For example, the ways the United States talks about freedom and democracy can send the message that there is only one sort of freedom and democracy -- our own. Furthermore, we often fail to realize that our use of freedom and democracy are seen by others as code words for the entire sum of the U.S. way of life and its complete value system, which many in Islam, for example, view as debased and corrupt, and certainly inimical to theirs.

Beyond our unwitting use of language, however, is our conveyance of an implicit existential narrative that Muslims find at best troubling, and at worst, terrifying. The American Story has powerful components of the messianic, the millenarian and the apocalyptic. These are so familiar and natural a part of our history that what we see as heroic and exemplary others may see quite differently. Americans believe without ever voicing it that we exist to redeem the world. The Civil War and World War II were very explicit about redemption and about the role of God's will in its realization. The speeches of Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt echoed across time as a lineage that is enunciated just as clearly and forcefully in the words of President Bush.

This highly charged public language suggests to Muslims that the United States will visit upon them the very sort of violent dramaturgy experienced say, by Germany and Japan during and after World War II. Thus the kinder and gentler words officially broadcast to assuage Muslim anxiety are seen as weak and insincere damage-limitation, wholly insufficient to overcome the passionate intensity and authenticity of national war speeches.

This difficulty continues as people in the United States discuss the war, and as the administration works to persuade its constituencies and opponents of the rightness of its cause. The arguments and justifications for domestic consumption may end up at odds with the message of U.S. public diplomacy. Moreover there is a wider domestic discourse about administration policy motivation. Both conversations focus on domestic eyes and ears, but the whole world is watching with intent. Thus the domestic discourse creates problems for the official U.S. presentation to the Muslim world. There are four themes here that weaken the U.S. message -- not in the realm of our reality, but in Muslim perception:

-- Neoconservative orchestration.

Perhaps the most persistent neuralgia of Muslims' perception of U.S. motives is the assumption that the United States and Israel are inseparable, and that the war on terrorism, but most especially, the invasion of Iraq is all about insuring the security of Israel. The back-and-forth in the U.S. media about the role of neoconservatives in the making of U.S. strategy on Iraq is simply a reaffirmation of accumulated Muslim prejudice on this theme. What is important here is that our understanding of this topos is practically irrelevant to the longstanding entrenchment of Muslim thinking. Moreover they can point authoritatively to every act of the administration -- buttressed by U.S. commentators -- as perfect confirmation of a larger U.S. strategy to destroy Islam.

-- Administration deception.

The debacle over weapons of mass destruction is just a part of this particular problem; the bigger issue is the interminable back-and-forth over justification for the invasion of Iraq. The entire run up to the war was an energetic exercise in salesman-storytelling; but what exactly was the story? Was it weapons of mass destruction? Was it Saddam's intimate links to al-Qaida? Was it the bigger vision of establishing a precedent for democracy in the Muslim Middle East? The confusion and the ambiguity of this domestic message actually contributed to a suspicion of conscious deception, in that there was never a steadfast message to Americans about the changing course of the war. Most significant for broader Muslim perceptions: if the administration was willing to deceive its own electorate, how could any message to the world of Islam be taken seriously?

-- Islam-American war.

In the wake of 9/11 the administration was careful to decry any construction of the war that might suggest a twilight struggle between Christianity and Islam, or the West and Islam, or the United States and Islam. Officially, Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations became a sort of literary persona non grata. Yet over time unmistakably sympathetic emanations were recorded at the very center of the Washington establishment. The president himself misspoke -- although only once -- about a crusade. But then Jim Woolsey and William Cohen -- both top figures from the former administration -- further enunciated this metaphor of high struggle, lending the impression that the entire Washington establishment generally accepted the notion of a great historical struggle. Both have spoken in public about a world war of generations, perhaps a century. To Muslims this is not commensurate with a more contained war against terrorism, but speaks more ominously of a more majestic, and terrifying, conflict of world-historical proportions.

-- U.S. weakness.

In the midst of all this talk, however, is the sensation of a U.S. electorate whose commitment seems finite. It is not as though Americans do not support the administration's war on terrorism or its war in Iraq; it is simply that Muslims receive the impression that U.S. support for the war is not infinitely elastic. They get the sense that this is not World War II. They sense also that there is a threshold at which the electorate will potentially withdraw its support. This is not simply a received mythology from the Vietnam era, either. It is reinforced daily by what Muslims see on U.S. media: a society that is not wholly committed to the messianic goals of the administration.

The point here is not that what the administration is doing is bad; in fact, it may be the best thing for the Muslim Middle East. But we need to understand how our intended message is inflected, distorted, and in the end, undercut by us -- strikes against us that we must try ever harder to overcome.

Another problem to consider is the one posed by what can best be called bureaucratic food fights.

Part of the message problem lies in the fact that the entire U.S. propaganda effort was historically institutionalized -- even routinized -- during the Cold War. There are thus many competing organizations, each of which seeks to advance its interests in pursuit of claimed authority -- not authority with the world of our enemy, but rather, in the world of the imperial court -- the place where such activity has been the goal for so many decades. In normal times (even normal Cold War times) this would not be such a big deal. The strategic information campaign became understood as something that goes on from day-to-day, and it became equally understood as simply not critical to a strategic outcome. Thus government organizations still seek to jockey and jostle to maximize their own standing within an administration.

We can thus propose a set of exemplary, if hypothetical, questions. What if the White House Office of Global Communications was turned into nothing more than a press office, sending presidential quotes out to foreign media and calling that, strategy? What if the State Department's Public Diplomacy effort was nothing more than business as usual: as in more normal times, doing goodwill exchanges and sending out well-meaning missives with titles like The United States did not 'create' Osama bin Laden, or Al-Qa'idi-style Terrorists are Wierdoes, not Heroes, or AQ-style terrorism causes great harm to Muslims?

What if the Pentagon's prefrontal lobe, OSDP, admitted that it had retreated from doing even operational propaganda and was now mud-deep in the tactical, fighting alligators?

What if the Policy Coordinating Committee for strategic information had been deliberately terminated from on high, so there could be no inter-agency thinking about the propaganda campaign? The problem is, these are not hypothetical questions.

What would that say about our seriousness to really face up to the problem? These are not normal times, and the United States to date has lost not simply hearts and minds, but the possibility perhaps even of reaching those hearts and minds ever again. But both bureaucrats and administration cannot seem to face this recognition.

(Michael Vlahos writes on war and strategy at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He was commissioned to write this paper by a senior executive at the Department of Defense. This is Part Two of a four-part series on the subject of exhuming the war of ideas.)

(United Press International's Outside View commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of by United Press International.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express
The Long War - Doctrine and Application

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News