Karen Hughes targets Muslim youths (ages 8 to 14) with pro-U.S. "summer camps & enrichment programs"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Diplomacy effort reaches out to Muslim youths
Strives to create positive views of United States

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | August 18, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/18/diplomacy_effort_reaches_out_to_muslim_youths/



WASHINGTON -- The State Department is launching what it says will be the first comprehensive public diplomacy effort targeting children, hoping to shape the views of Muslim youths ages 8 to 14 with a series of summer camps and enrichment programs designed to counter negative images of the United States.

The new initiative is the brainchild of Karen Hughes, a confidante of President Bush who has become the most powerful public-diplomacy czar in decades. Hughes has argued forcefully that the US government must reach out to children younger than age 14, a population the State Department has largely neglected because they are too young for traditional exchange programs.

"By the time kids get to high school, their impressions are already pretty well shaped," Hughes said in an interview Monday. She said she began to plan the initiative last year when she realized that the US government's programs for young people "weren't reaching down really young enough."

As a test of her idea, Hughes asked embassies in 14 Islamic countries this summer to come up with pilot programs for that age bracket, and spent nearly $1 million on projects that involved about 6,000 youths and hundreds of local partnering organizations. Participants included more than 2,000 girls in Turkey who attended a basketball camp and 80 children from rural schools in Malaysia who learned about Thomas Jefferson and other US heroes on an American-style camping trip with embassy staff and families.

[bluerum]

1. sure. islamic countries will send their kids to camps hosted by the US. they

can learn all about jesus and christm-ass and santa and king george. Then they can return home to be shot by their neighbors.

[ananda]

2. You mean brainwashing camp?

nt

[Colobo]

3. Anything that helps fight radical Islam is good.

[ccpup]

4. what about programs

fighting radical Christianity? Or radical Republicans? This all sounds like predictably uncreative propaganda-like brainwashing to me.

Perhaps these kids would think better of the US of A if we stopped murdering their fathers, raping their mothers and sisters and blowing up their neighborhoods? Just a thought.

[Colobo]

5. Christianity is trash, and so is Islam. It's just that I find Islam much more dangerous

as evidenced by the actions of Islamic terrorists.

[ccpup]

13. perhaps you might want to speak with

a gay man who's been severely beaten or the family of someone who worked at a women's clinic that was bombed? Islam terrorism may be more OVERTLY dangerous, but Christian terrorists are just as dangerous, just as insidious and just as much to blame for the ongoing destruction of our Constitution than anyone else.

In some cases, Islam and Christianity are two sides of the same terrorist coin.

[Colobo]

15. Good points, and I agree, but...

Still, you don't really believe gay and women's rights are more recognized in the Muslim world, don't you?

[ccpup]

17. that's not my point

my point is that we have terrorists right here in America with Bush's base that they don't feel the need to "reprogram" between the ages of 8 - 14. The violence they commit is fine (because they're Christian and usually white) while the Islamic terrorists are somehow wrong (because they're not Christian and not white)?

Terrorism is a horrible thing, regardless of the perpetrators, but to try and reprogram someone to believe in a reality that is very far from real is, to me, pure and utterly blatant propaganda.

Thank God most things Karen Hughes touches turns to shit.

[Mist]

7. But, see (as the Decider would say) OUR propaganda is so much more moral than THEIRS. How I wish

Bigfoot wasn't still on the public tit to embarrass us with her ten-ton valentine "fixes".

[AZBlue]

21. I don't disagree. But this will do NOTHING to help fight extreme jihadists.

See my post lower in the thread.

[tanyev]

6. Summer camp with Karen Hughes. God help us all.

[rodeodance]

8. here is a better story about her and her -$600,000 to roughly $5 million in just 5 years."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brown/the-second-coming-of-kare_b_59851.html?view=print

John Brown

The Second Coming of Karen Hughes

Posted August 9, 2007 | 05:45 PM (EST)

Bush's propaganda czarina Karen Hughes -- her official jawbreaking title is Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs -- has had her ups and downs since being sworn in her State Department position in September 2005. When the long-time Bush confidante rejoined the "mission-accomplished" team in her new international-image-polishing job (she had been, among her previous capacities, a member of the secretive White House Iraq Group that led our country into war), some public-diplomacy veterans hoped that her close relationship with the President would make "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences" (the State Department's definition of public diplomacy) more successful than it had been during our Commander in Chief's first term.
............

Not long after Kralev's piece, PR Week (July 23) ran what-a-great-lady-she-is interview with Hughes during which she had an opportunity to spew out Soviet-style statistics about her public- diplomacy triumphs:

"For the first time, public diplomacy was recognized as a national security priority, and we got $50 million in the emergency supplemental. ... e were able to show from our initial survey data that 87% of participants in our programs have a better understanding of the United States and 73% have more favorable attitudes toward our country as a result of their participation. ... So we've really expanded our exchange programs. When I came, the year before I arrived, we had 27,000 people participate. This year we'll have almost 40,000. And I'm working on a budget where we're hoping to to more than 50,000. ... I've been an advocate for increasing the public diplomacy budget, and it has increased substantially since I've been here, from $677 million to $845 million..... Last year we issued a record number of student visas, I think 591,000."

As the author of articles on the Bush administration's misuse of numbers, I would welcome it for someone with access to the proper records to check on the accuracy of these statistics.

More Praise for Ms. Hughes

And then came a don't-beat-up-on-Karen piece by the distinguished diplomat William Rugh, who was ambassador to Yemen from 1984 to 1987 and ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 1992 to 1995. Titled "Quiet progress in public diplomacy," the article argues that "Karen Hughes has been unfairly criticized," and ends with the following panegyric:

"Having served as a diplomat abroad, I am convinced that the best way for foreigners to acquire a sophisticated understanding of our society, culture and policies is to come here and see America for themselves. ...

Ms. Hughes knows this, too. She has worked hard, and successfully, to expand the exchanges of students and professionals that the State Department sponsors. In only two years, she increased the number of participants in the department's exchange programs from 27,000 to more than 38,000. She also expanded English teaching programs abroad, a 'secret weapon' that carries considerable American cultural content and helps foreigners understand us better."

The Los Angeles Times, often critical of the Bush administration, has a kind word to say about Hughes in its article "U.S. State Dept. Drafts Ozomatli For Tour: The U.S. Sends The Antiwar L.A. Band On A Diplomatic Mission To The Heart Of The Arab World" by Borzou Daragahi (August 1):

"During the Cold War, the State Department recruited jazz musicians as cultural emissaries. ... Such cultural outreach faded over the decades but has been revived in recent years by Karen Hughes, the U.S. undersecretary of State for public diplomacy."

This article was followed by a posting (August 3) on the Public Diplomacy Blog of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy by State Department intern Caroline Walters, "Sports Diplomacy Is The New Comeback Kid," which announces that:

"Now U.S. sports diplomacy is enjoying a comeback of its own. With strong support from Under Secretary Karen Hughes, the Department of State's budget for sports grants and sports programming has climbed from a lowly $600,000 to roughly $5 million in just five years."

Who's Against?

[rodeodance]

11. she had an opportunity to spew out Soviet-style statistics about her public- diplomacy triumphs:

Not long after Kralev's piece, PR Week (July 23) ran what-a-great-lady-she-is interview with Hughes during which she had an opportunity to spew out Soviet-style statistics about her public- diplomacy triumphs:

"For the first time, public diplomacy was recognized as a national security priority, and we got $50 million in the emergency supplemental. ... e were able to show from our initial survey data that 87% of participants in our programs have a better understanding of the United States and 73% have more favorable attitudes toward our country as a result of their participation. ... So we've really expanded our exchange programs. When I came, the year before I arrived, we had 27,000 people participate. This year we'll have almost 40,000. And I'm working on a budget where we're hoping to to more than 50,000. ... I've been an advocate for increasing the public diplomacy budget, and it has increased substantially since I've been here, from $677 million to $845 million..... Last year we issued a record number of student visas, I think 591,000."

As the author of articles on the Bush administration's misuse of numbers, I would welcome it for someone with access to the proper records to check on the accuracy of these statistics.

[madrchsod]

9. ...here`s just one of your competion karen....

and here is her weapon.....



there are others and they are all part of the hip hop nation across the world... karen- you lost before you started

[Colobo]

12. Anything that challenges old dogmas and destroys them is good

Glad to see this girl taking care of business.

[murray hill farm]

10. OMG

That is soooooooo bad. Sometimes, when i read something like that i wonder if I might have, inadvertently slipped into some alternative universe while i slept.

[coco77]

14. While cutting and destroying programs for children...

in this country...meanwhile the crime rate goes up in America.

[Mz Pip]

16. Meanwhile back in the US

enrichment programs for kids in scary neighborhoods can't get funding.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[phillysuse]

18. What an ugly puss Karen Hughes has!

Could she make a worse face?

Looking at her would be enough to give kids nightmares.

[wake.up.america]

19. Unbelievable!!!!!

[AZBlue]

20. This shows just how little they've learned and how much they still misunderstand the situation.

They STILL don't get it at all. The appeal of extremist Muslim/anti-US programs is not their rhetoric - it's their promise of a better life for them and their families. It's their ability to give the unhappy Muslim youth a reason for their unfortunate and difficult situation, to give them someone to blame (the US) and to show them that there's a way out. This pro-US B.S. will do NOTHING to counteract the fanatical Muslims' efforts.

UNEFFINGBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!


Edited to add: Welcome to DU! :hi:
And, thanks for the post - I hadn't seen this elsewhere yet.

[monmouth]

22. I'd like to see after-school programs resume in the U.S. Charity begins at home...