Hughes suggests scholarship, media fund and publishing project to counter insurgency

[ProSense]

LEAKED MEMO: Karen Hughes Thinks Small In Combating Iraq Insurgency

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes heads off to the Middle East this weekend for a round of public diplomacy. Think Progress has obtained this internal memorandum sent from Hughes to National Security Council Principals earlier this month entitled “Thinking ‘bigger.’”

A key section of this memo offers the Bush administration’s strategy for “Public Diplomacy to Counter Insurgency in Iraq.” Far from “thinking bigger,” the recommendations for defeating the insurgency are small-minded, unambitious, and disconnected from reality. Here are Hughes’ three ideas:

– Substantially expand… “Micro scholarship” program…targeted at youth in key disadvantaged areas in Iraq, such as Sadr City or Anbar Governorate.”

– Create a fund to support media projects by Iraqis, such as documentaries, short films, animation, audio-visual productions and other material that would show Iraq’s reality to pan-Arab and pan-Islamic audiences.

– Revive book publishing in Iraq to fill the intellectual vacuum…and support…Iraq’s hard-pressed intellectuals.

See the full memo HERE.

These are all nice ideas in theory, but the problems affecting Iraqi society go much deeper and are far more serious that the administration wants to admit. Iraq is in a state of endemic chaos, marked by four raging internal conflicts, ethnic cleansing, and few significant advances in Iraq’s economic reconstruction.

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Maybe Bush, Hughes and Rice need a few visual reminders of reality in Iraq:

[blm]

1. That should have been done in summer of 2003 - it's called postwar planning

that should kick in as soon as possible after major combat.

That window closed thanks to BushInc's criminal negligence.

Way to play catch up, Karen. Go back to warming Bush's bottles for him.

[Ravy]

2. Reading the headline, I thought she was targeting US insurgents..

who want to vote their the Republican sorry asses out in 10 days.