the former
Yugoslavia under the Milosevic regime. The now famous Radio B-92 in
Belgrade played a critical role in fomenting the opposition to, and the
eventual ouster of, Milosevic.
With U.S. government assistance, the American NGO Search for Common
Ground helped create multi-ethnic versions of Sesame Street that have
promoted tolerance among children in Macedonia and Cyprus.
Despite these successful programs and the hard work of people like
Under Secretary Beers, and her predecessor Evelyn Lieberman, American
public diplomacy falls far short of where it needs to be.
Four years ago, this committee led the way in devising the merger
of the former U.S. Information Agency into the Department of State. The
goal of this reorganization was to integrate the policy makers and
public diplomacy specialists. The merger of two different cultures has
taken time, and is not complete.
Public diplomacy considerations are still not fully incorporated
into the policy formulation process. There is still no adequate
interagency coordination.
We still don't have a national information strategy providing a
long-term vision of where American public diplomacy needs to be. And,
we're still doing public diplomacy on the cheap, with funding cut in
half between 1994 and today. As I always say, follow the money.
Today's hearing will look at what the State Department and other
agencies ARE doing and SHOULD be doing to promote our public diplomacy
agenda.
We'll consider developments in U.S. international broadcasting,
particularly the Middle East Radio Network, the brainchild of Norm
Pattiz and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. It's an FM, AM, and
digital satellite network that spans the Arabic-speaking world
targeting a young audience with innovative programming. Early
indications are that it's going swimmingly, and gaining an impressively
large audience in the region.Should this radio model be replicated
elsewhere? Should we establish a companion U.S. satellite television
network?
We'll also examine what the United States can do to encourage the
development of indigenous, independent media where it does not exist
today.
As we've learned, for better or worse, people tend to trust local
sources of news and information more than foreign sources.
Without a free, fair, and open flow of information within these
societies, propaganda and misinformation flourish.
It's in our interest to have professional journalism abroad
promoting a healthy internal dialogue that serves their interest.
Public diplomacy is not just about what we say, it's about
promoting an environment in which multiple voices, including our own,
can be heard.
We will hear today from two panels of witnesses to advise us on
these issues. Our first panel includes Under Secretary of State for
Public Diplomacy Charlotte Beers and my friend Norm Pattiz,
representing the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Under Secretary Beers has served as the CEO of two of the world's
largest advertising agencies--J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather.
Norm Pattiz is the founder and chairman of Westwood One, America's
largest radio network company.
Our second panel will include Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, the former
U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and now the CEO and managing director of the
Northstar Equity Group.
He will be joined by a man who, to use the old cliche, needs no
introduction in this town, the former Speaker of the House, Newt
Gingrich. Speaker Gingrich is now the CEO of the Gingrich Group, an
Atlanta-based communications and management consulting firm, and serves
as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
David Hoffman, the president of Internews Network, a global non-
profit organization that supports open media worldwide will be our next
witness. He will be followed by Veton Surroi, chairman of the KOHA
Media Group in Kosovo, and a leading advocate for democracy and
independent media in Kosovo.
Senator Boxer. Mr. Chairman, could I ask if it would be
possible to have 60 seconds to speak, because of our delay. I
have an 11:30 appointment. I just want to make one point, if I
could just speak for a minute.
The Chairman. After Senator Lugar.
Senator Boxer. Of course.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate your calling the hearing, and your very strong and
comprehensive statement, which really covers the territory so
well. As all of us will observe, the war on terrorism has
brought the importance and the value of effective public
diplomacy to the fore. I am not the only American who is
dismayed at the level of disenchantment and in some cases
outright hatred voiced by many in the world toward the United
States.
Recently, there has been much discussion of the so-called
Arab Street, strong opposition to American policies toward
terrorism and the Middle East peace process. However, it would
appear this is simply the tip of the iceberg. Clearly, many in
the Middle East oppose American policies, but we now read the
people of the Philippines on occasion are distrustful of
American counterterrorism trainers and advisors sent there to
assist in tracking the Abu Sayyef terrorist group.
In Indonesia, opposition from the local population
continues to confound attempts to improve security cooperation.
Elsewhere, Europeans believe the United States is retreating
from the international scene and entering an isolationist
cocoon. No matter where we turn, the people of the world are
either not well-informed about American policies and
intentions, or recede to the anti-American messages that are
more powerful or effective than our own.
These revelations must serve as a wake-up call to our
government. Our policies may be well-intentioned, but still
find little receptivity with local populations. The United
States must radically improve its public diplomacy efforts. We
must explain and broadcast American views and values much more
effectively. Responsibility rests with both the executive and
legislative branches of government. We have permitted these
critical foreign policy tools to languish and to decay, and as
a government we must take more time, pay more attention, and
apply more resources to fostering our public diplomacy.
The first step must be a revitalization of the
organization, the people, the tools, and the content of our
public diplomacy. Obviously, there is no single answer to the
challenge we face. It is more likely that the problems are
systemic. We must question and analyze the basic tenets that
form the foundation of our policies in this area. Our goal must
be not simply to identify and implement short-term fixes, but
to address the root causes of the inadequacies and shortcomings
in our policies and our outreach programs.
A number of different proposals have been put forward to
address the public diplomacy challenges at the State
Department. One of the most interesting suggestions calls for
reorganizing the public diplomacy apparatus by placing
resources, budgets, personnel, and staff under the direct
control of Under Secretary Beers. I would be interested in
hearing her views on this, as well as her thoughts on funding
public diplomacy. I am hopeful that Ms. Beers and other
witnesses will provide the committee with useful
recommendations with which to engage the administration in
formulating an effective strategy.
Mr. Chairman, I recommend we use today's hearing as the
basis for the construction of a bill, of legislation to
revitalize American public diplomacy. I know many members of
this committee have been giving a lot of thought to this issue,
and I propose it is time to get to work.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I could not agree with you more, Senator.
Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much for your courtesy. I
wanted to thank Charlotte Beers for keeping me so well-informed
on her efforts, because you promised to do that in a hearing,
and you are sending me things like this, and it matters to me
and I thank you.
I also wanted to welcome one of my star constituents who I
am forced to share with the rest of the country, Norm Pattiz,
and to say that his vision for this Middle East Radio was right
on target. One of your colleagues on the Board of Governors
said the following, ``broadcasting services such as Middle East
Radio Network are the best high-yield, low-cost weapon in our
arsenal. They are the most cost-effective way of reaching the
outside world.''
This is something that our chairman and ranking member I
know believe, and in closing I just wanted to read a couple of
e-mails that went to your station from the people who we are
trying to impact. One says, ``Hi, I am from Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Actually I listen to your channel every day because I am crazy
about music, both Arabic and English, and I really appreciate
your efforts to make us happy all day.''
And another says, ``hello people, I am a Palestinian who
lives between Amman and Kuwait. I can here Sawa in Amman and in
Kuwait as well. All I want to say is, I am so proud of you
guys, and very happy to hear this station. You can hear it
everywhere, especially in Amman in the shopping malls and in
the coffee shops. All the guys' and girls,' mothers and
fathers, are very amused by Sawa. Keep up the good work,
guys.''
And then here is what I wanted to make sure you heard.
``P.S., I have a question. What is the nationality of this
station, and who is the owner,'' and I think what that says is,
the way you are putting forward the information makes sense.
Another says, ``your music is good, the news is not biased.
I think it is not biased,'' and then I love this, ``I want to
ask you to play me two songs, Don't Let Me Get Me, by Pink, and
an Arabic song called Gogali, and it is by Guitara, and I hope
you play both.''
Anyway, I think that this shows, Mr. Chairman, that the
wonderful results we are having, and not that it is a panacea,
but in a very tough world and a tough challenge, it is
something we must do, and I commend both of you. Thank you, and
I commend my chairman and the ranking member for caring about
this and letting me speak. Thank you.
The Chairman. We are very commendable.
Madam Secretary, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLOTTE BEERS, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Beers. Chairman Biden, distinguished members----
The Chairman. I hate to ask you to do this. What is going
to happen is, these microphones--as the Senator from South
Carolina says, ``these machines are quite old.'' We are going
to one day modernize the Senate--but you have to hold it very
close to your mouth, I apologize, so people in the back can
hear you. I am sorry.
Ms. Beers. Well then, I had better start with my
illustrious address again. Chairman Biden and distinguished
members of the committee, it is a great honor to be in this
room. This is exactly where I was sworn in on October 11, and
it does not exactly seem like a few days ago, but the time has
sped by. I put in my statement for the record a good report on
how I think we have done in the current response and the
immediacy that was required of us all to answer the war on
terrorism. What I want to do in the short time that I have with
you here is, in fact, take you to longer-term priorities that I
hope we can all address.
As President Bush says, this will be a long war. I believe
we have to enter the turbulent and faster-moving information
revolution aggressively to build a larger presence, and I would
call it, from my background in the advertising and marketing
world, a larger share of voice. We have to continue to
strengthen and defend that business which we do well, which is
our ability to speak with government officials and elites, but
at the same time we really must enlarge our communication with
the mainstream of young adults, significantly in the Middle
East and South and Southeast Asia, and even those young adults
outside of cities. We have to meet this expanded audience as,
in fact, you said, Chairman Biden, on their own terms and in
their own channels of distribution.
So what about those who are even younger and under 20? I
think we must develop plans, resources, and teams to seek the
help of the huge multinational companies and also the foreign
students from U.S. universities to activate them to talk about
our common values and to demonstrate the democratization in
some form and answer the final questions, what is in it for me,
where can I go, where can I get a job?
We had a number of discussions with these kinds of
constituencies, and the willingness is there. These commitments
will require a change in skill structure and allocation of
resources in public diplomacy. We have to go beyond polling, as
it is called here, to include diagnostic research that
evaluates not just what they think, but why, so that we can use
this research to lead us to improved programs. We have already
hired an outside consultant, and it is changing a lot about the
way we ask these questions, and we are just fielding a major
study with a more sophisticated view of what we are going to do
with the data.
We also want to significantly expand our training and
public diplomacy officers, not only in depth and scope of
training, which frankly has been thin, but to also include the
most modern marketing and communication skills, because we are
going to ask these officers to operate in a very different kind
of universe.
Both Secretary Powell and I are addressing the public
diplomacy structure in this our third year of consolidation.
Our inquiry will examine how we can maximize communication to
more people, encourage innovation, and also accountability
within the public diplomacy family as well as the status at the
table of policy development.
So where do we get the programs for this better-trained and
bigger public diplomacy team who is now going to be asked to
expand their reach to even larger audiences? Well, I want you
to know that we have one program that provides nothing less
than a complete transformation. Let me illustrate. We just had
a brave woman, a Saudi novelist and journalist, who dared the
rejection and anxiety that surrounded her when she said she was
coming to the United States on an exchange visit. Listen to
what she said when she returned to Saudi Arabia:
``Everyone says Westerners are bad and mean, but it is not
true. People here are telling a bunch of lies about the West.
You know, the people I met are nice. They are friendly, they
smile. Nobody stares at you or follows you around. They do not
waste money. They do not leave food around. They respect
limits. Their customs are nice.
``In America, men and women cooperate together to make
their lives better. They help each other. They are organized,
and they can plan for their future. They like to have real
dialogs on many subjects. The women are strong. Older people
are active and engaged. In this house in which I lived there
were three generations there, and they have been close to their
neighbors for years. Why do we get told these stories about how
the family is broken in the West?''
Believe me, we have countless stories of these
transformations, so here is the question: How can we magnify
the 25,000 exchanges we do a year, which is what our resources
allow, into something 10 times that? That is the question. Some
of the ways that we can do this we have been working on now as
pilot studies. We can activate the 700,000 exchange visitors we
have had over the years. You know, we do not even have a data
bank as good as a local car dealer. We do not know where these
people are in some cases, and we have not been able to follow-
up on them.
We have got an alumni data bank in the works now, and what
we hope is, for those who are willing to join us and
participate in this, they will be able to be more successful in
creating a more balanced picture of the United States by simply
talking about their experience. We are designing something
wonderful called, An American Room, that will use virtual
reality to depict and try to approximate the experience of
being in America.
We might have the Gettysburg Address when you hit a button.
We might be able to see a scene from Oklahoma. We will have
computers linked to data banks. We will be able to reproduce a
street in a typical American city, and the viewer standing
there can tap another button and find someone like them in the
United States, and the wonder of this is the design team we
have and the unlimited potential of technology.
And here is the exciting thing. We hope to place these
rooms in universities, in libraries, and malls, and traveling
even by bus to smaller towns, and we have done enough exploring
with potential universities and libraries in the Middle East
and so on to know they are interested, and we expect this kind
of thing to act as a catalyst for more open dialog. The secret
to communication is not what you say, but what they can hear,
and it is very important for us to put it on those terms. We
know we can greatly and productively increase visits from
journalists, newspaper writers, and producers, because now we
follow them, and we can prove that when they go home they
publish from a totally different perspective.
We need to establish a regional media center to train
Muslim journalists and reporters in order to help them get a
better perspective, better equipment, and more direct access to
U.S. officials and people. We can even turn the proven practice
of teaching English into a story of values and beliefs with the
use of pictures and music. We can ask our third parties who are
already authentic in the universe of the Middle East and
Southeast and who wish to participate to help carry out our
messages, like the Muslim-Americans that we have just been
working with and have talked to over a great period of time.
They have just formed a group called CAMU, and they are going
to put speaker groups in their countries and here and make
exchanges and conferences and forums.
We can even offer to aid the leading satellite television
stations, NBC Lebanese, Al Jazeera, and Future, who say they
are very keen for new programming and assure us that they are
open to new material. Hollywood, PBS, and Discovery have
offered to help us acquire such programs.
We can, in fact, create completely new programs, like an
Arabic magazine for young adults, and Internet programs that
include not just the chat room but the training and the
equipment, which I think is probably the most efficient way to
make sure there is a two-way conversation, because one of the
burning questions out there in the Middle East and Southeast
Asia is, can you hear us, so we cannot afford to be in a one-
way dialog.
You know, we already have a number of proofs against the
frequently repeated distortion that we are a materialistic and
greedy society. It is called USAID programs, and it bothers me
immensely that these stories are virtually unsung, because
there is no mandate in the U.S. programs to talk about what we
have done, who benefits, and how these stories unfold. I think
we have many uncelebrated stories of victory in the democratic
process where we have transformed families, we have made jobs,
we have created an enterprise, with the help of the people in
many countries around the world. These stories are not out
there. If they were, the reputation and image we have, I think,
would be different.
Even at this moment when it is really quite popular to
dislike the United States, we have found in some studies that
we have more in common. We have common values between the
Middle East and Southeast Asia and the United States in four
main areas, and they are significant. One is, we both rank in
the top six faith, generosity and giving and taking care of
others, and love of family.
An interesting insight in that is that we have more in
common with these groups of people than, say, our partners in
the European Union. Even those who rail against us one minute
will immediately turn and admit they would love to study
American science and technology, so to me the picture is
actually promising, but we do need to get about the business of
preparing, testing, and fielding these new programs. They are
necessarily long term, and they must be consistently supported
to bear fruit, and we cannot neglect our dialog with the rest
of the world in order to shore up what has been way too much
silence between us and these communities, and that is why this
moment with you is so crucial to ask you to support importantly
these longer term priorities as we move every day to prove to
you that they have merit.
Among our three strategic goals which I detailed in my
written remarks are representing America's values and beliefs,
demonstrating clearly opportunities that can result from the
forms of democratization that each of these countries can take
on, and the third is education to the young. If you ask me to
prioritize these, I would say there is no contest. It has to be
education to the young. Ultimately it is the key, to educate
these huge majority populations of young men and women can save
them from fanatical interpretations of this beautiful religion
of Islam and give them access to science, technology, books,
and basically a new world view, and that is a lot to ask.
Every experience we have tell us they will not settle for
limitations, biases, or hatred, and I have learned one other
thing as I have spent this time in public diplomacy. The young
will lead us.
Last Saturday, I heard an eloquent address from Ehud Barak
about his journey as Prime Minister of Israel. He referred to a
signature moment when his great friend fighting by his side 30
years ago was shot by an Egyptian soldier. A young graduate
student in the audience from Egypt, a woman, addressed this
question to the former Prime Minister. My two friends were
seeking to marry and they went to their two parents, and they
were told they could not marry because they had a feud between
these two families 30 years ago, and therefore they recommended
and refused permission to marry.
The couple decided to go against this counsel. They did
marry. They are very happy. They have two small children, and
they just bought a very small new home. Her question is, ``why
can't we, rather than destroy homes, build them?''
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Beers follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Charlotte Beers, Under Secretary of State
for Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Chairman Biden and distinguished members of the committee,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
As you are well aware, today is the nine-month anniversary of
September 11th, a day that opened all our eyes to the horrific
consequences of hatred that some groups have for our country; a
hatred bred in ignorance, misperception and misrepresentation.
There are many lessons that we are still learning from that
day, and certainly one of the most important is that we can and
should do more to educate, and influence the attitudes of,
foreign audiences toward our country. No longer is it
acceptable to let others define America, our beliefs, tenets,
and values. It is in our collective national security interest
that we do a better job defining ourselves to the world. This
is our mission in the post-September 11th world, and it is a
mission that must succeed.
In late February, Gallup released a poll of almost 10,000
people in nine predominately Muslim countries and found that,
by a margin of two to one, residents of these nations had an
unfavorable opinion of the U.S. Some of the specific results of
the poll were not surprising in places like Iran, but in Kuwait
for instance only 28 percent of those residents polled had a
favorable opinion of the U.S. This in a country that was
liberated by the U.S. and our allies only a decade ago. In
Morocco the favorable number was only 22 percent, and in Saudi
Arabia, one of our strongest allies in the region, only 18
percent expressed a favorable opinion of the U.S.
These numbers are roughly consistent with other external
and internal polling of the region. They illuminate the
challenge we have before us, a challenge to communicate our
policies and values to the world more effectively. In some
regions, such as Muslim majority areas in the Middle East and
South Asia for example, the challenge is obviously greater. In
these places it is imperative that we reach out, inform,
educate, and persuade populations that we are a society that is
based on certain shared values, values that resonate within the
Muslim world, values such as peace, acceptance, faith, and love
of family.
To do this, we must continue our traditional public
diplomacy programs, such as international information
activities and educational and cultural exchanges, as well as
international broadcasting. However, we need to focus these
activities on broader and younger populations, while
simultaneously enhancing them to reach our desired audiences
more rapidly and effectively. Since September 11th, and since
my confirmation in October, we have striven to do just that.
This is evident in such initiatives as The Network of
Terrorism, a publication that has become the most widely
disseminated public diplomacy document ever produced by the
U.S. Government. The publication features dramatic visuals,
including a map showing the 81 countries that lost citizens in
the World Trade Center. Since its release last November,
Network has been translated into 36 languages, and we've
published over 1.3 million copies. We had Network distributed--
as an insert in the Arabic edition of Newsweek, and major
excerpts appeared in other Arab and world publications. Since
publication, we have maintained a constantly updated Internet
version as well.
In addition to the Network publication, we have had success
with our Television Co-operatives, in which we sponsor the
visits of foreign production teams to the U.S. There have been
21 television programs since September 11th dealing with the
Islamic community in America, as well as the campaign against
terrorism.
Our exhibit of the stunning photographs of Joel Meyerowitz,
capturing the human and material dimensions of Ground Zero, has
now opened in 32 different countries and will be presented in
an additional ten countries by the end of the year, reaching
audiencesin the hundreds of thousands.
Our web sites dealing with the Middle East have
consistently topped Internet search engines since 9/11, and,
thanks to our multilingual advertisements, our Rewards for
Justice program has received some 30,000 pieces of information
since the attacks. We have produced This is Islam in America, a
publication that was distributed to 500 Middle Eastern Imams at
an April conference, as well as Islam in America, which was
distributed through our American Corners network throughout
Russia, and through our embassies in Almaty, Ashgabat, Baku,
Bishkek, Dushanbe, and Tashkent.
These initiatives highlight some of our successes, but
there is clearly room for us to improve, to do more, much more.
Right now, the Middle East and the greater Islamic world are
awash with new media and new ideas and ideologies. We must
compete on a crowded playing field for the attention of these
audiences. I will defer to Governor Norm Pattiz to talk about
the success of Radio Sawa, but it is evident that we have work
to do to make our television services effective and relevant.
Television is the medium of today and the future, as is evident
in the growth and influence of Middle East television satellite
and regular television broadcasting. Existing channels are
hungry for programming, and we need to direct resources to
production, acquisition, and distribution of compelling,
quality programs. I am hesitant to endorse the concept of a
greatly expanded direct broadcasting capacity until a great
deal more research on how best to approach this market has been
done. This is particularly true given the experience of BBC's
expensive experiment in Arabic TV broadcasting.
There is room for dialogue and exchange, but the onus is on
us to make our voice heard. There is common ground on which we
can build the foundation for this dialogue. Let me illustrate
this through the story of a young Arab woman. She is a
composite of Arab women I met recently. I was overseas at an-
Arab capital, and this woman started telling me of the anger
and frustration that she and others feel about our Middle East
policy. She is a professor, but not at the American University,
whose name she feels would taint her. Her anger was so great
that, initially, she expressed doubt that Bin Laden was the
ringleader of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. As
we spent more time together, she began to ask me about what she
understood to be the bad treatment of Muslims in the U.S. I was
able to tell her that there are between three and six million
Muslims in this country, where they are free to worship fully
in over 1,200 mosques, and where their children can attend
Muslim schools. I told her about the Nobel Prize winner who is
Muslim, the soccer player, our basketball star whose father is
an Imam, the schoolteachers, and even President Bush's new
Director of the National Institutes of Health. As I did this, a
door began to open between us. Eventually, she admitted that,
while she believed Bin Ladin had masterminded the attacks of
September 11th, she could not defend her conviction to her
colleagues. By the end of our conversation, she had asked
whether her university could add a U.S. studies program and
even whether she could travel to the U.S. with a group of
teachers to study science and technology.
There is also the story of a Fulbright alumnus who is
leader of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Islamic
organization, with 30-40 million members. He recently told the
Jakarta Post that his educational experience in the U.S. had
caused him to abandon the idea of establishing an Islamic state
in Indonesia. He cited his degree in Islamic Studies from the
University of Chicago, as a tool that helped him gain a more
accurate understanding of religious teachings. He also asserted
that ``fewer and fewer Muslims now want to establish an Islamic
state.''
This is the kind of ``share of mind'' toward which we are
working. Shared ideas and values are our building blocks to
better understanding, better relationships, and good will with
the Islamic world. To help focus our public diplomacy efforts
and sharpen our ability to address the challenge before us, we
have developed three strategic themes under which our
activities and efforts will be shaped. Under President Bush and
Secretary Powell's leadership, we are pursuing the following
broad areas in our public diplomacy efforts:
The first theme is shared values. In many countries,
especially in Muslim majority states, people carry a distorted
and negative view of U.S. values. They believe that we are a
faithless and decadent country. To counter these false
impressions, we are initially focusing on freedom of religion
and tolerance as reflected in the experience of Muslims in
America. We have already created a web site and are developing
video products and speakers' programs to disseminate this
message overseas.
The second theme is the opportunity for Democratization. It
is my belief that democracy is the best path toward lasting
peace and prosperity. Where good governance and open
opportunity exist, inspiring stories of entrepreneurial and
free market successes abound. Many U.S. government and private
sector programs already address this objective, and we need to
better highlight their efforts. We must also encourage those
who seek more open societies, economic opportunity through
open-markets, and the chance to achieve prosperity in the
unique context of their own cultural and historical experience.
The third theme is Education, through an initiative called
``Partnership for Learning.'' One of the universal values is
that we all love our children and want a better future for
them. We also know that a lack of social and economic
opportunity is one of the key factors driving the recruitment
of terrorists. U.S. educational and other assistance programs
already underway are working to provide children around the
world with the tools needed for effective participation in
modern life. This focus will allow us to create new
partnerships with the private sector, here and abroad,
dramatically increasing the resources devoted to the education
of children in countries where these options are limited.
These three themes create the backbone under which our public
diplomacy programs and activities are taking shape thanks to the
creative and dedicated efforts of the public diplomacy professionals in
the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Bureau of Public
Affairs, and the Office of International Information Programs, as well
as our regional and function bureaus and our officers in the field.
We are also working to engage the private sector, which is our
natural ally in this fight to inform and influence the hearts and minds
of the people of the world. Those corporations with a large
international presence, in many instances, have better outreach to
certain countries and population segments than we do. We want to work
with them to create partnerships that serve our mutual interests. For
its part, the private sector stands at the ready as never before to aid
our Public Diplomacy efforts. We must continue to actively garner its
support for our overall strategies, harness its creative collective
will, and ask it to organize for action.
Now, more than ever, the spotlight is on public diplomacy, on our
ability and aptitude in communicating with the people of the world. I
thank the committee for its continued support of public diplomacy, and
for allowing me to testify before you today. I am happy to answer any
of your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary.
Mr. Pattiz.
STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN J. PATTIZ, GOVERNOR, BROADCASTING
BOARD OF GOVERNORS, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Pattiz. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. I am Norm Pattiz of the Broadcasting Board of
Governors. On behalf of the BBG I want to thank you very much
for giving me the opportunity to talk about U.S. International
Broadcasting, and specifically our new Middle East Radio
Network [MERN], which is fast becoming a key part of U.S.
public diplomacy efforts in this very, very turbulent region.
I also want to thank you for giving us the resources to
accomplish our mission, which is quite simply to promote
freedom and democracy through the free flow of accurate,
reliable, and credible news and information about America and
the world to audiences overseas. I am pleased to appear with
Under Secretary Charlotte Beers who, along with Deputy
Secretary Richard Armitage and others in the State Department
have been so supportive of MERN.
I would also like to introduce my fellow Governor, Tom
Korologos, who is in the audience. Tom has been a primary
supporter of the MERN project, making more than one trip to
Cyprus to talk with his friends, such as the President, to make
sure we got a very important transmission facility in Cyprus to
help us reach the region.
When I am not working for the BBG, I am chairman of
Westwood One, America's largest radio network. We own, manage,
or distribute the NBC Radio Network, CBS Radio Network, Fox
Radio News, and we also supply over 7,500 U.S. radio stations
with not only news but sports, talk, information programming,
and just about anything else you can think of.
When I was appointed to the BBG in November 2000 I was the
only radio broadcaster on the Board. Chairman Marc Nathanson
asked me to serve as the cochair of the Language Review
Committee, which manages the congressionally mandated process
of determining on an annual basis how effectively our resources
are being deployed across the over 60 languages we broadcast in
worldwide.
I quickly noticed our efforts in the Middle East were
almost totally ineffective. We were broadcasting 7 hours a day
in the Arabic language in a one-size-fits-all approach to the
entire region, for 7 hours a day, as I mentioned before, on
short wave, which almost no one listens to, and out of a very
weak medium wave signal out of Rhodes. The fact was that over
98 percent of the audience in the region were not listening to
the Voice of America.
After reporting this back to the Board, I was asked to
serve as the chairman of the Middle East Committee. Shortly
thereafter--I think it was in February 2000, well before the
events of 9/11--I visited the region to determine what
possibilities existed to provide a 21st century broadcast
operation to the region. During the trip, I learned a number of
things. First of all, I learned that there is, in fact, a media
war going on in the region, and the weapons of that war are
incitement to violence, disinformation, hate radio, government
censorship, and journalistic self-censorship, and sadly the
United States did not have a horse in this race.
On the plus side, many of the moderate Arab governments
were willing to offer AM and FM frequencies and digital
satellite frequencies which would be necessary to create a
state-of-the-art broadcasting system. I felt that, by using
proven American broadcasting techniques that have been
effective wherever they have been used throughout the world,
the opportunity existed to create a service that would attract
the largest possible audience and ultimately deliver that
audience to our message of public diplomacy.
What techniques am I talking about? Using radio in the way
it is most effective in today's media environment. Radio is a
medium of formats--music, news, sports, talk, et cetera--
designed to reach a particular audience 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week, with a consistent style that connects with our
listeners.
In the case of MERN, which we call Radio Sawa, the Arabic
word for ``together,'' the format we have chosen is targeted at
listeners 30 and under, representing well over 60 percent of
the region's population. Sawa is music-driven, with 5 and 10-
minute newscasts twice every hour, 24 hours day.
But rather than describing to you in words what Sawa is,
let me play for you an English-language condensed version of
what a \1/2\-hour of our Arabic programming sounds like. It
runs about 3\1/2\ minutes, so you will not hear any full music
tracks, and you will not hear any full newscasts, but it will
give you a quick idea of what this programming sounds like.
The Chairman. Before you play that, I want to point out
that I was so impressed with this disk that I made sure I
requested that Norm make it available to every Member of the
U.S. Senate, every Member of the House, and I hope, if any
staff is listening, if you have gotten it, make sure your boss
just takes 5 minutes to listen to it, play it for your boss,
because I am telling you, it is--well, you will hear.
Mr. Pattiz. Well, this, as I say, is a condensed version of
the 12-minute version that you are talking about, so we are
trying to give you an example of what it sounds like within the
parameters of the time that I have to speak, so if you would
play that, please.
[A CD was played.]
Mr. Pattiz. What you just heard is a combination of proven
commercial know-how and modern broadcasting techniques, heavily
researched, so we know before we ever play our first song or
broadcast our first feature or news program who our audience
is, what they like to hear, what type of news presentation
features and production values appeal to them. We also take
into consideration what is already available in the
marketplace, and what has the best chance of delivering the
largest possible target audience to hear our message. We call
it ``marrying the mission to the market,'' and it is working.
We are now broadcasting on FM stations in Amman, reaching
Jordan, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, in FM in Kuwait, Abu
Dhabi and Dubai, we are on medium wave or AM out of Kuwait
covering Iraq, as well as in Rhodes and, soon, Cyprus, which
will cover Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, plus FM is coming online
within the next couple of weeks in Bahrain and Qatar. We are on
three-digital audio satellite transmissions similar to our own
DirecTV, with audio channels including Nilesat, Arabsat, and
Eutelsat Hotbird.
As you know by the impact of Al Jazeera and other TV
services, there are millions of satellite dishes throughout the
region, and now our message can be received on them. This is
just the beginning. We will be expanding our reach on FMs and
AMs in the coming months, but the anecdotal information that we
are receiving on the impact of Sawa since its March 23 launch
has been nothing less than amazing. Let me give you some
examples from our own embassies and bureaus throughout the
region.
From our bureau chief in Amman, who was formerly the
director of our Arabic Service, the VOA Arabic Service: ``It is
time for me to say it. MERN leadership has been able to
accomplish in the span of a few months what two generations of
VOA broadcasters have failed to accomplish in more than 50
years. All indications are that Radio Sawa is the most popular
FM station in Jordan. Congratulations. I am proud to be a
member of the MERN team.'' And our Ambassador in Jordan
proclaimed; ``MERN is an instant hit among Jordan's young.''
But it is not just insiders who are taking notice. Joshua
Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute writes that MERN
is, ``good news, because it promises to repair many of the
defects of our current operation.'' And the New Republic's
Lawrence Kaplan calls Radio Sawa ``a sober and effective public
diplomacy initiative.''
From our listeners, some of which you heard when Senator
Boxer read a couple of those e-mails, we have received
literally thousands of overwhelmingly positive e-mails, some of
which are in packets that we have prepared for you. Dan Rather
told us he heard Radio Sawa in an outdoor cafe in Amman. Tom
Brokaw's producer told us that Tom listened to Sawa on his trip
to the region.
We are planning on doing full-out extensive audience
research and measurement before we move into our state-of-the-
art broadcast center in Dubai Media City. Our network will then
be broadcasting in five targeted programming streams directed
at specific areas within the region in the colloquial dialects.
Mr. Chairman, when you and others on the committee asked,
after the events of 9/11, what are we doing to combat hatred
and anti-Americanism in the Middle East, we said, we are going
to launch a unique new network, unlike anything else you have
heard in U.S. international broadcasting, designed to attract
the largest possible audience, and this is it. The Middle East
Radio Network is like a wedding cake to which we are constantly
adding layers.
Today, we are broadcasting music and news twice an hour, in
5 and 15-minute blocks, 24-hours-a-day, every day we are
providing coverage of major events like President Bush's speech
on April 4 on the Middle East from start to finish in Arabic,
plus complete coverage of Secretary of State Powell's recent
trip to the region with the kind of immediacy that was rarely
possible to us in the past.
When President Bush, in his October 2001 speech to the
Nation after the tragic events of 9/11, asked, in so many
words, why do they hate us, I believe one answer is because
they do not know us. All they hear about America and Americans
is what comes from sources that are invested in not presenting
a truthful picture of the United States to the world. Radio
Sawa is the first step in presenting our policies, our people,
accurately from our own lips. Soon, we will be broadcasting
programs on policy, editorials, questions of the day, and
reviews and critiques of Arab press reports. We will try to
pinpoint and refute misinformation of state-controlled media,
and down the line we are looking at more interactive
programming on health, science, education, and other topical
issues.
So when the taxpayers ask, what is the United States doing
to reach the Middle East and hopefully decrease regional
tensions, we can say, building a Middle East Radio Network.
MERN is a prototype of the international broadcasting of the
future and, as a cornerstone of public diplomacy, U.S.
international broadcasting and MERN are a formidable means of
getting America's message across to the Islamic world and
elsewhere.
I very much appreciate your time and would be happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pattiz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Norman J. Pattiz, Governor, Broadcasting
Board of Governors
Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I'm Norm
Pattiz of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).
On behalf of the BBG, I want to thank you very much for having me
here to talk about U.S. international broadcasting and specifically our
new Middle East Radio Network, which is fast becoming a key part of the
U.S. public diplomacy effort in this turbulent region. I also want to
thank you for giving us the resources to accomplish our mission, which
is, quite simply, to promote freedom and democracy through the
dissemination of accurate, reliable and credible news and information
about America and the world to audiences overseas.
When I'm not working for the BBG, I'm the Chairman of Westwood One,
America's largest radio network. Westwood One owns, manages or
distributes the NBC Radio Network, CBS Radio Network, CNN Radio News
and Fox Radio News. We supply over 7,500 U.S. radio stations with not
only news, but sports, entertainment, talk radio and informational
programming.
When I was appointed to the BBG in November of 2000, I was the only
radio broadcaster on the Board. Chairman Marc Nathanson asked me to
serve as the Co-Chair of the Language Service Review Committee, which
manages the Congressionally mandated process of determining, on an
annual basis, how effectively our resources are being deployed across
the over 60 languages that we broadcast worldwide. I quickly noticed
that our efforts in the Middle East were almost totally ineffective. We
were broadcasting seven hours a day of Arabic language programming in a
one-size-fits-all approach to the entire region on shortwave and a very
weak medium wave signal from Rhodes. Over 98 percent of the audience of
the region had never listened to the Voice of America.
After reporting this back to the Board, I was asked to serve as the
Chairman of the Middle East Committee. Shortly thereafter I visited the
region to determine what possibilities existed for building a 21st
Century Arabic language broadcast operation. During the trip I learned
a number of things. First of all, there's a media war going on and the
weapons of that war include disinformation, incitement to violence,
hate radio, Government censorship and journalistic self-censorship, and
the United States didn't have a horse in this race.
On the plus side, many moderate Arab governments were willing to
offer FM and AM frequencies and digital audio transmission, which would
be necessary to create a state-of-the-art distribution system. I felt
that by using proven American broadcasting techniques that have been
successful all over the world, the opportunity existed to create a
radio service that would attract the largest possible audience and,
ultimately, deliver that audience for our public diplomacy mission.
What techniques am I talking about? Using radio the way it is most
effective in today's media environment. Radio today is a medium of
formats--music, news, sports, talk, etc.--designed to reach a
particular audience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a consistent
style that connects with its listeners. In the case of MERN, which we
call Radio Sawa--the Arabic word for ``together''--the format we've
chosen is targeted at listeners 30 and under, representing well over 60
percent of the region's population, which is music-driven with 5 and 10
minute newscasts every hour, 24 hours a day.
Radio Sawa is an example of combining proven commercial knowhow and
modern broadcasting techniques, heavily researched so we know, well
before we ever play our first song or broadcast our first feature or
news program, who our audience is; what they like to hear; what type of
news presentations, features and production values appeal to them. We
also take into consideration what is already available in the
marketplace and what has the best chance of delivering the largest
possible target audience to hear our message, We call this marrying the
mission to the market, and it's working.
We are now broadcasting on FM stations in Amman, reaching Jordan,
the West Bank and Jerusalem, and FMs in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
We're on Medium Wave out of Kuwait, covering Iraq, Rhodes and soon
Cyprus to Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. We are on 3 digital audio satellite
transmissions, similar to our own DirecTV with audio channels,
including Nilesat, Arabsat and Eutelsat. As you know by the impact of
Al Jazeera and other satellite TV services, there are millions of
satellite dishes throughout the region and now our message can be
received on them.
This is just the beginning. We will be expanding our reach on FMs
and AMs in the coming months, but the anecdotal information that we are
receiving on the impact of Radio Sawa, since it's March 23rd launch,
has been nothing less than amazing. Let me give you some examples from
some of our own Embassies and Bureaus in the region:
From our Bureau Chief in Amman:
It is time for me to say it: The MERN leadership has been
able to accomplish in a span of a few months what two
generations of VOA Arabic broadcasters have failed to
accomplish in more than fifty years. All indications show that
Radio Sawa is the most popular FM station in Jordan.
Congratulations . . . I am proud to be part of the MERN team.
Best regards.
Mahmoud Zawawi
And our Ambassador in Jordan proclaimed MERN an ``instant hit among
Jordan's young.'' But it's not just insiders who are taking notice.
Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute writes that MERN
is, ``good news,'' because it ``promises to repair many of the defects
of our current operation.'' And the New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan
calls Radio Sawa a ``sober and effective public diplomacy initiative.''
From our listeners we have received literally thousands of
overwhelmingly positive e-mails, some of which are in the packets that
we have prepared for you. Dan Rather told us he heard Radio Sawa in an
outdoor cafe in Amman. Tom Brokaw's producer told us that Tom listened
to Sawa on his trip to the region.
We are planning on doing full-out extensive audience research and
measurement before we move into our state-of-the-art broadcast center
in Dubai Media Center. Our network will be broadcast in five targeted
programming streams in local dialects, directed at specific areas in
the region.
Mr. Chairman, when you and others on the Committee asked, after the
events of 9/11, what are you going to do to combat hatred and anti-
Americanism in the Middle East, we said we were going to launch a
unique, new radio network, unlike anything you've heard from U.S.
international broadcasting, designed to attract the largest possible
audience--and this is it. The Middle East Radio Network is like a
wedding cake to which we are constantly adding layers. Today we are
broadcasting music with news twice an hour, in 5 and 10 minute blocks,
24 hours a day, every day, plus coverage of major events like President
Bush's April 4th speech on the Middle East from start to finish, in
Arabic, plus complete coverage of Secretary of State Powell's recent
trip to the region, with a kind of immediacy rarely possible in the
past.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, when President Bush, in
his October 2001 speech to the Nation, after the tragic events of 9/11,
asked in so many words why do they hate us, I believe the answer is
because they don't know us. All they hear about America and Americans
comes from sources that are invested in not presenting a truthful
picture of the United States--and the world. Radio Sawa is the first
step, presenting our people and policies accurately from our own lips.
In the not too distant future, we'll begin broadcasting policy
programs, editorials, questions of the day and reviews and critiques of
Arab press reports. We'll try to pinpoint--and refute--misinformation
in the state-controlled media. And down the line, we're looking at more
interactive programs that feature health, science, education and other
topical issues.
So when taxpayers ask what is the United States doing to reach
people in the Middle East, and to, hopefully, decrease regional
tensions, we can say: Building a Middle East Radio Network. The BBG's
FY 2003 budget request includes funding for the second year costs of
the network.
We appreciate the support we've received from Congress in getting
the Middle East Radio Network up and running, and in funding surge
broadcasts in times of crisis. We look forward to working closely with
you in the future as we, through our broadcasts, talk directly to
people around the world about who America is, and for what it stands.
MERN is a prototype of the international broadcasting of the
future. And as a cornerstone of public diplomacy, U. S. international
broadcasting--and MERN--are formidable means of getting America's
message to the Islamic world and elsewhere.
I appreciate your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. I am delighted that the
press got to hear that very truncated example of the format of
Sawa, and I recall when I met with you privately about this
you, paraphrasing, basically made the point, you have got to
get them to like listening to the station. You have got to make
it popular if they are going to listen to the news, and I am
assuming that this is going to do something more than promote
Britney Spears' records in Amman.
One of the things that did surprise me, and I am
embarrassed to say this, but I suspect I am not unique among
Americans, or even American Senators, and that is how popular
rock stars are, including indigenous rock stars, in the
countries that we are trying to have our voice heard, and you
gave me an example.
I wish you would repeat it, because I do not want to get it
wrong. Even before you got Sawa up and running there was an
Egyptian, I believe you said, and maybe a Jordanian rock star
that were performing in Los Angeles. They were on tour, and you
indicated to me you had the idea of being able to go send your
folks over to interview them and then replay what they had to
say about America in their words back in Egypt and in Jordan.
Would you mind repeating that very truncated version again of
that story for the folks here?
Mr. Pattiz. Sure, absolutely. There were two Arab artists
who were touring the United States, Hakkim and Khaled, and we
not only interviewed them and the Arabic-speaking people in the
audience who were at the performance in Los Angeles, we
recorded the entire concert, so that we will be able to take
that concert that was performed in Los Angeles and broadcast it
back to the region with comments from Hakkim and Khaled and
many of the people who attended the concert about their
impressions of America--in the case of the artist, what it is
like to tour America, what the difference in the audiences
between Los Angeles and New York might be like--to really
create, if you will, a cultural exchange on the radio.
And of course, knowing the importance of music artists to a
music-driven format, music is a tool to attract an audience. We
are very, very conscious of what our mission is, but the music
attracts the 30-and-under, and specifically 25-and-under
audience that we are really going after. So what we are doing
right now in the region in our bureaus is having music
personalities and stars doing liners and promos--you are
listening to radio Sawa, this is whomever--to really connect
with our audience. Because the first thing we have to do, of
course, as you said before, Senator, we have got to get them to
listen to us, and we have got to get them to like us, and on
this level I think we are succeeding.
The Chairman. One of the things you had indicated to me is
that you were not surprised, but that others were surprised
at--your interviewer asked these Egyptian and Jordanian rock
stars what their impressions of America were, and they did what
Secretary Beers had said in another context, is that they were
saying things like, I was told they were not going to like us,
and people would look at us funny, and that people didn't like
Muslims, and you know, I went to a mosque and there are people
here, et cetera. Am I accurately portraying----
Mr. Pattiz. Absolutely, because I think it is really
important to be able to use stars from the region to talk about
their positive experiences about the United States and America
and Americans and broadcast those back into the region. It is a
very important tool.
The Chairman. Now, I will ask one last question and yield
here. I have so many, but others do as well. One of the things
that is being discussed, and is being discussed among us,
Senator Lugar and others have a piece of legislation on this, I
have a piece, the House has passed a piece of legislation
relating to public diplomacy, and one of the things we are
going to get into fairly quickly will be in effect my words,
not either of yours, the next stage, what do we do with that
other medium, television, and do we attempt to compete there,
and I may be mistaken, but based on your written testimony I
think there may be a slight difference in your views about
that. I do not know that for certain.
Now, Madam Secretary, in your statement you say, and I
quote, ``television is the medium of today and the future, as
is evident in the growth and influence of Middle East
television satellites and regular television broadcasting.
Existing channels are hungry for programming, and we need to
direct resources to production, acquisition, and distribution
of compelling quality programs. I am hesitant to endorse the
concept of a greatly expanded direct broadcasting capacity
without a great deal more research on how best to approach it
as this market has done. This is particularly true given the
experience of the BBC's expensive experiment with Arabic TV
broadcasting.''
And Norm, you had indicated to me, and I cannot find the
statement now, but you had indicated to me personally that you
thought this held a great deal of promise, and that it is a
place we should be moving, as I understood you, more rapidly
than it appears, Madam Secretary, you think we should. Can you
explain--and that will be my last question--explain more about
the experience of the BBC and how you think we should proceed,
and then you, Mr. Pattiz, and then I will yield to Senator
Lugar.
Ms. Beers. Well, I think that the message from the attempt
of BBC to do a successful Arabic television channel is simply
that it is very difficult to pull off well, and even VOA's
television efforts have sometimes been less than productive, so
it is a big boy's game, and we already have very aggressive and
a widespread satellite television in very good band positions
with the four top Arab networks. However, I do agree that
television is extremely intrusive, and a very important and
growing, actually, medium in this crucial part of the world.
I also agree with the initiatives, the 9/11 initiatives
that talk about spreading the word and getting it out. The
model on the MERN is very impressive. I mean, Norm has followed
all of the sophisticated techniques we use in marketing and
modern communication to make this launch of MERN a significant
success, but for me it comes down to allocation of resources
and I am really concerned about all of the work we do in the
State Department that has to do with long term transformation
exchanges as well as getting the word out and getting the word
back in, and so I refer to those programs with which we have
had great success, and I just want to be sure that we can
support these and magnify them.
So to me, it is the tension--no one here is surprised about
the budget and how we allocate resources.
The Chairman. I think that is a logical concern, because if
you look back--and I will not bore the committee with it now,
but if you look back at the total amount of money we spent on
public diplomacy 15 years ago, it is more than we are spending
now.
Ms. Beers. And we have many more countries and fewer
people, and the dilution of resources is a shocking issue.
The Chairman. I for one parenthetically think we are going
to have to significantly increase the resources we devote to
this. I think we have our priorities wrong, but at any rate,
Norm, would you respond to the television piece?
Mr. Pattiz. Yes, I would be happy to. First, let me say
that if it turns out to be the will of the Congress or the
administration and all the powers that be that the Broadcasting
Board of Governors initiate a satellite Arabic language
television station in the region, I can assure you that it will
be a first class operation. Radio and television do different
things. MERN is designed to focus on a target audience that
really is not the primary television listener, the 25-and-under
adult, basically probably between 15 and 25, and engage them in
a way that reaches them where they live on the radio. As I
said, radio is a medium of formats.
Television is a medium of programs. Radio says a lot about
who its listeners are. I dare say if I stepped into any one of
your vehicles and took a look at the settings on the radio, the
buttons that you have preset, that I could tell a lot about who
you are just by taking a look at those settings. It is like
walking into somebody's house and looking at the magazines that
are on the coffee table. If there is a magazine about tennis,
you can be pretty sure that is probably one of their key
interests. That is what radio is.
Television is completely different. People are not loyal to
a television network or a television station. They watch
programs, and they turn the dial all the time, which gives us
the opportunity to be more hard-hitting in our approach. If we
wind up saying things that are hard-hitting on a television
program it is probably not going to turn the audience off from
watching that channel or keep them from going back to
programming that they like to watch, and quite coincidentally
going back to the controversial programming as well.
The BBC example is a good example of a situation that did
not work. But let me tell you why it did not work, which I
think bodes well for the way we would do it. The reason that it
did not work was, it was a co-venture with Orbit, a satellite
company that is basically a Saudi company, where the BBC was
providing programming and Orbit was putting up the money and
the distribution. Well, for an operation like the BBC, who
needs to have its own editorial integrity, that kind of a
situation I think was doomed to failure, because they started
putting programming on that service which was objectionable to
the Saudi Government and the service went away.
What we are talking about doing is putting up our own
satellite channel so that what we put on that satellite channel
we program from start to finish, whether it is 18 hours a day,
or 24 hours a day. What we really do in television right now
is, we are a syndication company. We produce a program, and
then we go to local providers and ask them to carry that
program.
Well, believe me, the hard-hitting stuff is never going to
see the light of day on local media. They are not going to
carry it. And we can't control the other things that they put
on the air. We have the example of the Secretary of State
having his comments aired on Al Jazeera, immediately followed
by people who tear apart everything he just said.
We need to control what the programming is before the
program and after the program. In television there is a concept
called audience flow. Even though television is a medium of
programs that are not necessarily the same from hour to hour,
television tries to appeal to a particular audience and then
carry that audience through to the next program.
For instance, you start on the morning show--and believe
me, this is right off the top of my head--if we were going to
do something, it might be likely that we start with a morning
show, followed by a CNN or Fox type news programming period
going into the midday, where you might want to go to more
entertainment-oriented programming that was more family
oriented, because there are kids and mothers and people around
in that time period, moving back into in the late afternoon and
early evening with more hard-hitting traditional news type
programming, and following up with entertainment programming
after that.
Let me just say this, in conclusion----
The Chairman. That is all right. This is very important. Do
not worry about your time.
Mr. Pattiz. If we were going to do a project like this, if
we were given the go-ahead to do a project like this, rest
assured that it would be completely researched the same way we
did MERN, extensively researched, so we knew who we were
talking to and what our chances for success were program by
program. We would put together a blue ribbon panel of advisors,
many of whom I have informally talked with about this already,
including the heads of major communications companies and movie
studios who I believe would be very helpful, at least in terms
of the entertainment programming in providing programming for
us in a way that would show their patriotism. Let me also say
that in the House bill I think there is $135 million in that
bill for new broadcasting initiatives, about $65 million of
which is for an Arabic satellite TV channel.
The Chairman. I thank you very much. There is a vote on. I
am going to yield to you, Senator Lugar, now, as I should
anyway, and I am going to go vote, and maybe we can continue to
keep this going. Thank you.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pattiz, I think the statement that you just made, your
description, really, of the skill of American broadcasters and
television broadcasters is tremendously important. I hope it is
not inappropriate, I would suggest that C-SPAN cover this and
make life easier for us so that there is a constituency in our
own country that understands the genius of American
broadcasting and how things happen, how they are put together,
and why the plan you have suggested has I think every hope of
being a much better one than past efforts.
My first question, and I will try to encapsulate all of
them so that both of you can comment on them. I am just
intrigued by how much development there has been in the
methodology of polling, or of marketing surveys or whatever you
want to call them in these countries.
Clearly, if you are able to gain data, it is important it
is used to make certain that the radio or the television
efforts are successful. The acquisition of data and information
to guide our efforts is extremely important. An understanding
of the attitudes and perceptions the world has toward our
country, our values, our policies is extremely important. The
purpose of our public diplomacy must be to make certain not
only that we have listenership and in fact people are paying
some attention, but in the course of time that we are engaging
ideas.
Now, likewise, the other side of the coin is what kind of
public diplomacy responsibility we have to bring some support
of independent media that arise, indigenous media from these
countries, that is important, too. In addition to our
ambitious, sometimes even aggressive efforts in public
diplomacy, we must also be mindful that the freedom of
expression must really come from the heart of these countries,
and that is a more delicate operation.
Now, the National Endowment for Democracy supports
independent media with modest grants to various entities. That
was true throughout the cold war in Eastern Europe and
Southeast Asia, but these have been very, very modest and are
often in danger of obliteration by congressional lack of
appropriation. I am curious as to how we can coordinate both of
these situations. That is, to find out really what people are
thinking so that we are successful in our broadcasting and
overall objectives and how we can help develop independent
media in those countries.
And finally, who will be in charge of it? Does this come
with Under Secretary Beers, or with the Broadcasting Board of
Governors or with the State Department, USAID? In other words,
I am not certain I have been able to trace what I think is
sometimes described as a fragmented authority. Can you respond
to any of that? I would like to hear from both of you, if I
might.
Mr. Pattiz. Let me respond to the last question first. In
terms of who would be in charge, I think this is clearly a job
for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and I think one of the
primary reasons that the Broadcasting Board of Governors exists
and is effective is because Congress in its wisdom created the
Broadcasting Board of Governors to serve as a firewall between
the independence of its journalists and the pressures that
would come from outside influences, maybe places like this, or
the State Department, or the administration, what-have-you. If
we do not have credibility, we are lost, especially in a region
where you have to do a real Kabuki dance to get the information
across and get them to listen.
I always loved what Secretary Beers said when she said,
``it is not what you say, it is what they hear.'' So if we were
to go out and do something, and this were to be under the
purview of a government agency other than the BBG, I would be
concerned about being able to protect the independence of our
journalists.
On the research question, there are places where we can do
very sophisticated research and there are places where we can
do nothing more than anecdotal research. In the places where we
can do sophisticated research, which is a large part of the
Middle East, we utilize Western research companies. In our
case, we go out and find companies that do research for radio
and television, the kinds of things we are interested in
putting on the air. They put together the methodology and
subcontract with local research entities in the region who
actually go out and conduct the surveys.
Does it tell us anything about local attitudes? Absolutely,
it does. The first question we asked in our research for Radio
Sawa was, ``Would you listen to a radio station that was
brought to you by the United States of America?'' Forty percent
of the people we interviewed said no, but that means 60 percent
said yes, and my personal feeling was that of that 40 percent
who said no, probably half of them were going to listen to it
anyway but did not want to say it to an interviewer.
So we also know that, although there is a clear lack of
support for U.S. policies in the Middle East, American values
of democracy and freedom of choice and self-expression
definitely resonate with the Arab street, so that kind of
information is very much available.
I can go on and talk about the indigenous media if you
like, but maybe Charlotte would like to comment.
Senator Lugar. Let me ask quickly, do we have enough people
involved in this who understand the languages, the idioms, and
what-have-you? You mentioned you have five dialects on one of
your radio programs, but the thing we heard today, does this
appear in many languages so that essentially people would
understand what you had to say?
Mr. Pattiz. Absolutely. The service, Radio Sawa, is an
Arabic service, but there is the Arabic that is spoken in the
gulf, there is the Arabic that is spoken in Iraq, there is the
Arabic that is spoken in Egypt, which is a more classical
style. One of the reasons why we want to have five directed
programming streams is, since radio is such a personal medium
and relates so directly to the listening audience, it is very
important that they are listening to someone who is speaking to
them in their own language with their own idioms.
We have a very talented news director who we have hired, a
gentleman by the name of Mouafac Harb, who was formerly the
Washington bureau chief for Al Hayat, managed the Lebanese
radio and television network, and was the Middle East
correspondent for Newsweek. He is very talented, is an Arab-
American, who understands the dialects, and we have been able
to surround him with a team of professionals who understand
exactly what you are talking about.
Senator Lugar. Secretary Beers.
Ms. Beers. I think your question about research is very
insightful, because I just noticed a new poll recently that
said how much Muslim youth like America, in complete contrast
to what we have been hearing, so how you ask the question is,
in fact, an art form. We just prepared some messages that are
like minidocumentaries on Muslim life in America as a way of
opening the door to a dialog on faith. If we went out and said,
look how faithful we are, we would not have any listeners, so
we talk about this amazing story of Muslim life in our country
as a way of opening the door.
These documentaries will run in Middle East television
satellite stations, and we have a media program ready to go.
Importantly, though, we use those messages as a stimulus to do
consumer research, which is not typically done in any of our
organizations. That is why Norm and I like to share the
research we get in, and one of the things we learned is how to
talk about it. For example, in every case they came back and
said, show us pictures of our people in the company of other
Americans. Well, we did not have that in the visuals. It is a
very important indicator of self-esteem. Am I part of the
group? Are you accepting me?
So every time we do these pieces of research we come back
with a data bank we are collecting on what causes the attitude?
Can you get past the policy issues into long-term attitudes? We
just feel that a news study in all the Muslim countries, it is
much more ambitious in terms of asking about attitudes and
feelings. If we cannot pull out the feelings we really cannot
properly address the programs.
The interesting thing was, people predicted that they would
not like to see all of these overt messages from the United
States and the general response back was, tell me more, and
then we learned we have to do this research from Indonesia,
where we started some of the studies in Jakarta. In each case
we learned how much emphasis to put on faith. We are doing a
soccer player, we are doing a TV documentary on the Egyptian
Nobel Prize-winner, we are doing Iman and his family, and we
have all of these fantastic cross-populations in the United
States.
The same thing in a way is what we find about independent
media. I find when the media becomes freer and more independent
we are much closer to being able to describe the process of
law, the rule of law, the democracy. We just saw something
amazing happen in Kosovo, which is just beginning to have a lot
of media that is free to experiment. They did their own series
on rule of law and democratic process, but that can be deadly
dull.
In fact, they brought in local actors, they produced
something like a soap opera within the embassy and their people
and the local actors, so that you could not only see and hear
what the process is about, but because of the independent
media--this was a small television station. Its success was so
clear that the big, state-owned media people bought the
program, so it is not just independent media, it is training
them, giving them program content, and teaching them how to do
something that attracts the audience.
The last thing was about who is in charge. I think the
structure we now have at the State Department is clearly
responsible for any and every articulation of editorial policy,
and as a member of the board of BBG I get to wear both those
hats, and it is very constructive. I think our collaboration is
first-rate. I know we have all worked on it, importantly, but
for example, Radio Sawa now has its next obstacle path, which I
think I am very comfortable with the approach in this of
producing editorials and more U.S. advocacy in such a way that
these audiences can hear it, as opposed to turn away in
distrust and cynicism.
Senator Lugar. Let me intervene at this point, because I am
advised there is a minute-and-a-half left in the first vote,
and Senator Dodd and I will want to vote and return. We are
going to have another vote immediately following this one, so
the chairman has asked that I temporarily recess the hearing.
Senator Dodd. Before you do that, and I will recess it for
you, but I just wanted to commend both of you here for this
effort. I hope people hear what you had to say. I talked to
Charlotte I think a couple of months ago when the former
Ambassador from Pakistan called me with the suggestion of doing
this, and that is inviting some of the very people who are most
talented in producing and putting together programming, to
invite them, and it is not new. You go back and look at the era
of Franklin Roosevelt, what he did with Bill Paley and CBS in
Latin America, what he did with the Disney companies.
There are plenty of historical examples historically where
people understood symbols in programming to be able to have
some influence on the younger generation, so it is very
exciting to have you here. I regret I cannot come back after
this to hear more of the testimony, but I thank both of you,
and really I like the idea of putting up our own satellite. I
have got to tell you, I think that is the only way you are
going to guarantee that we have some real influence in
penetrating these markets. In the absence of doing that, I
think it is going to be very difficult in a lot of ways. The
money goes down the drain.
So I like that concept you are working on, and the
invitation of independent production companies even in this
country to be able to have access to these markets is a way
also of having some influence, and so with that, we thank both
of you, and I apologize again. We will stand in recess until
the chairman comes back.
[Recess.]
The Chairman. The hearing will come back to order. I thank
the panel and the other witnesses for their patience. As
Senator Hagel just said, we just had a minor vote on raising
the debt limit so we would not default for the first time since
Hamilton on the debt. It was a very painful exercise to watch
some of my colleagues do this. I am already in the tank anyway,
so I have been voting responsibly for 30 years, but not
popularly on that issue, but at any rate, so we may have a
chance to get you more money because we may actually pay our
debts.
But all kidding aside, Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am grateful, as
we all are, for your time this morning and preparation, and
most of all what you do for our country, especially at this
historic, challenging time in the world. I wanted to go back to
a couple of points that you each made, and Norm, I would start
with you. We have had some opportunities to visit previously
about what you are doing, and I have not had an opportunity to
hear the update which you have provided this morning, which is
most encouraging, and it is about what you had framed and
defined when we last met as to what your objectives were and
your intentions, and so I congratulate you and your colleagues,
and even though you have a heavy burden to carry, and Tom
Korologos, nonetheless you have managed to do well, so please
extend our congratulations to your colleagues, your team for
the job they have done.
And Secretary Beers, we will talk in just a minute here,
but I wanted to ask one question of you, Norm. In your
conversations with us this morning, you recited your
observations after the trip that you took and you documented
that, and you talked about the media war that was going on.
Would you define in a little more detail the competition that
is out there? What are we facing here?
You mentioned it in general terms, but define it a little
more clearly. What is it that we are up against as far as--we
understand Secretary Beers approach, some of this as well, but
the kind of resources and the technologies and the
sophistication of the other side of this that you are having to
deal with, not just the underlying philosophy, but the assets
on the other side?
Mr. Pattiz. Sure. I have to say I just recently returned
from a trip to the region, where I spent a good deal of time in
the gulf in places like Doha and Manama in Bahrain, and also in
Dubai, and I had never spent that kind of time in the region. I
had only been in Doha before that, and I was very much
impressed with what I saw. Doha is, of course, the home of Al
Jazeera. Al Jazeera is the Arab satellite station that is most
well-known by Americans, most likely because of the joint
agreements that it has had with CNN and others over here.
But Al Jazeera is not the most-listened-to satellite TV
service or media outlet in the region. There are significantly
larger outlets, and what you have throughout the region is very
sophisticated technology. When I went to Abu Dhabi and saw
that, it is like Emerald City. I mean, it is like a brand-new
city. People who think that is like walking through Amman or
Cairo, forget it. The things they have, and the new media
center and high technology centers they are building in those
regions are incredible. We are going to locate our Middle East
Broadcast Center in the Media City in Dubai, and there are a
whole lot of other international broadcasters that are doing
the same thing.
So they have the resources, and they definitely have the
support of their governments, because in the case of a place
like Qatar, for instance, Al Jazeera has really put them on the
map. Without Al Jazeera most people would not know how to
pronounce it, how to spell it, anything about it.
Al Jazeera, positioned itself as the Arab CNN. It is not.
It is kind of, CNN meets Jerry Springer. You know, they have
news presentation which is CNN-style, and then they have talk
shows that are inflammatory and inciteful and what have you,
and that is not unique. That kind of programming exists
throughout the region.
The Chairman. It exists here in the United States.
Mr. Pattiz. But that is somebody else's problem right now,
and I do not want to talk about that, because some of that
might be mine.
But anyway, to be serious, there are tremendous resources
available, and there are multiple media channels available, and
when you get down to it, there are some radio stations, some of
them that are licensed and some of them that are not licensed,
clandestine radio stations that literally preach hate 24 hours
a day, and part of that has to do with us and what we stand for
and what we believe in.
So it is an incredibly challenging area, but I have to say
that we received very good cooperation from some of the
moderate Arab governments. I believe that it was a fairly--
well, it was a pretty easy way to show support after 9/11 for
our war on terrorism for some of our Arab friends, when some
other activities we might have requested would have been a
little more difficult.
Senator Hagel. Thanks, Norm.
Ms. Beers. I want to comment on that before we leave it.
These organizations are always at the State Department looking
for interviews and creating a dialog, and Chris Ross, my deputy
and I, meet with them, and they are undergoing the same kind of
budget crunch and profit issues that many organizations will go
through, especially television, and I think their number one
problem coming up is going to be programming. Like, the
audience participation and interest in Al Jazeera drops
dramatically every time they lose a bin Laden tape.
You also have to remember, some of their programming is
actually helpful to us. For example, that last tape, which we
did not honor with a lot of response and dialog, included the
confession of one of the 19 hijackers. It had a profound effect
on the media newspaper journalists in that area, because they
no longer attempted any more to say that this was not bin Laden
and al-Qaeda, which they actually could hitch onto for a while,
and so we have got to deal with the fact that they can be
uneven in their coverage and sometimes positive.
And the other thing that is left out of this discussion is
what could happen if we help support independent news
facilities at the time that the government might show an
opening or a welcoming to that, as we just discussed for Kosovo
and the power of that independent medium, and those are
variables in the mix.
Mr. Pattiz. If I can give you one concrete example, since
our tech is sitting over there, what I would like to do, and
this is very quick. I do not even think it is 30 seconds of
material. Let me play you a lead-in to one of our newscasts in
Arabic, and then I will translate what comes right after that
in English so that you can hear the kind of information we are
putting out. Story is about an Arabic newspaper that is
reacting to Radio Sawa. Can you just hit that?
[A CD was played.]
Mr. Pattiz. Now, I listen to this every day, and there are
a number of stories that are going on, but I want to read you
one of the things it is reporting on, because it comes out of
the Arab press, as a matter of fact. It says, the danger of----
The Chairman. Are you reading to us what we just heard in
Arabic?
Mr. Pattiz. I'm reading to you a commentary in the
indigenous press about that broadcast. ``The danger, of course,
is not in the music, it is in the news that usually begins with
a moderate, neutral tone that shifts gradually toward the
terminology that serves the United States' interest in the
area.''
Radio Sawa's Web site refers to a long-term U.S. interest.
Long-term means slow osmosis of terminology from one generation
to another. This technology does not serve our national
interest, and does not reflect our views of things. In the
midst of the Church of Nativity crisis, I used to hear phrases
on Radio Sawa referring to armed Palestinians trapped inside
the church. This is not correct. In truth, Israelis were the
ones who were armed on the outside, where the ones on the
inside were unarmed.
Radio Sawa uses phrases like, parties to the Middle East
conflict. This is a very dangerous phrase that transforms the
Zionist occupation of Palestinian lands to a broader conflict
between two neighboring countries and, by default, denies the
Arab cause and right to retain the holy shrines important to
Muslims.
This is the kind of stuff that goes on in the indigenous
press that we attempt to debunk in news reports that we put on
the air pointing out the inaccuracies of many of those things,
and I think that relates directly to your question.
Senator Hagel. It does, and I appreciate it, and it is
helpful to give us, as I said earlier, some definition of what
generally you were referring to.
Secretary Beers, may I ask you a question? Before I do, let
me express my gratitude to you and to your team as well for the
work you are doing. You said something to the effect, and I
guess you asked it in a rhetorical question type way, what
about those under 20. I think that is the essence of everything
we are about, or should be about.
The military option is but one part of this war, an
important one, but only one part of it. Where you are focused
and concentrated is absolutely critical for the future of this
country, the future of the world, and I do not think I
overstate that, and I am a strong supporter of what you are
doing here.
Something else you talked about, common denominator values,
love of family and faith, we need to do a far better job of
connecting that, and that is what you of course are doing, and
Norm and others, and we will work, as the chairman said here,
to provide the kind of resources you need, but you should know
that you have a lot of support up here, and that we need to go
much further and deeper and wider than we ever have here.
We are losing a war across the globe that we need not lose,
we should not lose it, and I think of Iran and the great debate
we are having in some of these areas among my colleagues up
here. I mean, here is a country of 70 million people where most
of those people were born after 1979. Now, why would we
needlessly push away an entire generation by a foolish policy,
and that is why we look to you and the educational gap and the
cultural and information gap that you are trying to fill, and
through what Norm is doing and his team, it works.
So I make that statement because I suspect occasionally you
both wonder if anybody is paying attention. We are paying
attention, and we are grateful for what you are doing.
Now, let me ask a question. You mentioned in your
testimony, Madam Secretary, the point about working with the
private sector, and by the way, I think we are all pleased that
we are finally being able to bring together the talent from the
private sector and the governmental sector, the State
Department, other professionals who have been at this, along
with some creative touch that the private sector brings, not
that the government does not, but it is a waste of resources
when we do not do that, and this is a very good example of how
we are doing that, and we are doing it very well and in the
interests of this country.
But your point about--you say we are also working to engage
the private sector. Could you give us some examples how you are
doing that?
Ms. Beers. Yes. I think that what is important is that none
of this effort at the moment is funded in terms of people ask,
well, if they are going to do it, why do we have to have any
funding. Because of the sheer machinery of making contacts,
building teams, organizing dialog, making sure that the
affinity for the embassy and for the work that happens in the
field is in sync, and it is complex, but the good news is, I am
often asked to give speeches, and I choose those that have a
large number of CEO's in the room. I grew up with a lot of
these people, and the basic response back is, guide us, we will
do this, and as you spend more time with the multinational
heads they tell you about the number of invitations or requests
they have, so part of what we have to do is coordinate our
efforts, which I think you have asked us about in the past.
The other thing we have to do is guide them somewhat by
giving them the kind of information you have been asking us
about, which is, why do they feel this way, and also what are
the universal values that we can safely discuss. For instance,
somebody used the word, freedom, but that is one of the loaded
words in terms of communicating with the Middle East and the
Muslim population, so we have to tap into our sophistication in
our bureaus, and then guide the outside world, the CEO and the
multinationals.
But what is encouraging is, I had a meeting with, the head
of Johnson & Johnson who said, we have 4,000 people in the
Middle East. What shall we ask them to do? And Procter & Gamble
and Unilever and these companies make a point of hiring locals,
and they talk all the time about how their locals would ask to
take part.
Now, it is delicate, because you cannot send them out as
missionaries, or ask them to be speakers on the road, but you
can equip them with, say, a wonderful discourse on the music of
the United States. You can show them--we can provide them with
materials and cultural insights, and speakers if they choose to
activate them, but the point is, they are the ones that have
the resources to take on the huge job of the very young, and
that has a lot to do with education and curriculum, and the
things the State Department and many other agencies are working
on, but they have employees and depth, and great understanding
and daily dialog, and I think we have to harness those assets.
Senator Hagel. Well, thank you again. Mr. Chairman, thank
you.
The Chairman. I have many more questions of both of you.
This has been, and I am sure will continue to be, one of the
best hearings we have had in a long while. I think the point
that Senator Hagel makes, particularly to you, Secretary Beers,
you have a lot of friends up here. You are going to have the
problem of us trying to give you more resources, and maybe your
outfit will not say, we should give you those resources.
Ms. Beers. I have noticed that problem.
The Chairman. But all kidding aside, and we have great
respect for you, you come from the private sector, and you come
from a high-powered portion of the private sector, and it has
been an asset, and we appreciate it.
I also want the record to show that you oversee a lot more
than just what we have talked about here today. There are many
other aspects of your responsibility, including a quarter-
billion a year in direct appropriations for the Exchange
Bureau, including another $150 million for the SEED Act and a
lot of other things we are spending money on that I want to ask
you about, but I am going to submit the questions to you in
writing.
I am not doing this cavalierly. I would very much like some
detailed answers to these questions, because part of the
legislation, for example, that Senator Lugar has with Senator
Kennedy, and I support the notion, is this issue of, do we
vastly increase our exchange programs with this area of the
world? We necessarily and successfully for 50 years made a
significant investment in Eastern Europe and Russia, and Europe
generally, and I would argue it paid off.
Dick and Chuck and I travel the world in our
responsibilities. Dick and I have been chairman or the
subcommittee chairman of Europe for years and years. I bet you
70 percent of the people who are heads of state now, or people
in positions of significant authority are people who have been
educated here in the United States of America.
Ms. Beers. One hundred fifty percent of the Worldwide
Coalition were all exchange students, and the number is much
higher if you just take down their second-level people, but one
of the things that was fascinating was the Freedom Support Act,
and the fact that I can go there and look at the capacity of
the public diplomacy when it was in a high support system, and
the results are very impressive, and you can walk into a town
in a new emerging democracy and find an information center, a
library, a dialog going.
The Chairman. There was a fellow named John Ritch who used
to be assistant staff director up here. I get credit for having
written the so-called SEED Act, which was followed by the
Freedom Support Act. It was John Ritch's idea, and that was the
biggest thing Dick and I fought for those centers, just having
the physical capability of somebody being able to walk in.
It is kind of like what is happening now in every major
corporation. They are building chat rooms--for example, there
is ING, which is a large banking system. I met with them in
Delaware yesterday. They are building these chat rooms. The
chat rooms are not really chat rooms. What they do is, they
have coffee shops with the high-speed computers there where you
can do banking online with them and other things while you are
sitting there having a cup of coffee.
Well, these are very important things, and I just want you
to know, we know, and the public should know, your portfolio
far extends beyond what we are talking about now, and I have a
series of questions, about a dozen, that relate to that aspect
of your portfolio. I do not want you to think because we are
not getting to them, it is not because they have an equal
interest and consequence here.
I would also point out, and I do not say this cavalierly,
and I do not say this because he is a personal friend, but Tom
Korologos has been involved in this for a long, long time, and
had we the time I would ask Tom to come up, but we have a long
list of witnesses to go here. Tom is one of the leading
Republicans in this town, and has been for years and years.
This is not a partisan thing.
My former AA of 25 years and Tom, a guy named Ted Kauffman
and Tom have been friends for years. They both serve on the
Board. This is something that spans, and everyone should know
this, that spans the ideological divide, as we will sure see in
a moment with Speaker Gingrich, who is incredibly articulate on
this subject.
So I just want you to know that I think it matters a lot.
We have a tendency to say, this is a historic hearing, and this
is--you know, we are self-important, but the truth is, I think
this is one of the most important hearings that we have had in
a long time here, and I want to particularly thank you, Norm,
for doing what we have a tendency in government not to do very
well.
I always say to my staff, you have got to tell a story. You
have got to tell a story to the people back home. You cannot
just give them all the facts. You have got to tell a true
story, and I know you and I met for a long time over lunch, and
you kind of looked at me quizzically when I said, come and tell
a story, play the disk, connect the dots, a phrase that is
becoming very popular here, but what you did today to anybody
listening to this is, they now picture it. They now understand
what they mean.
I do not have to say now to everybody as I push this, you
know, when you fly across the country and you put on the head
set and you listen to preprogrammed music, well, that is a guy
named Pattiz, and what does he do? He does things like, play
the music you like, and interview the artist, and the artists
tell their story, and you get into this whole thing. I said,
that is programming. That is what these guys and women are
doing now on a much broader scale, and people would look at me
and say, I think I got it.
But by playing that 3\1/2\ minute CD, you cut through
here--in my view you cut through a layer of confusion, a fog
that now, when I go home and say, look, I want to spend more
money on this--I introduced a bill that would have given you
guys, and you helped write it, about $\1/4\ billion dollars in
terms of being able to--for hard asset, and another $\1/4\
billion a year to make it run.
The President was enamored with it, and I guess at the last
minute he concluded that maybe we should go slower, and I am
not being critical. But the point is, we have got to make the
public understand. This is a two-way communication. We have got
to explain to our folks back home why we are asking their very
hard-earned tax dollars to be spent on a radio station or a
television station or an exchange program with 1.2 billion,
hopefully, eventually, now much less, just focusing on the Arab
portion of the Muslim world.
So I cannot thank you enough, and we are going to be
calling you back. Obviously, Charlotte, you will be back a lot.
You are a critical component here, but we are going to ask you
and the Board to come back. I have questions to you as well, in
writing, on the relationship--and it is not meant to be
pejorative, but the relationship between the Board as Senator
Helms and I and Senator Lugar and others envisioned it when we
did this reorganization and the State Department. How is that
working? But really and truly, what do we do to make it better
or worse? How can we help?
The last point I want to make, I want the record to show
that notwithstanding what my 21-year-old daughter might think,
I do not want to go down as a footnote in the history of this
committee as being the first chairman to bring rock and roll to
the Foreign Relations Committee. I hope I will be known for
something beyond that, but I cannot think of a time I walked
out, one of the people outside said, I have never heard rock
and roll or Britney Spears played in the Foreign Relations
Committee room, so I think it is a first.
We appreciate it very much. We look forward to having you
back. Thank you for great work, and we are going to be trying
to see if we can--that old bad joke, we are from the Federal
Government, we are here to help. We are going to try to see
that you have the assets and resources that you need. Thank you
very, very much.
Mr. Pattiz. Thank you.
Ms. Beers. Thank you.
The Chairman. Our next panel is the former Ambassador to
Morocco, and executive director and CEO of Northstar Equity
Group, Hon. Marc Ginsberg, the former Speaker of the House,
Newt Gingrich, Mr. David Hoffman, president of Internews from
Arcata, California, and Veton Surroi, a very distinguished
journalist from Pristina, Kosovo, so we would ask all of those
to come forward if they can make it up here, and thank them for
their patience.
Welcome. It is good to see you Mr. Surroi. Last time I met
with you we were in a different circumstance.
Let me suggest, notwithstanding the fact that a former
Ambassador is of higher rank, where I come from no one outranks
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, so we are going to
start, with all due respect to the rest of the panel, with
former Speaker Gingrich. Mr. Speaker.
STATEMENT OF HON. NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES; SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Gingrich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you and Senator Lugar for holding a hearing on what I
think is in some ways one of the two or three most important
topics about America's role in the world and America's
survival. I think this is really important. I thought the first
two panelists you had were tremendous, and did a very good job
in explaining the initial steps that the Bush administration
has taken, and I commend you for encouraging further steps.
If I could try to summarize fairly quickly, as you well
know we live in an information age, and from television to the
Internet to radio and other mechanisms of public information,
are actually decisive in shaping public opinion and informing
the public, and as societies grow freer, the impact of public
opinion grows more important. I think traditional state to
state diplomacy was the key to the agrarian and industrial
ages, but it is clearly inadequate in the information age.
If we in the United States cannot communicate with the
people of countries we care about, we cannot sustain
government-to-government relations. When a people turn
decisively against America, their government will be
increasingly at risk if it does not acknowledge the views of
their people. Thus, for example, in the 1981-1982 fight in
Europe over matching the Soviet Union by fielding mobile
missiles, there had to be a very strong public information
campaign that sustained the diplomatic initiatives at the
government level.
When we are faced with an organized, ruthless minority that
is gaining ground through dishonest propaganda and through
violence, we have to both meet its security challenge and its
information challenge. In the late 1940s, a significant
American education and information campaign in France, Italy,
Greece, and other countries played a major role in the survival
of freedom and the defeat of Communist tyranny.
When we win militarily, we also have to be prepared to win
culturally, educationally, informationally, and economically.
People everywhere want to be safe, healthy, prosperous, and
free. To the degree they see America as their ally in that
quest, they will be strongly in favor of allying with America.
We have to have fulfillment campaigns in Afghanistan and other
countries after we defeat the extremist wing of Islam.
One of my strongest messages in the Pentagon has been,
forget exit strategies. They do not exist. They are nonsense.
They are not going to happen. Instead, think about fulfillment
strategies that enable governments like that headed by Mr.
Karzai to create safety, which is the precursor to health,
prosperity, and freedom, but I recognize that we care about all
four.
Let me also emphasize, we have been successful at doing
this. Germany, Italy and Japan after World War II became
profoundly different countries. South Korea after the Korean
war was nurtured for many, many years by the United States from
an authoritarian and to a dramatically open and democratic
society. If we apply the same techniques and the same
investment of capital, values, and education we can succeed
again today.
This requires a five-pronged continuing American effort
against extremist Islam, against those Islamic dictators who
would acquire weapons of mass destruction, against disorder and
barbarism, and genocide, and in favor of health, safety,
prosperity, and freedom for all people, and I want to emphasize
I think it is a mistake to not be clear that there is an
extremist fanatic faction of Islam which is prepared to impose
tyranny on its own people and is prepared to kill others, and
unless you are willing to confront this and win this argument,
it is very hard to distinguished all of the decent, honorable,
hard-working people in Islam, many millions of whom, 6 million
of whom now live in America, and live full lives pursuing
freedom and happiness within a religious framework which also
recognizes the rights of others.
I think there are five stages. First, that where necessary
the United States and its allies have to be the guarantor of
physical safety against the terrorists, the murderers, and the
committers of genocide. This is particularly a challenge, I
think, in the Israeli-Palestinian situation, but it is a
challenge anywhere, that you have a totalitarian regime or a
terrorist movement that will kill those who seek moderation and
who seek freedom.
Second, having established safety, the United States and
its allies have to implement strategies of wealth creation
based on private property rights, the rule of law, and a
rewarded work ethic. That is, if you go to work, you end up
being rewarded for it. Information age technological
infrastructure, for example, mobile phones and the Internet,
modern systems of health and health care, and the culture of
freedom and self-government.
I want to emphasize, this is only partially a resource
issue. I hope this committee will look carefully at how AID is
structured, will look carefully at the World Bank and at the
IMF. The fact is, if you took all the money spent over the last
40 years on the poor parts of the world, you have to raise the
profound question of why it has not worked, and whether that is
a question of strategies as much as it is a question of
resources. I think most of the failures of development in the
last four decades have been failures to exploit the ideas which
underpin wealth creation, and that is largely a function of
public diplomacy, or public information operations.
Third, when we are confronted with a coherent ideological
opponent such as Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism,
communism, or the extremist fanaticism wing of Islam, it is
necessary to develop a countervailing intellectual
communications effort on behalf of freedom, modernity, and
individual rights. Young people growing up have to be given the
choice between hatred, violence, and tyranny, and the
alternative of peace, opportunity, and freedom. Only a
systematic educational and public information campaign can
really give them a choice. In our current conflict, the
madrasas of extremism have to be replaced with schools that
educate young men and women into productive modern lives that
are the basis of prosperity and integration into the modern
world.
Fourth, in order to sustain these first three efforts,
there has to be a strategic public information campaign that
explains to our own people, our allies in Europe and around the
world, the nonfanatic, nonextremist elements in Islam, and
others, of our efforts, our sincerity, and our idealistic
goals. This campaign has to be run within a framework
acceptable to the White House, but the White House cannot run
it.
The single key figure, probably Secretary Beers in the
State Department, should be empowered to coordinate all
American public information operations on a daily basis,
coordinating with the White House. To the degree possible, our
allies in nongovernmental institutions, including celebrities,
should be recruited and included and involved in a broad public
information strategy and campaign.
I might note, for example, that Disney invented both a
Brazilian character and a Mexican character during the Second
World War who were very popular. These were cartoon characters
interacting with Mickey, proving that Mickey Mouse, the
American, could work with local folks. While that may seem
simple, it was a very powerful and very subtle kind of cultural
outreach that used celebrity status.
Finally, the White House has to lead the daily and public
information effort, because the President is so decisively the
primary communicator of the American system. The White House
should shape and direct the first four stages, but it should
implement only the fifth stage.
And let me commend you for this hearing, because we are
frankly unprepared to engage in the scale of a public
information campaign and the sophistication that it needs to be
to create safety in the 21st century. I commend on the other
side of the building Chairman Henry Hyde for his important
leadership in introducing and passing out of committee the
Freedom Promotion Act of 2002. I know you have a similar
initiative, which I want to commend you and hope that in the
short legislative schedule left, that it will be able to move
through the Senate and move ultimately into law.
Let me just close with this thought. The ultimate scale of
resources needed to defeat the extremist fanatic wing of Islam
will resemble the resources we used to defeat communism. The
combination of educational efforts, communications campaigns,
covert activities, economic assistance, and aggressive efforts
to communicate our view of reality were the underpinnings for
the nearly 50-year containment of Soviet communism.
Creating a stable, safe world requires a public information
capability and a public diplomacy capability far beyond
anything we have to date. I just want to suggest, Mr. Chairman,
you were much closer to right in the scale of resourcing we are
going to need, and folks ought to go back and look in constant
dollars at what we invested to save Europe in the forties and
fifties and recognize that, if we are serious about helping
those people, the overwhelming majority in the Islamic world
who want to have a better future, that we have to be prepared
to make the same scale of commitment, starting in Afghanistan,
but extending across the Islamic world. If we do, we will
succeed. If we do not, I do not care how many terrorists we
kill, the conditions will simply create new waves of terrorism.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gingrich follows:]
Prepared Statement of Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the House of
Representatives
Thank you, Mr. Chairman (Senator Biden), and thank you, Mr.
Chairman (Senator Helms) for the opportunity to appear before you
today.
As we are all aware, we live in an information age. Television, the
Internet, radio and other mechanisms of public information are decisive
in shaping pubic opinion and informing the public.
As societies grow freer the impact of public opinion grows more
important. Where state-to-state diplomacy was appropriate to the
agrarian and industrial ages, it is clearly inadequate in the
information age. If we cannot communicate with the people of countries
we care about, we cannot sustain government-to-government relations.
When a people turn decisively against us their government will be at
increasing risk if it does not acknowledge their people's views. Thus,
the 1981-82 fight in Europe over matching the Soviet Union by fielding
mobile missiles required a strong public information campaign to
sustain the diplomatic initiatives.
When we are faced with an organized ruthless minority that is
gaining ground through dishonest propaganda and through violence, we
have to both meet its security challenge and its information challenge.
In the late 1940s a significant American education and information
campaign in France, Italy, Greece and other countries played a major
role in the survival of freedom and the defeat of communist tyranny.
When we win militarily we also have to be prepared to win
culturally, educationally, informationally and economically. People
everywhere want to be safe, healthy, prosperous, and free. To the
degree they see America as their ally in that quest, they will be
strongly in favor of allying with America. We have to have fulfillment
campaigns in Afghanistan and other countries after we defeat the
extremist wing of Islam. Instead of exit strategies we have to create
fulfillment strategies that enable governments like that headed by Mr.
Karzai to create safety, health, prosperity and freedom for its
citizens.
We have been successful in the past and in Germany, Italy and Japan
after World War II, South Korea after the Korean War. If we apply the
same techniques and the same investment of capital, values and
education we can succeed again today.
This requires a five pronged continuing American effort against the
extremist fanatical wing of Islam against those Islamic dictators who
would acquire weapons of mass destruction, against disorder and
barbarism and genocide and in favor of safety, health, prosperity, and
freedom for all people.
a. Where necessary, the United States and its allies have to
be the guarantor of its physical safety against the terrorists,
the murderers, and the committers of genocide.
b. Having established safety, the United States and its
allies must implement strategies of wealth creation based on
private property rights, the rule of law, and a rewarded work
ethic, information age technological infrastructure, (e.g.
mobile phones and the internet) modern systems of health and
healthcare and the culture of freedom and self-government. This
is only partially a resource issue. Most of the failures of
development in the last four decades have been failures to
export the ideas which underpin wealth creation and that is
largely a function of public diplomacy or publicinformation
operations.
c. When confronted with a coherent ideological opponent such
as Nazism, Fascism, Japanese Militarism, Communism or the
extremist fanaticism of Islam it is necessary to develop a
countervailing intellectual communications effort on behalf of
freedom, modernity and individual rights. Young people growing
up have to be given the choice between hatred, violence and
tyranny and the alternative of peace, opportunity, and freedom.
Only a systematic educational and public information campaign
can truly give them a choice. In our current conflict, the
madrasas of extremism have to be replaced with schools that
educate young men and women into productive modern lives that
are the basis of prosperity and integration into the modern
world.
d. In order to sustain these first three efforts there has to
be a strategic public information campaign that explains to our
own people, our allies in Europe and around the world, the non-
fanatic non-extremist elements in Islamic world and others of
our efforts, our sincerity and our idealistic goals. This
campaign has to be run within a framework acceptable to the
White House but the White House cannot run it. A single key
figure, probably in the State Department, should be empowered
to coordinate all American public information operations on a
daily basis with the White House. To the degree possible our
allies, in non-governmental organizations, including
celebrities, should be recruited and included and involved in a
broad public information strategy and campaign.
e. The White House has to lead the daily public information
effort because the President is so decisively the primary
communicator of the American system. The White House should
shape and direct the first four stages but it should implement
only the fifth stage.
The United States is today unprepared to engage in a public
information campaign on the scale needed to create safety in the 21st
century. I commend Chairman Henry Hyde for his important leadership in
introducing and passing out of Committee the Freedom Promotion Act of
2002. This important initiative provides for a significant increase in
our efforts of public diplomacy. While more must be done this act is an
essential first step and I urge the Senate to join in passing something
along those lines.
The ultimate scale of resources needed to defeat the extremist
fanatic wing of Islam will resemble the resources we used to defeat
Communism. The combination of educational efforts, communications
campaigns, covert activities, economic assistance and aggressive
efforts to communicate our view of reality were the underpinnings for
the nearly 50-year containment of Soviet Communism.
Creating a stable safe world requires a public information
capability and a public diplomacy capability far beyond anything we
have developed to date. The new emerging information-age has new
requirements for tactical information on a daily basis and complex
requirements for the Internet, cell phones, satellite television, radio
and long-term educational efforts. These activities can often be
implemented by non-governmental organizations but the resourcing and
the general strategies and systems implementation require government
leadership.
The Chairman. Mr. Speaker, our usual practice is to go down
and have everyone speak, but Senator Lugar is going to have to
leave. Let me just say one thing to you. First of all, I
literally--and I am not going to make any humorous comment
about this--truly agree with everything you have said,
especially your phrase, fulfillment strategy.
If I can make an analogy, and I hope you will not be
offended by it, Senator Helms in the courageous step he took to
help us thread the needle of support for the United Nations by
dealing with our debt at the United Nations, had a dramatic
impact on the attitude and potential utility to us of the
United Nations, not in merely that it paid the debt, but that
by Senator Helms standing up, he essentially de-demonized the
notion that we would participate at all in the United Nations.
It was a gigantic, gigantic step, and I would have been
prepared to yield even more just to get him to do that, and he
did not need my convincing.
You are the single most articulate voice on the right, in
my view. I mean that sincerely, my word, and the fact that you
would use the words, fulfillment strategy, I think is the
single most significant contribution you can make, because as
you know, I think the President shares your view, but there are
many on the right and left who view it only in terms of exit
strategy.
They are not willing to--I had a debate with my very close
friend, a Democrat, and one senior Republican at the White
House on Bosnia, and the point that had to be raised was, I
said, what would we have done if you guys had prevailed in 1955
or 1960 or Senator Mansfield had prevailed in 1961 or 1962 or
1963, and withdrawn American troops from Europe. This is a
long-haul deal. Your stature, your significance, your ability
to articulate is, I think, maybe one of the greatest
contributions you can make at this moment, because until we
move, in my view, to this notion of a fulfillment strategy, we
are going to be in real trouble.
So I want you to know this forum is available to you any
time you want it. I mean this sincerely. You and I have been,
not in a personal sense but in a political sense at odds with
one another on many things over our careers, but I have great
respect for you. I am not being solicitous. I have great
respect for you, and I think the contribution you are making on
this subject is even more consequential than the contribution
that Senator Helms made relative to the United Nations, and I
just wanted to say that while Senator Lugar was here, and I
apologize to the rest of the panel for interrupting.
Mr. Gingrich. Let me just say--and as you know, I have to
leave, but I want to say to both of you, I know how many years
both of you have spent criss-crossing the world and criss-
crossing the House and Senate trying to explain the world you
have seen. We are at one of the great turning points equal to
the period 1947 to 1952, when we finally came to grips with our
role in the world. September 11--and I cannot overstate the
importance of the President's own process, I think, of thinking
this through.
September 11 said to the American people, either we are
going to learn to lead the world toward safety, prosperity,
health, and freedom, or the world will in the end tear us down
because it will not be able to stand the jealousy of thinking
that only Americans have those things. That has to be a
cultural, educational communications strategy with a military
component, not the reverse, and one of the first big tests has
to be in Afghanistan and, if I might, to just take advantage of
your very generous and, frankly, very humbling comments,
Senator Biden, I am very touched that you would say what you
did.
I believe if we could take the African initiative and
rethink it as a sub-Saharan initiative, and take Africa
seriously enough to not accept pouring money into the failed
bureaucracies, but from the ground up to design a genuine
strategy--and I would love to come back and chat with the two
of you and Senator Helms, and maybe at some point ask that we
might have a hearing on this topic conceptually, I think doing
the right things in the Islamic world and the right things in
sub-Saharan Africa, change who we are in the world, changes the
world's understanding of us, and gives our grandchildren a much
safer and freer planet to live on, and I think that is the
goal. At least now that I have two grandchildren I am more
worried about their future than mine. That is the kind of world
I would like to live in.
So I would like to extend, if I might as a private citizen,
come and visit with you all and then maybe to later consider
that prospect.
The Chairman. I guarantee you, within the next couple of
days we will set up a time. I am anxious to do that. I know
Senator Lugar has to leave, and I apologize.
Mr. Ambassador, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARC C. GINSBERG, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO
MOROCCO; CEO AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, NORTHSTAR EQUITY GROUP,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Ginsberg. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, it is a
great honor to be here. My testimony, which I will summarize,
is focusing more on the ground war rather than on the air war.
Following September 11, I undertook as a private citizen
several initiatives to help both the U.S. Government and the
private sector focus additional effort and resources to
recalibrate and improve our public diplomacy initiatives in the
Middle East. Mr. Chairman, I was raised in the Middle East and
have worked extensively in the region, and I had the privilege
of serving our country as Ambassador to Morocco, and travel
still extensively around this country and the region to explain
the history of Islam and the fight that we are up against, to
Americans as well as to others, but to rebuild our power to
persuade and to win that important war of diplomacy, and public
diplomacy in the war on terrorism, the United States has got to
understand why the Middle East sees us so differently than how
we see ourselves, and determine what resources we must mobilize
to turn the tide of anti-Americanism against us.
We can begin by opening up lines of communication that have
until now been off-limits and out-of-bounds by our diplomats.
In an article I offered in the Washington Post in October, I
proposed the creation of a new public-private sector United
States Middle East Policy Engagement Commission to promote two-
way dialog and to bring together under one roof the Nation's
leading Middle East experts.
This initiative, Mr. Chairman, led to the formation of an
ad hoc group of Middle East experts I helped convene to explore
how the private sector could support America's public diplomacy
initiatives in the region and to assess what needed to be done
to engage the private sector in this effort. This steering
committee has been working throughout the spring to focus on
three specific short-term objectives, a media exchange program,
the development of a dialog Web site, and a plan to enlist and
support entertainers respected and admired in the Arab world.
I also serve on the Council on Foreign Relations Public
Diplomacy Task Force under the chairmanship of Pete Peterson.
This task force, which includes over 60 experts, has devoted
many months of time and effort to develop a comprehensive
blueprint for improving U.S. public diplomacy, indeed, Mr.
Chairman, to revolutionize our public diplomacy functions. This
report, which will be issued shortly, will unveil many
important recommendations for reorganizing the public diplomacy
functions within the U.S. Government under a new Presidential
directive.
It is clear to those like myself who have worked
extensively in the United States and abroad that the State
Department, the White House, and our embassies all need to be
working more closely together to fix a system that is simply
not working well enough to win the war of public diplomacy in
the Middle East and beyond. Despite the integration of the USIA
into the Department of State, public diplomacy and policy
formulation are almost two ships passing in the night. The
council's report will address these issues, and I am confident,
Mr. Chairman, you will find it an extremely important
contribution to your efforts to improve America's public
diplomacy programs.
I listened very carefully to what Norm had to say about
television media efforts that he and others are planning to do.
I was recently asked to serve on the board of directors of a
new private sector initiative known as Al-Haqiqa, otherwise, in
English, ``the truth,'' an effort to develop a new U.S.-private
sector satellite television station and program content for the
Arab world.
Al-Haqiqa is currently planning, as its initial objective,
to develop American-style Arabic language news-oriented
programming to be broadcast on existing Arabic cable and
satellite systems in the Middle East. This effort has the
bipartisan support of a very distinguished group of American
leaders, and is chaired by former President George Bush. I hope
Congress will encourage the media program development efforts
of this enterprise, and for the government to proceed quickly
to make a final determination whether the U.S. Government or
the private sector will launch its own Middle East satellite or
cable broadcasting initiative, a decision that cannot afford to
be postponed much longer.
Mr. Chairman, during my tour of duty in Morocco, I tried to
undertake several unprecedented public diplomacy initiatives,
because I understood, even at the height of the Middle East
peace process, at the very moment when we began realizing that
there was hope for peace in the Middle East, we were under
verbal assault from overly opinionated journalists and
religious demagogues. They were aided by Islamic extremists and
their underground network throughout the region, and that is a
fact that we still must take into account, because that network
of hatred is still there.
Unfortunately, the more effective public diplomacy will
only mitigate this hatred. We also have to look at the policy
problems that we face in the region as well, but we surely can
do a great deal to lessen the misunderstanding and to arm our
friends in the region with the tools necessary to take on our
enemies more effectively. Our embassy undertook a series of
unprecedented public policy and diplomacy initiatives which I
explained in my testimony.
The velocity and frequency of unanswered attacks against
America from mosques to media have taken their toll,
undoubtedly, as you know, on our image, yet our public
diplomacy programs in the Middle East and our embassy resources
allocated to public diplomacy are simply not up to the
challenge. Mr. Chairman, whatever we do here in Washington,
whether it is with radio as well as with Under Secretary Beers'
office, we have got to understand that it is our diplomats and
our people in the field who are on the front line in this
ground war, and it is they who must be trained and equipped to
redress the public diplomacy imbalance, and it is they who must
be supported by battle-tested and highly mobile and mobilized
public diplomacy apparatus.
The President can offer some of the leadership that is
essential to ensure that public diplomacy is accorded its
proper role in the formulation of foreign policy, that the two
have to go hand-in-hand. Public diplomacy has got to be, Mr.
Chairman, in the take-offs and not just on the crash-landings.
In this regard, there must be better public diplomacy
coordination between Washington and its diplomats stationed
abroad.
There exists a short-circuit, Mr. Chairman, in the
illogical wiring diagram between the short-staffed Under
Secretary of Public Diplomacy and her ability to direct U.S.-
funded public diplomacy programs and to charge and to assess
what is going on in the field. Bureau public affairs officers
since the reorganization have no authority to task officers in
the field and, in turn, officers in the field are largely being
ignored.
Let me add, Mr. Chairman, that the components of an
effective public diplomacy campaign must involve all the assets
of the U.S. Government to muster and to persuade. We have a
better story to tell than we realize. It involves not only
policy communications, but reminding our audiences that we have
done a great deal to help their countries in the region. Far
too few Arabs understand the work of our Peace Corps or our
foreign assistance programs, or the magnitude of American
private generosity.
Second, our diplomats, starting with our Chief of Missions,
have to reengineer our embassies, Mr. Chairman, and I
recommended this in our Council on Foreign Relations report. I
outlined a new mission program plan that would help or
reengineer our embassies to deal more effectively with public
diplomacy programs.
The Internet era's 24-7 news cycle will require an end to
the 9-to-5 syndrome prevalent in our embassies, and our
Diplomatic Corps must be motivated to reverse long-held beliefs
about how they are to work and act with host country
governments and opinion leaders.
This, Mr. Chairman, is not what diplomats have been trained
to do. They are not trained to confront. They are not trained
to engage in dialog with peoples and groups that are not
necessarily part of the mainstream of diplomatic activity at
the top echelons of society. They are not rewarded for making
waves. They are not trained how to use media technologies and
to experiment with new ideas, and many do not believe they can
afford to be part of some political campaign centered on ideas,
and as part of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force I am
sure that you will see that some of these issues have been
addressed.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, our budget for public diplomacy is
inadequate, and our apparatus for training our diplomats has
got to be improved. Most officers, as I said, have never
received media training, and hesitate to appear on local radio
and television shows, mostly because of deficiencies in foreign
languages, and because of their inadequate training.
Throughout the Middle East, U.S. cultural centers have been
closed, consulates have been ordered shut, there is no
representation for public diplomacy, and if we have no fixed
assets on the ground, Mr. Chairman, on the front line in this
effort, how, may I ask, are we going to accomplish our
objectives?
Mr. Chairman, as a private citizen, in closing I want to
assure you that the private sector can lend a better hand to
help train our diplomats. The range of support that can be
mustered from public affairs, public relations, communications,
and media and advertising industries is staggering, and I look
forward to working with the committee and with Under Secretary
Beers and with Norm and the others to bring these resources to
bear to make this a truly effective effort in the war on
terrorism.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Ginsberg follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Marc Charles Ginsberg, Former Ambassador to
Morocco
Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify regarding the
status of U.S. public diplomacy and its role in the War on Terrorism,
particularly as it relates to our challenges in the Middle East. I want
to commend you and the Committee for examining the new challenges
facing U.S. public diplomacy programs--mindful that our public
diplomacy strategy and the level of commitment to its success by the
U.S. Government represent crucial weapons in our War on Terrorism.
Following September 11th, I volunteered to undertake several
initiatives to help both the U.S. Government and the private sector
focus additional effort and resources to recalibrate and improve our
public diplomacy initiatives in the Middle East. I was raised in the
Middle East and have worked extensively in the region. I have had the
privilege of serving as U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and continue to
address audiences throughout the Arab world as a former diplomat and as
a businessman during frequent appearances on Al Jazeera, CNN
International and Fox News Channel. I am deeply committed to the
economic and social development of the Middle East as a strategic
objective of U.S. foreign policy. And I am confident, even in the face
of the propaganda onslaught against the U.S. throughout the Middle
East, that we can turn the tide in the war of ideas, however
challenging that may seem to us right now. But to rebuild our power to
persuade and to win that important front in the War on Terrorism, the
United States must first understand why the Middle East sees us so
differently than how we see ourselves and determine resources must be
mobilized to turn the tide of anti-Americanism against us. We can begin
by opening up lines of communication that have until now been off
limits and out of bounds by our diplomats.
In an article I authored in the Washington Post dated October 23,
2001, I proposed the creation of a new public/private sector U.S.
Middle East Policy Engagement Commission to promote two-way dialogue
and to bring together under one roof the nation's leading Middle East
experts to serve as a resource for our public diplomacy in the Middle
East. This initiative led to the formation of an ad hoc group of Middle
East experts I helped convene with my co-chair Prof. Shibley Telhami,
in December 2001, under the auspices of Search for Common Ground and
the Woodrow Wilson Center for Strategic International Studies. We came
together to explore how the private sector could support America's
public diplomacy initiatives in the region and to assess what needed to
be done to better engage the private sector in this effort.
A Steering Committee of this ad hoc group has been meeting
throughout the Spring to develop several short term public diplomacy
initiatives including: 1) a media exchange program; 2) the development
of a ``dialogue website''; and 3) a plan to enlist the support of
entertainers respected and admired in the Arab world to participate in
public diplomacy outreach. We hope to meet shortly with Under Secretary
of State Charlotte Beers to share with her our recommendations and to
offer our expertise to help our Government achieve its objectives in
the war of ideas now being waged in the Middle East.
I also serve on the Council on Foreign Relations Public Diplomacy
Task Force under the Chairmanship of Peter Peterson. This Task Force,
which includes over 60 experts, has devoted months of time and effort
to develop a comprehensive blueprint for improving U.S. public
diplomacy--indeed to revolutionize our public diplomacy functions. The
quality of the effort and the scope of the Council's Report will surely
warrant the attention of this Committee, Congress and the Executive
Branch as it considers reforms to America's public diplomacy functions
and budget. The Report will unveil many important recommendations for
reorganizing the public diplomacy functions within the U.S. Government
under a new Presidential Directive. It is clear to those like myself
who have worked in the State Department, the White House and at
embassies abroad that there is urgent need to fix a system that is
simply not working well enough to meet the challenges of a new war.
Despite the integration of USIA into the Department of State,
public diplomacy and policy formulation are almost two ships passing in
the night. The Council's Report directly addresses this challenge and
explores new ways to improve the coordination of foreign policy
formulation and public diplomacy functions in Washington and in our
missions abroad. The Report will also propose a new way to budget
public diplomacy programs, recommend new training programs and opinion
research skills for public diplomacy professionals, and outline new
programmatic initiatives that would greatly expand exchanges. It will
also recommend the creation of a new entity to encourage universities,
foundations and NGOs to make public diplomacy a central priority.
I am confident you and the Committee will find it an
extraordinarily important contribution to your efforts to improve
America's public diplomacy programs.
I also serve on the Board of Directors of a new private sector
initiative known as Al-Haqiqa (the Truth)--an effort to develop a U.S.
private sector satellite television station and program content for the
Arab world, which has been launched by one of America's distinguished
former diplomats Ambassador Richard Fairbanks, a Special Middle East
Negotiator under President Reagan. Al-Haqiqa is currently planning as
its initial objective to develop Americanstyle Arabic language news-
oriented programming to be broadcast on existing Arabic cable and
satellite systems in the Middle East. This effort has the bi-partisan
support for a very distinguished group of American leaders and
statesmen, including former President George Bush, James Baker, Sandy
Berger, Lee Hamilton, George Shultz and Richard Allen, just to name a
few. But any American effort to compete with Al Jazeera and other Arab
media will require private sector resources and talent to develop
content programming. I hope Congress will encourage the media program
development efforts of Al-Haqiqa pending a final determination whether
the U.S. Government itself intends to launch its own Middle East
satellite or cable broadcasting initiative--a decision that cannot
afford to be postponed much longer.
During my tour of duty in Morocco--a country which by all accounts
is a truly great friend of America, I recall that at the most favorable
junction in the Middle East Peace Process, America, its policies, and
its leaders were nevertheless under verbal assault from overly
opinionated journalists and religious haters, cynics and doubters. They
found it spiritually and materially rewarding and politically correct
to run roughshod over the truth about America. They were aided by the
Islamic extremists and their underground network next door in Algeria
whose government was waging an important struggle against Islamic
extremism largely out of sight of America. Why the anger and
disillusionment seemed to surface at such a moment of promise is
subject to much debate. Certainly, our foreign policies both in the
Middle East and around the world contributed to this resentment--a fact
that must be taken into account if we are to develop adequate public
diplomacy initiatives in the region. Unfortunately, more effective
public diplomacy will not completely reverse the resentment and
mistrust of America that have taken root in the Middle East without
changes in our policies. But we surely can do a great deal to lessen
the misunderstanding, and arm our friends in the region with the tools
necessary to take on our enemies more effectively than we can do alone.
Indeed, under the rubric that ``no good deed shall go unpunished''
every fault facing the region is being laid at our doorstep even though
we have done so much to greatly improve the lives of ordinary citizens
from Casablanca to Cairo and beyond. Too many Islamic clerics have a
favorite anti-American sermon--each one more diabolical and disturbing
than the one preceding it. They do not make great bedtime reading. Too
many journalists (many of whom are on the payrolls of governments which
are recipients of American taxpayer assistance) lavish derision on our
motives and our culture. We could do nothing right then and certainly
that attitude has worsened in recent months. It was clear to me then as
it is so clear to me now that something had to be done to take on this
growing deluge of criticism and hatred.
Without any need for direction from Washington our embassy
undertook a series of unprecedented public diplomacy initiatives to
open up lines of communication with journalists, Islamic clerics and
university faculty and students--in other words the opinion elites in
the Middle East. These encounters were at times difficult and
emotional. I recall once when I took New York Times columnist Tom
Friedman into one of these sessions he told me afterwards that he felt
he had just attended a 60s version of an Arab League meeting. I urged
my colleagues in other posts to do the same and an informal network of
ambassadorial exchanges soon commenced in order to begin sharing
information about the challenges we were facing--not an easy task since
most embassies are not on the receiving end of other embassy cable
traffic back to Washington.
The velocity and frequency of unanswered attacks against America
and Americans from mosques to media have taken their toll on our image
in the region and has helped fuel anger and resentment that is directly
responsible for the success of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. If
we are to turn the tide in the War on Terror, we ignore this cascade of
hatred at our peril. Yet, our public diplomacy programs in the Middle
East and our embassy resources allocated to public diplomacy are simply
not up to the challenge ahead of us.
Whatever we do in Washington to reverse the tide we must understand
that our diplomats are on the frontline in this war of words and it is
they who need to be trained and equipped to redress the public
diplomacy imbalance. And it is they who must be supported by a battle-
tested and highly mobile and mobilized public diplomacy apparatus in
the U.S. Government that is not consumed by traditional bureaucratic
inertia and shopworn artificial distinctions between public diplomacy
and hard-core policy formulation.
What can be done?
First, Presidential leadership is essential to ensure that public
diplomacy is accorded its proper role in the policy formulation and
implementation process--preferably within the White House under the
National Security Council--that would establish a public diplomacy
component as well as serve as a coordinating structure that links all
of the policy and public diplomacy components of the government. A
Presidential Determination should make clear that public diplomacy is a
strategic component of U.S. foreign policy and that it represents a
crucial component of our diplomats' duties and responsibilities that
can no longer be marginalized. To be effective, public diplomacy must
be in on the ``take offs'' and not just the ``crash landings'' and
there must be a process in place to regularly assess its effectiveness
and to shift priorities and resources as needed.
In this regard, there must be better public diplomacy coordination
between Washington and its diplomats stationed abroad. For example, it
is clear that there exists a shortcircuit in the illogical wiring
diagram between the short-staffed Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy
and its ability to direct U.S. funded public diplomacy programs and the
public affairs officers operating in our posts abroad. Bureau public
affairs officers have no authority to task public affairs officers in
the field. In turn, officers in the field are being ignored because
their reporting is not integrated into a process that can swiftly act
on the advice they are sending in from the field. In fact, they do not
even report to the Under Secretary of Public Affairs, but to the
regional assistant secretaries. It makes absolutely no sense to see
public diplomacy on the periphery of policy development--almost as an
afterthought to those who think that mainstream policy formulation can
somehow be undertaken without a plan to ensure its receptivity.
I had hoped that the integration of USIA into the Department of
State would herald a closer relationship between public diplomacy and
the development and execution of foreign policy. I am afraid that this
has not been the case. We are going to have to redefine the role of
U.S. public diplomacy such that it is an integral part of policy
formulation from its very inception and launch--rather than an
afterthought relegated to non-mainstream diplomats.
Mr. Chairman, let me add that the components of an effective public
diplomacy campaign should involve all assets that the U.S. Government
can muster to persuade and influence. We do have a great story to tell.
It involves not only policy and communications, but reminding our
targeted audiences of the efforts Americans have made to help their
countries. Far too few Arabs know of the wonderful work of our Peace
Corps operating in their countries. Far too few know how much foreign
assistance has been given to help their nations. Far too few appreciate
the magnitude of American private generosity through non-governmental
organizations and charities that operate in their countries.
Second, U.S. diplomats, starting with Chiefs of Mission and the
Deputy Chiefs of Mission must be mandated through each embassy's
``Mission Program Plan'' or ``MPP'' and promotion precepts to integrate
public diplomacy functions into each MPP. The Internet era's ``24/7''
news cycle will require an end to the ``9-5'' syndrome prevalent at our
embassies so that we can better and more rapidly respond to the media
attacks on us. Until September 11, public diplomacy duties had been
largely relegated to press attaches who are not fully integrated into
the embassy's political operations. Our diplomatic corps must be
motivated to reverse long held beliefs about how they are to work and
act with host country governments and opinion leaders and penalized if
they resist. They will have to be better sensitized to the fact that no
matter how justified a particular foreign policy may be to us, without
an effective complimentary public diplomacy program all of that hard
policy work may ultimately fail.
This is not what diplomats are trained to do. They are not trained
to confront and to open dialogue with peoples and groups that are not
necessarily part of the mainstream of diplomatic activity or at the top
echelons of society. They are not rewarded for making waves with host
governments or detractors. They are not trained how to use media
technologies or to experiment with new ideas. They do not believe they
can afford to be part of a ``political campaign'' centered on ideas.
Yet, opening up channels of communication with our detractors is more
important than ever before.
As part of my work for the Council on Foreign Relations Public
Diplomacy Task Force I drafted a model Mission Program Plan for Public
Diplomacy and I am hopeful that it will be integrated into the
Council's Report. This draft model would require each Ambassador to
establish a mission Public Diplomacy Task Force, chaired by either the
Ambassador or his Deputy Chief of Mission, which would be responsible
for and coordinate all agency public diplomacy initiatives and spell
out mandated public diplomacy functions for each embassy's officer,
including officers from other agencies. The MPP would also compel each
embassy to provide the Department and the White House feedback and
analysis on the effectiveness of public diplomacy programs. Additional
budget resources will need to be increased to meet program objectives
including funding for new media streaming fees to local media outlets,
new website improvements and exchange and outreach initiatives. This
will require Ambassadors to:
Complete an assessment of what key policy and message
elements need to be promoted to different audiences in a host
country.
Assess how best to mobilize Post resources to accomplish key
public diplomacy objectives.
Determine ways to measure the impact and capacity of his or
her team to recalibrate public diplomacy initiatives.
Identify, by priority order, key public opinion targets and
determine whether Department or private sector resources are
needed to reach these targets.
Determine how the embassy can best help the White House
facilitate public diplomacy considerations into policies that
affect policy to the host country.
Third, our budget for public diplomacy is inadequate and our
apparatus for training our diplomats in public diplomacy is virtually
non-existent. Other than Public Affairs Officers, most officers have
never received media training and often hesitate to appear on local
radio and television shows, mostly because of local language
deficiencies and inadequate training. Throughout the Middle East, U.S.
cultural and cultural centers have been closed. Consulates have been
ordered shut. There is no representation budget for public diplomacy.
If we have fixed assets on the front line in this effort how, may I
ask, are we going to accomplish our objectives?
Our private sector can lend a hand to help better train our
diplomats at the newly named George Schultz Foreign Affairs Training
Center. The range of support that could be mustered from the public
affairs, public relations, communications, media and advertising
industries is staggering and it has indeed been offered if we can help
the U.S. Government accept these offers from the private sector. In
this regard junior, mid-level and senior officers should be required to
fulfill fundamental public diplomacy training as part of their
promotion requirements and the private sector can help train our
officers. That training could include a variety of disciplines such as
public speaking; media and opinion analysis, how to use media for
message delivery and how to integrate public diplomacy into policy
functions.
Mr. Chairman, in summary, I believe that the War on Terror compels
us to reexamine, replenish, and reform our public diplomacy functions
both in Washington and in the field. I look forward to helping this
Committee and the Congress in accomplishing this vital war objective.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Hoffman.
STATEMENT OF DAVID HOFFMAN, PRESIDENT, INTERNEWS, ARCATA, CA
Mr. Hoffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am president of
Internews, a nonprofit organization that supports open media. I
think you will agree with me that media is one of the most
important and powerful forces for social change in the world
today, and I have been in the business for 20 years, and I have
been astounded that we carry on so much of our foreign policy
without paying attention to media, so I compliment the chairman
for putting the attention on this very important issue.
Clearly, 9/11 has put this in front of us. We recognize
that terrorism has been born in societies that have very closed
media, and we are kind of astounded to see that there is such
virulent anti-American propaganda happening on state-controlled
media from governments that are our allies. The things we have
been reading are in Tom Friedman's articles, quotes from
Egyptian newspapers, or newspapers in which the editors are
appointed by President Mubarak, and this is happening across
the board, and we have to look at this.
We also are aware, as has been said today, that there is
not an infrastructure of local media where moderate voices can
answer some of the extremist Islamist propaganda that is coming
across state-controlled media. The good news is that the great
majority of Muslims around the world want a free media.
There is no better example for that, no better proof for
that than Iran, where 80 percent of the people have voted in a
relatively free election for a reformist President where the
major issue is freedom of the press. Now, they have not been
able to get that freedom of the press, but it is very clear
that in an Islamist country like Iran the people demand that,
and will eventually get that.
The concept of local media which Senator Lugar was
referring to earlier when he was asking about indigenous local
media, the concept of local broadcast media is a relatively new
phenomenon, even in Western Europe. We began U.S. Government
assistance for independent broadcast media in the former Soviet
Union around 10 years ago. In that time we have spent
approximately $250 million, no small amount, on it, but it has
been pretty much an untold story. It is one of the great
success stories in American foreign aid. I will speak just for
my own organization, Internews.
We have supported 2,000 independent broadcasters, mostly
television, some radio. Broadcasts produced or coordinated by
Internews reach over 300 million people. Most of those stations
are on 24 hours a day. In those 10 years of broadcasting we
have not received a single complaint from a U.S. Embassy or a
U.S. Government agency that any of those stations are
broadcasting anything that is considered anti-American. We have
raised the standards--I think there has been general agreement
that we have raised the journalistic standards of those
independent broadcasters. It is effective, it is working, and
it can work in the Muslim world as well, as we have proven
recently in Indonesia, I think.
There are the great examples, of course, such as the
overthrow of Milosevic and the role of B-92. Just recently one
of the stations we have supported, Rustovi-2 in Georgia,
broadcast revelations of corruption. After going through a
training program on investigative journalism they took it very
seriously and investigated the corruption of government
officials. When they broadcast that the Ministry of the
Interior sent militiamen to close down the station. They put
the cameras on live. Thousands of people took the streets, and
Shevardnadze was forced to dismiss his entire government.
There are many, many examples--as you will hear about
Kosovo, there are many examples where independent media has
played a critical role in the transformation of societies that
were previously under dictatorships to democracy.
We live in a different world. We live in a world of
proliferation of information that is coming from all sources,
including from satellites and Internet. The boundaries that
existed before are breached by this new technology every day.
We have to be able to meet that.
We put a lot of attention on Al Jazeera, and it is natural
that we would think that we should compete with Al Jazeera with
Arabic language satellite television, but I do not believe that
any amount of foreign broadcasting is going to change the sense
of powerlessness and Western domination that Arabs today feel.
The only thing that is going to change the feelings that they
have is to change their societies, to help them democratize, to
help them modernize, and the best way to do that is to support
local media. It is far more cost-effective.
We are spending $20 to $25 million a year, and we are
reaching 300 million people every single day. I think that is a
compliment to the traditional foreign broadcasting strategies
that we should look at very carefully.
Local broadcasting is always more credible than foreign
broadcasting. Tom Friedman a couple of days ago wrote, he said
that the Bush team wants to spend money on TV or advertisements
to broadcast our message in Arabic to the Arab world. Frankly,
there is no modern, progressive message we could broadcast in
Arabic that would begin to compare and influence the one that
would come from Egypt, and I would say to one that would come
from any local country, so it is not a matter of choosing
between these two. It is a matter of seeing them as
complimentary.
But in pursuing our foreign broadcasting, let me recommend,
if I can, that the greater the degree of editorial independence
you can give broadcasters the more effective they are going to
be. On the other hand, if they are fully editorially
independent, then what you are really competing with is not Al
Jazeera, you are competing with the other commercial American
broadcasters that are already out there, and so the question is
raised, to what degree is there really value added to that?
If they are not editorially independent, these foreign
broadcasts lose credibility to the extent they are seen that
way, and you should never underestimate your audience. The
people we are trying to reach have spent their lifetime being
propagandized. They are experts at it. They can tell a mile
away what is propaganda and what is good news.
Finally, I would like to say that in a lot of these
countries the State Department and our embassies have had a
kind of benign neglect about independent media, and the media
regimes in these countries. This is particularly true in Saudi
Arabia, in Egypt, and a great deal more pressure needs to come
from our State Department to demand that these countries
institute media reform. It is coming. Pakistan just completely
liberalized their broadcast media with private television and
radio just a few months ago. There is pressure from the
satellite companies for all these locals to open up their media
because otherwise they are going to lose their audience, but we
also need pressure from the State Department.
The President in Monterrey talked about conditionality and
our foreign aid in general. I think there should be specific
benchmarks that should be listed by our State Department, by
the Secretary, that would be conditions that countries would
need to meet in order to get other forms of foreign assistance.
There are moderates out there who are not getting on the
airwaves. We should support those moderate Muslim voices. They
are out there. If we build it, they will come. If we help the
Muslim world with the resources that we have given to, say, the
former Soviet Union, we will find that the attitudes of the
populations there will change very rapidly once the moderates
there are empowered.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hoffman follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Hoffman, President, Internews
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee: thank you for inviting me
to testify on the issue of independent media and public diplomacy. The
Chairman should be congratulated for consideration of US government
support for independent media, which is a relatively new phenomenon in
our foreign assistance portfolio.
Since September 11th, the United States Government has given
increased attention to the broad question of public diplomacy and the
role of information in shaping public opinion around the world. A clear
articulation of American policies and values is central to the success
of our overall foreign policy agenda. But as we seek to shape our
message to foreign audiences, we should also keep in mind the critical
role of indigenous independent media as a complement to our traditional
public diplomacy strategies. Simply put, we need to look not only at
what we say to other countries, but how other countries disseminate
information locally and how that affects their views of America.
Media is the most powerful force for social and political change in
the world today. Radio, television, print, and the Internet are
information vehicles through which citizens from every country form
their opinions of the world. And where these information vehicles are
used to propagate misinformation, misperceptions and erroneous
reporting overseas, our national security is endangered.
In many countries in the Middle East, the media remain state-
controlled or heavily influenced by the government. In some cases the
government-run media is consciously used as a safety valve to deflect
anger and frustration that arises from domestic problems. In other
cases, journalists are subjected to draconian media laws compounded by
self-censorship fueled by fear and uncertainty about the arbitrary ways
in which the laws could be applied.
Nevertheless, in several countries with predominantly young Muslim
populations like Pakistan or Indonesia, where much of ``the street''
are still susceptible to negative and hostile propaganda directed
against the United States, there are new and hopeful signs of media
liberalization and privatization.
U.S. government sponsored overseas broadcasting and traditional
public diplomacy, alone, will not reverse this growing anti-American
sentiment and inflammatory opinion that pervades the Arab and Muslim
world in particular. Although overseas broadcasting has the advantage
of being able to control the message and is vital in closed societies
that have no other access to Western news reporting, it is not a long-
term solution to the endemic repression of independent sources of local
media. Foreign broadcasts do not contribute to the building of
democratic media institutions in these countries. As long as local
media remains suppressed, democracy cannot grow. Local media is the
oxygen of democracy.
The State Department should therefore make it a high priority to
reform media law and policy in predominantly Muslim countries in order
to open their societies to a diversity of opinion and models of fact-
based journalism. For too long we have turned our heads and tolerated
government repression of local media in many of these countries as long
as their governments continued to meet our fossil fuel needs and
support our foreign policy goals. But since September we have learned
how dangerous it can be to ignore the information culture of ``the
street.'' The State Department should be encouraged to make the
establishment and growth of free and independent media in countries
with predominantly Muslim populations a priority for U.S. foreign
policy and assistance strategies in the region. In line with the
President's statement in Monterrey, Mexico about the conditionality of
American aid tied to improvements in human rights and democracy, the
Secretary of State should establish benchmarks for acceptable standards
of freedom of expression and the rights of independent media.
To help countries achieve open media, we must provide legal advice
and assistance, journalistic training in ethics and reporting, help to
media owners and managers in the financing and management of
independent media companies. We need to provide funding for equipment,
production and programming that will help independent media outlets
compete with state-run media. And we must provide this training, not
directly from the U.S. government, but through qualified non-profit
organizations that have proven track records and credibility in the
region.
This last point is a sensitive issue but extremely important.
America has always been the leader in the development of independent,
nongovernmental media. Non-governmental, commercial broadcasting is
still a relatively new phenomenon in the world, even in Western Europe.
But the world is rapidly recognizing the vitality and importance of
nongovernmental electronic media. As we provide assistance to
independent media in countries transitioning to democracy, we must be
especially careful to respect the editorial independence of the
recipients. This is the point at which traditional public diplomacy
must give pause and have faith in the play of democracy and the free
press, which have made our own country strong.
Providing resources and expertise to local independent media
through qualified American non-profit media organizations has
successfully addressed the dilemma of government assistance to non-
governmental media. There is always some risk that independent media
companies, which are recipients of US government assistance, will
broadcast news reports that are hostile to America. But it is
interesting to note that after a decade of support to more than two
thousand independent broadcasters, Internews has received virtually no
complaints from any US Embassies or government agencies about any anti-
American reports on these channels. On the contrary, our training
programs and support have been universally acclaimed to have raised
professional standards and contributed to a far greater degree of
objective, fact-based reporting from these stations.
It is an approach that has worked successfully in the past
throughout the former Soviet Union, in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo,
Indonesia and East Timor. When Congress, in its wisdom, began to give
modest amounts of foreign aid to independent media in the former Soviet
Union, the results were astonishing in the speed and effectiveness with
which a multiplicity of voices emerged. At least 2000 independent
broadcasters and 30,000 journalists and media professionals have
benefited from U.S. sponsored training and technical assistance
programs in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. U.S.-assisted
independent media played a critical role in overthrowing the
dictatorship of President Slobodan Milosivic in Yugoslavia, and
recently in exposing corruption in the Republic of Georgia. In
Indonesia, US funds supported the first radio program for women in a
Muslim country where it quickly became the most popular show in the
country. In all these cases, US support for indigenous local media
succeeded in creating a culture of Western-style news reporting that
goes beyond packaging America's story.
And the results of supporting open and independent media are
concrete and measurable. According to the World Bank's ``World
Development Report 2002,'' countries with privately owned, local,
independent media outlets had less corruption, more transparent
economies, and higher indices of education and health. A free press
facilitates multiparty elections, freedom of expression, transparency
of both government and business, improved human rights, and better
treatment for women and disenfranchised minorities.
None of this is to suggest that there is not a role and an
important need for traditional public diplomacy, especially the
cultural exchange programs, which give foreign nationals a first-hand
experience of America, something no media program can ever match.
Overseas broadcasting can be a lifeline to people who live in totally
closed societies. U.S. governmental programs like Radio Sawa, which
provides young people with Western and Arabic news and music through
the Middle East Radio Network appear to be gaining audience and should
continue.
But before spending vast sums of money on an expensive satellite
television network for the Islamic world in order to beam our messages
directly into these societies, we should question whether it is far
more cost-effective to expend resources on developing local media.
Given the limits on resources for overseas media, I would encourage us
to focus on individual countries like Egypt, Pakistan and others where
we can significantly alter the local media landscape through media
assistance and training. It is unlikely that a U.S. government produced
satellite channel can outperform American and European commercial news
and entertainment media companies, which already are competing for
these audiences. Rather than devote enormous resources to expensive
technological satellite equipment, we should be examining media law and
regulatory reform which are essential ingredients in the creation of an
``enabling environment,'' in which independent media can compete fairly
with state-run media.
In the end, limits on freedom of the media will hinder even the
most vigorous and sustained public diplomacy campaign. Populations
lacking access to free and open media and a plurality of news sources
are susceptible to negative and hostile propaganda directed against the
United States. Support for terrorism is greatest in countries where the
public has little access to outside information or free and independent
news media. Free and independent media will not automatically guarantee
moderation, but it does open new space for moderate voices that can
combat anti-Western propaganda.
And so it is in the national interests of the United States to
support the growth of free and open media around the world as an
extension of our public diplomacy work. In the final analysis support
for free and vibrant local media are the best investment we can make in
building a safe, secure and democratic world. I have no doubt that the
extension of American values of pluralism, tolerance and freedom of
expression will follow from this investment in local, independent open
media.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Our last witness, who
probably is the single most appropriate witness we could have
after that, is Veton Surroi, who is one of those people we are
talking about. Are we kidding ourselves, Veton? Are we playing
a game here, or are we really able to impact positively and
truthfully on what is going on around the world, and the
attitude toward us? The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF VETON SURROI, CHAIRMAN, KOHA MEDIA GROUP,
PRISTINA, KOSOVO
Mr. Surroi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let us just judge from
what happened 9 months ago on this date. While the United
States was being attacked, I was sitting in my office saying in
despair, what can I do, and so I wrote an editorial and I said,
let us go out to the streets tomorrow at the same time as we
used to do in the Milosevic times, and let us protest against
this attack, and let us also express some solidarity about it.
Well, on September 12 at 3 p.m. you had hundreds of thousands
of Kosovars in all of our cities protesting against terrorism
and expressing solidarity with America.
Now, of course, this happens not only because of an
editorial, we all know that. It happens because Kosovo is
probably the most pro-American place in Europe today and is
obviously thankful for a very diligent U.S. policy to which you
have personally contributed as well for many years, but it
happens because in our society, media have a role of civil
society, and media can mobilize positively--they can mobilize
negatively, but certainly positively, and they can mobilize for
the right cause.
Now, how did that happen? That credibility was built over
years, because that is paper, and the other media outlets were
built in times of repression, so the media actually became--the
newspaper, the editorial became a symbol of resistance against
an oppressive society, against Milosevic, and therefore its
credibility was actually one of participating in liberation.
This is a contribution, certainly, which could not have
existed, these conditions, without a concerted effort, a
contribution from the international community, from the United
States, from the European donors, and from private donors, and
all of this, of course, with a clear view in having a self-
sustained media after a period of time.
Now, for me, it is rather challenging to find some
parallels, not because Kosovo is a majority Muslim background,
because the Kosovars are basically identified as Albanians in
their majority, and not with their religious background, but it
is challenging in a sense to find parallels between what we
have gone through and what the Muslim societies in the Arab
world are going through right now, and the question is actually
first of all the extremism of an ideology.
Milosevic misused ethnicity and brought his people to that
position, and the Taliban and al-Qaeda are misusing Islam and
bringing their own people and the societies surrounding them to
destruction, so we are dealing with the extreme forms, or
manifestations of these totalitarian ideologies, which
unfortunately have to be fought by force. But underneath those
ideologies are a vast group of people and many regimes who are
actually, to a certain extent, by being closed are contributing
to the extremism.
So what we are talking about now, today, I think, is about
opening of closed societies in the Muslim world. It is a more
challenging task, I think, than simply broadcasting a message
here and there about what the American position is. It is about
opening those societies, opening those regimes, and it is not
about opening a dictatorial regime. It is not about opening
Iraq, because we cannot do it at this stage with these means,
but it is about opening those societies where America has a
leverage, about opening those societies that consider
themselves American allies, but nevertheless do not allow
freedom of expression the way we know, and I am glad to say we
know it, we the Americans and the Kosovars do. What a day.
So it is about free reformed societies, and you ask, how do
you act in those societies? Well, our experience is the
following. First of all, you get effective dissemination of
information, and certainly what we have heard today about the
radio stations, and that Radio Sawa will help in many of these
societies. Nevertheless, what is certainly more needed, and
this has been our experience with VOA and BBC, is the more
local input into these organizations, the better, the more
local stringers, the better.
The second, and I think of utmost importance, is
amplification of indigenous voices. You cannot have a
successful campaign of opening societies if local papers, local
stations do not do that, and it is certainly not about
projecting this media and international network. It is the
importance of the local newspaper that can do that.
Now, the local newspaper cannot do it unless it is also
being supported in terms of newsprint, or in terms of a
printing press, or in terms of setting up a distribution
system. A local journalist is being confronted with an
authoritarian system, and that authoritarian system controls
airwaves, frequencies, printing presses, ways of import of news
print. It also controls the ways of distribution of the
newspapers. It is a rather ample fight, but once you start
fighting it, you see the satisfaction of winning, actually,
that war.
There is no other way in which these independent media can
be developed in that region without direct support. It is not a
question of only supporting it politically. It is a question of
supporting it also financially. Certainly it is about, as you
said, drawing up also forms of conditionality that will protect
the journalist. There are many courageous people everywhere in
every authoritarian society, but those courageous people will
amplify, there will be more of them only if a powerful country
like the United States actually starts protecting, the
journalist actually starts telling the closed regimes, or semi-
closed regimes that they cannot go on arresting journalists.
Now, we have to be, of course, inventive in that support,
and we have to use all the technologies. You have in many
countries inventive people. Serbia was a good example. Radio B-
92 was a very good example. The downfall of Milosevic could not
have happened in that fashion if B-92, a very courageous
station, had not continued, despite being closed, trying to
broadcast on the Internet, trying to do it on the satellite and
get news out.
The fourth and, I think, critical point that is being
debated as I have seen it in parts of this society here in the
United States is whether the support to the independent media
will actually create more extremist voices in the region. Now,
I think the debate is false in the sense of, if you support the
media you will simply find many pro-American media in that
region. I think you should not expect that.
The independent media in the Balkans in our region, in our
crisis were sometimes critical. We are the most pro-American
society in the region. We were critical of the U.S. policy on
Bosnia, on inactivity on Bosnia. We were critical for what we
saw were flaws in U.S. policy, but we nevertheless considered
that only an open and critical media can also deliver on its
credibility on the one hand, and on the other hand, only a
critical and open debate--a critical and open debate is
possible only with friends.
The Chairman. And the virtue of being correct, I would
remind you.
Mr. Surroi. I do not think anybody should be afraid of
support of a media that will be critical of the United States.
It is not a question of whether it is critical or not critical.
The real debate is between the existing media that created
conspiracy theory that this whole thing of the United States is
a Zionist, a Vatican and what-have-you conspiracy against
Islam, which we used to hear from Milosevic all the time. That
is not the point. The point is actually to bring them to a
rational debate, and see what the pros and cons of each and
every policy.
The end result actually ought to be, the ideal end result
would be a paper in Amman or in Cairo or somewhere that
publishes the pros and cons of America's position, that gets
Senator Biden to write about this or that segment of the
policy, and has an intellectual debate with somebody else on
the other side who will say, well, we need--this or that
problem.
And the fifth is the question of opening the debate within
the society. The media in the Arab world I think in this pre-
reform state of the Arab world will play an important role in
creating a debating space in the society. When you do not have
a functioning parliament the way the Western world knows it,
when you do not have a public control over expenditures, when
you do not have that space to debate about all of these things,
you have the media actually to create the space to be a
parliamentary force, and that is part of the deal.
The second is to create pluralism in the Arab society. Not
all Arab societies are the same. Arab covers a very wide space
as we know it.
The third is to create a debate between, in this case, in
the Middle Eastern case, between the Arabs or the Palestinians
and the Israelis. I think that the media will not resolve the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but without the media to open up
the debate within the Palestinian society and within the
Israeli society, and to reach a standard by which these
societies can be critical to each other within each other's
society, I do not see a way that it is going to be resolved
either.
I think--and with this I will finish, Mr. Chairman. I think
the end result of U.S. public diplomacy ought not to be the
expectation that after an effort the Arab world, or particular
parts of the Arab world will love you, but I think the
immediate result that is needed is that hate speech in that
part of the world is for the first time confronted with
rational speech, and I think that ought to be the aim.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Surroi follows:]
Prepared Statement of Veton Surroi, Chairman, KOHA Media Group
Members of the Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Nine months ago on this date I was sitting in my office in
Prishtina, gathering information on what was going to be known as a new
way of waging war against the United States, and indeed, war against
democratic society as a whole. Being a Kosovar, coming from a society
that has gone through a very long period of violence including a
genocidal war, there was no need for detailed explanations of the
shock, the pain, and the sense of loss that we were seeing directly on
TV that day of September 11.
Also, being a Kosovar, coming from a society that has been
liberated thanks to American leadership--an effort that for many years
was waged by a bipartisan group of Members of Congress, especially
Senators Biden and Lugar of this distinguished Committee--the September
11 attack against the United States was clearly understood as an attack
against Kosova as well. On that day, I could not do much more than
write an editorial, explaining to my fellow Kosovars why all of us
should be out on the streets of our cities, the way we protested before
against the Milosevic regime, now expressing our full solidarity with
the American people and our condemnation of terrorism. On September
12th, hundreds of thousands of people all over Kosova were out on the
streets with a simple message: ``America we are with you.''
As chairman of an independent media group, comprised of a leading
television station and the biggest newspaper in Kosova, I have
experienced the power of the freely expressed word. So to me it was not
surprising at all to see this gathering of the people of Kosova,
assembled by their own will, without any governmental or party
direction, on September 12th.
Civil society, with the independent media at its heart, played a
crucial role in resistance against the Milosevic regime over the past
decade. First the weekly KOHA, and then the daily newspaper KOHA
Ditore, emerged as critical voices during the long years of oppression.
These and other indigenous media voices, independent from the political
parties, bridged the gap between the dark reality of those years and
the democracy our people are now building. This vital role of the free
media, of course, would not have been possible without the sustained
political and material support of the United States, as well as
European and private donor organizations, among which the most
prominent was the Soros foundation. That support was not, and was not
intended to be, endless: KOHA developed a policy of self-sustainability
and was the first newspaper in the region to achieve that status only
three months after the war. I believe that our independence and
standards will allow us to play an important role in democracy and
state-building in Kosova for decades to come.
In transitional countries, there is continuous conflict between the
forces that want to expand the freedom of the individual and society,
and the forces that want to deny that freedom. And this conflict is not
only about authoritarian rule vs. democracy, as was the clear-cut case
of Milosevic vs. all of us. This struggle also continues in many post-
authoritarian societies that are trying to build democracy, where the
authorities undermine the economic foundations of independent media so
that official policies and messages can go unexamined and uncriticized.
In my homeland, we have gone through all phases of repression,
terror, and conflict. Journalists and media were prime targets for the
Milosevic regime, as they always are for such regimes around the world.
But no matter what the cost, our journalists remained close to the
center of Kosova's story. And we learned some lessons from this ordeal:
There is no alternative to indigenous, independent
journalism. A message from international broadcasters, however
good it is, and even when delivered in the local language,
still lacks full credibility within the society. A message from
journalists within the society has much more credibility and
respect.
Set professional standards of journalism. Bad policies in a
country also derive from bad journalism. Bad journalism is the
best ally of the authoritarian mind set.
Persevere in your work and get international support.
Authoritarian rulers in this interconnected new world can still
get away with imprisoning many people, but they think twice
about imprisoning a journalist.
If you persevere, you might get support, but if you don't
get support it will be much harder to persevere. The more
pressure the regime puts on you, the more international and
indigenous support you will need.
As you struggle to open up a closed society, be
professionally critical not only towards the repressive regime,
but also towards your own society. Credibility is raised not
only through your critical attitude towards a ``natural foe''
(as in the Milosevic case) but also by a fair and critical
attitude towards your collective self.
An independent media needs to be independent in terms of
infrastructure as well. Authoritarian regimes control
independent media not only through open repression, but through
the control of printing presses, availability of newsprint,
radio and TV frequencies, broadcasting equipment, financial and
legal repression, and other means.
In the post-conflict period, after liberation by NATO forces, we
also learned important lessons:
An independent media is crucial to building democratic
institutions where there were none. An independent media is a
precursor and precondition for those democratic institutions.
The absence of authoritarian rule does not automatically
bring freedom of the media. In the Kosovar case, a combination
of weak democratic institutions and bad international policies
have brought major new threats to the independent media. This
is clearly evident in the case of Bosnia and Kosova, where the
international administration's overwhelming support for a
``public broadcasting'' monopoly risks re-creating the state
television dominance of the past, instead of creating the level
playing field needed to assure the pluralism of healthy private
and public broadcasting.
I do think that some lessons we learned in Kosova can be applied in
the Middle East, Central and South Asia. However, my recommendations
for U.S. media policy in the Muslim world are based not so much on
Kosova's having a majority population with a Muslim religious
background. Kosovar society is identified more by ethnicity than by
religion. Our experience of transition from communism to democracy, and
from oppression to statehood, is actually more relevant. We know how to
operate within a repressive system and what kind of support is needed.
It is political Islam that has the clearest parallel to the
adversary the the United States did so much to defeat in the Balkans.
The Taliban/Al Qaeda, from my perspective, are no different than the
Milosevic ideology. Milosevic used ethnicity to create a fascist
movement the same way the Taliban used religion to create its own
version of totalitarian rule. In the end, ethnic chauvinism and
religious fundamentalism create the same result: destruction of their
own society and surrounding societies. The extreme manifestations of
these ideologies, as we have seen both in the case of Milosevic and the
Taliban, are to be fought by force. And just as major U.S. and
international support has been essential for the substantial effort to
transform Balkan societies--before and after departure of authoritarian
regimes--the same is true in those parts of the Muslim world where
political Islam prevails or is a threat.
some specific steps are needed for this long-term struggle:
One: More effective dissemination of information. We who have lived
in closed societies know the value of a radio transistor that receives
VOA or BBC broadcasts in our mother tongue. And these broadcasts ought
to be done as a concerted effort. Nevertheless, this is also the age of
satellite dishes and the Internet: there is more space and more
competition for information. A transistor receiving an external
broadcaster in Arabic is insufficient. The key is the indigenous talent
that reports from the region and helps bring professional standards
back home, providing unbiased information from within the society.
Two: Amplify indigenous voices. External broadcasting services and
international commercial newscasts are not sufficient. The people of
closed societies also need to get verification of those messages and
information from indigenous media. The content of the message is
important, but so is the form of it: once there are independent,
indigenous journalists it is a sign of contradiction not only of the
messages of authoritarian rule but of the very nature of that rule.
Authoritarian rule is based on an image of invincibility. Independent
media can contradict that. In every closed society there is a group of
journalists who question that society. The key is to identify and
support them with whatever can help amplify their voices.
Three: Direct support for independent media. The indigenous
independent media are confronted with an official system, and that
system has structures of print media, distribution of press, allocation
of frequencies, transmission systems, etc. Establishing independent
media means establishing competing systems. Wherever possible, this
means establishing independent printing presses, Internet-based or
terrestrial transmitters, alternative distribution organizations for
media products. It also means competing with the authoritarian regime
in terms of technology and information systems. In Kosova, the
independent media could not have survived had there not been an
independent printing press, alternative distribution of the newspapers,
and independent Internet capacity. Similarly, the independent media in
Serbia, which were crucial to the defeat of Milosevic, could not have
done their job had there not been alternative ways of broadcasting
Radio B92, for example, via the internet and satellite.
Four: Independent media and pluralism. Independent media voices by
definition will be critical voices. But the concern that opening up the
media in the Muslim world, and international support for this effort,
will fuel anti-American criticism ignores the longterm and even medium-
term strategic benefits. The independent journalism that could be
supported today in the Muslim world may be critical of American policy
in the Middle East. However, state-controlled media in many of these
countries are already full of harsh criticism of U.S. policies.
Independent media will be critical of everything around them, including
the lack of reform and transparency at home. What the Muslim world
certainly needs is a healthy debate--both within and between its
different societies--and part of that debate will be about American
policy. Nevertheless, it will be in a context in which those societies
will analyze themselves, a vital function which has been mostly lacking
until now.
The Balkans may serve as an example. We in Kosova, however pro-
American, have had criticisms of some American policies now and then,
especially in the initial stages of the Bosnian war. But the
independent media helped build the culture of free expression into our
society, creating the foundation for a healthy democracy. The
independent media in Serbia criticized U.S. policies in the Balkans
even more, but these media were a key part of the effort that pushed
Milosevic out, and are now helping push reform forward in Serbia.
The choice in the Muslim world is between the present dominant
media which are by definition anti-American (pushing a prejudiced
message of a great ``Zionist-American-Vatican'' conspiracy against the
Muslims, quite similar to the propaganda message of the Milosevic era),
or the at barely existing independent media which if supported will
bring badly-needed pluralism on all issues. In the long run, American
foreign policy will be more successful if it can be debated with pro-
and-con articles in the editorial pages of competing newspapers and
local broadcasters in Cairo, Damascus or Teheran, rather than only
through ``Death to America'' slogans being chanted in the streets of
those cities. If Muslim societies cannot benefit from the growth of
independent media (which has begun in Afghanistan since its liberation
from the Taliban), then they are uniquely different from all other
societies we know.
Five: Independent media and pragmatism. There is also a crucial
need for the media to be bridges within a conflict, and bridges in the
post-conflict period. If one looks only at the Palestinian problem,
there is a need for both the Israelis and their neighbors to understand
each others' societies through a similar professional level of
journalism. Throughout the conflict in ex-Yugoslavia, independent media
on different sides of the conflict have kept continuous communication.
And now in the post-conflict period, they are the first ones in a
position to build bridges of communication between our different
societies which must co-exist and define long-term common interests.
Independent media by nature are much more flexible and pragmatic than
the state- and mullah-controlled media that now dominate in so much of
the Muslim world.
Most of the Muslim societies today are in a pre-reform state. The
U.S. and its coalition of European and private media donors have
succeeded, in Europe and elsewhere, in opening up many closed
societies. Some of these techniques cannot be automatically applied,
but much in the experience can be adapted to new conditions. The
important thing, I believe, is to make a political decision not to
leave these societies to transform themselves alone. For many of us who
have lived and still live in transition societies, any success would
have been impossible without a concerted, sustained international
support effort.
Since America's first years of democracy, when Jefferson said he
would rather have newspapers without a government than a government
without newspapers, transition societies around the world have depended
on free media. The United States should lead the way in recognizing
that the same facts of life are true for the Muslim world as well. When
the U.S. came to this conclusion about the Balkans, it was a key
component in assuring the freedom and peace that my homeland enjoys
today. I hope and I expect that a similar decision by America toward
the Muslim world will help open up the societies from which terror now
targets your homeland. And opening up those societies to their own
voices will help bring the more normal, productive and stable lives
that their citizens want most of all. Opening up more Muslim societies
to their own mainstream forces can only be good for the common
security, as it has been for so many years of American leadership in so
many places.
Thank you for the honor of addressing the Committee.
The Chairman. Thank you, Veton. Speaking for myself, I
think it is very important that we have realistic expectations.
I have been a Senator for along time, and the one thing I have
always tried not to do, not because I like to think myself
honest, but for very practical political reasons, is never
over-promise.
For the last 30 years as the architect of most of the
criminal justice policy on the Democratic side of the equation
at least, I do not talk about wars on drugs because there is
always going to be the problem of drugs out there, and to offer
the notion that you are going to eradicate all drug abuse is
not realistic. To fundamentally alter it is possible.
In this area what I do not want to do is be part of
advertising to the American public if they just increase
expenditures what is going to happen is we are going to be
embraced by the Muslim world as their savior, as the nation
they love. Americans, I try to explain to Europeans--and we had
this discussion in your office, Veton, and I think my son, when
he was stationed in Pristina, got to meet with you as well--is
that most Americans, we think ourselves--the average American
is a decent, honorable person. They truly are confused as to
why people do not like us. They do not understand why Biden
says send troops to Bosnia and Kosovo, and why Biden says send
troops to Afghanistan, and they acquiesce in doing that, send
their sons and daughters, and people do not like us for doing
that.
They do not understand why, when my motivation, Veton, and
you know it better than anyone, back in the early nineties,
when I started the drum beat to get involved in the Balkans,
was because of the genocidal activities against Muslims, yet no
one in the Arab world understands that, that we went to Bosnia,
we went to Kosovo, those who were there in the very beginning,
because Muslims primarily were being destroyed, not just--not
merely--it was a lot of people, but it was the death camps in
Bosnia. They were about Muslims. The rape camps were about
Muslims. They were Bosniaks, but they were Muslims because of
their religion, and nobody knows that. Nobody knows that, or at
least if they know it, it has not gotten through.
You mentioned the Middle East, all three of you. I have had
a number of discussions, not all fruitful, not any fruitful,
probably, alone with Mr. Arafat in his compound in the West
Bank and here, and when I asked him why Taba was not a
possibility he said, well, we have not prepared our public
sufficiently. There was no effort to prepare the public, none,
zero, none. None at all, and that is why I have been somewhat
critical of our Saudi friends and our Egyptian friends, that if
they want to be treated like mature nations, they have to act
like mature leaders.
You cannot on the one hand run editorials in the state-
controlled papers saying that the pastries that are going to be
prepared for a religious holiday in Judaism have to be made
from the blood of non-Jews as an essential ingredient and run
that as news in a state-controlled paper and expect me to
believe you have any interest in being a positive force in the
region, so all of what each of you have said makes a great deal
of sense.
I have a couple of very specific questions, and again, back
to where I began with this. Veton, your, I think, very
practical expectation that we should be offering to the
American people here about if our efforts succeed, what impact
they will have, what is the measure of success here, because we
will be measured. As you know, Mr. Ambassador, we will be
measured a year and two and three from now as, what has
happened, what is happening.
Now, the issue of independence for indigenous independent
press and U.S. aid, how do you thread that needle? How do you
thread the needle where we, quote-unquote, the American
taxpayers, pay for a printing press, pay for supplies, pay for
salaries, even of staff, because those are the kinds of
things--it is not merely saying, as you said that one time, you
cannot just say it is enough to tell governments that are our
friends that there is conditionality here, but there is also
the need to literally have the money to buy the ink,
figuratively speaking--it is not ink any more--to buy the
paper, to have a studio, to have a roof. How do you square that
circle? Yes, Mr. Hoffman.
Mr. Hoffman. This is one of the key issues that you point
your finger at, the key paradox. We are trying to teach people
about the benefits of nongovernmental independent media, and we
are doing it with governmental money, so we are confronted by
this question all the time. I think that there are mechanisms
that could be put in place that could increase the sense of
independence that we have on the ground, but so far I must say
I do have to say parenthetically USAID has done a really good
job in keeping its hands off and not interfering editorially,
and so that practice certainly helps, but it is something we
have to overcome all the time.
Our strategy in dealing with this has been to support the
development of local NGOs. In every country where we work there
is a local Internews or a local media NGO that we support.
The Chairman. Now, let me make sure, because I do not think
most people listening to this will understand what a local NGO
press person is. In other words, people think of NGOs as
Catholic charities, Irish relief workers, whatever. NGOs are
nongovernmental organizations. Now, are there NGOs that are
also newspapers, or are also radio stations? What do you mean?
Mr. Hoffman. What I mean is, there are media assistance
NGOs, so in Russia there is--Internews Russia is an all-Russian
organization of 100 people, with lawyers and producers and
what-not that basically support the hundreds of local
broadcasters that are commercial operations.
The Chairman. Very important. I just wanted for the record
to make sure what we are talking about. We are talking about,
these NGOs are to the media what the NGOs that are teaching
people how to set up accounting systems in corporations that
never existed in the former Soviet Union are. I mean, they
provide an expertise. They provide the legal framework. They
provide other means by which they assist private organizations.
Mr. Hoffman. There are really two key points I would like
to make. One is a need to support those local NGOs, but also
for the U.S. Government to give all its assistance through
international NGOs or American NGOs. There was an attempt back
in 1989 or 1990 to create the international media fund, you may
remember, after Secretary Baker called for it in his Charles
University speech, and frankly that did not work, because it
was seen as too closely tied to the U.S. Government, whereas
other efforts of the U.S. State Department and USAID working
through American and international NGOs to give that assistance
works much better.
The Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, you know the Arab world quite
well. You are one of the most qualified people we have ever had
in place when you were Ambassador. Before he became the guy who
runs this operation, the staff director of the Foreign
Relations Committee, Tony Blinken wrote an article in which he
said, ``now the United States has global interests and no
ideological rival whose vices remind the world of its
virtues,'' meaning our virtues.
In other words, in the past, and Veton kind of alluded to
this, when Milosevic was around, you had opposition newspapers,
underground newspapers. Part of their very legitimacy was, they
were stacked up against this very bad guy out there. We were
able to, I would argue, one of the reasons why Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty were such an incredible success, there
was a known ideology called communism pursued and pushed by a
totalitarian government in Moscow that everything that we said
or did was measured against.
Now, we do not have an ideology that we are confronting
around the world. There is all other ideologies as it relates
to the way the marketplace works. The way the world economies
function have basically been concluded to be more or less
bankrupt, although there is great doubt about this fear of
unfettered capitalism and free markets, but there is no
ideology to replace that yet. I mean, no ideology to replace
it. We have a different dilemma now. How much of our problem in
having, if you will, the truth filter through the societies,
both the good and bad about us, how much of the difficulty of
that truth filtering through relates to not having a
counterpoint against whom we are measured?
When you are sitting in Baghdad or you are sitting in
Cairo, or you are sitting in Amman, or you are sitting in
Indonesia, or various places in Indonesia, and the debate is
between these two superpowers, the American choice does not
seem to be as pernicious or as dangerous or as counterintuitive
to accept, even in the Muslim world, I would argue. Now that is
gone. What is this new thing we have to--and I am not being
very articulate.
Ambassador Ginsberg. Mr. Chairman, the dilemma we face
since the end of the cold war in the Middle East is that the
very underground press that should be most interested, at least
in our judgment, of promoting democracy and freedom and ideals
is actually the Islamic extremist express. It is the sermons
that are being put on cassettes that are attacking the local
governments. It is the underground newspapers. Indeed, most
Arabs in the region understand the difference between reading a
newspaper that is controlled by the government and a newspaper
that they know is being put together by forces of that are
opposed to the government.
My thesis in this is that we Americans do not realize at
times that we are caught up in a civil war in the Middle East,
that what we face between those governments that use incitement
as a way of deflecting attention from their shortcomings, and
the more extremist elements that are battling those very
governments, is the sense that we somehow have stumbled in
between the two and are being used by both as a way of
deflecting the war that was already taking place on the ground
between them, and all of a sudden we became the target.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, in Egypt, the war that
ultimately led to the creation of al-Qaeda and its operational
arms was being waged by extremists against the government for
years, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were harmed and
injured. The war in Algeria killed hundreds of thousands of
Algerians in the name of Islamic extremism.
What these countries are facing is that their populations
are dissatisfied with their leadership and blame us for in
effect appearing to protect them and doing very little to
change them, and if I can go down into the ground, and to say
to myself, what do we do with the newspaper reporters who put
the venom out and who keep writing the most incredible vitriol
against the United States, this is all due, in fact, to the
belief that we Americans fail to appreciate and understand
their unhappiness and their concerns and their lack of hope and
the despair on the ground about what we have failed to stand
for.
Mr. Chairman, this is not something that just happened
overnight. On the other hand, as I said, at the height of the
peace process, when we had the great hope and expectations that
we were on the verge of a breakthrough when Prime Minister
Rabin was alive, that hatred was still very much part and
parcel of the region. The attack on the World Trade Center in
1993 by the forerunner of al-Qaeda was essentially trying to
cutoff the umbilical cord between us and Egypt, and we have got
to understand that that is what we are facing in order to deal
more effectively with the challenge before us. I am not sure if
that gets to your question.
The Chairman. No, it does get to it. Veton, and then I
apologize, I am going to have to end this. I have taken you 2
hours beyond what I told you you would get, and I am supposed
to be, an hour ago at a Democratic Caucus, but anyway, please.
Mr. Surroi. Combining both of your questions, I think an
important element is actually to establish a coalition. It is
important in terms of, to your previous question of how do you
support. I think what we have seen in the Balkans from 1995
onwards was that the form of support in which the U.S., the
E.U., and the private institutions helped develop is the best
way to deal with this, and there are many very good people who
have worked in direct assistance who have experience in dealing
with this issue.
Second, it is important to develop this coalition also,
because the other missing power, as you have said, is being
developed, and the missing ideology is being developed, which
is political Islam, and political Islam is actually trying to
be the substitute for reform and for opposition in closed
societies, and that is a real danger, because political Islam
is basing itself on ethnicity in the Palestinian case, it is
basing itself on poverty all over the Arab world, and on
oppression.
In many of these societies we still have a feudal
mentality, and that is why the coalition-building actually is
important and especially the coalition-building that will try
to undermine these three areas which the political Islam is
basing itself on.
The Chairman. Well, we have a good deal of work to do, to
state the obvious, but I really think for the first time in the
last 5 years--and let me end by telling you a question I was
asked between the time I voted and walked back here by a very
competent foreign policy reporter. He asked me, what did I
think about the prospects for foreign aid genuinely increasing
in the United States on the part of the U.S. Government, and I
use this hearing as an example.
I think, to use a phrase that was new when I started in
public life during the struggle for women in the women's
movement was, sensitivity sessions they used to talk about, how
do you sensitize the public to the plight of women in the
sixties. That was a phrase that was very much in vogue.
I think there has kind of been a national sensitivity
session that is sort of taking place here, and the realization
on the part of the average American, to use a--he has been
quoted several times today--a Tom Friedman phrase that maybe he
did not originate, I do not know, but it is one I associate
with him, which was, if you do not visit the bad neighborhood,
the bad neighborhood will visit you.
I think there is a growing awareness on the part of the
average American that we have to rethink how we make our case
in a more complicated world so that all of the natural
tendencies of human nature are that you, as I tell people, when
you go home and your dad has just been laid off because his
plant has closed down, and the next-door-neighbor drives in at
the same time with a new Lexus, you do not sit at your dinner
table saying, isn't it wonderful our neighbor has got a new
Lexus. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
If your neighbor is smart, the neighbor will put the new
Lexus in the garage once they have learned that their friend
next door has lost his job. Nations are not able to be that
sensitive, I do not suspect, but there is this notion out there
on the part of the American public that a lot of this has to do
with how we communicate. They would not call it public
diplomacy. They would say, how do we tell our side of the
story? How do we get involved?
And foreign aid is going to have easier sledding here now,
because the American public understands you cannot have 3 to 5
billion people living on $2 a day in the world and not have a
problem eventually. People are pretty smart. Just like the
people in Amman, or excuse me, in Riyadh know the difference
between the state-owned press and press they get that is not
state-owned, people here understand these basic fundamental
things as well,
So I really do think, with your help, and I am not being
solicitous, with your help and the help of others that
testified today and some that have not, that we really can
begin to build something that is solid and substantial that
will not only benefit the United States but benefit--and I
think this is one of those--we always thought during the cold
war that it is a zero-sum game. This is a win-win situation, if
we are smart about it, and I am going to rely--Congress is
going to rely on the three of you and others to help us figure
out the formula.
But I do think--maybe I am, you know, being an optimist is
an occupational requirement. Maybe I am being a little too
optimistic, but I do think we are on the cusp of some real
progress in dealing with this notion of public diplomacy and
how we interact in the world, and I look forward to working
with all three of you, as others do here, as we do that. We
have the draft report. We look forward to the final report from
the Council, and we welcome any suggestions you have as we go
on.
I have a couple of questions for each of you, if you would
be willing, to submit them to you in writing. I do not want to
make work for you, but I do appreciate your being here.
Veton, welcome, and thank you for the hospitality and the
willingness to speak to me 6, 8 years ago and ever since. You
were a rational voice in a sea of chaos when I was in your
office, and I appreciate that, and I want to publicly say I
admire your persona, courage, your personal courage that you
showed. Over here, a press person takes a risk, he or she may
get fired, and if they are overseas I might note more media
people have been killed covering these things than a lot of
other people, but in your country at the time you were speaking
out the penalty for doing the wrong editorial might have been
getting shot, so it is a very different deal. I admire your
personal courage.
And I admire your input, all three of you. I thank you very
much. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the committee adjourned, to
reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]
----------
Responses to Additional Questions Submitted for the Record
Responses of Hon. Charlotte Beers, Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, to Additional Questions for the Record
Submitted by the Foreign Relations Committee
Question. What is the Department of State doing to ensure adequate
interagency coordination on public diplomacy issues? What impact will
the White House Office of Communications' apparent efforts to fulfill
this function have on the Department of State and its leadership in the
field of public diplomacy?
Answer. The most important element in coordinating our messages
overseas is the coordination of communications within the
Administration. At present, the White House, the State Department, the
Defense Department, and the NSC staff are working to create more formal
mechanisms for interagency coordination on two levels. A Policy
Coordination Committee (PCC) on Public Diplomacy is under
consideration, which would set strategy and focus the use of resources
by the several federal agencies that conduct public diplomacy
activities abroad. The White House is meanwhile considering the
establishment of an Office of Global Communications to represent the
President's priorities and offer the President's voice to our public
diplomacy efforts. While the precise relationship between these two
levels has not yet been defined, the public diplomacy practitioners at
both the White House and the State Department enjoy very close working
relations in which State's role as the lead agency in public diplomacy
is clearly recognized.
Question. What are you and your colleagues doing to realize the
spirit of Presidential Decision Directive 68 (issued by President
Clinton)? Have any presidential directives on public diplomacy been
issued by President Bush?
Answer. The Bush Administration recognized the value of a unified
message to the rest of the world by retaining a forum for interagency
coordination on public diplomacy. After the emergency created by the
terrorist attacks of September 11, the White House Coalition
Information Centers brought assertive, day-to-day leadership to the
task. At this time, we at the State Department are in consultation with
the White House, the National Security Council and the Defense
Department to establish more permanent structures. We want to assure a
unified message and to bring together the assets and capabilities of
the foreign affairs agencies of government to project it in the most
effective manner.
Question. Do we need a national information strategy? What can we
do to make sure that our public diplomacy and international information
professionals from State, the Department of Defense, USAID, and other
agencies are coordinating to develop national, international, and
regional international information plans?
Answer. Yes, a national information strategy would help the U.S. to
carry out public diplomacy more effectively in a world of cross-cutting
national and transnational issues influenced by international and
national media, NGOs, corporations, international organizations, and
other outside groups.
This strategy would provide direction and a unified voice for the
different international communications vehicles within the U.S.
government. Such a ``deliberate planning'' exercise, parallel to the
Administration's National Security Strategy, would enable the U.S. to
speak with one voice and to respond to contingencies in a quicker, more
effective fashion. White House leadership would be essential with such
a plan. Because government operational strategy cannot be run
effectively by committee, it is important to affirm the State
Department's leadership role in government-wide public diplomacy
activities.
We coordinated with our allies through the Coalition Information
Centers. It was primarily the British, but the Canadians, Germans,
Spanish and others were brought in for closer consultations as they
became more heavily engaged. We do not normally coordinate with the UN,
though we do consult with them through our U.S. Mission in New York.
The most important thing is that we've developed a mechanism to
coordinate a task-force like operation like the CIC. We also know that
even if we aren't in a situation that would require a CIC operation,
the White House can coordinate messages through a number of mechanisms
with other USG agencies as well as other countries.
Question. Former USIA Director Edward R. Murrow used to say that
public diplomacy needed to be incorporated into U.S. policy-making at
the lift off as well as the crash landing. As you know, one of the
goals of the merger of USIA into the State Department was to make
public diplomacy an even more central part of American diplomacy in
general. This is particularly important in light of the changes wrought
by the information and communications revolutions. Is the culture of
the State Department changing to better incorporate public diplomacy
perspectives? What more needs to be done to encourage this critical
transformation in the culture of our foreign policy institutions?
Answer. Public diplomacy has been strengthened since the merger of
the U.S. Information Agency with the Department by bringing public
diplomacy insights into play sooner as foreign policy is developed,
rather than after the fact. Moreover, the Department requested an
increase in our programs for FY 2003--the first program increase for
public diplomacy programs in ten years--and public diplomacy staffing
is being increased by 56 positions above attrition levels this year. An
additional 28 positions are planned in the Department's Diplomatic
Readiness request for 2003. In addition, the Department's leadership
has fully supported public diplomacy strategies and themes to focus and
augment our traditional programs.
While we continue to work within the Department to improve the
effectiveness and coordination of these programs, the Department is
currently evaluating the cohesion and structure of the public diplomacy
organizational structure.
Question. At present the Department of State only budgets about
five million dollars a year for foreign public opinion polling. Is this
enough? Is enough reliable information about foreign public opinion
being brought into the policymaking process? What more can be done to
address this apparent shortfall? Do we need to allocate more money for
polling and focus groups, and how can this type of market analysis best
be integrated into U.S. government public diplomacy efforts?
Answer. Polling is an essential tool in understanding the trends of
public opinion in foreign countries and regions. Since September 11, we
have gained valuable information from a variety of polling sources,
including our own polling in the State Department. As a result, we
have, for example, ample data on attitudes about America and Osama Bin
Ladin. This data has been integrated into our overall public diplomacy
strategies and our tactical planning and outreach in certain market
segments.
We are now working to supplement our data on what people believe
about the United States and Bin Ladin with information on why and to
what degree they hold their beliefs. This will increase our ability to
determine the most effective strategies and tactics for public
diplomacy. To the extent possible, we are seeking to do this within
existing resources.
Question. How can the United States make better use of the Islamic-
American community in our international public diplomacy efforts?
Answer. We are reaching out to the Muslim community in the United
States, not only to gain valuable information from them about the
Islamic faith and belief system, but also to articulate to them the
ways in which we are seeking to communicate to the Muslim world. By
educating, informing, and consulting these groups, we are actually
reaching out overseas, as they communicate to their friends and
neighbors living abroad.
We are very encouraged by the amount of interest Muslims in America
have shown in helping to articulate the common values and shared
beliefs Americans have with other cultures. Recently, we confirmed that
there is a newly formed group called the Council of American Muslims
for Understanding, which is seeking as its mission to educate both
Americans and people outside the United States about the many important
achievements of Muslims in America and throughout history. To achieve
these goals, the Council will host and sponsor seminars, speaking
engagements, engage in media relationships, produce and distribute its
own work, and organize cultural and educational exchange programs.
These kinds of organizations, which are more flexible and often
more credible than government bodies, will be indispensable in telling
our story and forming an active dialogue. Dialogue demands two-way
communication. If such organizations can provide a framework for non-
Americans to speak to Americans, that answers an important need, which
is for us to be seen as listeners, not just talkers.
Question. What is the degree to which U.S. Ambassadors are provided
with public diplomacy training prior to deployment?
Answer. I meet with the Ambassadors-designate individually as well
as during the Ambassadorial Seminar where we have a collective exchange
of views regarding public diplomacy and its central role in American
diplomacy. Also included in the Seminar program are:
1. A 45 minute interactive discussion on the importance of
Public Affairs/Public Diplomacy with one or more of my senior
Public Diplomacy officers.
2. Two days of intensive media skills training with a
professional media trainer.
3. A session with a representative of the State Department
Press Office to respond to specific concerns of Ambassadors
regarding State Department rules and practices for dealing with
the media (e.g., what they can say prior to Senate
confirmation, prior to presentation of credentials in the host
country, and coordination of their activities and messages
overseas with Washington).
The Public Diplomacy Training Division of the Foreign Service
Institute can, as a standard practice, coordinate with the respective
bureau Public Diplomacy offices and Public Affairs Offices in the
Ambassador's country of assignment to create a profile of public
diplomacy activities being carried out at the post.
In addition, during consultations in Washington, most ambassadors
meet with Public Diplomacy officers in their respective bureaus to gain
greater familiarity with the types of public diplomacy activities being
undertaken in their countries of assignment.
Question. Has any aspect of the Smith-Mundt or Zorinsky
restrictions on dissemination of public diplomacy materials interfered
with your ability to engage effectively in public diplomacy overseas or
to garner American support for public diplomacy efforts?
Answer. These laws have not affected our public diplomacy effort.
Since USIA's consolidation into the State Department, it has been a
challenge to respect these restrictions while facilitating the
integration of public diplomacy programs and expertise into State's
mainstream foreign policy process. We have been able to accomplish this
successfully, though admittedly the active use of the internet to carry
out our public diplomacy mission overseas poses particular challenges.
The continued applicability of both section 501 of Smith-Mundt and
the Zorinsky Amendment was discussed during consolidation and affirmed
in the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, as
amended. The continued applicability of these restrictions on domestic
dissemination of public diplomacy materials enables us to continue to
focus effectively on one of our core missions--to inform and influence
foreign audiences.
Question. How can we measure success in our public diplomacy
efforts, and how can we sell this success to the American people?
Answer. We do not ``sell'' our successes to the American people.
Rather, through periodic congressional hearings, speeches before
interested audiences, and media activities, we inform the American
people and their elected representatives about what we are doing.
The success of our outreach to the Muslim world and all PD efforts
is defined, as it has been in the past, by the successful completion of
individual programs, such as the educational exchanges, International
Visitors programs, speakers and journalist tours, and television co-ops
and broadcast vignettes. All of these efforts offer international
audiences a look inside the U.S., and highlight the long-term
contributions these programs make to establishing a world of
democracies.
We show continuous progress toward these goals through specific
examples of how public diplomacy has helped to effect change in the
international policy arena and contributed to successful practices
throughout the world--for example, of heads of state of countries
joining the Coalition Against Terrorism, 50 percent were International
Visitors through State Department public diplomacy programs; this
exposure to the U.S. at a critical stage in the political education of
these leaders had a real impact on how they conduct their relations
with the U.S. today.
Another example of how we measure results is through the alumni of
the Department's educational exchange programs, who have been very
active in their countries talking about their experiences in the U.S.
and helping to bridge the perception gap that exists between different
cultures. We are going to develop a database to keep up with
individuals who have participated in our educational exchange programs.
As we follow their careers and continue to reach out to these alumni,
we will see the results of their visits time and again over the course
of their lives.
----------
Additional Statements Submitted for the Record
Prepared Statement of Senator Russell D. Feingold, U.S. Senator from
Wisconsin
I am particularly pleased to welcome Under Secretary Beers, who has
been leading an impressive State Department effort to improve our
public diplomacy in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11. I am
also pleased that Governor Pattiz of the Broadcasting Board of
Governors will be joining us today to discuss our nation's efforts to
promote our values and objectives through broadcasts in local languages
in communities across the globe. The perspectives on the second panel
today should also help clarify our efforts to support reliable
independent media efforts in other countries.
At the hearing today, I will also join many of my colleagues in
recognizing that we must take steps, as a priority, to reach out to
Muslim and Arab communities around the world to counter unfortunate
misunderstandings about American policy or American objectives in the
campaign against global terrorism. By reaching out to these Muslim
communities, we also have an important opportunity to demonstrate that
the Islamic world is not unified in opposition to our country or our
way of life.
As Chair of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, I have been
particularly active in urging the Secretary of State to reach out to
Muslim leaders in Africa. And I am pleased to have had an opportunity
to travel this year to several African nations that have important
Muslim communities. Through those travels, I have sought to initiate a
direct dialogue with Muslim leaders. As a nation, we must continue to
make such public diplomacy a priority. And I am particularly pleased to
support legislation that is now pending in Congress to expand public
diplomacy in predominantly Muslim countries, including in countries
across Africa and Asia.
But we must also recognize that effective public diplomacy must
always build on and reinforce our core values as a society. Those
values include a commitment to accurate and reliable information on
United States policy and on the vibrant diversity of opinions and
beliefs that makes us such a strong and prosperous democracy. Our
public outreach must also reinforce our core commitment to human rights
principles. In particular, we must ensure that our friends and allies
understand that we will not ignore human rights in the interest of
building an immediate anti-terrorism coalition.
I look forward to considering how we can build on the efforts that
are already underway to improve our ability to communicate our nation's
core beliefs to other countries and communities. This hearing today
offers an important opportunity to initiate that discussion.
______
Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing in the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on the important issue of public diplomacy.
I welcome the opportunity to submit testimony.
One of the clear lessons of September 11th is that our country
needs to do more to ensure that future generations in the Islamic world
understand American values and culture. Nearly 1.5 billion people live
in the Islamic world. If we ignore the anti-American attitudes so
prevalent in those countries, we do so at our own peril.
If we address the problem directly, by teaching American values to
young people from the Islamic world, we have a chance, in the long run,
of changing negative attitudes. It's a long process, but September 11th
has taught us that we must begin it now.
There are many ways to share America's values with others, and this
important hearing will highlight many of them. Among the most effective
public diplomacy actions at our disposal are international educational
exchange programs. There are no better ambassadors for American values
than Americans themselves. Student exchange programs have proven to be
effective in reaching out to the next generation of leaders. As
Secretary Powell said in his August 2001 Statement on International
Education Week, ``I can think of no more valuable asset to our country
than the friendship of future world leaders who have been educated
here.''
On May 10, Senators Lugar, Leahy, Chafee, Dodd, Hagel, Gordon
Smith, Cochran, Brownback, Jeffords, Durbin, Feingold, and Landrieu
joined me in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. Our
legislation, S. 2505, seeks to increase funding for student and other
exchanges between Americans and visitors from the Islamic world. It
would also create a new high school exchange program for students from
the Islamic world.
The Cultural Bridges Act would authorize $75 million above current
appropriations in fiscal years 2003 through 2007 to expand the
activities of the State Department's existing educational and cultural
programs in the Islamic world. It would also authorize $20 million in
fiscal years 2003 through 2007 for the Department to establish a new
high school student exchange program to enable competitively selected
students from the Islamic world to study in the United States at a
public high school for an academic year.
The State Department currently manages a number of international
student educational and cultural exchange programs that have helped
foster mutual respect and understanding in many countries worldwide.
These programs enable approximately 5,000 Americans to travel abroad
and 20,000 foreign visitors to travel to the United States annually to
study, teach, and engage in people-to-people programs. They have been
successful in promoting American values and cultural tolerance.
Unfortunately, visitors and students from the Islamic world are
significantly underrepresented in many of these programs. Individuals
in the Islamic world represent approximately 25 percent of the world's
6.2 billion people. However, in fiscal year 2000, less than 10 percent
of the participants in State Department cultural and educational
exchange programs were from the Islamic countries covered under our
legislation, and less than 12 percent of the budget was spent on these
countries. According to the State Department's Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs, funding for exchanges has fallen by almost a
third since 1993 when adjusted for inflation.
The additional $75 million our legislation authorizes for existing
programs to be expanded in the Islamic world is essential to the
objective of promoting greater understanding of American values and
ideals. Existing programs provide the essential building blocks for an
expanded and sustained effort to reach more broadly into these
societies, to foster mutual respect, and to counter the hatred that can
lead to acts of terrorism.
Last October, President Bush spoke eloquently about the need to
reach out in friendship to the Islamic world. In a speech to students
at Thurgood Marshall Extended Elementary School in Washington DC, the
President said that America is ``determined to build ties of trust and
friendship with people all around the world--particularly with children
and people in the Islamic world.''
To facilitate the President's goal of reaching children, our
legislation would also create a new program for high school students
from the Islamic world to study in the United States. No federal
program currently exists to facilitate such student exchanges with the
ever-increasing number of youths in the Islamic world.
There are many benefits to reaching out to students while they are
young and openminded to enhance cultural understanding and tolerance.
Today's high school students are tomorrow's leaders, and we need to
begin working with them now to inform them about our country.
In an January 20, 2002 article in the Washington Post, a former
Fulbright scholarship recipient from Egypt expressed concern that his
university in Egypt was and continues to be fertile ground for
recruiters from terrorist or extremist organizations. Our challenge is
to provide young students with the opportunity to learn about America,
participate in all aspects of American family life, and understand our
values before they reach that stage.
The high school student exchange program authorized in our
legislation is modeled on the State Department's highly successful
Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX), which brings approximately
1,000 students ages 15-17 from the nations of the former Soviet Union
to the United States each year to attend an American high school for a
year and live with an American family.
The FLEX program has been effective in shaping attitudes among the
students selected to participate from those nations. A 1998 U.S.
government study, which compared Russian FLEX alumni with other Russian
youth of the same age, found that the FLEX alumni are more open to and
accepting of Western values and democratic ideals. They are more likely
to want to become leaders in and to make a contribution to their
society. They tend to be more optimistic than other Russian youths
about the future of their country--especially its evolution to a more
democratic, rule-of-law society.
Importantly, the FLEX program has been successful in the six
predominantly Islamic countries of those nations--Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. More
than 1,500 students from those Muslim countries have studied and lived
in the United States since the program began. FLEX alumni in Azerbaijan
and Turkinenistan are teaching English in their home countries, and
alumni in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have been involved in activities to
develop democratic practices. Given the track record in these
countries, there is every reason to believe that a high school student
exchange program would succeed throughout the Islamic world.
Like the existing FLEX program, our legislation requires
participating students in high school exchanges from the Islamic world
to be selected competitively and in a manner that ensures geographic,
gender, and socio-economic diversity. To qualify, students must be
tested extensively and interviewed under State Department guidelines.
As with the FLEX program, the State Department will work with
experienced American non-governmental organizations to recruit, select,
and place students, and will remain in close contact with the public
high school, the American host family, and American non-governmental
organizations while the students are in the United States.
All students and visitors participating in programs authorized in
the legislation must be admissible under all our immigration laws and
procedures. Legislation recently signed into law will improve our
ability to screen foreign students by requiring increased communication
among the State Department, the INS, and the schools enrolling foreign
students, and by closing gaps in the existing foreign student
monitoring program.
Our legislation has been endorsed by the Alliance for International
Education and Cultural Exchange, AMIDEAST, AFS, the Academy for
Educational Development, the American Councils for International
Education, the American Institute for Foreign Study, the Institute of
International Education, the National Council for International
Visitors, Sister Cities International, World Learning, and World Study
Group.
As the Director of the Alliance for International Educational and
Cultural Exchange, a coalition of 65 organizations with chapters in all
50 states, former Ambassador Kenton Keith, wrote: ``Winning the war on
terrorism will demand more than just our military prowess. It will
require us to engage the peoples of the Islamic world about our society
and values if we are to forge the mutual understanding and respect that
will be the basis of peaceful productive relationships. The exchanges
authorized in your bill are the most cost-effective way to encourage
the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance
our long-term national security.'' I ask the committee to include
copies of this letter and other endorsement letters in the hearing
record.
America must respond to the terrorist threat on many levels. We
need to ensure that our defenses are strong, our borders are secure,
and our relationships with allies are vibrant. We also need to do more
in the area of public diplomacy.
It is clearly in America's national security interest to promote
more people-to-people contacts throughout the Muslim world. In a May
3rd address to the World Affairs Council in California, Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke about the need to reach out
and strengthen voices of moderation in the Islamic world and to bridge
the ``dangerous gap'' between the West and the Muslim world. He said
America must `begin now . . . the gap is wide and there is no time for
delay.''
After September 11, many of the Muslim countries condemned those
attacks and pledged to help the United States fight terrorism. As we
have seen in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Muslim world,
some individuals and factions within a country support terrorists and
terrorist organizations, while others seek to resolve issues
peacefully. America can reduce support for terrorism by reaching out
more effectively in friendship to all nations in the Islamic world.
Building bridges of understanding and tolerance across cultures
will help ensure that Americans and people of the Islamic world will
truly understand and know each another. Clearly, international
educational and cultural exchanges can play a significant role in
America's public diplomacy efforts in the Islamic world.
I understand the Chairman intends to propose legislation to address
these and other important public diplomacy issues in the near future. I
welcome this leadership, and I urge the committee to include the
Cultural Bridges Act in public diplomacy legislation.
[Letters in support of the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 follow:]
World Study Group,
San Francisco, CA,
April 2, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: On behalf, of the World
Study Group, I write to thank you for your leadership in introducing
the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. The World Study Group and its
affiliated J-1 visa programs are dedicated to increasing understanding
and trust between people through international cultural exchange.
Building productive ties with the Muslim world will require a
sustained and serious commitment that reaches well beyond our current
efforts. The exchanges authorized in your bill are the most cost-
effective way to encourage the positive personal and institutional
relationships that will enhance our long-term national security goals.
Breaking down misunderstanding requires that our peoples know each
other better.
Congressional leadership will be crucial to this endeavor. Student
exchanges from the Muslim world are among the lowest of any region, and
significant new resources will be required to jump-start this effort.
Moreover, a clear federal commitment will leverage private sector
support and will immediately engage the American people directly in the
conduct of this high priority foreign policy initiative.
Your legislation is the right bill at the right time. On behalf of
AYUSA, AuPairCare, and Intrax Inc., we thank you. You have the
gratitude and support of our staff and field representatives throughout
the United States.
Sincerly,
John Wilhelm,
President.
______
World Learning,
Washington, DC,
April 1, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: Thank you for your
leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. Enactment
of this legislation will make possible increased opportunities to bring
current and future leaders from the Islamic world to the United States
and to send Americans to Muslim countries to teach and study.
Expanded opportunities for citizen exchange between the United
States and the Islamic world will help to engender increased respect,
understanding and trust between our peoples. Building this mutual
understanding will enhance our national security by broadening the
range of productive interactions between the United States and Muslim
countries.
Currently, student and other exchange flows with Muslim countries
are lower than with other regions of the world. The programs which the
Cultural Bridges Act authorizes would provide for significant increases
at this crucial time for our nation. Thank you again for your
leadership in working to strengthen these important programs.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Chase,
Vice President.
______
Sister Cities International,
Washington, DC,
April 1, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: On behalf of Sister
Cities International and the 700 U.S. cities joined in cooperative
sister city partnerships with 1,500 international cities in 121
countries, I applaud your leadership in introducing the Cultural
Bridges Act of 2002. The Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 will be a vital
tool in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy in
response to new challenges facing the United States.
The need for increased international understanding and cooperation
has never been more imperative than in the aftermath of September 11.
International education and exchange programs are critical elements in
advancing U.S. foreign policy and national security, as they build
understanding and cooperation between Americans and future foreign
leaders. Nearly 150 present and past foreign heads of state made their
first visits to the United States on exchange programs. This powerful
tool for building productive, positive relationships has served the
United States extraordinarily well over the years, and has included
visits from world leaders such as Anwar Sadat and Indira Gandhi, French
Premier Lionel Jospin and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Perhaps most importantly, the Cultural Bridges Act boldly leads the
way for the federal government to encourage sustainable, cooperative
relationships between the United States and the Islamic world. In the
fight against terrorism and efforts to improve our national security,
there can be no doubt that fostering international exchanges will help
diminish negative stereotypes and build an environment of mutual
understanding and respect for differences. Furthermore, the Cultural
Bridges Act will help foster citizen diplomacy initiatives that will
promote the involvement of local citizens in international engagement.
Now more than ever, the federal government must invest in capacity
building at the community level to promote citizen diplomacy,
particularly with regard to the Islamic world. As we know, resources
allotted for these activities are drastically insufficient in the
current climate, and we hope the introduction of the Cultural Bridges
Act will move our nation in the right direction of enhanced
cooperation.
Thank you again for your leadership on this pressing issue.
Sincerely,
Tim Honey,
Executive Director,
Sister Cities International.
______
National Council for International Visitors,
Washington, DC,
April 1, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: On behalf of the Board
and members of the National Council for International Visitors (NCIV),
we thank you for your initiative in introducing the Cultural Bridges
Act of 2002. NCIV members--nonprofit program agencies and 95 community
organizations across the United States--organize professional programs,
home visits, and cultural activities for participants in the State
Department's International Visitor Program and other exchanges. More
than 80,000 volunteers are involved in NCIV member activities each
year, including WorldBoston, International Center of Indianapolis, and
the World Affairs Council of Rhode Island.
NCIV members promote citizen diplomacy--the idea that the
individual citizen has the right, even the responsibility, to help
shape U.S. foreign relations ``one handshake at a time'' through
exchanges. We are grateful for your leadership in introducing this
legislation that will make more of these handshakes possible with
participants from underserved areas of the world.
Sincerely,
Alan Kumamoto,
Chair, Board of Directors.
Sherry L. Muller, Ph.D.,
President.
______
Institute of International Education,
New York, NY,
April 2, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: On behalf of the
Institute of International Education, including our Trustees and
volunteers across the country, please accept IIE's thanks and
appreciation for the leadership you are showing by introducing the
Cultural Bridges Act of 2002. Your initiative could not be more
relevant and timely.
As always, the leadership of Congress in international educational
exchange is critical. Now, in vulnerable areas of the world where
peace, understanding and progress through education are vitally needed
to insure that terrorism and intolerance are eliminated, your
legislation addresses key areas where we can work to build shared
values.
Exchanges of high school and college students, graduate students
and young professionals, as well as others, who can help create the
climate we need where progressive democratic developments flourish are
sorely needed in Africa, the Near East, Central and South Asia, and
Southeast Asia. The focus of your Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 on
members of the Organization of Islamic Conference includes virtually
every nation we need to reach if we are serious about making people to
people diplomacy work for youth. As you know, the Institute has always
regarded the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchanges Act of 1961 as
one of the most important of all this nation's foreign policy
documents. By directing the Department of State to establish new
initiatives through the authority of the 1961 Act you will assure that
the philanthropic and higher education sectors not only support your
efforts but help you leverage government resources for important common
purposes.
Please let me know if there is anything the Institute can do to
assist you in this critically important endeavor at a time of great
national need.
Sincerely,
---- ---- ----,
Institute of International Education.
______
American Institute for Foreign Study,
Stamford, CT,
April 2, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: As a member of the
Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, I write
to thank you for your leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges
Act of 2002.
Winning the war on terrorism will demand more than just our
military prowess. It will require us to engage the peoples of the
Islamic world about our society and values if we are to forge the
mutual understanding and respect that will be the basis of peaceful,
productive relationships. As September 11 and its aftermath make clear,
our public diplomacy has fallen short.
Building productive ties will require a sustained and serious
commitment that reaches well beyond our current efforts. The exchanges
authorized in your bill are the most cost-effective way to encourage
the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance
our long-term national security.
Congressional leadership will be crucial to this endeavor. Student
and exchange flows from the Muslim world are among the lowest of any
region, and significant new resources will be required to jump-start
this effort. Moreover, a clear federal commitment will leverage private
sector support from universities, schools, businesses, and communities
across the U.S. This initiative will engage the American people
directly in the conduct of the highest priority foreign policy.
Your legislation is the right bill at the right time. You have the
gratitude and support of members of the exchange community throughout
the United States.
Sincerely,
Robert J. Brennan,
President.
______
Academy for Educational Development,
Washington, DC,
April 2, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: On behalf of the Academy
for Educational Development, a non-profit organization serving people
in more than 160 countries, I want to thank you for your leadership in
introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002.
International exchange programs are a critical component of the war
on terrorism. Exchange programs enhance mutual understanding and build
long-term bridges with individuals in other countries. Expanding the
flow of people, ideas and information will promote greater
understanding of the United States and will advance our foreign policy
objectives.
The International Visitor Program has been particularly effective
at reaching future foreign leaders and at advancing key foreign policy
objectives. For example, a recent leadership development program
brought student leaders from the Middle East and North Africa for
exchanges with student leaders across the United States. Another
program on the role of religion in the United States brought
administrators from religious educational institutions, or
``madrassahs,'' in Pakistan to meet with civic and religious leaders in
several cities. Programs such as these that target key issues and
leaders should be significantly expanded in the Islamic world.
Although the world's attention has been focused on the Muslim
world, exchange programs from countries with large Islamic populations
are underrepresented in U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs.
Your bill will significantly enhance the capacity to reach out to
individuals in these countries through people-to-people exchanges that
are among our best tools of diplomacy.
We thank you for your leadership, vision and commitment in
introducing this critical piece of legislation.
Sincerely,
Stephen F. Moseley,
President and Chief Executive Officer.
______
AFS-USA, Inc.,
New York, NY,
April 1, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: I am writing on behalf of
our staff, volunteers, and board members located in all 50 states to
express our pleasure and thanks for initiating the Cultural Bridges Act
of 2002.
AFS is the oldest, largest, and most diverse high school exchange
program in the United States and in the world. We understand and
appreciate the leadership you have demonstrated in sponsoring this
bill. Public diplomacy in the Islamic world requires the focus and
funding contained in your bill. Our 54 years of experience in the field
of exchange tells us that a serious commitment, sustained over a number
of years, will be needed to defeat terrorism at its roots by increasing
understanding and tolerance among people of different countries,
beliefs and values. AFS exchanged students from Germany and Japan with
the U.S. almost immediately after World War II. Today those countries
are our allies. Democratic principles, respect for others, and
individual freedom are our values, and they can be powerful when seen
through daily interaction with our families and students.
You are doing the right thing. We stand ready to support you in any
way we can. Thank you for your pursuit of peace and freedom.
Sincerely,
Alex J. Plinio,
President.
______
Alliance for International Educational and Cultural
Exchange,
New York, NY,
April 2, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: On behalf of the 65
member NGOs of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural
Exchange, I write to thank you for your leadership in introducing the
Cultural Bridges Act of 2002.
Winning the war on terrorism will demand more than just our
military prowess. It will require us to engage the peoples of the
Islamic world about our society and values if we are to forge the
mutual understanding and respect that will be the basis of peaceful,
productive relationships. As September 11 and its aftermath make clear,
our public diplomacy has fallen short.
Building productive ties will require a sustained and serious
commitment that reaches well beyond our current efforts. The exchanges
authorized in your bill are the most cost-effective way to encourage
the positive personal and institutional relationships that will enhance
our long-term national security.
Congressional leadership will be crucial to this endeavor. Student
and exchange flows from the Muslim world are among the lowest of any
region, and significant new resources will be required to jump-start
this effort. Moreover, a clear federal commitment will leverage private
sector support from universities, schools, businesses, and communities
across the U.S. This initiative will engage the American people
directly in the conduct of the highest priority foreign policy.
Your legislation is the right bill at the right time. You have the
gratitude and support of members of the exchange community throughout
the United States.
Sincerely,
Kenton W. Keith,
U.S. Ambassador (retired),
Chair, Board of Directors.
______
American Councils for International Education,
Washington, DC,
April 2, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Hon. Richard Lugar,
and Hon. Lincoln Chafee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Kennedy, Lugar, and Chafee: I write to commend you
for your leadership in introducing the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002, a
legislative initiative designed to engage the diverse Islamic
populations around the world through international exchange programs. I
particular want to thank you for focusing on high school exchanges as a
highly effective mechanism for introducing the United States to this
audience, and them to our fellow Americans.
While our country's public diplomacy efforts--which include
exchange programs--have earned us many friends in parts of the world,
the dramatic events of September 11th and our examination of our
standing with key populations in the Islamic world since those
terrorist attacks have revealed that we have neglected a critical world
population stretching from West Africa to Southeast Asia. This arc
crosses the Arab Middle East, through Southeastern Europe and Central
Asia to Indochina approximately 1.4 billion people populate the
countries along this arc. Your initiative would make it our national
policy to reach out to the peoples of these countries to build mutual
understanding.
The Cultural Bridges Act of 2002 would capitalize on our nation's
capacity to educate and inform by bringing individuals to the United
States to learn about our culture, language, and aspirations--all while
studying in school, mastering their chosen profession, or doing
research. It provides a highly effective (and low cost) way to
positively influence foreign populations through citizen diplomacy,
something we've done well with post-war Europe and Japan, Latin
America, and most recently with the countries of the former Warsaw
Pact.
My own organization has utilized academic and youth exchanges for
more than 25 years with the former Soviet Union. Among our many
successes in fostering understanding of the United States in that
region, some of the most impressive results result from exchange
programs involving youth, like the Future Leaders Exchange Program, and
secondary school teachers, like the Excellence in Teaching Awards
Exchange Program--both funded through an earlier congressional
initiative, the FREEDOM Support Act. The Cultural Bridges Act that you
are introducing in the Senate would facilitate similar successes in the
Islamic World.
The American Councils has experience with working in the Muslim
communities of the NIS--communities that exist throughout the 12
countries of the old Soviet Union. Some of the most dynamic needs for
expanded exchange opportunities in the NIS are apparent in the
predominately Islamic countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--countries that are critical
to addressing our urgent security concerns in Central Asia and all of
which would be eligible to benefit from your legislation.
Your exchanges initiative is both an effective bulwark against
ignorance of the United States and a proactive measure for securing the
peace we hope to achieve through our current military campaign. I
applaud your leadership in introducing this bill, and look forward to
its enactment.
Sincerely,
Dan E. Davidson, Ph.D.,
President.
Prepared Statement of Amb. Kenton W. Keith, Chair, Alliance for
International Educational and Cultural Exchange and Senior Vice
President, Meridian International Center
Good morning. I'm Kenton Keith, senior vice president of the
Meridian International Center and chair of the board of directors of
the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange. The
Alliance is an association of 65 U.S.-based exchange organizations, and
as you know, Mr. Chairman, we have worked closely with this committee
over the years on a variety of issues. MIC is a nonprofit organization
that promotes international understanding through exchanges of people,
ideas, and the arts.
Prior to taking up my current positions, I was a Foreign Service
Officer with the United States Information Agency. Much of my career
was spent in the Middle East, including my appointment by President
Bush in 1992 to be U.S. Ambassador to Qatar. Following that assignment,
I headed USIA's area office that supervised all the agency's operations
in the Near East and South Asia. More recently, I took on a temporary
assignment for the State Department during which I established and
directed the Coalition Information Center in Islamabad.
Mr. Chairman, both in my present capacities and based on my past
experiences, I welcome the opportunity to provide this statement for
the record about the importance of public diplomacy, especially in the
wake of the horrific events of September 11 and in support of our
national campaign to rid the world of terrorism.
To win the war on terrorism, the United States will need more than
the might and skill of our armed forces, To ultimately defeat
terrorism, we must also engage the Muslim world in the realm of ideas,
values, and beliefs. No previous foreign affairs crisis has been so
deeply rooted in cultural misunderstanding, and we must address this
gulf of misunderstanding if we are to succeed.
Policy disagreements alone cannot account for the fact that many in
Islamic countries regard the United States, the greatest force for good
in human history, as a source of evil. As a nation, we have not done an
adequate job of explaining ourselves to the world, or of building the
personal and institutional connections with these countries that
support healthy bilateral relationships.
As a long-term solution to the profound problems of cultural
misunderstanding, there will be no substitute for public diplomacy. It
must be a key component of our long-term effort to eradicate terrorism.
We applaud your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and that of your committee in
focusing attention on what must be a critical element in our successful
anti-terrorism strategy.
People-to-people ties are an essential part of our public
diplomacy. As Ambassador Arthur Burns once said, ``The achievement . .
. of true understanding between any two governments depends
fundamentally on the kind of relationship that exists between the
peoples, rather than on the foreign ministers and ambassadors.''
In the Islamic world, we dearly have not done an adequate job of
fostering relationships between our peoples. A February Gallup poll
reports that 61 percent of Muslims believe that the attack on the
United States was a riot carried out by Arabs. Mr. Chairman, that
statistic alone speaks somber volumes about our failure to project our
values and ideals effectively in Islamic nations.
We must recognize that we begin this effort in a very unfavorable
position. Changing minds--or merely opening them--is a long,
painstaking process. There are no quick fixes. And if we are truly to
win the war on terrorism, there will be no avoiding the need to build
bridges between the American people and the people of the Muslim world.
Mr. Chairman, we must begin this process now.
This effort will require us to be creative, disciplined, and
patient as we try to reach audiences whose attitudes towards us range
from profoundly skeptical to openly hostile. We will not succeed in
opening every mind, but we do not need to do so. What we must succeed
in doing is challenging and changing a climate of opinion that unjustly
paints the United States as a source of evil. Improving the
relationships that exist between our peoples is the best way to do
that. And if we succeed, terrorists will find it much more difficult to
gain support or sympathy, either from governments or from general
publics.
Increasing the State Department's exchanges with the Islamic world
will give us the means to build a range of productive, positive
relationships based on shared interests. Such an initiative will engage
the American public--in our communities, schools, and universities--in
this effort to project American values. We will find no better or more
convincing representatives of our way of life.
And the engagement of the American public will leverage significant
additional resources to support this effort.
Under such an initiative, the United States could undertake a broad
range of exchange activities that would enhance U.S. national security.
These programs could include:
Greater numbers of Fulbright students and scholars working
together on issues such as public health, cultural studies,
conflict resolution, and economic development;
More American universities with linkages to institutions in
the Muslim world in fields like journalism, American studies,
and business;
Increased numbers of emerging leaders from Islamic countries
meeting their American professional counterparts and visiting
American homes and communities as part of the International
Visitor program and other citizen exchange programs;
More young people from the Islamic world encountering the
U.S., its people, and its culture through long and short-term
exchange programs, school-to-school projects. or by learning
English from an American teacher;
Exchanges of teachers between the U.S. and Muslim countries
exposing students on both sides to differing perspectives and
more balanced, objective curricula.
This will require a major effort, requiring us to engage a very
broad range of countries, in an area reaching from Africa to the Middle
East, stretching further eastward from Central Asia to the Indian
subcontinent to Southeast Asia. Addressing so many countries and
cultures will demand thoughtfully differentiated approaches to public
diplomacy. In some countries, significant increases in our traditional
exchanges, such as the Fulbright and International Visitor programs,
will be appropriate, welcome, and effective. In other countries, such
an approach may be seen as threatening. Particularly in those cases, we
must be creative in finding ways of reaching more skeptical publics,
such as journalists and religious communities.
This initiative will also require significant new resources. The
scope of the task is too great, and its importance to our national
security too critical, to be able to accomplish our goals by simply
shifting money from other regions of the world. The importance of
maintaining a broad, worldwide coalition to combat terrorism suggests
strongly that shortchanging one area of the world in order to
temporarily emphasize another will be an ineffective strategy. To do
this job right will require new funding.
Reductions in public diplomacy over time have limited out reach: we
have closed posts and cultural centers, reduced numbers of public
diplomacy positions in our embassies, and steeply reduced the number of
exchange participants. As populations in significant Muslim countries
have increased by approximately 15 percent over the past 10 years, the
numbers of exchange participants from key countries such as Egypt,
Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey have declined by approximately 25
percent.
In the face of those reductions, Mr. Chairman, it is important for
us to recognize the dedication, hard work, and effectiveness of the
State Department's corps of public diplomacy officers. Faced with
diminishing resources and a major reorganization that abolished USIA
and moved their function and careers into State, these professionals
have performed in their typical fashion: professionally and
effectively.
Mr. Chairman, a meaningful and effective Islamic exchange
initiative will require $95 million above the current appropriation for
State exchanges. We recognize that this is a significant amount of
money. We believe, however, that this funding level is necessary and
appropriate, given the expanse of the Muslim world and the urgency and
importance of the task at hand. Moreover, this amount of money to be
spent on promoting our ideas and values is very small when compared to
the sums we will expend on military hardware, but is no less crucial to
our success.
Mr. Chairman, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this proposal
with you and your staff, and we have found broad bipartisan support for
an Islamic exchange initiative in both chambers. As you know, Senators
Kennedy and Lugar have recently introduced the ``Cultural Bridges
Act,'' calling for an additional $95 million annually for exchanges
with the Muslim world. Their bill has already attracted twelve
additional cosponsors, drawn from both sides of the aisle. In the
House, International Relations Committee Chairman Hyde's ``Freedom
Promotion Act'' also authorizes new funds for exchanges with the Muslim
world. The Hyde bill has been marked up by the Committee and has been
reported to the House for its consideration. This level of support from
senior members of both parties and both chambers underscores the
timeliness and importance of this initiative. This is a moment when our
national interests require Congressional leadership to build these
cultural bridges. The U.S. exchange community stands ready to assist
you in this effort, and is grateful for your support.
In addition to his Alliance testimony, Kenton Keith submits to
the Committee an additional statement based more directly on
his Foreign Service experience. The text of that addendum
follows:
Mr. Chairman, it is indeed timely for the committee to examine our
public diplomacy assets in the wake of the attacks on our nation. I
would like to draw your attention to problems that handicap the
dedicated individuals who carry out public diplomacy in Washington and
in the field. Structural problems stemming from the amalgamation of
USIA into the Department of State have had the unintentional effect of
diminishing the thrust of our public diplomacy efforts.
I also would like to comment briefly on the new regional
broadcasting initiative launched by the Voice of America.
Structural Faults: An Opportunity Deferred
I served as the USIA representative on the Planning Committee. In
the months of our deliberations it was clear to me that the
disappearance of the USIA Area Offices would be the biggest challenge
to the effective linkage of Washington to the field operations. The
Area Offices, which corresponded to the State Department regional
bureaus, had tremendous clout. They were headed by the Agency's senior-
most career officers, they controlled field budgets, they had direct
and regular access to the Agency's Directors and the political
appointees who headed the Information and Educational and Cultural
Exchange bureaus, and they shared with Ambassadors abroad the
performance evaluations of our PAOs, the public diplomacy directors in
the field. In other words, PAOs were accountable to both their
ambassadors and their area directors.
In almost every case, Area Directors sat in on the meetings of
State Department regional Assistant Secretaries. Indeed, it was most
often the case that they had long professional relations with those
Assistant Secretaries from shared field assignments, and there was a
mutual respect and trust built over time. Thus, it was natural that
they were aware of the short- and medium-range policy concerns of any
given period. They were also the custodians of the long-range public
diplomacy effort to create better understanding by foreign audiences of
American culture, institutions and values.
In discussions of the foreign affairs reorganization, the
interagency planning team was unable to reach a consensus on how to
replace these vital functions, and the final report went forward with
``bracketed language,'' indicating this disagreement. In the event, the
amalgamated Area Offices were reduced in size and power. Area Directors
were replaced by office directors within the State regional bureaus.
Also, some public diplomacy officers, usually even more junior, were
assigned to functional bureaus. Moreover, budget control for field
operations was moved to the Executive Officers in the regional bureaus
in Washington, and to State administrative officers in the field.
What Was Lost?
Coordination. USIA Area Directors had the power to intercede
with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the
Information Bureau (and to some extent with the VOA and
television producers) to shape products for field use and to
ensure that they were integrated into a well-managed public
diplomacy operation in the field posts. This made it possible
to mount a region-wide public diplomacy effort to meet emerging
needs.
Accountability. PAOs were accountable to their ambassadors,
of course, as they are today, but they were also accountable to
the Area Directors. With this arrangement, PAOs not only
responded to the ``brush fire'' public diplomacy issues at the
mission, but also to the longer range challenge of building
understanding and trust through exchange programs, libraries,
English language teaching and cultural exchanges.
Flexibility. Once PAOs lost their status as representatives
of an independent agency, they lost their independent
administrative infrastructure. The idea was to eliminate
redundancy and save money. The result has been that PAOs have
become mired in the bureaucratic complexities of the
Department's operations, and have had to spend time with added
forms and reports when they should be out engaging with
audiences. Over the years, USIA had developed procedures,
including grant management and flexibility in raising money
from the private sector for joint programs, that took account
of the fact that it was a programming agency. This was new to
State, and the loss of these tools has hampered public
diplomacy operations.
Under the current structure, which I believe to be fundamentally
flawed, the primary purveyors of public diplomacy resources--the Under
Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the Bureau of
Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Office of International
Information Programs--have no formal bureaucratic connection with the
public diplomacy sections in our embassies. The Department's senior
official responsible for the conduct of our public diplomacy (the Under
Secretary) has no authority over the field operations that perform that
mission.
This anomalous structure runs the risk of marginalizing public
diplomacy within State, and already has diminished its effectiveness.
Those senior officials with responsibility for public diplomacy do not
control field resources; those with a direct connection to the field
resources are mid-ranking office directors, and do not have the clout
to take bold action. The structural flaw already is manifesting itself
in a diminished focus, uncoordinated activities, and reduced field
resources.
Mr. Chairman, I believe the prescription for change would include
the following elements:
Each regional bureau should have a Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS)
charged with overseeing its public diplomacy activities. Only by
providing senior leadership will public diplomacy succeed at State.
Establishing a DAS in each regional bureau would ensure that public
diplomacy is actively represented in senior-level meetings and thus an
integral component in our approach to every foreign policy issue. A
senior officer with these responsibilities could effectively coordinate
public diplomacy activities across the region, make the case for
additional resources when needed, and play an active role in relevant
personnel matters. The DAS's would coordinate closely with the Under
Secretary for Public Diplomacy, who would have input into their annual
personnel evaluations.
Creating and maintaining DAS positions would be a critical first
step in changing the Department's culture, and would send an
unmistakable message to those who work at State: that public diplomacy
matters, and matters enough to require senior leadership.
Second, a formal link should exist between the regional DAS for
Public Diplomacy, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public
Affairs, the Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs,
and the Coordinator for International Information Programs. In USIA the
close coordination with the Director, the Counselor and the Area
Directors facilitated broad public diplomacy responses to any given
challenge. At present, the only persons within the Department who have
the authority to launch public diplomacy initiatives across regional
bureaus are the Secretary of State and his Deputy.
A New Voice of America
Mr. Chairman, the Voice of America has launched the Middle East
Radio Network, which provides FM broadcasting to Arab audiences with
substantial programming of local news and features voiced by speakers
of the principal regional dialects, with a centrally produced world
news program in modern standard Arabic. In my judgment as someone who
has served in the region for substantial portions of my career, this is
an ambitious experiment that deserves the full support of Congress.
For too long we have clung to short wave broadcasting with a
diminishing audience, or we have used FM signals that were too weak to
be heard. But just as important as having the right signal is the need
for content that speaks to the audiences we seek to reach. This
requires the kind of research and production effort that costs money,
but will pay great dividends. Middle East Radio Network is a very
promising concept, and one that has the potential to play a critical
role in our long-term public diplomacy strategy.
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