Voice of America v. Al Jazeera

[George L. Singleton]

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.