(Cont. from Part 1) From Rampton and Stauber, continuing the previous quote:
Moreover, the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan not only harbored Osama bin Laden but had a record of such brutality that a war to drive them from power would likely save more lives than it would cost. Nevertheless, much of the Muslim world reacted to the war with mistrust, and the Beers communication strategy did not even attempt to justify it. The most frequent issues raising alarm in the Arab world were U.S. support for Israel, U.S. backing of authoritarian regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and America's reputation as a bullying superpower. The Beers branding strategy offered feel-good imagery but avoided those key issues entirely. (p. 27)
Rampton and Stauber stress that the problem was not that the items in the various ad campaigns were false. But rather, any positive potential from such an ad campaign would have to come from addressing "the issues at the core of Muslim resentment of the United States - the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the history of U.S. intervention in the region." (p. 31)
But those warriors against Evil, David Frum and Richard Perle, have a different take on Beers' efforts in An End to Evil (2003). In the somewhat paranoid view of the world communicated by their book, even Charlotte Beers was way too soft on the evil Muslims. According to Frum and Perle, the basic problem of her approach was that it was founded on the assumption that "[t]he most important reason extremism flourished in the Muslim world was that Muslims believed we were hostile to them." (p.148)
Frum and Perle say it was all well and good to make ritual appeals for tolerance for Muslims in America. But going beyond that to "active propitiation of Muslim opinion at home and abroad was not merely undignified, but dangerous." (p. 148) Why should the Greatest Country in the World, as our politicians of both parties routinely (and oh-so-humbly) describe the United States, have to explain to anybody why we're doing what we're doing?
(Cont. in Part 3)
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