While Bosnia is a good case, it would take an extreme case of naivete to believe that protecting the Kurds is about anything but advancing our specific interests. In the context of the rather stupid Iraqi sanctions, it hardly makes a case.
One has to step outside one’s own POV to comprehend this, and a bit of history is helpful for understanding how our actions, good or bad, get fit into pre-existing frameworks.
It ain’t easy, I’ll tell you as someone who’s had to do this in private sector.
No, we have to have people who understand how to effectively communicate with the Arab (Arab Xtians are none-too-fond of our policies in the region either, so its not just Islamic discontent) and Muslim worlds. Self-referential and congratulatory discourse is part of the problem. We don’t need to talk our language, we need to engage the rhetorical style of the audience. Something in my experience American comm is stunningly bad at. (nota bene, this is regarding how to win our points, not give them up lest I be misunderstood. And it is not to say Arab-Muslim comm with the West is any better, quite the contrary, their misunderstanding of Western styles of comm are quite deep in general.)
But it would show that in the part of Iraq that the UN governs, people do relatively well. The fact that people are suffering under the sanctions has a lot more to do Saddam than with the US. Kurdistan makes this case.
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That’s why I am proposing to get someone out there who is direct. We talk so wishy-washy and diplomatic, yet never do we bring up the fact we’ve helped Muslims in Kurdistan and Kosovo. By not even mentioning those instances, our opponents can propagandize that we hate all Muslims–which is provably untrue.
But it would show that in the part of Iraq that the UN governs, people do relatively well. The fact that people are suffering under the sanctions has a lot more to do Saddam than with the US. Kurdistan makes this case.
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You don’t know much about the Mid East, do you?
The no fly zones are almost universally perceived as American imperialism. Even in the Gulf emirates where pro-American sentiment is actually fairly common. The split off of the Kurdish area while letting the Shiite Arabs get bombed to fuck stank to high heaven in the regional perception as the old fashioned divide and conquer tactic well-known from the colonial period. Given that pre-September international support for the sanctions regime had essentially melted away, our case is not particularly strong.
That Kurdistani space survives and even thrives through such things as oil smuggling black-marketeering is hardly a ringing endorsement. The US’s callous public pronouncements laying everything at Saddam’s feet, even while our allies have pointed out the sanctions are not achieving their wider goals does not make a convincing case it is all Saddam’s fault and hardly is going to win converts in an area of the world where post-colonial sensitivities run high. Of course I readily agree that Saddam is indeed the largest cause of suffering and that far too much is excused by the old colonial history, but to ignore these sensitivities in our public diplomacy is to play the tone deaf tune that has gone nowhere previously.
One can mumble on about intentions and consequences but if one wants to truly engage the region, one has to start with an active, at least partially sympathetic understanding of their perceptions. It also helps to know something of the history of the region, else one ends up making statements which fly like an anvil.
Direct. Yes, what is meant by direct? Wishy-washy diplomatic language. Funny term that, I am not sure what you actually mean. If you mean berating and strident proclamations, no that is precisely what I was getting at about self-referential congratulatory discourse.
I wouldn’t say that Bosnia is not mentioned, simply that we have not sold it in the proper manner. Again, talking one’s own language doesn’t do the job per se.
You may wish to read the New York Times article on “The New Power of Arab Public Opinion” 11 November 01 for a sense of the issues. I disagree with some judgments but you should come away with a better sense of the problem.
Appeal to the conflict with Israel. Rather a new feature of his overt propaganda, although the talking heads who see this as truly new I believe are misunderstanding the thread of Islamist thinking.