Bush: Swift-Boated by Bin Laden
Thomas Friedman wrote a heck of a column for the New York Times. His basic point is that George W. Bush – and thus America – are losing the propaganda war, at least in the Middle East. “One thing that has always baffled me,” Friedman writes, “about the Bush team’s war effort in Iraq and against Al Qaeda is this: How could an administration that was so good at Swift-boating its political opponents at home be so inept at Swift-boating its geopolitical opponents abroad?”
He goes on:
How could the Bush team Swift-boat John Kerry and Max Cleland — authentic Vietnam war heroes, whom the White House turned into surrendering pacifists in the war on terror — but never manage to Swift-boat Osama bin Laden, a genocidal monster, who today is still regarded in many quarters as the vanguard of anti-American “resistance.â€
Quite right. This is something that never ceases to amaze me either. Bush et al. have proven themselves to be great propagandists, at least domestically, but in regards to the world, and especially the Muslim world, they are a bunch of PR amateurs. One reason for this is, in my opinion, that the Bush administration does not really understand the attitude in the Mideast. They try to appeal to them based on American values. As much as Americans like to think their values are universally accepted, the opposite is true. No, if Bush wants to win the PR war in the Mideast, he needs to appeal to Mideastern values – to Islamic values – not to American values.
Please click here to read more.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
6 Responses to “Bush: Swift-Boated by Bin Laden”
This is why Rome and the British Empire fell. Having a President with 0 foreign policy training, it’s a no brainer.
This sounds like an argument for muticulturalism and against US exceptionalism.
I have boycotted NYT since the Select pay wall so I can’t go into the Friedman units. But the Bush PR blitz in the ME was run by Karen Hughes(“mommy with cookies”) instead of Colin Powell before he embarrassed himself infront of the UN. It seems both the message and messanger are wrong for the ME. $25 million, a trip to Orlando and a McDonalds franchise makes for a bad reality show, not a change of the political landscape of the ME.
Bin Laden initially became radicalized by the presence of our bases in his own country, Saudi Arabia, and of course almost all of the 9/11 hijackers came from there. He can point to our invasion of and prolonged occupation of Iraq as evidence that we intend to use the ME for our own purposes, and destroy their culture in the process. That is why he is winning the PR war among moderate muslims, who have converted in droves to join the jihadists.
But, I agree totally that we are losing because the Bush administration doesn’t understand the muslim world. We have no understanding of thousand year blood feuds between sects, or of a people who would fight to the death for fundamentalist Islam.
We lost in Vietnam because we didn’t understand that culture either- we couldn’t conceive of a people who would live in rat-infested filthy tunnels for years if it would contribute to our defeat, especially for an ideology that we Americans found so repugnant.
The administration has failed, sure.
But what are the options? What values of theirs can we appeal to without betraying our own? Whete is the common ground that we could utilize?
The only realistic option, to my mind, is the relentlwss juxtaposing of the death and estruction that AQ and sectarian violence bring vs the peace and prosperity (no, not the US corporate kind-they have to develop their own) possible with peace. Pictures of Dubai vs pictures of Baghdad.
That leaves a major hurdle, though:: who could be our messenger? US fingerprints on any message will doom the project. Help from existing regimes will doom the project, as well, since the regimes are the oppressers.
It looks to me we could only work around the fringes, Finding those fringes could be a daunting task, indeed.
Wouldn’t AQ’s death and destruction campaign convince moderates to reject their cause without us getting involved? I agree that mistrust for the US has grown to the point that we no longer are a positive force for democracy in the region- if we ever were. The choice for those in the ME has been between corrupt and ineffective leaders, repressive dictators, and brutal and fanatical terrorists. Some choice.
“Wouldn’t AQ’s death and destruction campaign convince moderates to reject their cause without us getting involved? ”
You woulr think so, but the messaged hasn;t been framed. packaged and sloganeered – you know, the stuff that’s done so effectively for US politics.