Some bits of honesty are not pleasant hearing.
The US is losing the propaganda war against al-Qaeda and other enemies, defence chief Donald Rumsfeld has said.
I mean, how bad do you have to be, to have a worse image and/or be less believed than a bunch of murderous fundamentalist terrorists?
It's like losing a "Mr Modern" competition against Homo Erectus.
news.bbc.co.uk
Mr Rumsfeld said al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists were bombarding Muslims with negative images of the West, which had poisoned the public view of the US.
The US must fight back by operating a more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine, or risk a "dangerous deficiency," he said.
I'm not convinced this is either the right lesson or the right answer, however. Many of the 'negative images of the West' are simple portrayals of our actions, and our apparent lack of understanding of how these will be perceived - for example, killing lots of civilians is extremely bad, but also calling it 'collateral damage' is stupid, and not seeing that it's wrong and giving the attitude that this is acceptable is all the propaganda needed.
I think getting the actions right, rather than shouting more and more loudly about the same actions, would be more effective.
Also, Rumsfeld's plans for more 24-hour propaganda simply bring back the saga of all those planted good-news stories which turned out to come from the Pentagon... as if he hasn't learnt the lesson here, either. |
