US battling for hearts and minds

Is Osama bin Laden losing the ground war but winning the battle of hearts and minds?

His startling appearance on the network TV channels this week to gloat over the attacks on the US has focussed not a few minds. And on Wednesday the White House sent the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to persuade the networks to edit future rants, claiming they were contributing to his war effort. She also suggested that he might be sending secret messages to his followers abroad.

The networks agreed, but not for the latter reason, which was seen to be largely spurious as the Internet offers much more reliable channels of communication. They accepted that bin Laden's unedited tirades could be inflammatory and were not going to be seen as being in the business of offering him a platform for propaganda.

One executive, foolishly I think, justified the self-censorship on the grounds of "patriotism", but plenty of other journalists were ready to argue that if the media are prepared to censor racist "hate-speech" - to report its fact but not its detailed content - bin Laden's appeals to arms were clearly in a similar category. The constitutional principle that one should not be allowed to shout fire in a crowded room applies.

But there's no doubt that many admire his mastery of modern media skills in this age of global communication. His mountain grotto tape was timed to perfection, and even his selection of targets in the US demonstrated a flair for advertising imagery. And, although the Qatari-funded al-Jazeera TV station did allow the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to reply, the station then aired statements from a Palestinian Hamas leader condemning allied strikes on Afghanistan as "an aggression on Islam and Muslims".

"How is it possible that the government of the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue can't tell its story overseas?" asks Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Others recall the role of John Ford and Frank Capra in the second World War.

"If ever there was a time when public diplomacy is important, it is now," says Frank Carlucci, a former Secretary of Defence.

On Wednesday, Hyde's subcommittee heard from Charlotte Beers, the under-secretary of state for public diplomacy, on ways the administration can convey its key message, that the war on terrorism is not aimed at Islam or the Arab world but at terrorists and those who sponsor them.

Beers, a Texan and the former chairwoman of the New York-based J. Walter Thompson Co. advertising agency who was recruited by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, for her advertising skills, has a formidable task in reaching out to the world's one billion Muslims.

In part it's a question of convincingly sending specific messages that bin Laden is implicated in September 11th, or answering dangerous myths like the false rumours going the rounds in the Middle East that 4,000 Jews received advance warning and did not arrive for work at the World Trade Centre on September 11th. But mostly it's about repackaging and rebranding America for the Muslim world. She acknowledges the scale of the problem and has spoken of the need to get across to a broader, younger audience, and to get under its skin. "In advertising you can't make anything effective unless you're deeply involved, interested and respectful of the consumer," Beers told her confirmation hearing. America is playing catch-up.

Her effort is mainly directed through the message being given by embassies to local media and through an Arabic-language website, educational grants and exchanges.

The US message is also being heard through the government-funded but semi-autonomous Voice of America radio station which is broadcasting 25 hours a week into Afghanistan in the two main languages, Pashto and Dari.

Its new boss, Robert Reilly, has defended the station against administration complaints that it aired an interview recently with bin Laden.

VOA claims that a survey shows it reaches 80 per cent of Afghan men every week, but many believe it is not nearly as credible as the BBC's World Service. The latter is still avidly listened to around the world, with broadcasts in 43 languages that reach an estimated 153 million listeners.

In Afghanistan, where the BBC puts out 50 hours a week in Pashto, Persian, Uzbek, and Urdu, the radio service is very popular. BBC officials estimate nearly three-quarters of Afghanistan's 22 million people regularly tune in.

psmyth@irish-times.ie