President Obama has now made his second trip in office to the land where he spent four years of his youth, Indonesia, while on a trip to Asia and Australia. Although Obama’s time in Indonesia was brief, he was welcomed relatively warmly by most Indonesians, who appreciate his ties to the most populous Muslim country. There are, however, plenty of people who disapproved, including the usual suspects, the Islamist extremists.

The trip is part of a plan to shore up ties and increase the US presence in Southeast Asia in order to balance a rising China, and in response to the previous administration’s general neglect of the region (one of the reasons China made such significant inroads there in the last decade). Obama also announced plans to increase the US military presence in Australia, which irked China. The disputes in the South China Sea — the Spratly and Paracel Islands — and China’s increasing assertiveness are certainly part of the decision to increase the US presence there.

Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia staged a protest at the American embassy prior to his visit. Although their website listed the number of demonstrators as 20,000, other sources gave estimates from hundreds to 2500.

“Why Obama (must be) Shot” is the title of a story on the ar Rahmah extremist web site. The image accompanying the story is one they and others have used before — Obama as pharaoh, invoking a strong Islamist narrative of tyranny and injustice. The caption reads “Pharaoh of this time, demon predator of Muslims.” The article goes on to repeatedly refer to Obama as a “crusader,” another powerful narrative — although an explanation of how he can be both a pharaoh and a crusader at the same time is lacking.

The articlH cites Oscar Ortega Hernandez, the 21-year-old who fired shots at the White House last week. Although Pennsylvania police stated that he was mentally disturbed (he told friends that Obama is the anti-Christ, so I guess he does have more than one thing in common with the extremists), the “psychologists” at ar Rahmah give him a clean bill of health:

Funny thing is the Pennsylvania police who arrested Oscar alleged that he suffered mental illness and was reported missing by his family since last week. Yet if you look at the published photos of Oscar, of course anyone would argue that Oscar is not mentally handicapped, but rather very healthy and very aware of what he did, namely to shoot Obama!

Not sure what they will make his tattoo of the word “Israel” — his young son’s name — on Ortega’s neck, however.

According to ar Rahmah, the plan to station Marines in Australia is simply a pretext to begin a crusade against Indonesian Muslims. In agreement with the English extremist group Muslims Against Crusades (a group recently banned by the British government), the assassination of Obama is allowed because of his execution of two Muslim heroes: Osama bin Laden and Anwar al Awlaki.

Jailed extremist leader Abu Bakar Basyir concurs. In another story on ar Rahmah, Basyir argues that because he is the leader of a crusade started by his predecessor, Obama must be fought. Voice of Islam posted a story arguing that Obama was in Indonesia to attempt to “Christianize” the country.

While Obama was in Bali, there was a 5.3 earthquake. Ar Rahmah pinpointed the cause of the earthquake, however: when Obama greeted the Indonesian First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, he (“ferociously”) kissed her on the cheek. It’s another attempt to link a natural disaster with some kind of moral transgression, something Indonesian Islamist extremists do frequently, just as Christian extremists do here in the US.

As usual, ar Rahmah posted a link to their website on Facebook. In a country of around 240,000,000, with around 30,000,000 Facebook users (ranking second in the world), the article about the earthquake received 139 “likes,” 21 “shares,” and 39 comments, including one brave soul who cautioned that posting stories such as this one can make Muslims appear to be provocateurs. In a new democracy with newly found freedoms of press and expression, Indonesia’s extremists continue to test the boundaries. Calling for the assassination of a visiting head of state is apparently within those boundaries. Thankfully the number of supporters of this group are small, and none chose to act on the call to violence.

Related posts:

1. Extremists Stoking Religious Violence in Indonesia by Chris Lundry Violence between Muslims and Christians broke out...
2. Another Bombing in Indonesia, Another Struggle over Framing by Chris Lundry On Sunday, September 25, a lone suicide...
3. Indonesia Events Show Increasing Extremist Influence by Chris Lundry The past couple of weeks have been...

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As details pour in regarding this past weekend’s daring raid in which U.S. Navy SEALs  killed elusive al-Qaeda leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden, the exact details of the events keep changing slightly. The New York Times titled an article covering a recent revision to the sequence of events and details about the operation as “White House Corrects Bin Laden Narrative”.

I would argue, however, the “Bin Laden Narrative” that matters most is not the play-by-play account of what happened, and in what sequence, in that Abbottabad compound. (In fact, I wouldn’t even call that sequence of events a “narrative” in order to avoid confusion about that term.)  While the details of who was shot first and where are important, the bigger narrative concern is what happens now that Osama bin Laden has been killed. And, my interest here in this piece is not an operational question, i.e. will Ayman al-Zawahiri take over as the leader of al-Qaeda or will another figure assert leadership of the terrorist network. No, my concern here is: How will the U.S. (collectively both the government and the populace) frame, conceive and think about the contemporary world order now that the number-one-most-wanted-terrorist story has come to an end.

In an earlier post I noted that narrative is more than simply the recounting of events. Stories and events are crucial parts of narrative: They are parts of the system that is narrative. And, systems are more than just assemblages of their parts. Systems have emergent properties, and in the case of narrative, one of those properties is sense-making.

Narrative, fundamentally, is a method of making sense of a body of information that includes actors (entities that act, not Denzel Washington or Natalie Portman), actions/events,  settings and even stories. Sometimes a narrative is a system comprised of actual events, real actors, and a collection of stories told about them. Other times, a narrative is a fictional construction. The factual and fictional domains can also overlap and influence on another. America is famously a world leader in generating moving image narratives (films and television), so I use examples from that art form in what follows.

As Americans, we tend to organize the world in the most simplistic of narrative structures, the binary. In a binary narrative there is one protagonist who is understood as the good guy.*  This is usually “us” or “America” or our hero-du-jour, be it John Wayne, Tom Cruise, General MacArthur, President Abraham Lincoln, or James Bond (never mind that he’s English). The hero represents all that is good and right about us. The good guy is opposed by the antagonist “bad guy.”

The original Star Wars film offers a readily accessible example of how the binary offers a simple and air-tight understanding of a world. In a galaxy far away, a young man (Luke Skywalker on behalf of “The Republic”) enters into battle with an archetypal enemy (Darth Vader, dressed ominously in black and leading the forces of the evil “Empire”). Understanding this world is simple. There are those allied with Luke and the Republic and there are those allied with Vader and the Empire. It is a black and white world.

Our predilection for formulaic, familiar and always-resolved narratives is evident in the overwhelming popularity of police and medical “procedurals” on American television. While these shows might appear on the surface to be more complicated than the binary just described, at base they are just that.

In most police procedurals (think the CSI franchise, the Law and Order franchise, and the host of newer shows like Castle or the newly remade Hawaii Five-0.), the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are clearly delineated. The police (and prosecutors) represent the forces of good, normative American society opposing a criminal element—classical bad guys whether they are on-screen shooting at police or the off-screen subject of a mystery investigation.

In the medical procedurals (think House or Crossing Jordan as well as the reality-based medical/crime crossover shows like, Dr. G: Medical Examiner and Forensic Files), the intelligent and committed medical practitioners battle their enemy, disease or mystery, and the disease’s ever-present ally of the ticking clock.  All of these shows, whether fictional or reality-based, share the common traits of a clear protagonist (individual or group), a clear antagonist (criminal or disease) and, most importantly for what I see as the dominant form of narrative in the American psyche, a clear resolution.

So, what does all this have to do with Osama Bin Laden? For more than 10 years, Osama bin Laden has been the Darth Vader leading an evil empire of al-Qaeda, Taliban and miscellaneous Islamist extremists. The antagonist umbrella even covered Iraq and Saddam Hussein for a period of time (before the lack of narrative coherence finally separated Iraq from the bin Laden/al-Qaeda menace). The binary narrative structure in which the U.S. fights bin Laden and his allies actually simplifies a complex geo-political landscape into a format already familiar to the American public—the Cold War.

A classic binary narrative structure, the Cold War narrative neatly divided the world into good and evil, protagonist and antagonist, and made understanding simple. With the demise of the Soviet Union, that binary narrative structure was disrupted until the advent of bin Laden. While both President Obama and President Bush have repeatedly asserted that the U.S. is not at war with Islam or the Arab people, neither would have had to say this if the binary narrative that offers only two options (you’re with us or you’re against us) had not been dominating the American psyche.

Iraq was a sub-plot, one that we tried to force-fit into the fairly simple binary narrative pattern of protagonist vs. antagonist. The lack of unity in accepting the Iraq campaign illustrates that it did not cohere with the overall narrative system. This is a good illustration of the narrative comprehension process. Data is received (actions, events, actors) and a template (such as the binary structure here described) is applied. If the data fit the template, a concise comprehension is achieved. If they don’t fit, back to the drawing board. The situation in Iraq has never conveniently fit the binary template, which gave rise to the considerable contention, confusion and lack of understanding surrounding that ongoing episode.

With clear resolution being one of the hallmarks of the binary structure (House cures the disease, Benson and Stabler catch their criminal, Luke Skywalker defeats Darth Vader), what happens to our narrative understanding of the world now that resolution of this narrative is at hand?  With bin Laden dead, does the narrative end and the credits roll?  Hardly.

The geo-political landscape is just as complicated and unsuited to a binary narrative today as it was a week ago (not to mention 10 years ago). It seems to me that we have two options. We can take the “24 approach” and simply discover a new antagonist. This path elevates Ayman al-Zawahiri (or perhaps, as our friend Jarret Brachman suggests, Abu Yahya al-Libi) into the antagonist role. Then we could continue comprehending the contemporary moment as one of conflict between the U.S. and al-Zawahiri (or whatever new figurehead represents the evil empire of Al Qaeda, Taliban, AQAP, AQLIM, etc.).

Alternatively, we could jettison the binary narrative structure, its simplicity of conflict and its obvious path to resolution. Perhaps it is time that our mainstream culture and mainstream media recognize what our troops on the ground in Afghanistan already know and deal with everyday. There is no simple us vs. them arrangement in Afghanistan, or across the Middle East. Pakistan seems to be playing both sides of the fence. The Taliban is only one of at least five different insurgent groups in Afghanistan contesting the American presence. The Arab Spring has displaced leaders like Egypt’s Mubarak (who by virtue of the binary structure became an ally but who is now revealed as a less-than-savory bedfellow), and has left only questions in the wake of the uprisings. I’m not saying there isn’t evil in the world that needs to be opposed by American will and American military might. But I am saying that in the complicated geo-political and socio-cultural landscapes we face, an overly simplistic and binary organization of people, events and actions into some sort of uber-narrative structure is problematic and unhelpful.

The considerable gnashing of teeth occurring right now over Pakistani complicity or incompetence in bin Laden’s concealment illustrates the flaws of the binary that has dominated American culture. Why?  Because we had assigned to Pakistan the ally role in our binary narrative. Discovering the archetype of evil residing in relative comfort 60 miles from the capital of an ally does not comport with a simplistic understanding of “us vs. them”. Politicians across the political spectrum are grand-standing and calling for investigation in the $4 billion of foreign aid provided to Pakistan annually, claiming, essentially, some sort of breach of contract.

The reality is twofold. As a single nation-state entity, Pakistan has multiple interests (deter India, collect U.S. aid, limit anarchy in the northwest, deter further extremist attacks inside Pakistan, assert Pakistani sovereignty, develop relations with Russia and China, etc). As a fractured, barely functional government, different factions exercise different agendas and thus the government may not act in a consistent manner. This reality means that elements in Pakistan might have known of bin Laden’s presence and some may have aided him, but it does not mean that Pakistan is secretly a member of bin Laden’s evil empire. It also means that Pakistan is not always a stalwart ally. Complicated.

What to do then? We live in a complex world and it is time for our mode of understanding to embrace that complexity rather than try to over-simplify. Rather than imposing one, dominant and over-arching narrative to explain all things, we should embrace the systemic (recognize that sub-components of narrative such as stories, actors, events, settings may play different roles in multiple smaller narrative systems), multi-layered (rather than one dominant explanation that all components fit under, recognize that narratives exist in parallel and at multiple levels) and intersecting qualities of narrative.

These qualities are increasingly apparent in popular culture in the field of transmedia storytelling. Stories that share some common elements are told across a variety of media platforms. The recent glut of comic book hero movies exemplifies the trend. Spiderman begins as a comic book (one with multiple titles, no less), then movies and video games (and an animated television series with an oh-so-catchy theme song, lest we forget) proliferate.

The stories told on these different platforms sometimes integrate, and sometimes contradict. Add in fan-generated fiction from fan sites, and the system of stories, actions, events, actors and settings proliferates in a complex and tangled web. Yet, despite contradictions, the Spiderman universe remains eminently understandable. Complementary (and complimentary) stories add to Spidey’s heroism, while contradictory stories can be held at the same time by the reader/viewer. These add nuance and multiple facets to characters and situations without compromising understanding. This is precisely because these seemingly contradictory elements are part of smaller narrative systems that are flexibly interlinked into a broader system, rather than components being force-fit into a single, simplistic, binary narrative structure.

From cowboys vs. Indians to Axis vs. Allies to the Cold War, American culture has been fond of its simple, binary narratives. This same, familiar pattern has been applied to America’s conflict with terrorism and Islamist extremism, but now with bin Laden’s death perhaps we can put an end to this detrimental over-simplification. Again taking a cue from pop culture, our political communication can embrace the complexity of narrative structure that the culture is clearly capable of managing, and drive towards a more nuanced understanding of the complicated world around us.

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* it is almost always a guy or a team that collectively constitutes the good team. Female-lead fictional narratives tend towards structures other than the binary.

Related posts:

1. Narrating the Death of bin Laden and the Afterlife of bin Laden’s Narrative by Bud Goodall Sunday night President Barack Obama officially declared...
2. Tainted Legacies: to the Victor go the (Narrative) Spoils? By Chris Lundry The first 48 hours after the death...
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The American Academy of Diplomacy and The Stimson Center, Forging a 21st Century Diplomatic Service for the United States Through Professional Education and Training, February 2011. Key recommendations in this 74-page report include: (1) Sustain a 15% level of personnel for training in diplomacy and development (a training float) above levels required for regular assignments; (2) Make a long-term commitment to professional education as well as training; (3) Strengthen and expand the Department of State’s professional development process; (4) Establish a temporary corps of roving career counselors; and (5) Require a year of career track-related advanced study as a requirement for promotion to the Senior Foreign Service.  The Project’s organizers were retired US Ambassadors Robert M. Beecham, Thomas R. Pickering, Ronald E. Neuman, and Edward Rowell and Stimson Center President Ellen Laipson.  The report’s lead drafter was Jeremy Curtin, a retired senior public diplomacy officer and former coordinator of the Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs.

Mladen Andrlic, Iva Tarle, and Suzana Simichen Sopta, “Practices of Public Diplomacy in Communicating NATO and EU Values with the Domestic Public in Croatia,” Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 2011. In this paper, Ambassador Andrlic, Director of Croatia’s Diplomatic Academy, and his colleagues in Croatia’s diplomatic service examine issues and the value for diplomacy and domestic politics in communicating the merits of Croatia’s NATO and EU membership with its domestic public.  Their paper also discusses concepts of public diplomacy, diplomatic practices, and the evolution of modern Croatian diplomacy.

Steve Coll, “The Internet: For Better or for Worse,” The New York Review of Books, April 7, 2011, 20-24. Coll (New America Foundation and New Yorker contributor) reviews recent books by Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (2010) and Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (2011).  Coll’s essay contains a critical assessment of the strengths and limitations of each as well as a discussion of their relevance to revolutionary events in Egypt (including the Facebook campaign of Google executive Wael Ghonim) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “Internet Freedom” speeches.

Nicholas J. Cull, “WikiLeaks, Public Diplomacy 2.0, and the State of Digital Public Diplomacy,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1-8. Cull (University of Southern California) begins with a comparison of similarities and differences between WikiLeaks and Leon Trotsky’s publication in 1917 of secret treaties found in the archives of the Czar following the Russian Revolution.  Both, he argues, were diplomatic game changers. One took a revolution.  The other an empowered individual with technological skills.  Cull uses WikiLeaks as a frame for his assessment of the “web-based revolution in public diplomacy” and the “state of the much heralded Public Diplomacy 2.0.”  He concludes with brief recommendations for public diplomacy practitioners on “rules to live by” in the world of WikiLeaks and the world of Web 2.0.

Mai’a K. Davis Cross, “EU Public Diplomacy: A Coherent Message?” Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 2011. Cross (University of Southern California) continues her research on the European Union with this inquiry into the coherence of its subnational, national, transnational, and supranational levels of public diplomacy.  She argues that the EU is a major player internationally, but its public diplomacy overall “sends conflicting messages because national-level public diplomacy rarely includes the EU in its messages to foreign publics.”   At the same time, however,
she asserts that “On a theoretical level, EU public diplomacy provides a strong example of norm diffusion and identity creation” and that the EU’s external image and internal identity are mutually constitutive.  Dr. Cross’s paper is in draft and she welcomes comments.

Douglas Coupland, Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! (Atlas & Co.,  2010). Coupland, a novelist and visual artist, provides a fresh look at the life and thinking of Canadian media and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan.  His brief, entertaining biography portrays McLuhan’s personality, intellectual development, place in 20th century thought, and impact on how we think about culture and the effects of print and electronic media.  (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

Richard J. Evans, “Art in the Time of War,” The National Interest, May/June 2011, 16-26. Evans (Cambridge University) looks at the looting of artifacts and cultural objects in violent conflict and the international trade in stolen art.  He puts recent examples (the plunder of archeological sites in Egypt and the looting of museums and other sites in Iraq and Afghanistan) in the context of a long historical practice.  Evans discusses motives, how societies have dealt with the issue, and what he sees as a dilemma created by the need to preserve a country’s cultural heritage and “the global community’s need to learn about other cultures through universal museums like the Metropolitan or the British Museum.”  His way forward is “to accept the validity of the universal museum” while encouraging states to give preventive measures and law enforcement higher priority and the art world to be more vigilant in monitoring trade in looted objects.

James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, (Pantheon Books, 2011). In this thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and remarkably affordable book, the author of Chaos (1998 and 2008) and biographies of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton turns to a narrative that portrays five millennia of  information technologies — their discovery and their influence on human consciousness and activity — from the invention of the alphabet, to talking drums, to the telegraph, to the cloud, to epigenetics.  Gleick shows through close examination of pre-innovation mind sets how each “new medium transforms the nature of human thought.”  His central argument that “information has become the modern era’s defining quality” will be debated.  But his book and this debate will inform how we think about power, communication, diplomacy, media, social networks, and a great deal more.

Jeffry R. Halverson, H. L. Goodall, Jr., and Steven R. Corman, Master Narratives of islamist Extremism, Consortium for Strategic Communication, 2011. The authors (colleagues at Arizona State University’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication) discuss the meaning of master narratives in culture and civic life.  Drawing on historical and inter-disciplinary perspectives, they examine the use of master narratives by Islamic extremists and assess implications for scholars and strategic communication practitioners.

House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, FCO Public Diplomacy: The Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012, Second Report of Session 2010-11, January 26, 2011. In this 82-page report, the Committee endorses the strategy of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to “exploit the public diplomacy and ‘soft power’ potential of the Games as a tool that its global network of Posts can use to help open doors and gain influence with key individuals and groups in specific countries, in pursuit of the UK’s interests.”  The Committee’s report contains an assessment of this “once in a generation” opportunity, its views on the meaning of public diplomacy and soft power, and its conclusions and recommendations on the implementation of the FCO’s strategy.

Bruce W. Jentleson and Ely Ratner, “Bridging the Beltway-Ivory Tower Gap,” International Studies Review, (2011) 13, 6-11. Jentleson (Duke University) and Ratner (RAND Corporation) find the gap between the academic and policy worlds to be inevitable given their distinct “missions and organizational cultures.”  They argue three factors make the gap wider than it needs to be: academic incentive structures that devalue policy relevance, the increased role of think tanks as research sources for policymakers, and limited interest by the part of the policy community in academic research and connecting with scholars.  The authors discuss potential risks in greater collaboration.  These risks are not prohibitive however.  “If done right — consistent with scholarly ethics and honest relationships — the opportunities for knowledge creation and synergy are enormous.”

For views on some of these issues in the context of deliberations at the International Studies Association’s Public Diplomacy Working Group in Montreal, March 2011, see blogs by Daryl Copeland (University of Toronto), “Diplomacy on the Rebound at the Brain Food Buffet,” March 21, 2011; and Robin Brown (Leeds University), “Five Things I Learnt at the ISA,” March 24, 2011; and “Public Diplomacy Research: The Limits of Multidisciplinarity,” April 3, 2011.  ISA’s PD Working Group, co-chaired by Craig Hayden (American University) and Kathy Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac University) received “high marks” in ISA’s survey of group participants.

The number of papers, panels, and roundtables on public diplomacy at the ISA’s annual meetings continues to grow.  For a selected list from Montreal, with available links, see Robin Brown’s “Public Diplomacy/Soft Power Papers from ISA 2011,” March 20, 2011.

Sook Jong Lee and Jan Melissen, eds., Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). The essays compiled in this volume examine soft power and public diplomacy through conceptual analysis and country case studies.  The authors share an assumption that diplomatic practice and soft power concepts in East Asia offer important insights into theoretical debates that have been largely dominated by Western perspectives.  Their essays contribute to a deeper understanding of diplomacy and power — and make a compelling argument for the value of case studies and broadening the scope of public diplomacy research.  Includes:

– Shin-wha Lee (Korea University), “The Theory and Reality of Soft Power: Practical Approaches in East Asia.”

– Yong Wook Lee (Korea University), “Soft Power as Productive Power.”

– Byong-kuen Jhee (Chosun University) and Nae-young Lee (Korea University), “Measuring Soft Power in East Asia: An Overview of Soft Power in East Asia on Affective and Normative Dimensions.”

– Akiko Fukushima (Japan Foundation and Aoyama Gakuin University), “Modern Japan and the Quest for Attractive Power.”

– Rizal Sukma (Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta), “Soft Power and Public Diplomacy: The Case of Indonesia.”

– Yun-han Chu (National Taiwan University), “Taiwan’s Soft Power and the Future of Cross-Strait Relations: Can the Tail Wag the Dog?”

– Sook Jong Lee (Sungkyunkwan University), “South Korean Soft Power and How South Korea Views the Soft Power of Others.”

– Ingrid d’Hooghe (Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’), “The Limits of China’s Soft Power in Europe: Beijing’s Public Diplomacy Puzzle.”

– Marshall M. Bouton (Chicago Council on Global Affairs) and Gregory G. Holyk (Washington and Lee University), “Asian Perceptions of American Soft Power.”

– Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) and Tao Xie (Beijing Foreign Studies University), “The Complexities of Economic Soft Power: The U.S.-China Case.”

– Jan Melissen (Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ and Antwerp University), “Concluding Reflections on Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in East Asia.”

Marc Lynch, “U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Arab Uprisings,” Foreign Policy Blog, April 13, 2011. Lynch (George Washington University) observes that political change and the increased power of Arab publics mean “the burden on US public diplomacy has never been greater.”  He credits US engagement in the region in three areas: (1) Being ahead of the curve in building networks on issues of mutual concern with Muslim youth and entrepreneurs; (2) Downplaying the “war of ideas” and a narrative defined by terrorism and Al Qaeda; and (3) Getting “Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia right.”   Lynch concludes, however, that “overall U.S. public diplomacy in the region remains distressingly weak” in “macro-level engagement and communications” and at the policy level.

Jarol B. Manheim, Strategy in Information and Influence Campaigns, (Routledge, 2010). Manheim (George Washington University and the author of Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy, 1994) systematically discusses the assumptions, strategies, and tactics of public and private actors who initiate and defend against information and influence campaigns.  Subtitled “how policy advocates, social movements, insurgent groups, corporations, governments, and others get what they want, ” his book combines a closely argued theoretical analysis with cases and examples that illustrate what works and does not work in practice.  Manheim’s book builds on his many years of research in strategic political communication and is written for both scholars and practitioners.

John J. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie:  The Truth About Lying in International Politics, (Oxford University Press, 2011). Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) examines varieties of deception in statecraft, the reasons for its use and its strategic costs and benefits.  He distinguishes between lying (statements known to be false but used in hopes others will think them true), spinning (telling a favorable story, emphasizing certain facts to advantage and downplaying or ignoring what’s inconvenient), and concealment (withholding information that might weaken one’s position).  Mearsheimer makes a number of analytical distinctions, e.g., between inter-state lies, fearmongering, strategic cover-ups, and national myths.  He argues political leaders lie more often to their own citizens than to other states.

Christopher Paul, Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts, and Current Debates, (Praeger, 2011). Paul (RAND Corporation and author of Whither Strategic Communication? A Survey of Current Proposals and Recommendations, 2009) examines concepts, contested issues, and operational challenges in the use of communication instruments in diplomacy and armed conflict.  Paul’s analysis provides a reasoned interpretation of the meaning of a term that is not well understood and a survey of its development, relevance to public diplomacy, and use as an instrument of practice.  His thinking, grounded in an extensive bibliography, includes assessments of reports of the Defense Science Board, the Defense Department’s Report on Strategic Communication (December 2009) and the Obama Administration’s White House National Framework for Strategic Communication (March 2010),  He concludes with recommendations for improving strategic communication and offers a perspective on what lies ahead,

David Rieff, “Battle Hymn of the Diplomats,” The National Interest, March/April 2011, 78-88. In this review essay, Rieff (New York based journalist and author) offers a full throated critique of the US Department of State’s Leading Through Civilian Power: 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. For Rieff, the QDDR variously breaks less new ground than it claims, engages in “fantastic reach,” contains “profound tensions and contradictions,” and oscillates between being the first of many such reviews and an Obama administration foreign policy agenda.

William Rugh, ed., The Practice of Public Diplomacy: Confronting Challenges Abroad, (Palgrave Macmillan’s Global Public Diplomacy Series, 2011). The essays compiled by retired Ambassador Rugh (Tufts University) examine the public diplomacy activities of American Foreign Service Officers assigned to US embassies in different parts of the world.  They draw on interviews with US diplomats and focus on field operations and the challenges of adapting public diplomacy to local conditions and global trends.  The case studies were written by students in Ambassador Rugh’s course on United States Public Diplomacy at the Fletcher School.  Includes an introduction and concluding chapter by Ambassador Rugh on “Field Experiences and Best Practices.”

Philip Seib, Public Diplomacy, New Media, and Counterterrorism, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 2, 2011. Seib (USC Center on Public Diplomacy) offers a definition of public diplomacy and makes a case for its relevance in a world that is more “experience driven” than “authority driven.”  His paper focuses on public diplomacy as a counterterrorism tool.  Issues discussed include the use of traditional and social media by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, Daniel Kimmage’s argument that social media may prove to be Al Qaeda’s Achilles’ heel, Britain’s efforts to counter the “Al Qaeda narrative,” the impact and methods of Sesame Workshop, the rise and significance of virtual states, analytical and political questions posed by modern diasporas, and debates on counterterrorism strategies.   

Joseph M. Siracusa, Diplomacy: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford University Press, 2010). In this contribution to OUP’S “very short introductions” series, Siracusa (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) looks at five diplomacy case studies:  the American Revolution, origins of World War I, Churchill and Stalin’s Balkans agreement, the making of the ANZUS treaty, and contemporary diplomacy.  His book deals briefly with the rise of public diplomacy in the 20th century.  The chapter on “diplomacy in the age of globalization” discusses diplomacy in systems of layered governance and the emergence of civil society organizations, transnational corporations, and regional organizations as diplomatic actors.  Contains useful references and a guide to further reading.

Carolijn van Noort, Social Media Strategy: Bringing Public Diplomacy 2.0 To the Next Level. Research paper conducted during an internship at the Consulate General of The Netherlands in San Francisco, March 14, 2011. In this strategy paper, van Noort explores “the structure, organization, objectives, audience regulation, and evaluation of effective web 2.0 practices.”  Her paper focuses on a social media strategy conducted by The Netherlands Embassy in Washington and draws on interviews, an online survey, and literature on public diplomacy and social media.

Gem From the Past

Michael Walzer, “Deliberation, and What Else?”  A chapter originally published in Stephen Macedo, ed., Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement (Oxford University Press, 1999).  Republished in Michael Walzer, Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism, (Yale University Press, 2004.)

Political theorist Michael Walzer (Professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) has not written extensively on diplomacy, but his critical thinking on deliberative discourse, civil society, political action, and toleration in multicultural societies has much to offer students of public diplomacy and today’s fashionable “global public engagement.”  Walzer does not deny the importance of deliberation in relationships between and within groups.  But he argues there is more to political process.  His list includes making statements, mobilizing political action, campaigning, lobbying, rhetorical competition, and bargaining where the outcome is often a pragmatic modus vivendi that reflects more the balance of forces than mutual agreement based on deliberative reasoning.

For previous compilations of all Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites, visit a wiki kindly maintained by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy.  Recent lists are also maintained by George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication and by MountainRunner.us.

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Indonesian police have charged Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Basyir with supporting terrorism for his role in the the Jemaah Islamiyah training camp in Aceh. He has been accused of participating in planning and funding the project and ordering others to commit terrorist acts, and police reported finding progress reports and videos from the camp.

The training camp, led by Javanese who came to Aceh thinking they would find support, was broken up in February 2010. Its members were either arrested or killed by police (CSC blog post on the camp here).

Police arrested Basyir on August 9, but after seven days — the time allowed by Indonesian law for detention without charges — they requested and were granted a 40-day extension. Now that charges have been filed, the police are weighing whether to release him or continue to detain him until the trial begins. Baysir is old and frail, and police may assume that he would pose a minimal risk for flight.

Basyir served two brief jail terms for his involvement in the bombings of Christian churches in 2000 and for his role in the 2002 Bali bombing and the 2003 attack on the Marriott hotel. In these trials, police were unable to make the most serious charges stick, and Basyir served relatively brief jail sentences. Indonesian media reports over the new charges, however, give detailed information regarding, for example, money transfers from Basyir to the Aceh group (such as this English language story in the Jakarta Post), which may indicate that the police have enough evidence to convict Basyir on more serious charges this time.

As is to be expected, extremist blogs and web sites jumped to his defense. Some argued that his arrest was engineered by the US government. A hacker calling himself Ashaburayatisud posted a defense of Abu Bakar Basyir and Mohammad Jibriel,  disrupting several web sites (including the official government site for the province of East Kalimantan; a list is included here). As of this writing, about half of the sites have returned to normal. Mohammad Jibriel was sentenced to five years in prison for supporting the July 2009 Marriott and Ritz-Carlton bombings.

The hacked web pages demand: “Free them, hey you enemies of Allah!” Followers of “human law” such as democracy, the Indonesian Constitution, and Pancasila – Indonesia’s state ideology — are condemned to hell as non-believers, polytheists, and godless. In an oddly polite twist, the hacker also promised that he did not damage any of the sites’ important information.

A “Free ABB” website has also emerged (http://freeabb.com/), as well as a facebook page (http://facebook.com/free.abb), which is ironic considering Islamists’ condemnations of Facebook for promoting “free sex.” Leaders of other Islamist groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front and Jamaat Ansharut Tawhid (a group Basyir co-founded), have also made statements condemning the arrest. Basyir’s pesantren (Islamic boarding school) al Mukmin posted a statement lamenting the arrest, and promised that it will not disrupt the pesantren’s activities.

Islamists claimed a minor victory, however, by declaring that their prayers had been answered and that Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri fell ill because of the arrest of Basyir.

Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, issued a statement supporting the arrest.

The announcement of charges and the early indications of evidence bode well for the police and Indonesian governmnet’s case. Indonesia was embarassed by the inability to make charges against Basyir stick in his earlier trials, and was criticized by other governments, notably Australia and the United States. It would be another embarassment should Basyir be able to elude these latest charges. If convicted, however, it would be a significant victory for Indonesia’s anti-terrorism efforts.

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Facebook has been gaining ground in Indonesia, and in terms of absolute number of users, Indonesia is now ranked third in the world after the US and the UK. This is remarkable given the low rate of internet penetration in the country, but is explained by the high number of users of hand-held, internet accessible devices.  Facebook has been in the news in Indonesia lately, and there are two interesting examples. The first is a Facebook group with over 55,000 members that was formed to oppose the recently installed statue of US President Barack Obama in a public park in Menteng, Jakarta. The statue portrays Obama as a young boy, reflecting the years he spent living in Indonesia (1967-71). The Facebook users opposed the statue because they felt as though Obama had not done anything for Indonesia (although others point to his example that someone from modest means can achieve greatness). Eventually the government in Jakarta acquiesed to the demands of the Facebook group, and the statue was moved from the park to the elementary school that Obama attended. Obama will be visiting Indonesia in mid-March for the first time since his election.

The other Facebook-related phenomenon has to do with recent cases of rape, abduction and disappearances of young girls by predatory Facebook users. I drove past a large demonstration in Bandung protesting Facebook, organized by Muslim students. Of course this raises several questions. Is Facebook  itself somehow responsible for these criminal cases? Is there something inherently un-Islamic about Facebook, as the groups seem to claim? (Beyond the criminal behavior, some critics argue that Facebook allows un-Islamic behavior in the form of “hooking up” or no-strings sexual liaisons). Do these cases simply reflect the processes by which knowledge about online predation is disseminated and naive users eventually become more aware of the dangers of online behavior? Finally, it points to the presence of alternatives to Facebook, perhaps more Islam-friendly, by which these students must have organized the protest… because surely they couldn’t have used Facebook to organize the protest.

In the legal realm, Indonesia is considering repealing its very restrictive blasphemy law in the name of free speech, consistent with its more open press and newly embraced democratic ideals. Resistance to this 1965 law has come, not surprisingly, from Islamist sources, including political parties and civil society groups. What is somewhat surprising, however, is who the Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali decided to meet with in order to discuss the judicial review: representatives from the Islamic Defenders Front and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia. The former is a group of thugs with ties to the Suharto-era quasi-legal, extrajudicial “enforcement” group Pemuda Pancasila, that currently operates territorial “protection” rackets in the name of Islam and frequently runs afoul of the law; the latter is the Indonesian branch of a worldwide Islamist organization whose goal is a global caliphate. Although Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia doesn’t openly advocate violence to achieve its goals, it is banned in some countries, but not in Indonesia — perhaps ironically based on the same freedom of speech doctrine cited by those wishing to overthrow the blasphemy law. In a letter to the Jakarta Post, one writer compared this meeting to a government official in the US meeting on race relations with members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-nazi groups.

Another legal case is moving through the courts as well. I wrote about it previously in another post a few months ago, and now the case of Mohammad Jibriel is going to trial. He is being tried on charges of providing material support to those responsible for the July 17 bombing in Jakarta of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels. Prosecutors claim he visited the Middle East where he asked for and received funding for the operation.

And in other news… the Islamist Indonesian Mujahadeen Council (MMI) elected a new leader, Syawal Yasin, who is the son-in-law of terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah co-founder Abdullah Sungkar. The MMI was founded by JI’s other co-founder, Abu Bakar Bashir, although he has since left the Council. Completing the incestuous circle of jihad, the MMI’s deputy chairman is Abu Jibriel, Mohammad Jibriel’s father. The move by the MMI is viewed as move toward a more hardline approach, with the goal of implementing shariah throughout Indonesia. Syawal’s credentials are cemented by his experience training in Afghanistan to wage jihad on the Soviets, credentials shared with many — living and dead – from the top tier of Jemaah Islamiyah.

In brighter news in Indonesia, pluralism carried the day at Jogjakarta’s Islamic University of Indonesia, where two 1,100-year-old Hindu temples were uncovered by a construction crew building a library. The temples are well preserved, thought to be the result of layers of ash covering them after a volcanic eruption, and contain a statue of Ganesha as well as linga and yoni, objects that represent male and female, and the Hindu deities Shiva and Shakti, respectively. As with pre-Islamic religious symbols most everywhere else in the Islamic world, the temples are to be restored and will remain on the universities campus.

Finally, the Philippine government is preparing for more retributive attacks from al Qaeda-linked terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf after the Armed Forces of the Philippines killed six members of the group in a raid, including a senior rebel leader Albader Parad, in February on the island of Jolo. Parad was suspected of playing a major role in recent kidnappings carried out by AS, and his death is considered a serious blow to the organization. On February 27th, suspected AS members surrounded a village and killed 11 and and wounded around 20 people in Basilan. The attack was viewed as revenge for Parad’s death, as well as retribution for the rescue of two Chinese citizens earlier that day in Basilan.

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1. Why Israel’s Twitter Experiment Flopped (January 12).  Dawn Gilpin analyzes Israel’s use of Twitter during its excursion into Gaza, concluding that it failed because of a lack of understanding of symmetry, culture, and the structure of the different media platforms.
2. OK Now I’m Confused (April 17).  Steve Corman comments on an apparent blurring of lines between public affairs and public diplomacy in the State Department.
3. Introducing the PD Chief Count-Up Clock (April 10).  COMOPS Journal inaugurates a count-up clock to the appointment of a new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  It ran for 129 days until the appointment of Judith McHale on May 26.
4. Understand What Narrative Is and Does (September 3).  Scott Ruston urges a more sophisticated view of narrative in the conflict in Afghanistan.
5. Getting Beat in the War of Ideas (February 26).  Steve Corman discusses on a poll released by WorldPublicOpinion.org showing dismal perceptions of the US in the Muslim world as of the end of the Bush administration.
6. NATO Conference on Strategic Communication (May 16).  Steve Corman reports on a NATO-sponsored meeting in Ankara, Turkey discussing main themes that emerged from the conference.
7. Recent Developments in Indonesia’s Anti-Terrorism Efforts (September 10).  Chris Lundry analyzes developments in Indonesian anti-terrorism in the aftermath of the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta.
8. Rap is Da Bomb for Defeating Abu Yahya (September 14).  Jeff Halverson proposes an alternative strategy for undermining AQ ideologue Abu Yahya al-Libi.
9. A Broader View of Internet Radicaliztion (March 26).  Pauline Cheong analyzes apparent disagreement in two reports about Internet radicalization.
10. Goodbye GWOT, Hello…Overseas Contingency Operation? (April 5).  Steve Corman critiques the Obama administration’s questionable effort to relabel the conflict formerly known as the global war on terrorism.

There were also some posts from previous years with staying power.  Here are the top five:

1. Did the Bad Guys Scuttle Their Own Forums? (October 13, 2008).
2. COMOPS Top Posts of 2008 (December 31, 2008).
3. Resisting Wahhabi Colonialism in Yogyakarta (November 6, 2008).
4. Analysis: Blogging Better at the State Department (October 9, 2007).
5. Strategic Communication by Any Other Name (September 30, 2008).

Many thanks to all our readers, and may you have a happy and prosperous 2010.

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Below is a list of the top ten posts of 2008 on COMOPS Journal, by page views:

1. Minerva on the Cheap?
2. Did the Bad Guys Scuttle Their Own Forums?
3. Obama Garb Photo Hits AQ Boards
4. Candidates’ PD Positions Miss the Point
5. Cracks in The Base
6. Time to Stop Fooling Ourselves About Salafis
7. Can Facebook Defeat Terrorism?
8. New DSB Report on Strategic Communication
9. al Qaeda’s Talking but Are Americans Listening?
10. A Bad Year for Dr. Zawahiri

In compiling this list, I noticed that there were seveal posts from 2007 that got a lot of reads this year, including one that had more views than the top 2008 post.  Obviously this means that we are often a year ahead of the curve, and/or that our posts are like fine wine and get better with age.  In any case, here are the 2007 posts that were at or above the page views of #10 above:

1. Radical Proposal or Same-Old-Same-Old (Note: Perhaps the Obama admin will appoint the commission I proposed)
2. Analysis: Blogging Better at the State Department (Note: 2008 follow-up series here).
3. Psyops Tech: Voices in Your Head
4. How to Win Enemies and Disgust People
5. The Muslim Brotherhood and ikhwanweb.com

We wish you a safe, prosperous, and happy New Year.

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In a New York Times article today entitled “Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics,” evidence gathered by investigative reporters on the scene strongly indicates that the appeal of violent extremism may be waning. Are we at a new “tipping point?” Reasons given in the article for believing we may be at a new tipping point in the struggle against violent extremism include a “society weary of bloodshed” and “worried parents” who have stepped up their own vigilance at home and in local mosques. It would appear that the campaign to combat ideological support for terrorism truly begins at home and this new widespread success is in part a result of encouraging local interpretations of extremist clerics’ messages, something we have long advocated as part of a coherent approach to pragmatic complexity in the war of ideas.Another successful strategy that appears to be working among Iraqi youth involves using humor and what the communication theorist Kenneth Burke calls “perspective by incongruity.” By taking a comic (rather than tragic) perspective, young Muslims are encouraged to reframe calls to violence cloaked in religious appeals:

There is a new favorite game in the lively household of the young Baghdad journalist. When they see a man with a turban on television, they yell and crack jokes. In one joke, people are warned not to give their cellphone numbers to a religious man.

“If he knows the number, he’ll steal the phone’s credit,” the journalist said. “The sheiks are making a society of nonbelievers.”

I would very much like to believe that this new widespread discrediting of violence is true and that we are, indeed, at a tipping point. But there is a critic inside of me who wonders aloud if this story isn’t part of a larger propaganda campaign using the tried-and-true “bandwagoning”technique. By reporting a few scattered instances of hopeful change in our struggle against violent extremism, perhaps the larger story is how these examples circulates in various media and new media outlets, thus promoting further change as a result. Hmmmmm. In a previous post, I discussed the idea of “pragmatic propaganda” and this story may, in fact, be exactly that. Only time, and additional accounts, will tell. Either way, this news is good news.

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How to beat women. And-they-say-WE-have-a-public-diplomacy-problem Dept.: “If he beats her, the beatings must be light and must not make her face ugly. He must beat her where it will not leave marks. He should not beat her on the hand… He should beat her in some places where it will not cause any damage. He should not beat her like he would beat an animal or a child – slapping them right and left.” (MEMRI,11/6)

Bush Has One Last Chance on Public Diplomacy. “Four Americans have now held the title of undersecretary of state for public affairs — three of them under the current administration. President Bush has one last chance and one more year to get it right.” (Scripps News, 11/7)

Pakistan Media Hides Islamists’ True Intentions. “In the media coverage of Pakistan President Musharraf’s declaration of emergency and martial law, Islamists objecting to his emergency declaration are being portrayed as defenders of Pakistani freedom, when in fact they represent Islamist anti-freedom ideologies.” (CT Blog11/7)

Ba’shir: Bomb Americans, Not Muslims. “Jihad should be waged in places where there is war. Bombings in places where there is no war is not a good thing.” (MEMRI,11/7)

Kuwaiti MP Praises Jihad, Advises Bin Laden. “In a letter to Osama bin Laden, published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan, Kuwaiti MP Dr. Walid Al-Tabatabai… praised the jihad fighters’ activities and advised him on avoiding mistakes in the jihad that Al-Qaeda is waging. ” (MEMRI, 11/7).

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Ahmadinejad Visit Promotes Dialog. “While President Ahmadinejad’s trip to New York this week was characterised by more of the same name-calling and saber rattling rhetoric in the American media, it also provokd discussion and debate — something critics of current US policy towards Iran believe is desperately needed.” (al Ahram Weekly, 9/27).

Public Diplomacy via Two-Way Documentaries. “Celebrating the launch of a global initiative establishing a two-way pipeline of documentary films creating a new way for citizens of the world to engage in direct public diplomacy.” (ITVS, 9/26).

German Attack Plot Linked to Syria, Pakistan. “Three terrorism suspects arrested this month in Germany had acquired detonators that originated in Syria and received direct orders to act from operatives in Pakistan, the German interior minister said Tuesday.” (Washington Post, 9/26)

Homeland Security Future Tech. “Dennis Treece, a retired Army colonel and Director of Corporate Security for the Massachusetts Port Authority, oversees the Transit Security Center of Excellence, a pilot program to test new homeland security technologies in the field. In this podcast, he discusses some of the technologies his staff has tested.” (CFR, 9/26)

Conditions Deteriorate in Afghanistan. “It’s happening because the Taliban resistance is gaining strength fueled by the repressive occupation and brutality of the Northern Alliance “warlords,” making a growing number of Afghans determined to fight back. It’s also because of the extreme level of desperation and deprivation Afghans now experience resulting from the so-called neoliberal Washington Consensus model the US has imposed on the country just like it wants to do everywhere else it can get away with it.” (Afghanistan The True Story, 9/27).

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