Eccentric Star: A Public Diplomacy Weblog

US Launches New Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

"Cultural Diplomacy Gets a New Worldview," by Jacqueline Trescott - the Washington Post, 26 September 2006, p. C02 (registration required)

The State Department has enlisted four national cultural organizations to broaden exchanges between American artists and foreign audiences and share the country's arts management expertise.

Global Cultural Initiative, an effort to coordinate and expand many of the activities underway in cultural diplomacy, was announced yesterday by first lady Laura Bush. "One of the best ways we can deepen our friendships with the people of all countries is for us to better understand each other's culture by enjoying each other's literature, music, films and visual arts," said Mrs. Bush at a program in the White House East Room.

This is not new business for State. But in the past, cultural exchanges were built around a single organization or well-known person -- say, B.B. King does Argentina, or Yo-Yo Ma in Sri Lanka. This umbrella effort is taking a number of programs that federal cultural agencies and national organizations have underway that are more on-the-ground than marquee.

The primary partners in the new program are the Kennedy Center, American Film Institute, National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. Also participating are the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services....

In this updating of cultural exchange, the Kennedy Center will study what form of arts management training is needed in various countries. For the past six months Michael Kaiser, the center's president, has been working with Pakistan; the need there is for technical training in the theater. For the State Department program, the center will conduct a children's theater series and international arts festivals and produce programs with disabled artists through the VSA Arts organization. "Americans don't know enough about other cultures," Kaiser said. The center currently holds training programs in Mexico, China and Pakistan. "You learn they are not like us and so much like us. Through the arts you discover what they find beautiful, what they are frightened by," he said....

The NEA will broaden its literary exchanges. Right now the agency is building a translation program with Mexico, Russia and Pakistan. The agency will give grants to translate foreign works into English and U.S. writers into other languages. The publishing projects will be followed by artist exchanges. "We should make the culture of other nations more available in America and we should find chances for American artists abroad," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia.

For four years, the NEH has held workshops for American teachers at landmark sites, and this year the program will be extended to educators from other countries. The lessons on immigration, for example, are taught at Ellis Island, and civil rights courses are held in Birmingham.

"This shares perspectives on critical moments in American history and brings it alive in the classrooms," said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole.

Giving organizations like the Kennedy Center and the American Film Institute a role in cultural exchanges is a great idea. The problem with a lot of embassy-conducted exchanges is that they wind up being one-time events. U.S. embassies often don't have the personnel, resources, or commitment to maintain ongoing contacts with exchange participants, and without those continuing relationships the exchanges just fade into history. By contrast, these cultural institutions have the staff, the expertise, and the prestige to develop ongoing relationships with their exchange partners.

GAO: US FSOs Still Fall Short on Language Skills

"Many in State Dept. Can't Talk the Talk," by Anushka Asthana - the Washington Post, 11 August 2006, p. A17 (registration required)

Nearly 30 percent of State Department employees based overseas in "language-designated positions" are failing to speak and write the local language well enough to meet required levels, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

"We have a shortage of people with language skills in posts that need them," said John Brummet, assistant director for international affairs and trade at the GAO. "If people do not have the proper language skills, it is difficult to influence the people and government and to understand what they are thinking. It just doesn't get the job done."

Languages described as "superhard" by the report are proving particularly difficult. Four out of 10 workers in posts requiring Arabic, Chinese and Japanese fail to meet the requirements.

The levels are even higher in some critical postings. Sixty percent of State Department personnel in Sanaa, Yemen, and 59 percent in Cairo do not meet language requirements, the report said.

Even levels set by the department could be too low to do the jobs properly. According to the GAO, embassy officials in China and Yemen said the speaking and reading levels asked for were "not high enough and that staff in these positions were not sufficiently fluent to effectively perform their jobs."

But not all the news is bad. The report -- which has been sent to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee -- said there have been positive steps: "State has made progress in increasing its foreign language capabilities, but serious language gaps remain."...

The report says some overseas postings are not long enough for staff workers to build up skills in certain languages. It recommends that the secretary of state lengthen postings in some countries. It also suggests targeting fully qualified officers at critical posts using incentives, and evaluating the effectiveness of efforts to improve language proficiency.

The findings came as no surprise to some observers. "It confirms my impressions from my time meeting with U.S. diplomats," said Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. "The language skills are poor, and often they are very cut off from the local population."

Lieven agreed with the GAO that the government could do more to encourage people to learn certain languages for critical posts with better incentives.

"Somebody who is willing to make a career in the war on terror and spend their whole career working in or about Muslim countries should be permanently on a different rate of pay," he said.

For an earlier piece on this topic, see Op Ed: US Public Diplomacy Needs More Arabic Speakers.

I'm not the most gifted of students when it comes to acquiring foreign languages myself, so my views on this topic are probably biased. That said, I do think it's important to avoid the mistake of thinking that language is the same thing as communication. An FSO with a perfect command of a foreign language is of little benefit to the US if the diplomat doesn't put those skills to work -- and that may be what happens when, as Anatol Lieven says, embassy officers are too often cut off from the publics they live among. This isolation not just a question of language skills. It's a question of institutional culture and values, and even of day-to-day work expectations and routines.

Are Al-Hurra and Radio Sawa Backfiring?

"Tuning In, Tuning Out" - "In the Loop," by Al Kamen - the Washington Post, 31 July 2006, p. A 13 (registration required)

Let's face it. These are not easy times for America's effort to make friends in the Middle East. The key media outlets in this campaign -- al-Hurra television and Radio Sawa -- are laboring hard.

But a recent survey of college students in the region -- done before Israel's re-invasion of Lebanon -- says U.S. policies on Israel and in Iraq are such that "these networks may be completely unable to change opinions on these two issues."

The survey, an unscientific sampling of attitudes of 394 university communications students in such places as Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco, found that these young people listened to Radio Sawa's pop music, but there was "no significant relationship between the frequency of listening to Radio Sawa and favorability toward US foreign policy." The same held true for al-Hurra.

Worse yet, the more they listened, the less they liked us, according to the new study, "U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World," published in the current Global Media and Communication. "One significant finding," said author Mohammed el-Nawawy of Queens University of Charlotte, "is that respondents' attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy have worsened slightly since their exposure to Radio Sawa and Television Alhurra."

Bad study, Broadcasting Board of Governors spokesman Larry Hart responded: "The self-selected sample is too small, nearly half [were] Palestinian and some of them...never saw or heard our broadcasts."

Al-Hurra, with a budget of $73 million this year, and Sawa, budget $23 million, are asking for an additional $10 million for fiscal 2007. Can't hurt that much more.

Also see:

"War of Ideas: The More You Hear, the Less You Like?," by David E. Kaplan - US News & World Report, 17 July 2006

Key to Washington's efforts to get its message across to the Arab world are two Arab-language networks – Radio Sawa, begun in 2002, and Television Alhurra, launched in 2004. Backed by $78 million in federal funding this year, the efforts are meant to duplicate the success of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe during the Cold War. The networks have garnered their share of both accolades and criticism, but now comes controversial research alleging that they could actually be making matters worse.

A new study by Mohammed el-Nawawy, a communications professor at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C., surveyed 394 Arab college students in five Arab countries on the credibility of the two networks. Nawawy found that once students began watching and listening to the networks, their attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy, in fact, worsened slightly.

The study, "U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World: The News Credibility of Radio Sawa and Television Alhurra in Five Countries," is in the August issue of Global Media and Communication, an academic journal. Nawawy surveyed students in Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and the Palestinian territories, and he concluded that U.S. officials face a tough time changing Arab hearts and minds. The bottom line, he writes: "No matter how savvy its public diplomacy efforts ... they will be ineffective in changing Arab public opinion if that public is dissatisfied with U.S. policies on the ground."...

An abstract of el-Nawawy's article can be read at the Global Media and Communication website. The full article can be read for a fee.

Economists Say Anti-US Views Pave Way for UN Scofflaws

I'm skeptical about the connection the researchers make here -- UN staff ignoring traffic laws was an issue in New York long before 9/11 and the subsequent rise in anti-US feeling, and diplomats cut corners on local traffic and parking regulations in other cities, too. But it's an interesting report, all the same.

"Study Shows Why Diplomats Won't Pay Up," by David B. Caruso - AP (New York), 6 July 2006

NEW YORK - Researchers who examined tens of thousands of parking tickets issued to        United Nations diplomats found those least likely to pay up were from countries where people hold a dim view of the United States.

The study was conducted by economists from Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, who were hoping to uncover why officials from some countries frequently abused their diplomatic immunity by parking illegally, while others played by the rules.

Their main finding was that diplomats were more likely to run up unpaid parking fines if they hailed from countries with a history of unchecked corruption, such as Nigeria.

But a second factor — poor U.S. image — emerged when the researchers matched the list of offenders against a 2002 world public opinion survey performed by the Pew Research Center.

"It's much easier to flout the law if you tell yourself that the government that is making these laws or enforcing these laws lacks legitimacy," said Raymond Fisman of Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.

Between November 1997 and the end of 2002, diplomats accumulated more than 150,000 unpaid parking tickets in New York, racking up $18 million in unpaid fines.

Based on statistics supplied by the city, the report said the worst offenders during that period were Kuwait, which averaged 246.2 unpaid tickets per diplomat per year, followed by Egypt, with 139.6; Chad, with 124.3; and Sudan, with 119.1.

Twenty-two countries averaged zero unpaid tickets per year, according to the study, including Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.

Mansoor Suhail, a spokesman for Pakistan's mission to the United Nations, said he did not agree that people in his country were displeased with America. Pakistan ranked 10th in unpaid tickets in the study, and near the top in unfavorable views of the United States.

A great many, he said, consider the U.S. to be "an ally and a friend."

As for the parking tickets, he said things have changed since the late 1990s. Pakistan's diplomats, he said, are now more vigilant about parking legally.

"In the pre-9/11 era, there was a different understanding of diplomatic privileges," he said.

Diplomatic immunity meant that, until recently, there was little or no enforcement of diplomatic parking violations in New York — a factor the professors said allowed them to examine the role of "cultural norms alone" in determining who felt free to flout parking rules.

The parking problems around the United Nations got dramatically better in 2002 when U.S. officials threatened to revoke the plates of scofflaws and impound their cars. According to New York's finance department, diplomats have received 90 percent fewer tickets since then, with more than 85 percent paid on time.

The researchers said they also linked their list of tickets to an index intended to measure the prevalence of corruption in each country. Diplomats hailing from countries with low levels of corruption, such as Norway, "behave remarkably well even in situations where they can get away with violations," the researchers said.

"This finding suggests that cultural or social norms related to corruption are quite persistent," the professors wrote. "Even when stationed thousands of miles away, diplomats behave in a manner highly reminiscent of officials in the home country."

The professors looked at per-capita income in each nation and the average salaries of government bureaucrats. While they couldn't conclusively rule out income as a factor in paying the tickets, they said the weight of the evidence was against it....

Reuters: US Selects Target Countries for PD Efforts

Assuming this story is genuinely news and not just old information spun into a look-at-the-progress-we're-making story, it's not flattering either to Karen Hughes or to the State Department. The idea that it's only now that people directing this country's public diplomacy have thought about what audiences it should be directed at, or begun to understand who influences public opinion in key countries, is astounding.

"Public Diplomacy Campaign Targets Key Nations," by Sue Pleming - Reuters (Washington, DC), 28 June 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Determined to turn the tide of anti-Americanism in the Arab world, the Bush administration has drawn up a classified list of about a dozen high-priority countries on which to focus public diplomacy.

Karen Hughes, a political confidante of President George W. Bush and now his chief of public diplomacy at the State Department, said strategic plans were being developed for those "pilot" countries over the next three to five years.

"The exact list is a classified matter but it includes the type of countries where we believe it is very important to counter ideological support for extremism," Hughes said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

She declined to list the nations but officials said they included Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries that were chosen based on classified information in meetings among the Pentagon, State Department, the CIA and others. Hughes also hoped the approach would improve coordination among government agencies.

One goal was to identify what Hughes called "strategic influencers" -- local people such as sports stars, clerics and others who could explain America's values and confront "ideologies of hate."

Hughes cited a recent dinner at the U.S. ambassador's home in Morocco where the person on her right was a famous cooking show host, while on her left was a track star.

"I came back and shared with others what an interesting dinner this was and how every country should look at identifying who the most influential people are," said Hughes.

She said her department would seek out clerics from Muslim nations where some Friday prayers encouraged hatred and bring those clerics to America on exchange programs.

"All the research shows that people who have been to America or know someone who has been to America are far more likely to have a positive view of our country."...

Fighting the negative fallout from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq and the U.S. prison for foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has made her job tough.

Comments from one of her staff members that the suicides earlier this month of three Guantanamo detainees were a "great PR move" did not help, but the senior staffer, Colleen Graffy, kept her job.

Hughes said she understood that all those who dealt with the media said something they regretted later.

Public Perceptions on Agenda at US-Arab Economic Forum

"Gulf of Mistrust in Arab-US Relations Must Be Breached: Officials," by Mira Oberman - AFP (Houston), 26 June 2006

HOUSTON, United States (AFP) - A gulf of suspicion and misunderstanding in Arab-US relations must be breached in order to avoid further tensions, several senior US and Arab officials said at a forum in Houston, Texas.

"One of the biggest problems that we are facing in this part of the world -- in the United States -- is a lack of knowledge of what is happening on the other side," Abdullah Zainal Alireza, Saudi Arabia's minister of state, told the US-Arab Economic Forum.

"Ignorance of facts will contribute to further schism that is going to occur unless we rectify what is happening."

Alireza noted that one source of mistrust was the way the US could hail elections in Iraq while refusing to acknowledge the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine....

Karen Hughes, the US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy in charge of improving the US image abroad, acknowledged that Americans held unwarranted suspicions and mistrust of Arabs.

"The Dubai ports matter hit a deep nerve of worry among our population about American security in a post-9/11 world," said Hughes, referring to the US Congress's opposition to a Dubai company's bid to take over operations at six US ports.

"Yet as we work to secure our country, as we work to protect our people I believe it is just as much in our vital national security interest that America remains an open and welcoming country."

Hughes, a close confidante of US President George W. Bush, said the US government needed to do a better job of highlighting the benefits of foreign investment and was working to educate the public about the common values shared with the Arab and Muslim world.

"President Bush knows that global commerce is a crucial part of public diplomacy and building a greater understanding," she said. "President Bush knows that trade brings jobs and makes for a more prosperous and peaceful world."

Hughes said misunderstanding and suspicion was not only an American problem and urged the Arab leaders present to advance the education of their growing population, noting several times the need bring opportunities to women.

"Open minds are what will ultimately allow us to prevail in the war of ideas," she said. "Together we must confront the violent extremists and the ideology of tyranny and hate."

One place where those extremists must be defeated is in Iraq, Iraqi Ambassador Samir al-Sumaidaie said.

"What happens in Iraq now is immensely important for the United States, for the Arab world and for the relationship between the United States and the Arab world," he said.

"There is only one outcome that will result in benefits for all spheres. That is the defeat of the terrorists in Iraq and helping Iraq to stand on its feet as a normal country and start on the path of security and prosperity."

The 2006 US-Arab Economic Forum has a website with press releases from and media coverage of the meeting.

Latest Public Diplomacy Coordinating Committee Faces Uphill Battle

"Of Jihad Networks and the War of Ideas," by David E. Kaplan - US News & World Report, 22 June 2006. USN&WR provides a link to a website with a sample report from the US State Department's Rapid Response Unit. It looks something like the media reaction reports that USIA used to compile and send to Washington offices and overseas embassies, with a far slimmer sampling of quotes from foreign media and the addition of scripted talking points on how to respond.

How goes the war on terrorism? On two key fronts – the shifting nature of jihadist networks and the war of ideas – there's plenty to worry about. Here are two reports from our sources in Washington, D.C.:

Dutch intel experts give a disturbing picture of jihadist activity. Experts on Islamic extremism from the Dutch intelligence service came to Washington in early June, giving a series of closed-door briefings that offered a disturbing portrait of jihadist activity in Europe generally and in the Netherlands particularly....

[J]jihadist groups are becoming much more dynamic, fluid, and diffuse, coming together to cooperate on specific goals and targets. Unlike the al Qaeda of old, these are local, autonomous, "self-radicalizing" jihadist cells, not controlled from overseas. They rely heavily on virtual networks and training, through the Internet, and then shift into actual, operational networks....

Even as jihadist networks become tougher to combat, the United States still lacks a comprehensive strategy to thwart the ideological forces fueling their growth, say critics. In response, the administration recently launched its latest attempt to coordinate the "war of ideas" against radical Islam: The White House's National Security Council has convened yet another interagency committee to develop a strategy aimed at marginalizing extremists. Dubbed the Policy Coordinating Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, the group is headed by the administration's point person on the ideas war: Karen Hughes, the State Department's under secretary for public diplomacy.

Skeptics abound, as this is at least the fourth attempt at coordinating federal efforts on infowar. The NSC began two ill-fated interagency committees in 2002, one on "strategic communication" and another on "information strategy." Both generated more frustration than results, say participants. Their work was succeeded, in part, by the Muslim World Outreach Policy Coordinating Committee in 2004, which drafted a widely praised plan that was never implemented. Now that committee is being replaced by Hughes's new group. "It's the same old people with a new title," says one insider.

Hughes, the president's former counselor, has won points for crafting a Rapid Response Unit, designed to help U.S. officials abroad respond to the day's news. (For a peek at one of its daily Rapid Response sheets, see Official Use Only) But critics say the effort is typical of Hughes's quick-hit, political campaignlike approach to what is a years-long ideological struggle. Former State Department diplomat John Brown, editor of the Public Diplomacy Press Review, calls the administration's efforts "naive, provincial, and evangelical" but says the problem ultimately may lie in the very nature of U.S. government today. "It's so complex, with so many bureaucracies, that to get anybody to agree on a single message is almost impossible."

According to a GAO report, the Policy Coordinating Committee was established in April of this year:

"U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Efforts to Engage Muslim Audiences Lack Certain Communication Elements and Face Significant Challenges" (GAO-06-535) - Government Accounting Office (Washington, DC), released 3 May 2006

...Our past reports have detailed the difficulties the White House and the department have encountered in developing any type of written communication strategy. In our 2003 report and again in our 2005 report, we noted several attempts by State and the National Security Council to develop a communication strategy for the interagency community. In 2004, the National Security Council and the department created the Muslim World Outreach Policy Coordinating ommittee to develop an interagency strategy to marginalize extremists. The committee collected information from embassies around the world to help develop a draft outreach strategy, but it was ultimately not released to posts pending further guidance from the new Under Secretary. On April 8, 2006, the President established a new Policy Coordinating Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication. This committee, to be led by the Under Secretary, is intended to coordinate interagency activities. According to department officials, one of the committee’s tasks will be to issue a formal interagency public diplomacy strategy. It is not clear how long this effort will take or when a strategy will be developed....

State Dept. Hopes Citizen Ambassadors Can Improve Muslim & Arab Perceptions of US

"Muslim-Americans to Improve US Image Abroad," by Heather Maher (in Washington, DC) - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, June 16 2006

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2006 -- After waging two wars in majority Muslim countries, and launching a war on terror that catches mostly Muslims in its net, it's not surprising that some Muslims argue that their community is under attack from the United States.

Nothing could be less true, according to Yahya Basha, a Syrian-American Muslim who immigrated to the United States in 1972 and since then has lived out his own version of the American dream.

Basha is one of four civilian ambassadors the U.S. State Department has recruited to carry the message to foreign Muslims that the United States welcomes all religions and rewards immigrants who embrace its democratic values with opportunities and freedom beyond their dreams.

The Bush administration has decided that changing the messenger might improve the credibility of its message.

Next week, Basha and three other American Muslims will begin an eight-day, three-country tour of Europe. Three more teams of Arab- and Muslim-Americans will travel in the coming months to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the South Pacific, according to Heidi Fincken, a special adviser to U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes.

Hughes told RFE/RL on June 11 that it was originally a German Muslim who issued the invitation. At a meeting with Muslims in Germany, Hughes said she was rebuffed when she asked to meet with more people in the local community. German government officials aren't even welcome, a Muslim woman told her, so why would an American official be? Hughes said she then asked if a Muslim-American would be welcome, and the woman answered with an emphatic "yes."

With that, the State Department's Civic Outreach program was born.

Basha, a diagnostic physician who runs a successful medical clinic in Dearborn, Michigan, says he plans to tell his coreligionists in Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark that America accepts anyone who comes seeking a better life and is willing to work hard to get it.

The experience of Muslim-American immigrants like himself, he says, is proof of his adopted country's "greatness." In contrast, he believes that European Muslims are forced into what he calls a "ghetto mentality."

"I think they feel the isolation, the sanction, and the distance between them and the rest of the population; whether the population doesn't want them, or sanctions isolate them, or they want to stay distant from becoming part of the total society and making contributions to the society," Basha said. "And that, I think, luckily, is not present in this country. Day after day, you find ethnic and [other] minorities trying to blend in, and I think the Arabs and Muslims in America, they are very active participants in society and become part of the fabric of this society. Definitely you see this more in the second generation."...

But Asra Nomani, a prominent Muslim-American journalist and writer, says the State Department's public-relations efforts are being canceled out by its foreign-policy decisions. Bridging the gap between cultures is always a good idea, she says, but the Muslim world isn't going to change its thinking simply because a group of happy American Muslims come to visit.

"The bottom line is that you've got one arm of the State Department pushing public diplomacy and the other arm talking tough," Nomani said. "So you've got the poodle and the pit bull, basically, running the State Department's initiative with the world. The Muslim world gets it, too. They get that the pit bull is basically going to win in this battle and [U.S. Secretary of State] Condoleeza Rice and her foreign-policy direction is going to prevail over the public diplomacy."

Nomani said she would rather see the United States focus its efforts on stamping out Wahabbism, the strict form of Islam predominant in U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, which she says is spreading a message of hate and narrow-mindedness through the Muslim world. She talks of a "war within Islam" and says American Muslims are not the best ambassadors to take up the cause.

"I definitely have always felt that American Muslims, sadly, have a credibility problem with the rest of the world because they think that we've got a good scene here: we are coddled and don't have it as bad as they do in the rest of the world," Nomani said....

2006 Pew Survey Finds Continuing Decline of Regard for US

"America's Image Slips, But Allies Share U.S. Concerns over Iran, Hamas" - Summary of Findings from the 2006 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, released 13 June 2006

America's global image has again slipped and support for the war on terrorism has declined even among close U.S. allies like Japan. The war in Iraq is a continuing drag on opinions of the United States, not only in predominantly Muslim countries but in Europe and Asia as well. And despite growing concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the U.S. presence in Iraq is cited at least as often as Iran - and in many countries much more often - as a danger to world peace.

A year ago, anti-Americanism had shown some signs of abating, in part because of the positive feelings generated by U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Indonesia and elsewhere. But favorable opinions of the United States have fallen in most of the 15 countries surveyed. Only about a quarter of the Spanish public (23%) expresses positive views of the U.S., down from 41% last year; America's image also has declined significantly in India (from 71% to 56%) and Indonesia (from 38% to 30%).

Yet the survey shows that Americans and the publics of major U.S. allies share common concerns, not only over the possible nuclear threat posed by Iran but also over the recent victory by the Hamas Party in Palestinian elections. In contrast, the predominantly Muslim populations surveyed generally are less worried about both of these developments....

The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted among nearly 17,000 people in the United States and 14 other nations from March 31-May 14, finds that the U.S.-led war on terror draws majority support in just two countries - India and Russia. In India, support for the U.S.-led war on terror has increased significantly over the past year - from 52% to 65% - even though opinions of the U.S. have grown more negative over that period.

But in most other countries, support for the war on terror is either flat or has declined. In Japan, barely a quarter of respondents (26%) now favor the U.S.-led war on terror, down from 61% in the summer of 2002. Only about four-in-ten Indonesians (39%) back the war on terror, compared with 50% a year ago. And in Spain, the site of a devastating terrorist attack two years ago, four times as many people oppose the war on terror as support it (76% vs. 19%).

The survey shows that the Iraq war continues to exact a toll on America's overall image and on support for the struggle against terrorism. Majorities in 10 of 14 foreign countries surveyed say that the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. In Great Britain, America's most important ally in Iraq, 60% say the war has made the world more dangerous, while just half that number (30%) feel it has made the world safer.

Moreover, even as concerns about Iran have increased, somewhat more Britons believe that the U.S. military presence in Iraq represents a great danger to stability in the Middle East and world peace than say that about the current government in Iran (by 41%-34%). In Spain, fully 56% say the U.S. military presence in Iraq is a great danger to the stability of the Middle East and world peace; just 38% regard the current government in Iran in the same way. Among America's traditional allies, Germany is the only country where more people say Iran is a great danger than offer the same view of the U.S. military presence in Iraq (by 51%-40%).

Opinions about threats to global peace also reflect regional concerns. While solid majorities in Jordan and Egypt see America's presence in Iraq as a great danger, even higher percentages in these countries view the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a great danger to regional stability and world peace. The Japanese are particularly concerned about North Korea - 46% say the government there represents a great danger to world peace. Those concerns are not shared nearly as much in China, which borders North Korea; just 11% of Chinese feel that the current government in Pyongyang poses a great danger to Asian stability and world peace....

Reports about U.S. prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have attracted broad attention in Western Europe and Japan - more attention, in fact, than in the United States. Roughly three-quarters of Americans (76%) say they have heard of the prison abuses, compared with about 90% or more in the four Western European countries and Japan.

Among predominantly Muslim countries, large majorities in Egypt (80%), Jordan (79%), and Turkey (68%) say they have heard of the reports of prison abuse. But in Indonesia, Pakistan, and among Muslims in Nigeria, most people have not heard of this issue. Moreover, just 38% of Chinese and 23% of Indians say they are aware of the prison abuse story....

Also see:

"America's Image Declining in Indonesia" - AP (Jakarta), as carried in the Jakarta Post (Indonesia), 15 June 2006

JAKARTA (AP): America's image is declining again in Indonesia, reversing a brief rise attributed to U.S. aid to the world's most populous Muslim country following the devastating tsunami in 2004, poll results showed.

Indonesia is seen as a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, but the Pew Global Attitudes Project survey results, released Tuesday (Wednesday Jakarta time), also said public support for the campaign dropped sharply this year in the archipelago.

U.S. officials have hoped that helping out in recent disasters in Muslim countries like Indonesia and Pakistan would help win hearts and minds. The poll seemed to suggest that such gains may be short-lived.

Only 30 percent of the 1,022 Indonesians surveyed April 8-30 indicated they have a favorable opinion of the United States, according to the poll, co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth.

America's image plunged from a 75 percent approval rating in 1999-2000 to just 15 percent in 2003, the poll said. It recovered to a 38 percent positive assessment in 2005 -- after Washington rushed aid to survivors of the tsunami -- before falling again this year.

By contrast, Indonesians had generally positive views of Japan, with a 78 percent favorable rating; China, 62 percent; Germany, 56 percent; and France, 52 percent.

Support for the U.S.-led fight against terrorism dropped to 38 percent from 50 percent last year, the poll said.

Confidence in President George W. Bush remained steady at 2005's mark of 20 percent, which was up from just 8 percent in 2003. Other world leaders didn't fair much better, with France's Jacques Chirac getting just 30 percent approval, Britain's Tony Blair 23 percent and Russia's Vladimir Putin 21 percent.

Indonesians gave the highest approval rating of the United Nations -- 78 percent -- of the 15 countries surveyed by Pew....

AP Interview w/Karen Hughes, in Morocco

"Envoy Tells AP State Dept. Reworking Image," by John Thorne - AP (Marrakech, Morocco), 7 June 2006, as carried by the Houston Chronicle

MARRAKECH, Morocco — A top envoy aiming to improve America's image among Muslims says the United States has begun an effort to make its diplomats more visible in the world's media, particularly those that can spread U.S. views in Arab countries.

Karen Hughes, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, described in an Associated Press interview Tuesday the difficulties she faces in getting out the message.

The State Department for years focused on "quiet little government-to-government messages," she said, suggesting that the United States has room to improve in public relations.

That's now changed, Hughes said. "The purpose of our ambassadors and our foreign service officers is to be out interacting with the media to be communicating with the public about America's policies and values and actions," she said.

"We are working to try to change the entire culture of the State Department," Hughes said.

This summer, the U.S. government will set up a media center in the United Arab Emirates from which Arab-speaking U.S. officials will appear on Arab television networks, she said.

Hughes was in Marrakech as part of a four-day visit to Morocco. The North African kingdom is an ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but many Moroccans resent the war in Iraq and perceived U.S. favoritism of Israel.

During the trip, she has met with Morocco's foreign minister, women's groups and non-governmental organizations that work on behalf of children and other humanitarian causes....