Word: arabize
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Washington may not be able to find Osama bin Laden on the ground in Afghanistan, but it was able, last weekend, to ambush him on the airwaves. Soon after Qatar's al-Jezeera TV broadcast the latest propaganda tirade from the Saudi terrorist on Saturday, the channel's pan-Arab audience was treated to a surprise live American rebuttal - delivered, like bin Laden's own rant, in fluent Arabic. The U.S. had introduced a new "secret weapon" to the propaganda war: Christopher Ross, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and State Department counter-terrorism coordinator, brought out of mothballs...
...look as dramatic as a new special forces raid or a "daisy cutter" bomb falling on the Taliban lines, but Ross's deployment may prove equally important in winning the war on terrorism. Beating al-Qaeda depends in large part on the active cooperation of Arab and Muslim allies, because only when bin Laden is isolated in the Arab and Muslim world does he become ineffective. Ross is only one small part of the puzzle, of course - in recent days the Bush administration has dispatched Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld to buck up U.S. allies, named an ambassador...
...During more than 30-years of diplomatic service, Ross had played a leading role in formulating Middle East policy in various administrations, and had also represented the U.S. in Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Libya. Fluent in Arabic, he'd actually taught the language at Columbia University before entering the foreign service. And it may take a spokesman with his deep appreciation of the nuances of Arab politics - and language -to help reverse the tide of Arab sentiment against the U.S. five weeks into the Afghan bombing campaign...
...Anecdotal reports from the region suggest Ross's rebuttal went over well with middle-class Arab audiences. It was helped, no doubt, by the fact that bin Laden had lashed out intemperately at moderate Arab regimes and at the United Nations. Calling Kofi Annan a "criminal," to take just one example, sounds deranged, even to anti-Western firebrands in the developing world. The terrorist, whose propaganda broadcast when the U.S. bombing began had been a home-run in the Arab world, now sounded almost incoherent, teeing himself up for Ross to calmly point out bin Laden's political isolation. Even...
...deployment of a suave and sensitive spokesman, together with the creation of rapid-response information centers in Washington, London and Islamabad, suggests Washington is digging in for a protracted propaganda war alongside the real conflict on the ground. Having Ross address Arab concerns in Arabic is a good start, and it certainly beats having Tony Blair and George Bush pronouncing on who is and who isn't being true to Islam - why, after all, would anyone in the Muslim world take their word for it? It's certainly necessary in a war in which the Taliban starts each...