http://www.defenddemocracy.org/usr_doc/WhisperofAmerica_2.pdf
I think if any reader of the SWJ postings reads the entire Newton Minnor Voice of America [in support of more and better] article by Newton Minnow former Chairman of the FCC under President Kennedy, as found at:
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/usr_d...fAmerica_2.pdf
they will by reading it in total context find a different picture than your extracts indicate. However, standing by themselves, alone, out of context, your wording as copied from Newt's article is well done.
Newton Minnow's mentioning of the then (now deceased) Congressman Henry Hyde and Senator Biden being essentially on the same page in support of expanded Voice of America broadcasting as now more necessary than ever before in history as the ideological war, propaganda war to me, since and started by 9/11, they both agree, is for using my own language "a hundred years of more" to come and we have to use our technology and communications and public relations skills to be our own systems advocate, as they both say and agree.
Cheers
The Congressional hearings about VOA budget and future
http://www.khyberwatch.com/forums/sh...=Voice+America
IF this link works it takes you to a Sept. 2006 discussion among Pakhtuns inside Pakistan about forthcoming Voice of America TV and related programming which they are looking forward to.
It may not be clear but the article link I posted a few days ago, the article about me in the April 2008 issue of OFFICER MAGAZINE involves MOAA, the Military Officers Association of America, the fourth largest veterans organization/lobby in the US, largest of all officer veterans organization, is helping focus the need to complete implementing the 9/11 Commission Report recommendations to increase funding for and programming/languages beyond Arabic [my pet interest] to fight the long term ideological war against terrorists and terrorism worldwide.
We, and some others in MOAA, think that the focus right now is a combination of Iraq, of course, and Afghanistan and Pakistan.
House and Senate appropriations committee hearings on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which is the policy end of Voice of America, are ongoing these days in DC. I am for, obviously more funding and expanded number and types of linguists. You who are opposed have every right to lobby the Congress against while we "for guys and gals" lobby the Congress for more funding and linguists.
The many young Marines, Army troops, Navy (especially SEALS), Air Force and Coast Guard I know direcly and am in contact with are pretty unamiously FOR a better PSYOPS, ie, VOA program, as it helps them help the people where they are now fighting the enemy, who are largely boasted about and of in and by Al Jazeera, which in my view ain't no mom and pop we have a different point of view outfit, it is aimed at our destruction in it's foreign affairsrs reporting and still unique/sole access to Taliban and al Qaida leadership.
Thanks for sharing your background experiences
Tom:
I am always glad to know the background of e-mail website correspondents and article writers.
My time, through and including the Gulf War (I) included and also included years earlier time in: Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon, and Crete. These references took me down to retirement from Reserve in mid-1990s. This is now "dated" experience.
I was wounded in the Rann of Kutch between India and Pakistan in January, 1965, but another story for another day perhaps.
My US Embassy tour while dated, 1963-1965, still keeps me in touch via e-mail with such Pakistani legends as retired Air Chief Marshal Ashgar Khan, who was first head of the Pakistani Air Force, as of today in 2008. He is much older than me, in his 80s, of course. I was the Liaison Officer for our old U-2 and Intel Comm base at Badabar, which is suburban Peshawar.
As a US Civil Service career budget officer with the USPHS and VA, I was able to engineer leave and military leave, minus weekends not counted on short active duty Orders on TDY tours as a reservist to do work for and with old US Readiness Command, which became USSOCOM per the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the late Bill Nichols have been a close personal friend from down here.
Also had the pleasure and opportunity to do short active duty tours during my post active duty reserve life (after the 6 years regular USAF active duty) with FORSCOM, CINCLANT (w/Admiral Kelso, who didn't do it), and other "outfits." NOTE: I was in the paper only Inactive Reserve from late 1967 to Nov. 1971, while recuperating from back/spinal injuries from the Jan. 1965 wounding, where we were "blown up" in a PIA Land Rover in Pakistan, etc, etc.
Volunteered back on active duty the end of 1990 to help run the Desert Storm Airlift as a reserve 06. Worked out of both Charleston and Saudi.
In between all this active and reserve times I spent a few years as an Internaitonal Banking Officer in NYC, covering SW Asia, among other desk assignments as a traveling loan officer.
SUMMARY: In no way do I ever intend knowingly to demean or be rude to anyone's comments unless they are first openly rude to me. I only mean to share how they come across to me, since we until now, knew next to nothing about each other's implied meaning(s).
I am glad to know of your expertese, but my comments differentiating Arabs from non-Arabs were hopefully read by others who didn't know or don't know the difference until now of you intended or implied meaning and could have as easily misunderstood your writing, and mine, for that matter.
Peace toward victory of our ideology of democracy over terrorist tyranny is our common goal.
By the way, you are better read than I am in current tense books about our world situation and war on terrorism. The last book I read, over a year ago, on these topics was THE OSAMA BIN LADEN I KNEW by Peter Bergen. That is because I have been inundated with e-mails from Muslims overseas, as well as here in the US; being invited to write on several Muslim and specificlaly Pakhtun websites, including at two different Pakistani Universities, and other such stuff that eats up one's time when you are also working full time, putting three late in life children through two college degrees each, and doing the normal stuff of a married life. Have now published over 200 letters to Muslim editors and articles (fewer in number by far) in some of same Islamic overseas press.
In the middle of these things over my lifetime I was happy to have made time to co-found and be an early unpaid State Director of the Chuck Colson Prison Ministry for all Alabama and to be for six years on the Alabama Department of Youth Services Board and concurrent Board of Education. I have shared some of the DYS (junvenile jails) experiences with some in Pakistan who are struggling with their slant on juvenile crime seeking constructive ways and means today over there to reform criminal minded and dangerous youth there.
Any comments off line on the LSU and Alabama (my alma mater) football prospects for 2008?
Cheers,
George
Top US anchor quits Al Jazeera
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/bu...=1&oref=slogin
You guys may want to read this article. Two things in particular are noted:
1. Too much censorhsip being exerted from Doha on all Al Jazeera broadcasters.
2. Sense of growing anti-Americanism on Al Jazeera.
Tom, on your latest note I will answer you off line via e-mail.
George
VOA reply to JJackson in UK
I had almost completed an e-mail to you when one of our daughters, an overseas missionary, called me long distnce, and while I talked with her my computer shut down!
Just as well, so now my reply will be quicker, as my wife is starting dinner and I am hungary.
First, take time to read this Hujra Online/KhyberWatch dialogue between their chief Moderator, Khan Baba and some younger Pakhtuns in both Pakistan and Afghantistan related to Voice of America from 2006 time frame, see what they think and say about Voice of America:
http://www.khyberwatch.com/forums/sh...=Voice+America
1. Voice of America today operates under the BBG, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is not either the State nor the Defense Department.
2. Here is some link info on the BBG/VOA:
http://www.bbg.gov/
You can open several menus inside the overall BBG link and read and learn from it.
3. Plans per se are not ridid nor inflexible, for if they were, whatever enterprise, be it commercial, government, or...BBG/Voice of America, will fail due to rigidity and inflexibility. Plans are only a guide against paramaters, which, too, change or must sometimes be changed of necessity of the moment.
4. I have worked my butt off since 9/11 writing overseas into the Muslim world to share our views and to learn from theirs. It has been overall a good experience but one fraught with danger for all those who e-mail talked with me on open websites, so many have initiated contacts with me from my e-mail address printed at the end of all letters I have published in both the Peshawar FRONTIER POST and Karachi DAWN. Due to the open nature of even this SWJ website I limit what is say in this regard. Many, many of the now direct e-mail correspondents in the NWSP and Afghanistan are under recurring religious attacks, some being Shia attacked and killed off by Sunnis, but some Sunnis who are moderate are also under attack by radical Sunnis, the Taliban and al Qaida. It is tough for them!
5. I have tried very hard to have discussions of comparative religions and cultures. This theme is the sort of thing "I" want VOA to key on and around.
6. Several Muslim websites,have contacted me directly and invited me to write on their site(s). Here is a link to Pukhtun Women website dealing in comparative religions, from Christmas, 2006 time frame. I was contacte directly by this site's female Moderator and asked to write for them, which this is but one example of:
http://pukhtunwomen.org/node/117
7. To cut it short, Al Jazeera has from it's inception a religious motive and bias which is not found in the VOA. This bias has allowed Al Jazeera to be in touch with since 9/11 Osama bin Laden and his al Qaida, and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as now the al Qaida inside Iraq, for they are clearly there now in Iraq.
CONCULSION: The Broadcasting Board of Governors (VOA) is having budget hearings currently before the US House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Our veterans lobby, the Military Officers Association of America, of which I am a state level and city level director here in Alabama, is the fourth largest among all veterans lobbies in the US and the largest among officer veterans group lobbies in the US. The Military Officers Association of America, in it's OFFICER MAGAZINE, April 2008 issue, on page 28 has done an article about me and my efforts since 9/11 writing overseas media. My focus currently is on the BBG/Voice of America vs. Al Jazeera, hence it is now MOAAs article's focus, too. I am seeking improved the funding and linguistic broadcasts, particulary on TV, but secondarily on radio, to the masses in Pakistan, including the NWFP and FATA, to Afghanistan, to Iran, and into Iraq, as well as into the "Stans" of the old USSR which are also majority Muslim. VOA has other broadcast terrirtory to worry about, but these are my determined areas of interest right now.
Al Jazeera thus far has been beating us (VOA) to the punch as the propaganda war army for and of al Qaida and the Taliban as they report both from SW Asia and of events in Europe and the US. Many writers on this SWJ site which you can look up by searcing "Voice of America" agree that Al Jazeera in it's current form is not for profit; is owned by a Doha oil wealthy Sultan, who is incresing his censorship grip over Al Jazeera, etc.
You have the BBC as a model. Our VOA needs, my view, to be more proactive. VOA is outside the realm of the military, be sure you undersand that point. But our military benfits whenever an unvarnished presentaiton of the policies and goals of the US are presented on a recurring basis.
I want VOA to go more into cultural similiarities and religious topics on TV, more than on radio, but also on radio.
46 million out of 166 million total Pakistan population are illiterate.
71% or 26.3 million out of approximately 37 million Afghans are illiterate.
VOA needs to first and foremost focused on broadcasting to the illiterates, despite others views, this is my opinion.
Enough for now. Read these few links and if you will go back and open all previous links I posted over past 5 days and read them, too. Many are self explanatory. Understand the linke you did not like came to me from a Muslim inside Dubai recently. I learned a great deal from it that I would not otherwise not of have known about.
So you understand, am example of a young 20s or 30s educated Pakistani via UK parents engineer writing to me from the UAE starts out by attacking our Holy Bible and slandering our Holy Trinity. This is an educated, technically, UK degreed engineer. This is what we have to get through to on the upper end, at the lower end, the illitrate millions, whom I refered to , who in the main aren't even Arabs ethnically speaking, are frankly easier to talk to and with. Not that I am able to e-mail chat with illiterates, but that is my perception and view.
These are tough times and there are no singular simple answers.
Remember that PSYOPS and pubicl relations by VOA are not to be confused with "spin" as some seem to think.
George Singleton
Voice of America & Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn
Thank you for your detailed analysis of Republican US Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma views on the future of the Voice of America.
Senator Coburn was a supporter of former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson's bid for the presidential nominaiton, where here in my state I was a candidate to have been, past tense, a Thompson pledged delegate to the Republican National Convention this Sept.
While I disagree with and hated to see two term US Senator Bill Frist leave the Senate recently, he, like Coburn, like Thompson, advocated and practiced self imposed term limits.
I disagree with the term limits ideology as it thins out what I most want in Congress, depth of experience and committee senority.
Back to Voice of America.
Along with your good review of Senator Tom Coburn's views and suggestions on how to improve the operation(s) of Voice of America and the Broadcasting Board of Governors there is another track or set of ideas on how to improve the media image and process during our war on terror in a Feb. 2008 article in the SMALL WARS JOURNAL, which I cite and quote in part here:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...zational-cu-1/
"The enemy video tapes operations and then distorts and twists the information and images to misinform the world. What if we had documented video footage of the same operations which refuted what our enemies say? By the way, that is not enough, we have to get our images out FIRST! The first images broadcast become reality to viewers. If we wait until we see the enemy’s images, we are being reactive and we have already squandered the opportunity.
Frontier 6 is Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, Commanding General of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the command that oversees the Command and General Staff College and 17 other schools, centers, and training programs located throughout the United States. The Combined Arms Center is also responsible for: development of the Army's doctrinal manuals, training of the Army's commissioned and noncommissioned officers, oversight of major collective training exercises, integration of battle command systems and concepts, and supervision of the Army's Center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned."
For further discussion here is where I come from on Voice of America:
1. It is easy to find fault with anybody or anything in life.
2. Constructive criticism, which Senator Tom Coburn offers, per your good posting, is good and helpful.
3. However, I am unsure that just as on this site many readers and responders within the US seem less familiar with PSYOPS and public relations vs. spin. Others on this site seem upset by OPSEC constraints which I for one generally agree with in war time.
4. This said, to me the war on terrorism is an ideological, long term, 100 years or more war where a radicalized version of Islam is being pushed on the rest of Islam and the rest of the entire world right now. This is a propaganda war, which is the long term war we have to fight and win.
5. Current military operations and suggestions such as Lt. General Caldwell make above (as noted) are battlefield point in time suggestions which should not be confused with policy making. In fact I think Lt. General Caldwell is asking for sheer disaster in his suggestions of his third point involving use of on the battleground soldiers to be "photo journalist" whose job and purpose is to fight, not be cinematographers.
6. Policy making is done by those elected to make public policy at the Presidential level, with the advice and consent where appropriate of the US Senate along with appropriate House oversight.
7. There always has been and will always be a need for secrecy in matters of national security. Do you see Al Qaida or the Taliban handing out outlines weekly to the media on what their next military moves will be?
Another comment: I have in the past 24 hours found an overseas website which has members both in the NWFP/FATA/Afghanistan/as well as Islamic members in Canada reading and commenting on their webiste about SWJ discussions from last weekend on this site. All people on the Islamic site (KhyberWatch/Hujra Online) are not our enemies, but some definitely are. A fyi item to think about when writing on this SWJ site in a time of war.
Smith-Mundt obviated if more VOA Live TV broadcasts
http://voanewsblog.blogspot.com/2008...s-and-why.html
The above is not an official site of the Voice of America, but is basically a blog site for views and opinions about and on VOA and related topics. Some, but not all, of the comments on this blog (few are visible) are of the character of: "A neighbor's son's friend who served in Iraq told me, so it must be so."
A background writer on Smith-Mundt has his own site, listing his long term acquired international law credentials (he comments in articles on various blogs about Smith-Mundt) found at:
http://new.stjohns.edu/academics/gra...rofiles/Borgen
Finally, an article by Mr. Borgen giving his overview and opinions of Smith-Mundt is found at:
http://www.opiniojuris.org/posts/1196450664.shtml
Quote:
These sites are found from Mountain Runner's posting "When history repeats itself" dealing with those aspects of the Voice of America as governed under Smith-Mundt which prohibits VOA broadcasts overseas to international audiences being broadcast back into the US, translated back into English.
Smith-Mundt and the Battle for Hearts and Minds
by Chris Borgen
Matt Armstrong, who blogs at MountainRunner, has a thought-provoking guest-post over at Small Wars Journal on the Smith-Mundt Act, which is commonly understood as having intended to prevent blowback of propaganda intended for foreign audiences back into the U.S. Here’s an example from the act concerning the Voice of America (VOA). Section 501(a) of the Act provides that nformation produced by VOA for audiences outside the United States shall not be disseminated within the United States ... but, on request, shall be available in the English language at VOA, at all reasonable times following its release as information abroad, for examination only by representatives of United States press associations, newspapers, magazines, radio systems, and stations, and by research students and scholars, and, on request, shall be made available for examination only to Members of Congress.
I in part replied to some of Matt Armstrong's earlier last week comments, which are edifying to me for one, on more detailed history of Voice of America's historic operating legislative governance or guidance under law.
I do wonder what double standards Al Jazeera may be using since 9/11, as the Internet general references every few years, now just in the last less than 12 months, keep noting that Al Jazeera is reinventing itself.
VOA being publicly funded with a long history out there for all to see at:
http://www.voanews.com/english/about/VOAHistory.cfm
VOA a 9/11 Commission Report list of recommendations to pursue which involves more and better funding and I throw in, again, my two cents, use of more specific language broadcasts which I for one prefer be on TV into Afghanistan, Iran, Paksitan, to include the NWFP and FATA in particular.
If Matt Armstrongand others have been concerned at Smith-Mundt interpretations, use of more TV Voice of America broadcasts should just "step over" those issues as TV broacasts can in general be picked up from satellites and viewed simultaneously anywhere in the world, simultaneous to the TV broadcasts in native languages/dialects intended and the primary receipients of same.
Mountain Runner is much better than I am at formatting his postings here and merely clicking on several of his key words gets you most of the above Internet references I have decided to spell out in hopes of getting less interested readers on this top in SWJ to consider looking at the good background researched sites made possible not by me but by Mountain Runner, Matt Armstrong. Thanks, Matt, for your hard work and good research.
Good on you mate for commenting
Thanks to our friend from down under for commenting.