“My four children are now all safe,” Suneeta told CNN on August 28, as they were being air-evacuated from Kabul. Suneeta did not want her name or her children’s names published because of understandable safety concerns. Her husband had worked with U.S. troops prior to his disappearance in Afghanistan eight years ago. His fate remains…
The scene: a platform at the base of the steps to the Lincoln Memorial on the northernmost end of the National Mall. The speaker: African-American Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., America’s most prominent civil rights leader at the time and for generations to come. A quarter of a million people gathered in D.C. shortly after…
The situation in the strategically important South/Central Asian country of Afghanistan is crucial in the foreign policies of the U.S. and its NATO partners in the days ahead. In Afghanistan itself, August 19 would normally be a day of celebration: independence from British control on that date in 1919. That’s hardly the case in 2021.…
Following is the text of a letter from the Public Diplomacy Council and the Public Diplomacy Association of America to members of congressional foreign affairs committees regarding public diplomacy on the situation in Afghanistan. The Public Diplomacy Council and Public Diplomacy Association of America are non-partisan, non-profit organizations committed to promoting the professional practice,…
By Alan Heil Today’s news that the United States and NATO allies have departed the Bagram Air Base, the largest military installation in Afghanistan, calls for reflection. Twenty years ago, U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan. That was just a couple of weeks after al-Qaeda terrorists from Afghanistan killed 2,977 Americans in the infamous September 11 attacks…
1. U.S. IMAGE REBOUNDS DUE TO “THE BIDEN EFFECT”: Many Americans — and most foreigners — feel that four years of the Trump presidency did considerable damage to the country’s reputation around the world. Since June 10, 2021, they have some solid, independent research to support that conclusion. A Pew Research Center survey of 16 publics…
A wide angle Agence France Presse photo of President Biden, on his first overseas trip as chief executive, displays a crowd sitting behind him. Of a hundred spectators in the stands, all except two are wearing black masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The President was speaking to U.S. Air Force staff in Suffolk,…
1. USAID GAINS SAMANTHA’S POWER: USAID has some 9,000 staff members working in about 100 countries. Many of these professionals, especially including public affairs personnel, must be very happy with their new Administrator, Samantha Power, the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, war correspondent who got her start in Bosnia, and human rights advocate. She began…
In a World Press Freedom Day message yesterday May 3, President Biden warned that “the truth is under attack” and that “authoritarians” are trying to undermine the media globally. In a statement on the White House website, the president praised objective journalists around the world and urged them “to continue holding those in power to…
1. VISITING THE NEIGHBORS – OFFICIALLY, BUT VIRTUALLY: A major feature of diplomacy has been face-to-face interaction between American senior officials and their foreign counterparts. Those days — at least for the immediate future — are over during this painful time of border crossing restrictions. As Secretary of State Blinken demonstrated on February 26, 2021, you can…