What Russian and Georgian Diplomacy? Posted by Moira Whelan

It seems the Bush Administration is now trying their hand at diplomacy in the Caspian region. I wanted to give note to something told to me by a friend of NSN.

Earlier this year, the Voice of America, one of America’s leading arms of public diplomacy in the world, made the decision to cut service in Georgia as of September. It had also made an earlier decision to decrease service into Russia to just a bit of tv and internet. This means basically that when US officials have weighed in on the latest developments, there is no US agency able to carry that message to the Georgian or Russian people.

Why would the US government do this even as we knew tensions in the region were growing? As with most other things, the answer is simple: money. The $7 million for service to former Soviet states was cut in order to give priority instead to Alhurra and Radio Sawa designed to provide influence in the Middle East, a program described as “a huge boondoggle” by folks that work at VOA, since basically no one listens to it or watches it and yet we’re spending $500 million a year on it.

That's right folks, save $7 million on effective programs in order to waste $500 million on programs that are failures, but failures in a popular part of the world. If $500 million is what was needed for an effective program, than we should do it, but apparently internal VOA discussion shows significant disappointment with programming: individuals who lack cultural and religious credibility have been hired dooming broadcasts to irrelevance. Broadcasts are not adequately translated because of a lack of individuals who speak specific dialects. Little things like this mean that basically, it's not money well spent.

Apparently VOA skated through the latest developments in Georgia just fine, mainly because most of the employees of the Georgia service where actually in Tblisi at the time looking for work.

But when basic mistakes like cutting an inexpensive and yet effective diplomatic tool are made, it strikes me as a continuation of a major complaint people have had for years: incompetence is not only not prevented, it seems to be the governing principle in the Bush Administration.

Comments

[Peace]

This symbolizes to me how the Bush administration focused too much on one region, the Middle East, and relied only on hard military power to spread American influence. I believe that the next adminstration needs to spend more time difusing the current situation in the former USSR. A good way of acheiving this task would be if the VOA interviewed various Americans about their opinions on the situation in Georgia, and then broadcast this program to Georgia and Russia. It give a message to the Russians that not all Americans share the same anti-Russian rhetoric of John McCain. This could possibly ease somewhat the current Russian paranoira about the West.

[Frank]

Voice of America's budget is controlled by a group of POLITICAL APPOINTEES on the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The Voice of America did not want any of the language cuts that it has suffered over the past several years at the hands of this board. The political appointee board has been progressively dismantling the VOA broadcasting infrastructure (closing broadcast facilities and cutting frequencies) and closing critical language services such as Russian and Georgian. Please visit the following links where many details are provided. It's stunning that a group of political appointees have such wide authority in matters directly and indirectly impacting the security of the American people.

http://www.freemediaonline.org/america_voice_silenced_in_georgia11082008.htm

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.15065.html

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