EDITORIAL: The information war (11/18/01)

EDITORIAL

The information war

It has been widely reported that, though the United States may be winning the war in Afghanistan, it is losing the information war in the Muslim world.

Perhaps the most unambiguous affirmation of that fact came when President George W. Bush said: "How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is a vitriolic hatred of America? I'll tell you how I respond: I'm amazed that there is such a misunderstanding of what our country is about. We've got to do a better job of making our case."

Indeed.

Lately - since the end of the Cold War - the United States has been neglecting the proverbial battle for hearts and minds around the globe. In some parts of the world the need for that message has never been clearer than today, now that, as commentators worldwide have repeatedly emphasized, everything has changed in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

America's cause was not served and its case was not made around the world because of budget slashing in the past few years that decimated its radios, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which served as surrogate stations providing news coverage unavailable in listeners' countries, and the Voice of America, which serves as the official radio station of the United States. For example, the VOA in recent years had closed most of its services in the languages spoken in Afghanistan.

Back in 1996, millionaire publisher and former presidential candidate Malcolm "Steve" Forbes Jr., who had been the chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversaw the work of RFE/RL as well as the Voice of America, commented that the importance of the radios in the battle of ideas lay in the fact that they are cheap - "$50 million won't buy you very much military equipment" - and they engage and interact with the audience every day. Getting rid of them now would be a "penny wise and pound foolish move," he underscored.

Obviously, he and other advocates of the radios (including this newspaper) were right. Now there is talk of expanding U.S. broadcasting to the Muslim world, and hiring Arab Americans and Afghan Americans, for example, to get the U.S. message out to important international audiences that have been ignored.

There are also serious suggestions that the United States should reverse course as regards its information services. Instead of downsizing them, our country should expand their offerings and their reach. As recent events have shown, U.S. broadcasters and other media still have an important and singular role to play in the post-Cold War world. If the U.S. wants its message to audiences around the world to be accessible, coherent and consistent, it must re-establish the prominent role of its radios. There's no doubt that funding for such public diplomacy would be money well spent.

| Home Page |