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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (26789)	1/4/2003 12:33:12 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Maurice, Re: "I thought initially it must be from Satwire." One of the real tragedies of 2002 was the demise of Satire Wire. It was one of the best things on the Net. I'm reminded of what the NY Times' writer Paul Krugman had to say recently: "These are the days when reality is outpacing satire". ********************** The much maligned Office of Strategic Influence was superceded in October by the Office of Global Information, and it works with the same contractors who were never dismissed in the OSI flap. There is a certain arrogance to this "public diplomacy" effort that simply doesn't concern our arrogant bureaucracies. I saw a very interesting segment on C-SPAN yesterday which was a seminar that occurred recently at the Council on Foreign Relations. The guest presenters were James Zogby, a pollster and a Department of State bureaucrat who was trying to make the case for "public diplomacy". The latest effort in U.S. "public diplomacy" is to have spent $16 million on ads on Arab television showing how Muslims are fitting into American society. Totally missing from this modern update of "Leave it to Beaver" or "Father Knows Best" is any mention whatsoever of U.S. foreign policy, the proximate cause of most of the hostility the rest of the world feels toward the U.S. It was as if the State Department bureaucrat was simply attempting to will reality to disappear. It was a bizarre seminar, and not the first experience I've had with watching State Department functionaries lie through their teeth to the American public as well as the world. Zogby played the sane observer of reality as a foil to the insanely pollyannish gibberish of the bureaucrat, pointing out how the Arab world is willing to be polled and when polled has some sensible reasons to distrust the U.S. government. ***************** Don't get me started on opium and the CIA. Now that is an ugly tale. Suffice it to say, the U.S. "won" the war in Afghanistan in 2002 and opium production went up 1,000%. Hello? What's wrong with this picture? Cheerio! Ray