Propaganda and America’s Image in the World

While the “Showdown with Iraq” war campaign continues, the United States has initiated a parallel non-shooting Image War whose objective is to inoculate us from more hate-driven terror. So far, this propaganda campaign has been coordinated at the upper levels of our government, including the White House Office of Global Communications and the State Department Office of Public Diplomacy headed by the soon-to-be-departed Charlotte Beers. Public diplomacy needs to spring from the grassroots of America, where much of the antiwar dissent originates, and where greater sentiment exists to promote and build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other nations, particularly Muslim and Arab, but also increasingly our allied neighbors in France and Germany. When Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein use their propaganda against us, they play on the U.S. Government’s aggressive stance as a military and economic superpower and its most unpopular overseas policies. What they downplay is the battle of ideals where the American people have overwhelming advantage—ideals of tolerance for diversity, freedom to dissent, and humanitarian principles of justice and human progress. This is a more powerful weapon in our arsenal than any “smart bomb.” And it’s what our civil society best represents.

Propaganda of the American image cannot come primarily from the U.S. government or any official source of information. We are misunderstood and increasingly resented by the world precisely because it is our President and our top government officials whose images predominate in explaining U.S. public policy. Official spin has its place, but it is always under suspicion or parsed for clues and secret codes. The primary source for America’s image campaign must be drawn directly from the American people. First, it’s the private citizens of the United States who are more comfortable with acknowledging with some degree of humility that the U.S. has made mistakes in its past. Government officials seem to have a hard time with that one. Open criticism of a country’s policies tends to embarrass government leaders. Over time it can be the trump card in the deck of negotiating a peaceful (and lasting) settlement of international conflicts. The American people can better illustrate that we are a people willing to learn from our mistakes and can redirect our dealings with other nations to mutually beneficial ends, not just purposes that serve official Washington. Second, it’s the American people who can better initiate direct contact with people in other countries whose support and understanding we need on the stage of world opinion. The American people are the best ad campaign going for the world. We’ve got the greatest diversity in people and culture and it shows in our receptiveness to learning, our generosity, and our creativity. We need to magnify these qualities to the world, but in the same spirit, listen more, talk less.

Finally, it is also the American patriotic duty of dissent that can best illustrate to the world what a free society means. Senator J. William Fulbright wrote in The Arrogance of Power: “To criticize one’s country is to do it a service and to pay it a compliment. It is a service because it may spur the country to do better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that the country can do better than it is doing…My question is whether America can close the gap between her capacity and her performance. My hope and my belief are that she can, that she has the human resources to conduct her affairs with a maturity which few if any great nations have ever achieved: to be confident, but also tolerant, to be rich but also generous, to be willing to teach but also to learn, to be powerful but also wise.” Senator Fulbright wrote this at a time when as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee he vigorously opposed President Johnson on America’s involvement in Vietnam. His opposition was heavily influenced by American citizens who took to the streets to denounce U.S. policy in Vietnam. Now we are seeing the same spirit of dissent toward a U.S.-led war against Iraq. We need to carry this message of what a free and open society represents to all corners and not let our government leaders direct the image campaign alone.

Excerpt of remarks for a discussion, "U.S. Propaganda in Times of Unrest: Tool for Manipulation or Public Diplomacy?" at the World Affairs Council of Northern California on March 18th, 2003.