Some Krispy news:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. has awarded franchise rights to a Kuwaiti restaurant company, the Americana Group. Under the agreement, Americana Group is to open 100 Krispy Kreme (NYSE: KKD) locations in Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other locations in the region. The first location is scheduled to open in Kuwait this fall.

“We are looking forward to introducing Krispy Kreme and the hot doughnut experience to our customers in the Middle East,” Marzouk Nasser Al-Kharafi, chairman of the Americana Group, said in a news release. “In full partnership with Krispy Kreme, we intend to be successful in our region by building on Krispy Kreme’s superior brand, which our customers will come to appreciate and embrace.”

Apparently, the American TV commercial has this as a tagline: "Americana…100% Arabic"

(Hat tip to DangerZonejobs.com)

The promotion of democracy and the need for Lipitor (and that this implies):

A few headlines from the archive that are still relevent. Don’t miss the last one about the finding about hiring Lincoln Group. Notable is the reminder of the Pentagon’s deflection of culpability because it was hired by the Baghdad-based military commanders…

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi (4/10/2006)

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have…

Interview with Secretary Rumsfeld on the Charlie Rose Show (2/17/2006)

Rumsfeld: "[Newspapers] used to be a dominant means of communication for people, and where they got their information. Today, people have so many different channels where they can get information. And, and we need in government to recognize that if you’re engaged in a major battle with major armies and navies competing and air forces competing, that’s one thing. The center of gravity of that war is where those battles occur. Today, we’re not competing with our major armies, navies or air forces. It’s an unconventional conflict. It is irregular warfare. It is asymmetric and the battleground is not so much out there, it is here. It is a matter of will. It is a matter of the public’s attitudes about these things. Instead of the center of gravity where the naval war is being fought, the center of gravity is in the capitals of cities all across a nations all across the world and therefore we are going to simply have to figure out ways to get arranged to cope with that. Because it’s a totally new environment and a very difficult one.

Under Secretary Feith Breakfast with Defense Writers Group (2/20/2002)

Q: [Missing initial part of question related to Office of Strategic Influence] — what is the reason why the Pentagon hasn’t decided to go that route? What is different than what the CIA does and what the State Department already does?

Feith: First of all I want to clarify that when Defense Department officials speak to the public they tell the truth, and despite some of the reports about the Office of Strategic Influence that I’ve read over the last day or two, Defense Department officials don’t lie to the public. And we are confident that the truth serves our interests in the broadest sense of national security and specifically in this war. 

The use of information in the war, in order to facilitate the work of our armed forces and help them fulfill their missions, is very important. Everybody who follows the military affairs and knows military history knows how important information can be at the operational and tactical level. 

Q: But that’s deeper than the purview of the CIA and the State Department. Why is the military getting involved in disinformation campaigns? Feith: You characterize them as disinformation campaigns. I try to be careful about distinguishing between public affairs and public diplomacy. Public diplomacy is the responsibility of a number of the agencies of the U.S. government. The State Department I believe has the lead. Public affairs work is done by every agency of the U.S. government. We are not, as I said, we are not going to endanger the credibility of our public affairs, but there’s a lot that can be done in the information, in the area of using information to facilitate our military mission that doesn’t enter the realm of public affairs or public diplomacy.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke Interview With French Television (11/8/2002)

Q: I heard that the Pentagon was hiring private companies like the [Rendon] Group. Why? What do you use the private services? 

Clarke: I don’t know about any contracts about the [Rendon] Group. I know there may the Joint Staff, our Joint Staff may have been in contact with them. I don’t know the circumstances of it. Again, we have a $369 billion budget which is pretty good, a pretty healthy budget. And underneath that we often contract out to the private sector for different circumstances. There are all sorts of guidelines and criteria about hiring outside consultants. There are a lot of functions that aren’t appropriate for, they aren’t a core mission for the military. So often those sorts of things, I’m not familiar with the contract on the [Rendon] Group so I can’t speak to that one. But it’s a fairly common practice for certain things, certain functions, to contract it out to the private sector. 

Q: What can it provide to you, the private companies? 

Clarke: It depends. I’m not familiar, for instance, with the procurement process. I’m not familiar with what it takes to actually build an airplane. But there are things that are very appropriate for the private sector to be doing. It’s not appropriate for people in this building, for instance, to be building airplanes so they work with industry to build those things. But literally thousands of contracts, all of which have a lot of scrutiny put on them in terms of the criteria and policies and what’s appropriate and what’s not. 

Q: Could you define what is public diplomacy? 

Clarke: Public diplomacy? Well, people at the State Department could define it better than I could. It is probably changing, just like everything else, the world around us is changing so much public diplomacy is probably changing. I think the shorthand of it is trying to explain to people around the world what it is the United States is about, what we’re trying to accomplish, what we stand for, what we don’t stand for. 

Q: What’s the difference between public diplomacy and propaganda? 

Clarke: The short answer is, I don’t know. I’m not very good at definitions. Propaganda has a very bad connotation in lots of different places for different reasons. Saddam Hussein is terrific at propaganda, at the worst kinds of propaganda. He takes propaganda to lies and deception, deceit of the kind that means people’s lives. So I’ll leave it to others to come up with a definition. 

Q: And in case of a war against Iraq, what will be the new challenge in terms of communication? 

Clarke: It’s a big "in case." I know we start and end every conversation around here by saying the President hasn’t made any decisions about military actions in Iraq. If he does decide and others decide that military action is the right course to pursue, the U.S. military, and I’m sure we will have, if there is military action — if there is military action — the President hasn’t made a decision — if there were to be military action it will be done with the cooperation of friends and allies in different parts of the world including that region of the world. I don’t know that it will be the biggest challenge, but I think it is the biggest priority, and that is to keep people informed. It is to keep people informed with as much news and information about what is going on. I think it will be, we will be brutally honest with them as we always have been about the risks that are involved. Any military action, any military action at all puts people’s lives at risk. Flying helicopters is risky business to start with. It’s particularly risky in wartime conditions. Airplanes, ships, etc. you’ve got equipment and people. So I think we need to be brutally honest with people about the risk involved. That’s what we do. 

Q: The target is the American people? 

Clarke: American people and around the world. Just like we constantly say what is true, that Saddam Hussein, for instance, is a threat to the region. He’s a threat to his own people. The reason we have U.S. pilots and coalition pilots flying in the no-fly zones every day is to protect the Iraqi people themselves against Saddam Hussein’s aggression. It’s a pretty stunning thing when you think about it. So he is a threat to the Iraqi people. He is a threat to the people in the region. He’s a threat to decent civilized people around the world. So I think we have an obligation — Last year at the height of activity in Afghanistan is a perfect example. We have an obligation to work closely with other countries to make sure we’re getting out as much news and information there as possible. It’s hard. It’s only 24 hours a day. 

Q: I appreciate it. What are your plans — What can you use to influence public opinion? 

Clarke: We use a variety of means of communication throughout the newsroom. We have the traditional news media which is the television networks, the newspapers, the radio, the web sites. Primary means of communicating. They just have the loudest impact, appeal, it’s the primary means of communicating with people. We also do a whole variety of outreach efforts. We meet with groups, we speak to them and answer questions about what the Department of Defense is up to, what the thoughts may be about the global war on terrorism. We sent out information. If people have said I’d like you to keep me updated on what’s going on, then via e-mail and web sites we will send them information. We respond to literally thousands of requests for information from the general public every week. They e-mail us, they send letters, they call and we respond to them as much as we can.

No Breach Seen in Work in Iraq on Propaganda (3/22/2006, subscription required)

An inquiry found that a U.S. public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles…

Mr. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon’s civilian and military leaders were able to deflect direct criticism at the time because the contract had been signed by the military command in Baghdad. But the inquiry now leaves them to address whether new guidelines are needed to balance American values of a free press against the needs of commanders in the fight against insurgents in Iraq.

The question for the Pentagon is its proper role in shaping perceptions abroad. Particularly in a modern world connected by satellite television and the Internet, misleading information and lies could easily migrate into American news outlets, as could the perception that false information is being spread by the Pentagon.

On the heels of my posting in Information Operations (IO) by the Defense Department that sound, taste, and smell suspiciously like Public Diplomacy, comes news of a $20 million contract by the military command in Baghdad to monitor news and provide “public relations products”. This is troubling on many levels.

Let’s start with PHK’s post on WhirldedView questioning whether the Defense Department, known for “private contractors like the Lincoln Group, SAIC, Rendon and SY Coleman Inc. to produce and disseminate fake “good” news reports for placement in the Iraqi media”, is the appropriate agent of American public diplomacy. Regardless of whether you think DOD should be the lead, it is and that’s the plain fact. The $20m contract is reinforcing the lack of support that any semblance of a USIA-like entity can provide from within the government directly or in a managerial capacity to provide oversight of the contract. Instead, DOD must do it.

Consider who is doing the contracting. Origination of the contract from the “military commanders in Baghdad” is akin to the an Embassy contracting out and symbolic of the power of the Combatant Commands, in this CENTCOM. No big deal by itself but its emblematic of the leadership role of Defense over State in the region.

Now comes the biggest point: more privatization of American public diplomacy. It is one thing to recruit American business to participate in, or even design, public diplomacy programs, but we’re talking about very Rendon-like skills here. Check that, this is outsourcing a capability State used to provide publically through its Foreign Media Reaction website. The FMR, by the way, used Embassy personnel actively monitoring local news and was pulled off the public website after GQ Magazine cited State’s own FMR product skewering Karen Hughes after her failed Listening Tour. FMR sorta lives on in the form of Rapid Response & other material from State’s Media Reaction Division, but nothing public and not like the FMR that systematically and more proactively monitored foreign language media. More importantly, nothing on the same scale.

The new diplomatic corps in Defense consists of soldiers, airmen, and sailors that are, in the Iraqi theater at least, going to be backed by their own version of the USIA.

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.

The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command’s performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.

Is this really where we should be going? State functions increasingly being (re)developed in Defense, and through outsourcing?

Briefly, from the New York Times:

State Department investigators have concluded that Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, improperly hired a friend on the public payroll for nearly $250,000 over two and a half years, according to a summary of their report made public this afternoon by Democratic Congressional staff members.

A couple of good articles are posted on Eccentric Star about the troops being the Last Three Feet of Public Diplomacy…

From Draconian Observations comes Blair’s Long War Vision. You should read DO’s post and brief commentary (clipped below) on Blair’s talk in LA a short while back.

Tony Blair’s speech to the World
Affairs Council in LA is highly interesting. The speech lays out a plan of
change in doctrine for the war on terrorism: one that is already present, but
need support, in the shape of the Long War concept, and the NSPD 44 and the DoD
Directive 3000 (more on the Long
War here; and the directives
here). As such it fuses the American ambitiousness with the European
critiques. Finally, it seems to address and contain Tony
Corn’s analysis of the GWOT/Long War. 

I’d be interested in how Dan at tdaxp  would read Blair’s speech.

Actually, it’s more of a counter-travel guide for counter-terrorism. The NCTC recently published a document – National Strategy to Combat Terrorist Travel (note the document name in the link) – that “proposes specific actions aimed at strengthening our efforts at home and abroad to constrain terrorist mobility.”

The document’s filename, “Terrorist Travel Book”, brought to mind Calvin Trillin, who authored A Heckuva Job: More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme. Calvin was on the Jon Stewart show and his very dry wit was classic:

“I think the whole shoe bomber thing was a prank… the guy was an obvious bozo… he practically asked the flight attendant for a match… as I see it, there is one Arab terrorist with a sense of humor, known in his cell as Khalid the Drool. He said, “I bet I can get them all to take their shoes off in airports. Some people disagree with me, but, if the next one is called… the Underwear Bomber, you’ll know I’m on to something.”

Back to the handbook. This document seems to a) restate the obvious, b) rely on technical means, c) sees the value of multilateralism, d) and focuses on law enforcement and police mechanisms over military interdiction.

The document’s emphasis on fixing problems, such as human trafficking, focus on “terrorist” use and not the whole channel. This is short-sighted and fails to acknowledge that allowing this criminal behavior allows the conduit to function.

The need for a comprehensive and inclusive multilateral strategy is evident in the closing of this document:

We seek to deny safe harbor to terrorists wherever they are or seek to move. This strategy demonstrates the resolve of the US Government to strengthen international and US travel systems and make them as inhospitable as possible to our terrorist enemies. Building on the progress we have made in the years since 9/11, we will see continuing successes in constraining terrorist movements and in fortifying the will of the international community to devote increased attention and resources to this critical front in the War on Terror.

The reality and the expressed position of other documents, chiefly the National Security Strategy, state something far less than this “fortifying the will of the international community”. The NSS states we will operate independently when required:

The second pillar of our strategy is confronting the challenges of our time by leading a growing community of democracies. Many of the problems we face – from the threat of pandemic disease, to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to terrorism, to human trafficking, to natural disasters – reach across borders. Effective multinational efforts are essential to solve these problems. Yet history has shown that only when we do our part will others do theirs. America must continue to lead.

The “terrorist travel book” is more understanding of the need to collaborate. It’s sensible, really. To build detection systems, technical or human, you need everybody working together. If we look at the role of public diplomacy as a tool to facilitate macro agreements, understandings, and the desire for protection as the “terrorist travel book” describes as the micro level (restricting individuals is rather granular), there is a huge disconnect. American public diplomacy programs lack fundamental requisites of “public diplomacy” as critical report after critical report describes.

An interesting and quick read.

Lastly, if there is a micro level and a macro level, there must be a meso level….

Nothing new. Public Diplomacy is advertising. It is talking directly to the people like companies seek to, that’s why Madison Avenue was recruited in the American Public Diplomacy campaigns. But this quote says it well, "If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face."

Source: Seth’s Blog: Fill in the blank.

Many recognize sport as a form of public and cultural diplomacy. While some sports do not do well crossing America’s borders either outward (American Football) or inward (Football according to the rest of the world), swimming does. The worldwide reach of swimming is immediately evident at any Olympic Games, let alone the numerous other regional championship games held around the world. Remember the African athlete finishing the swim the 100m at the Sydney Olympics who had never swam that distance at once or in anything other than a hotel pool before.

The sport also crosses age barriers allowing athletes to continue to train and compete into their nineties as one National (or World?) champion 500yd swimmer proved recently (at a pace I know many people a fourth his age couldn’t). In short, it is one of the widest reaching sports, not as far as soccer, but with tremendous visibility and a huge national and international following around the globe.

With this in mind, Chuck Wieglus, Executive Director for USA Swimming, published an open letter to the National Team athletes, coaches, staff, board of directors of USA Swimming, and others within the US Olympic establishment. To be sure, this open letter shows a clear awareness of the value of swimming to highlight America and to raise awareness of the intense media spotlight that will be the Beijing Olympics.

Below is the full letter, also available here. 

Dear National Team Athletes:

As I watched the Winter Olympic Games and observed some of the more unfortunate incidents and reports that came out of Torino I reflected on just how special the performances of USA Swimming athletes have been over the years. You and your predecessors won 28 medals at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, 33 medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, and equally impressive numbers in all preceding Olympic Games.  It is no surprise then that USA Swimming has been the world’s #1 ranked international swim team for so many years. These Olympic performance results are even more impressive when considered in the context of growing worldwide competition in our sport.  Today there are more than 190 member federations in FINA and winning Olympic medals is only going to get tougher in the future.

But there’s more than a medal-winning history to give you reason to be proud.  Of equal – and perhaps even greater importance – is the manner in which USA Swimming athletes have represented their country. U.S. swimmers have consistently reflected everything that most people think is good about American youth.  Beyond being prepared for optimum physical success, U.S. swimmers have presented themselves in a way that has reflected enthusiasm, humility, maturity, sincerity, team spirit and patriotism. 

For USA Swimming, the notion of team spirit is especially important.  While many may view swimming as an individual sport, USA Swimming has always gone into international competition as a TEAM.  Our coaches have continually stressed the importance of the team concept, and there is a true belief that when we act and function like a team we maximize the potential for greater performance results.  Supporting each other as teammates, no matter what the sport, is something that the average fan notices and appreciates.  Michael Phelps may have endeared himself to more American television viewers for the race he didn’t swim in Athens than for any of the six gold medals that he won.  When Michael gave up his relay team spot so that Ian Crocker could swim he showed he cared as much about a teammate as he did about himself.  And when the television cameras caught him leading his U.S. teammates in cheering for that relay team, Michael won hearts throughout the world. 

As harsh as the media spotlight may have been in Torino, it will burn even hotter at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.  The media coverage in Beijing will dwarf that of any sporting event ever held.  Television cameras will capture every movement and microphones will record every word.  An off-hand comment, a surly facial expression, any negative body language will become fodder for a reporter’s negative story.  As good as we have been in the past about conveying positive images, we are going to have to be even better in the future. 

Following Torino, the press is going to be watching very closely to see how U.S. athletes behave.  It is now going to be more important than ever that you and your teammates commit yourselves to protecting the overwhelmingly positive image and reputation that has been the hallmark of American swimmers in the past.  You are representing not only yourself, but your family, your sport and your country and this should be a responsibility that you embrace with careful thought and sincerity.

The USOC has announced its intent to address athlete behavior more seriously in the future.  I ask you to join together with your teammates, coaches and others in the “swimming family” to lead the way.  As we prepare for the Beijing Olympic Games,  let’s include in our preparations a commitment to considering how we can best represent our sport and our country.  At a time when so many people in the rest of the world seem to dislike – or even hate – Americans, let’s use our participation in international competition as an opportunity to change attitudes.  Put bluntly, our objectives for Beijing should be twofold:

1.      To win medals!

2.      To win friends for the U.S. by the manner in which we conduct ourselves individually and as a team!

If you accomplish both of these objectives, I can assure you that not only will many awards and accolades be heaped upon you, but that you will have done something extraordinary that will be with you for the rest of your life.  Challenging times provide enormous opportunities.  You would not be a member of the USA Swimming National Team if you were afraid of tough challenges.  That challenge is now even greater and I encourage you to embrace it!

Go USA!

Chuck Wielgus Executive Director USA Swimming

Briefly, from mparent7777 (hat tip to John Brown):

From the website for"Strategic Communication Laboratories":

Homeland Security

The last 5 years have seen a flurry of Homeland Security scenarios enacted
and re-enacted on the streets of our cities. What if there is a biological
attack, or the detonation of multiple explosive devices? Many of these simulated
scenarios are excellent planning exercises for the emergency services and
security forces.

However, a major flaw has emerged in many of the scenarios – the
unmanageability of civilians. They do not behave as they are supposed to.
When a virus hits a city, civilians do not line up for vaccination:
they run for the hills. When terrorists are looking for a target, it is the
predictability of civilian behaviour that makes the terrorists’ job easier.
What if there was a way to control civilian behaviour when it counts?

This was interesting: Memo: Fear rules at Baghdad embassy.

A recent cable to the State Department from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad outlines a litany of fears and misery among Iraqi employees at the American diplomatic mission that threaten “objectivity, civility, and logic” among workers.

The collection of anecdotes from Iraqi workers in an undisclosed office in the embassy paints an extraordinarily bleak picture of life in the capital, where local employees do not dare reveal where they work, even to family members, for fear of retribution…

Let’s hope once the mission is accomplished in Iraq… no wait… well, when the new fortress / bubble is built, I’m sure there will be space for all.