The New Victims Gather

In the age of liberal guilt, the victim holds the power. As a result, as we have discussed many times before, different groups compete—both domestically and in the wider world—for coveted public recognition as a put-upon, oppressed victim. Once the mantle is successfully won, it is maintained by an ideology of grievance, fed either a constant potent brew of truths, half-truths, fabrications and outright lies in order to feed both the rage of the victim class and the pity of respectable opinion in the West.

In all such instances, as with American Blacks so with the Palestinians, the victim group throws up an energetic leadership caste that knows the game and how it is to be played. Jesse Jackson’s and Yassir Arafat’s speeches and professed beliefs both follow the same general pattern (your suffering is all because of the evil plotting of the Whites/Jews) and cover up the same tired pattern of self-enrichment (both are multi-millionaires due to what is essentially extorted money) for a very good reason: they are both masters at stoking resentment and bringing forth a torrent of guilt. The latent racism of the liberal helps; to him, brown- and black-skinned people need his help and compassion if they are to stand a chance. As a result, they really can’t be held responsible for anything they do, and, if they do do something evil, it’s probably because of something uncompassionate white people either did or neglected to do.

This pattern in our wider Western political culture is now nearing close to 40 years of age and is starting to show it somewhat. It appears to us that every day more and more people are noticing this ideology’s frayed ends and irrational beliefs, starting to question liberal orthodoxy due to hard-won experience in real life. But the battle against the Cult of the Victim is far from over. Indeed, it is far from clear if such a battle could ever be fully won given the moral imperative and the historical narrative felt deeply by the liberal left in our civilization. It is far from certain that playing the victim card is a dead end. (For the leadership caste, anyway; for the victim class it is beyond clear that such an ideology is self-defeating and immensely psychologically crippling).

Which is why a number of South American and Arab leaders found themselves in Brasilia last week. The occasion, in case you missed it, was the first ever summit between the leaders of Latin America and the leaders of the Islamic world. There, the new leftist leaders of a newly democratic Latin American and the same old tired autocrats (save for the new President of Iraq, none enjoy any decree of legitimacy whatsoever) came together to find common ground and topics of mutual interest upon which they could cooperate.

Or so the press releases said. What actually happened was that two of the three of the most backwards and illiberal civilizational entities in the world met (the other, of course, being sub-Saharan Africa) and discovered—much to their mutual delight—that none, absolutely none, of their problems have anything to do with them. No, of course not.

The problem is not that both suffer from an exceptionally rigid political/cultural heritage that is marked through with arbitrary power, the exclusion and marginalization of women, excessive and obsessive racism, and a family/clan/tribe economic organization that retards the most basic development. You may think those things are relevant, but you’d be wrong.

The real problem, as always, are the Americans and the Jews. (That’s just what Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini thought, too. Isn’t it remarkable how great minds think alike?)

The summit meeting had its moments, like when the Chief Clown of Venezuela stopped spreading scare stories about his imminent assassination at the hands of the all-powerful C.I.A. (only in Latin American and at Indymedia is the C.I.A. thought to be effective) stood up to lecture the President of Iraq about the immorality of the U.S. war and occupation of that country, or when the entire Argentine delegation left early having tired of the veiled insults of their Brazilian hosts.

But for sheer idiocy and victimology at its best, nothing beats the summit’s closing declaration. The entire text can be accessed and read here, but we offer a sample as follows for two reasons. First, there just isn’t enough humor on this blog. Second, because, from time to time in the dead of night, usually after we’ve read the day’s collection of leftist hate mail (keep those cards and letters coming, kids!) we sit up straight in bed and wonder: are we on the right track? Is Conservatism really an intellectually defensible stance in today’s world? Perhaps we’re missing something in the leftist critique? Perhaps there is something to be gleaned, to be learned from their positions? Maybe, just maybe, we are wrong about the basics and, therefore, wrong about the particulars as a matter of course?

And then we read declarations of professional victims like these and it’s as if clear bright morning has dawned. Don’t believe us? Read for yourself! The parties to the declaration:

Express deep concern with regard to unilateral sanctions imposed on Syria by the government of the United States of America and consider that the so-called Syria Accountability Act violates principles of International Law and constitutes a transgression against the objectives and principles of the United Nations thereby establishing a serious precedent as regards dealing with independent states.

There’s that old “International Law” again, which apparently becomes law if a group of anti-Americans decide they really, really don’t like a sovereign decision we’ve made about who we will trade with and why. By the way, where is the parliament that drafts this stuff? Can we vote? Petition? Testify? Protest?

Affirm the territorial integrity of Sudan and unity of its people and call upon all concerned parties to support efforts towards realizing comprehensive peace, reconstruction and development in that country; and welcome the steps taken by the Sudanese Government in facilitating international assistance to the humanitarian crisis in Darfour and express their keen interest that the Arab League and the African Union undertake in this respect.

We think what they mean by welcoming “the steps taken by the Sudanese Government in facilitation international assistance to the humanitarian crisis in Darfour” is “we are completely detached from reality and don’t really give a damn about genocide.” At least that’s what we think they meant to say.

The Heads of State and Government of South American and Arab countries call on the Argentine Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to resume negotiations in order to reach, as soon as possible, a peaceful, fair and lasting solution to the sovereignty dispute about the Malvinas Question, according to the relevant U.N. Resolutions.

Hey, if you’re calling it the “Malivinas Question,” we’re pretty sure we know where you guys are going with that one.

Reaffirm their refusal of foreign occupation and recognize the right of states and peoples to resist foreign occupation in accordance with the principles of international legality and in compliance with international humanitarian law.

Refresh our memory: is shooting girls for going to school in compliance with international humanitarian law or not?

Reaffirm the need for the materialization of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people, and for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1515 (2003), and the establishment of the independent Palestinian State, based on the 1967 lines, living side by side with the State of Israel, and the withdrawal of Israel from all occupied Arab territories to the lines of 4th of June 1967, and the dismantling of the Settlements including those in East Jerusalem. They duly take into account the advisory opinion rendered on 9th July 2004 by the International Court of Justice concerning the "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory", and call upon all parties concerned to comply with the said advisory opinion.

Sure. Go back to the indefensible borders so they can try a fifth time to drive the Jews into the sea. And, while you’re at it, take down the wall so that more dancing teenagers in Tel Aviv and little children eating pizza at Sbarro’s can be blown to bits. Reasonable suggestion.

Ah, to sleep the sleep of the just and the well-contented!

The Future of Public Diplomacy: Cutting Out the Middleman

We, like our friends over at Daily Demarche, have been thinking a lot lately about our public diplomacy efforts. With the recent dramatic damage done to our image in the Muslim world thanks to a completely false report by Newsweek, the issue has risen to the fore of our thoughts and concerns. So, when we received a request today via email to comment on the subject, we didn’t need much prompting. We have thought of little else these recent days.

First, some provisos: we do not work in Public Diplomacy, we are still relatively new to the State Department, we are junior, untenured officers. Our perspective is therefore still essentially that of an outsider with some limited inside experience. We do not intend to pose as experts and offer only our thoughts.

Of course, this particular vantage point is not a very bad place to be on this specific topic. Since all people, especially hard-working FSOs, take pride in their work, it is very likely that any professional PD man would be a bit too wrapped up in the quotidian and essential work he performs to provide objective advice and comment. On the other hand, a total outsider lacks the great galvanizing experience of working and living abroad, and dealing with a world where perception is indeed reality. Additionally, since, as new officers, we still retain some of our civilian mind-set, we feel we are able to assess the Department’s efforts as any average American would.

From the moment we arrived in Washington, D.C., and were introduced to life at “Main State” (diplo-speak for the Harry S. Truman Building, headquarters of the Department of State) we knew we had a PD problem on our hands. Simply put, the building—a drab, quite ugly, atrociously furnished and brutally painted eyesore of a building—stands in quite nicely as an illustration of what is wrong with our approach. Like Main State, our PD programs accept too readily how we’ve always done business; like that tired old building, we have an overly practical approach that values asset lifetime and use quotients over the more hard-to-grasp value of symbolism, beauty and elegance. We view ourselves as an office, complete with scuffed linoleum walkways and harsh florescent lighting, rather than a department of the executive of the most powerful county and oldest republic in the history of mankind.

Public Diplomacy: Not So Public

Our current PD program focuses on one thing and one thing only: the press. In whatever country you choose to name, our PD officers are studying the host country’s press in the morning and spending the rest of their working day talking to reports and editors, making corrections, clarifications, suggestions, and getting stories out. When they aren’t doing that, they are prepping our people—from lowly functionaries like ourselves to the Secretary of State—for interaction with the press, drilling in talking points, pointing out topics to avoid or to stress and then, afterwards, handling the inevitable press conference.

Thus, our entire system is staked on one central theme: that there is no more important conduit to the public of host countries than that country’s press or, in the unique case of the Middle East, in the trans-national satellite channels like Al-Jazeera. But what if that central judgment is incorrect? What if we are working in a Cold War old-media mindset in a world awash with new possibilities and a very vibrant New Media?

Even our most ardent PD men and women would have to agree that if the central organizing principle of the discipline is incorrect, it doesn’t really matter that they perform difficult work often brilliantly. This is why one hears such skepticism about PD’s prospects even though Karen Hughes is a competent, thoughtful person. Even a Hughes can’t make a broken paradigm work.

And broken it indeed is. It’s not just in the United States where the prestige and power of the MSM are being called into question, it’s all around the world (or most of it). In such an environment a radical re-think of our approach is necessary. We must stop thinking of the press as a sacrosanct body of high priests who will decide whether or not to carry our message across and start thinking of our own interests. We must design an across-the-board approach that establishes an official American media presence that performs an end-run around the press and speaks directly to the people of the world. And, what’s more, this new approach must speak the language people around the world expect America to speak in, using the latest in Internet and high technology.

There will be those who would dismiss the result as “propaganda,” and, of course, unless the truly creative talents of some our colleagues in the State Department are freed from the dead hand of business-as-usual and bureaucratic regulations, the result will be yet another clone of State Magazine, which fights monthly with AFSA’s Foreign Service Journal for the title of Saddest Magazine of All Time. There is no reason why all these people, many of whom succeeded in the private sector, cannot build a respectable media outlet if they are given the tools to do the job. Fortunately for us, the building blocks are already there; we have but to use them.

Image Promotion: the Voice of America and the New Media

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Sanford J. Unger, a former NPR reporter and Voice of America director, laments the current state of PD and offers some proposed solutions. (You may find a preview of the article here). In so doing, Unger reveals all that is wrong with our current crop of leadership on this issue. Unger’s thesis is basically that, once upon a time, the U.S. Government funded a variety of English-language news programming, centered upon VoA and the old, much-lamented U.S. Information Agency, that focused on hard news, independent of what Unger calls “political interference.” He writes:

In 63 years of operation, the VoA has been a widely respected brand name, symbolizing honest international radio journalism with an American twist….Political interference in programming decisions, thought to be a thing of the past, has returned. Congressionally mandated editorials expressing the official views of the U.S. government, previously set apart, now blend into or trump objective news reports. Dispirited by the trend, some of the network’s most senior and most widely respected correspondents have retired.

One shudders to think how bad the reports on VoA must have gotten before an exasperated Congress stepped in and forced former NPR reporters to can the “objective” reporting in exchange for something that approximated the American view on current events. The idea that what we should be aiming at is a kind of left-wing NPR writ large that seeks to serve mankind with the kind of objective reporting that finds the U.N credible and our own State Department a repository of shameful lies is on its face ludicrous.

In order for any new initiative to succeed, it would have to purge this press-centric, and, thus, orthodox liberal world view and engage a new crop of New Media savvy writers, producers and directors. This would be absolutely essential to the success of any such initiative.

If such a move were harnessed to the already-existing infrastructure of VoA and the other Broadcasting Board of Governors initiatives, the USG could launch a world-wide media offensive, taking out the middlemen and their unrelenting knee-jerk assumptions. Blogsites by USAID workers in the field, newspapers produced by regional specialists, news programming that does for America what Al-Jazeera has done for Islamic Fascism, documentaries about women going to school for the first time, an international C-Span showing the world democratic process and interesting speeches, a massively increased visitor’s program to bring talented foreigners to the United States for taxpayer-paid studies, an aggressive arts program that brings American art to the world, trained and skilled debaters to represent the USG in news programs around the world. All this and more is necessary if we are to make any progress.

Unger is right about one thing: the current state of the VoA is a joke. It is badly produced, laughably written and horrifically presented. It combines the worst of status-quoism and staid bureaucracy, kind of like that Main State building. Old, out-dated, worn-out, built for yesterday’s war, a sad relic that bespeaks a loss of confidence and an inability to separate the important from the mundane.

What Makes A Story A Story

I mean, it's appalling, really, that an article that was unfounded to begin with has caused so much harm, including loss of life. And one would expect as the facts come out of how this story was written, one would expect more than the kind of correction we've seen so far. But I think it's very clear to us nonetheless that the effects around the world have been very bad. Happily -- well, luckily, I guess I would say, that things are a little bit quieter today in the South Asia region and Near East. We haven't seen any additional protests today.

There were instances where we felt there was some incitement going on or local authorities felt there was some incitement going on. I think you've seen Afghan authorities talking about that, where people were using this for other local political or other ends.

How do we deal with it? First, I think we deal with it by the same way we have been dealing with it, being transparent and up front and open about what U.S. policy is, what U.S. soldiers do. We have promised that we will look into these allegations, even if the magazine itself has more or less retracted the assertion. But we promised we would look into them and we will. We are looking into them. General Schmidt has been conducting an investigation of the FBI memos and has found nothing that would substantiate in those memos or otherwise charges of desecration of the Koran.

We have made clear, I think, that there is the utmost respect for religion of the prisoners. In fact, the Army, since early 2003, has had instructions to its personnel about handing of the Koran. The Koran is only to be handled by chaplains and Muslim interpreters. It's, you know, people -- they're supposed to put on gloves before the touch it. They're not supposed to in any way disrespect or desecrate the Koran and there are a very specific set of rules the military has on handling the Koran.

So this kind of report, this allegation that's now proving not to have any real basis, is anathema to us. We've said that. We made it clear that our practices and our policies are completely different. And I'm afraid because this story is out there and you can't get it back, we're just going to have to make -- continue to make clear that our practices and our policies are completely different.

-- Amb. Boucher, today, on the Newsweek Koran Desecration Story

Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at Guantanamo Bay.

-- Mark Whitaker, Editor, Newsweek, today, following an earlier partial retraction that provided excuses for why Newsweek ran an unconfirmed report that was really no more than a rumor.

What do the New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, CNN, CBS News and, now, Newsweek have in common?

It’s not really a fair question anymore, is it? The answer has now become so gobsmackingly obvious that even the most die-hard liberals have begun to sit up and take notice. While spending most of its time navel-gazing, screaming out its virtue and wondering if these new right-wing nutjobs in pajamas are ruining their profession, the MSM has done us all a favor by acting in such a reckless manner that its tired anti-American, anti-conservative bias is no longer even a topic fit for debate. It’s become a bit like debating whether or not the Earth is flat, the Pope Catholic (though that seems to be a real problem for some these days) or if In ‘n Out Burgers are the best on the planet: the correct answer is easy to identify and everyone knows it.

“Bush lied, people died!” is the lame slogan, but here we see a once-respected newsweekly actually managing the feat, then actually coming out and admitting it. So, we find the newspaper of record manufacturing stories out of whole cloth for its front pages, a director-general having to resign for presiding over a bundle of sordid lies while ironically accusing HMG of the same, a “news executive” admitting that the criminality of the Saddam Hussein regime was covered up by his news organization so that it could maintain its Baghdad bureau, the historically most-famous network news organization parading around an obviously false document to wound a presidential candidate and, now, a sad group of attention-grabbing writers presenting an unfounded rumor they must have known would deeply harm the United States without any factual basis whatsoever.

In each case, don’t take our word for it if you don’t wish to; it’s all a matter of open, clear and widely-known public knowledge. And, instead of asking itself the hard questions, speaking truth to power—two things the self-righteous press corps prides itself on—the response so far has been the same as before.

The story may be fake, yes, we admit it; however, due to the criminal actions of the United States and its idiot President the atmosphere where such stories could be believed made such obvious falsehoods credible. Therefore, the story goes, the President of the United States and not, say, Newsweek is responsible for the riots and the scores injured and killed. The sickening, self-serving nature of such arguments should be apparent to all.

It’s one thing to be anti-American. It’s quite another to spend 365 days a year spreading anti-American propaganda and then blaming others for its effects. Yes, Abu Ghraib was a horror show, but the amount of attention it received—and other stories like it, like the never backed-up NY Times allegation that American troops were keeping Coke bottles in Humvees to break over Iraqi civilians’ heads as they speed by—is many, many times out of proportion to its overall importance. If you doubt this, ask yourself this simple question: from the time of the first Gulf War to the present the United States military has held literally tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners, the vast majority of whom are alive and well today in Iraq. If Abu Ghraib was the norm instead of what it was—a criminal conspiracy and shameful behavior by a handful of badly-supervised idiots—there should be tens of thousands of similar stories.

But there aren’t more Abu Ghraib-like stories, just thousands upon thousands of stories that run along of the lines of “I was held, my hands were tied, they made me wear a uniform, they fed me MREs then, later, hot food, we showered, we slept, we waited and then we were released.” Not much fun reporting those types of stories, is it?

Rather than an relentless search for truth, the fact is that what passes for reporting in today’s MSM is really just facts and factoids that bolster the press’ uber-liberal worldview that American is bad and American soldiers are worse. And if the "fact" is a little questionable...well, still, it's a really good fact, isn't it?

This is why even respected news organizations like CBS and Newsweek find themselves institutionally incapable of resisting such a juicy story like U.S. soldiers flushing the Koran down a toilet. It’s just too good, it’s just too right, it’s just too, y’know, perfect to pass up on.

It reminds us of an episode we experienced during our years on the left at U.C. Berkeley. A student, a poor young woman, disappeared and was found dead, having been brutally raped beforehand. It was soon revealed that, the night she disappeared she had had a huge and very public fight with her frat-boy white boyfriend.

The Left mobilized. The Daily Californian went into high-gear. The story was reported in vivid detail and thoughtful commentators wrote columns about how the power-mad, violence soaked White culture, with its emphasis on football and competition, inevitably resulted in killer Republicans like this all-American boyfriend.

Marches were planned, more leaflets printed. Angry feminists demanded that we “take back the night” from the white, mainstream oppressive male culture. Angry professors joined us in solidarity, a few wore armbands that never quite caught on.

Then, a few days later, the Oakland Police arrested two young black men for the crime, one of whom quickly confessed, in brutal, confidence-in-mankind-shaking detail.

The marches were quietly cancelled, the leaflets quickly picked up, the professors skulked away.

You see, it was no longer a story.