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"The US's entire foreign policy structure in the region has been anchored in the strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. If everything we're hearing is true, then we're facing a total meltdown... The whole war as currently conceived would have to be reconsidered, because Pakistan won't hold if Saudi support starts collapsing"
MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/16: While American and British officials rush to make one TV appearance after another with continual reassurances everything is going "as planned", that's not quite the reality of the situation as this article in today's Guardian makes quite evident. And it is for these underlying reasons that urgent plans are underway not only to put more and more American officials and "approved" analysts on foreign media television, especially Al Jazeera, but also to use financial incentives, and advertising, to in effect neutralize Al Jazeera with a firm crocodile-type embrace. That's really what Secretary of State Colin Powell worked out with the Emir of Qatar in their one-on-one Washington meetings earlier this month.
Because it is a TV age, because of the increased available of cable and satellite TV, and because of this historic moment with al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, Al Jazeera has become known to the rest of the world, beyond those in the Arab countries who have been turning to it in Arabic for some years now after a deadly diet of directly controlled state TV and radio throughout the last century.
But the reality is Al Jazeera has always been very careful about key subjects that greatly affect the Middle East -- their own regimes and how their affairs are constantly manipulated by a Washington-centered coalition combining the U.S. government, the key Arab "client regimes" (especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan), and the Israelis, all of whom have actually been working closely together behind-the-scenes to "stabilize" the region for their own mutual benefit for many years now. It is this basic geopolitical reality that not only explains all the past support from Arab capitals for the disingenuous apartheid-style "peace process" but for the new post-Sept 11th rush to embrace a quisling and unreal "Palestinian State". Bottom line Al Jazeera is a clever safety-valve for a new age designed to much more subtly manipulate and control public opinion in new and more sophisticated ways, closely controlled by a new generation of Arab establishment personalities through their selection of broadcasters and editors. Al-Hayat in London, owned by the Saudi Royal family, as well as a few key sponsored publications -- Middle East International in London and Washington Report on the Middle East in the U.S. two examples -- are also part of this new still evolving new age Arab-establishment-regimes-controlled media structure.
MER has had one direct experience with Al Jazeera. Invited to appear for what was to be "about a 15-minute interview", the publisher of MER was invited to the Al Jazeera studios in downtown Washington. Once there he was told the interview was not going to be live after all, that in fact they could not even say for sure that any or all of it would be used (i.e., watch what you say if you want to get on air), and finally he was told they would not even promise that at least a few minutes of the interview would be broadcast (thus agreeing to their editing) including showing on screen his identification, "Publisher of Mid-East Realities -- MiddleEast.Org". When even this final request was not agreed to Mark Bruzonsky took off his microphone and left the studio.
In another case MER has learned of a much in-the-known Arab Muslim personality who was invited to Qatar for a conference. When it came time to put the person on Al Jazeera he was told there were some subjects that shouldn't be discussed -- subjects he in fact knows very much about specifically relating to the "client regimes" and "client organizations" in Washington and the crucial role played in what is in effect modern-day Rome by the Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin-Sultan.
More to come on these crucial subjects from MER's "Washington Scene":
[The Guardian - UK - Washington - Tuesday October 16, 2001]: Relations between the US and two of its core allies in the war against terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, approached crisis point yesterday after the Saudi interior minister, Prince Naif, attacked the assault on Afghanistan while Pakistan pressed Washington to ensure that its bombing campaign would be short-lived.
In the latest and most public of a series of disagreements that have evidently taken the US by surprise in the five weeks since the September 11 attacks, Prince Naif told the official Saudi Press Agency that the kingdom wanted the US to flush out the terrorists without bombing. "This is killing innocent people. The situation does not please us at all."
Officially, the state department in Washington remains "very satisfied" with the Saudi approach to the crisis, but this masks increasing alarm not merely about the governmental response but about potential insurrection that could endanger theSaudi regime.
Prince Naif's comments add to the diplomatic pressure being felt by the US in its attempts to maintain support in the region for its policies.
The secretary of state, Colin Powell, who holds talks with General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad today, took further steps yesterday to bolster Pakistan's support for the war, promising military-to-military contacts.
The sanctions imposed after Pakistan's nuclear test in 1998 still prevent the US selling the country any weaponry or equipment, but by moving towards direct military relations Mr Powell was clearly holding out the prospect of future rewards if the Musharraf regime continued to play ball.
But with strikes ordered across the country by Islamist groups in protest at Mr Powell's visit, Mr Musharraf is aware that his support for the US action can go only so far. "The prolongation of the campaign will be a source of concern to us," the Pakistani foreign ministry said last night.
Further underlining the tension that now racks the region, Indian troops broke a 10-month ceasefire with Pakistan last night when they fired shells into disputed territory in Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding 25.
A clearly worried President George Bush upbraided the two nuclear powers when he said: "I think it is very important that India and Pakistan stand down during our activities in Afghanistan and, for that matter, for ever."
In the most extreme language to emerge from Tehran since September 11, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said that the US air strikes were "dragging the world into a war".
The warning was in stark contrast to a New York Times report today which revealed that Iran sent a secret message to the Bush administration on October 8 agreeing to rescue any US military personnel in distress in its territory.
At the top of Washington's in-tray of anxieties relating to its coalition partners, analysts now believe that Saudi Arabia - where few western journalists are allowed - may be turning into the gravest challenge.
"It's unbelievable how the feeling here has changed from sympathy to anger in such a short time," a Riyadh-based westerner quoted by Reuters said yesterday. Another resident compared the mood there to that of Iran before the overthrow of the Shah.
Since September 11, Riyadh has refused to allow attacks on Afghanistan from its bases; Prince Abdullah, the country's crown prince and day-to-day ruler, has avoided meeting President Bush; Muslim clerics within the once-monolithic country have issued fatwas against the Americans; and, beneath the bland assurances of amity, there has been growing US frustration about the extent of Saudi cooperation with this investigation too.
US feeling was expressed in a powerful editorial in Sunday's New York Times, which described Saudi behaviour as "malignant" and said the "deeply cynical" bargain between the countries, which for decades had offered American protection for the regime in return for an uninterrupted flow of oil, was now "untenable".
David Wurmser, director of Middle East studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said yesterday: "The US's entire foreign policy structure in the region has been anchored in the strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. If everything we're hearing is true, then we're facing a total meltdown.
"The whole war as currently conceived would have to be reconsidered, because Pakistan won't hold if Saudi support starts collapsing.
"You can't really separate Bin Laden from the Saudi establishment," Mr Wurmser said. "There are conflicting forces there, and part of the establishment has been working with the Bin Laden faction to embarrass the other half."
However, the state department spokesman, Philip Reeker, yesterday repeated the "very satisfied" mantra that his colleagues have been using for some time. He noted that Prince Naif had said the situation did not please the Saudis.
"I think that quite reflects the attitudes we've been expressing for five weeks now. This situation, clearly, doesn't please us. We would certainly rather be able to focus on other things in our foreign and defence policy."
Would Wage Battle for Islam's Hearts and Minds, Says Charlotte Beers
Longtime ad executive Charlotte Beers, the State Department's chief of public diplomacy, is weighing an unconventional strategy to get the U.S. message across in Afghanistan:
[WASHINGTON - 15 October - AdAge]: Faced with "a battle for the mind" and the need to tell moderate Muslims that the U.S. isn't fighting Islam, Ms. Beers said the State Department is investigating new ways to reach out.
Among the possibilities: advertising on Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden's favored broadcast venue. "I will choose any channel of distribution, any format that will get the job done," said Ms. Beers, the former chairman of WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson Co., who three weeks ago was confirmed as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
"This is probably what I bring to the party. I have seen how such messages and such formats work." 'Battle for the mind' Terrorism, Ms. Beers said, "is a battle for the mind. & The role of public diplomacy is undergoing major reassessment. However one might interpret it, [public diplomacy] is a vital new arm in what will combat terrorism over time. All of a sudden, we are in this position of redefining who America is, not only for ourselves under this kind of attack, but also for the outside world."
Ms. Beers plans to put together an advisory council of Arab and Muslim leaders to help craft what the U.S. should communicate in foreign countries. Among the points to advocate: The U.S. is not opposed to Islam; Mr. bin Laden and his followers misstate the Koran and what Muslim religion says; the U.S. is working to provide humanitarian aid. Speeches, media interviews, advertising and a more direct approach -- building radio stations to beam programs toward target populations -- are among options Ms. Beers is investigating.
The State Department has made no final decision whether to use ads.
Buying time on Al Jazeera "The [immediate] problem is getting the message articulated and understood," Ms. Beers said. "Then I will worry about channels of distribution. I know how to do that. It may be imperfect. It's not like I can call up a channel and run it. But if I have to buy time on [satellite-TV broadcaster] Al Jazeera, I would certainly consider it." The network drew attention last week when Mr. bin Laden, the terrorist leader, used it to release his statements after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Ms. Beers' job puts her in charge of both the State Department's public affairs side, which handles messages aimed at a U.S. audience, and the public diplomacy section, aimed at a foreign audience.
Ms. Beers, who was nominated last spring, originally expected to have six months to a year to develop a plan to expand the State Department's target audience from government leaders and opinion makers abroad to a broader population.
Now she has to do that same job immediately and instantly and under challenge as terrorist leaders try to give their own view of America. Ms. Beers said fighting this attack is especially complex because it puts the U.S. government in a position of discussing much more than policy differences.
'Dialogue of great emotional context'
"We are talking about religion with all its connotations and emotional aspects. If you think about the dialogue that the State Department [normally uses] and the government itself speaks to, [here] we are forced into a dialogue of great emotional context & where people discuss their religion, aspects of purity, [and] they accuse us of goals and beliefs that we haven't even heard of in our lifetime."
The message the U.S. needs to deliver, most of it through conventional channels of American foreign service officials delivering speeches and media interviews, is about who the U.S. is and what it stands for, she said.
"We have got to be able to get our messages in their context & messages about who we are, what we believe in, where we stand and basic information messages about what the president said, what the policies are and how the U.S. is running an immense aid program at the same time it is trying to target the Taliban and its supporting organization. "In addition to what our policies are, what we haven't felt the need to communicate is what is the value system," Ms. Beers said.
"What are our beliefs? What do the words freedom and tolerance mean? We are having people who are not our friends define America in negative terms. It is time for us to reignite the understanding of America." Ms. Beers said the communications challenges are made harder by cutbacks at the State Department over the past few years. She said the department will need additional resources.
Ms. Beers is working with the Ad Council to develop public-service spots that could run in the U.S.
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| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/10/467.htm |