OPINION
Broadcasting Board of Governors Information War: Lost – The Never-Ending Downward Spiral
Voice of America Downplaying Terrorist Threat From ISIS
By The Federalist
Periodically, a question comes up regarding the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the Voice of America (VOA):
“Can it get any worse?”
We can answer that for you now and in times past when it has come up:
Yes, it can.
Much worse.
Case in point:
As reported by BBG Watch, posted to the VOA website under the category of “Multimedia” on on the VOA Facebook page is a video:
Pitting Islam Versus Islamism in the Wake of Orlando | Voice of America (VOA)
This video is a sterling example of the ignorance and foolishness that seems to have infected VOA specifically and US Government international broadcasting generally at the hands of the BBG and its bureaucracy.
This video does what we have seen some officials of the Obama administration do: try to parse words and use semantics in an attempt to talk around what is likely the greatest propaganda and terrorist threat to Western and non-Western countries in the 21st Century.
And why are we, the American taxpayer, paying for this kind of prevarication from an agency of the Federal Government?
We shouldn’t.
Why?
Because it is idiotic and counterproductive. It downplays the terrorist threat from ISIS and makes terrorist attacks more likely to be launched. It makes false comparisons to provide excuses which potential terrorists can use. It does not discourage terrorism and new terrorists.
Who produced this video? Who is hiding behind it?
Who directed that this video be produced?
Who scripted this video and selected the images to accompany the script?
What editor approved this video, IF there was any kind of editorial oversight which of late there does not appear to be much of at VOA?
Do John Lansing (BBG Chief Executive Officer) and Amanda Bennett (VOA Director) approve of this video? How do they explain its content?
Did any of the “consultants” Ms. Bennett has hired to study the agency and its news content see this video before it was posted? Do they approve of it?
Truthfully, Members of Congress need to pose these questions to Lansing and Bennett formally and demand a response.
Readers of our commentaries know we have zero confidence in the management of this agency and agree with the categorization of the agency as:
- “Dysfunctional” (Heritage Foundation scholar Helle C. Dale)
- “Practically Defunct” (Hillary Clinton)
- “Broken” (US statesmen, diplomats, media experts and journalists interviewed by former BBG member S. Enders Wimbush and former Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty executive Elizabeth M. Portale)
- “Truly Rudderless” or Leaderless (Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ed Royce)
The House Committee on Foreign Affairs:
- “This Broken Agency is Losing the Info War to ISIS & Putin,” House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Chairman Ed Royce, February 23, 2016.
And…
One of the worst agencies in the Federal Government.
Zero confidence includes Mr. Lansing and Ms. Bennett. It is our belief that they cannot get a grip on the enormous problems within this agency. The agency is too far gone. There is not the time, the money, the resources nor the leadership to fix the problems of this agency in a timely manner.
Most of all, there isn’t the mindset inside the Cohen Building. Senior officials have doggedly pursued an atmosphere of denial: that the agency is “a whirlwind of positive change.”
We are in complete agreement with the guest commentary by former BBG Governor Blanquita Cullum:
Voice of America Terrorism Video – Flawed and Dangerous Journalism
BLANQUITA CULLUM: “What causes the death of freedom?
It is compromised, flawed and politically correct journalists and journalistic entities who denigrate the truth based on political bias and not facts. History has showed us that corrupt journalism has proven to be the leverage tyranny relies upon to make evil confusing and tolerable.
Who do the masses trust when reporting is flawed, lazy, corrupted and wrong?”
Indeed, this video is both “flawed” and dangerous.
What are we to make of this video?
How is this video perceived by foreign publics?
Some weeks ago, the website of Washington, DC radio station WTOP posted an Associated Press article to its website:
“US struggles to convince Iraqis it doesn’t support IS.”
If there is anything that adds to confusion, disinformation and misinformation, this latest VOA video is it.
The VOA video is the product of a US Government agency. It was produced by either Federal employees or contractors working for the agency. Federal taxpayer funds were expended to produce the video.
If the US Government is deeply concerned about how the US is perceived abroad, look no further than the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building to find out what is wrong.
“Flawed and dangerous.”
And a problem of enormous dimensions that needs to be taken seriously without further delay.
Every day this agency is on the air and posts videos of this nature on its websites represents a threat to the security of the United States and its citizens.
One could easily come away with the impression that the video finds excuses for the Islamic terrorism, trying desperately it seems remove any religious and cultural influences from the extremists.
This is an exercise in foolishness.
The Islamic extremists use the religion as the foundation of their movement. When they go into combat or on one of their suicide runs, the battle cry is “God is Great!”
These extremists use the Islamic religion as justification to brutalize non-combatants (largely defenseless men, women and children). They use their religious beliefs to kill non-believers. They use them to project terror well beyond the geographical territory they control.
And now we have an agency of the Federal Government trying to parse the heinous crimes committed by these extremists from Islamic fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist culture and prove that it is no different from what drove one single racist American to commit murder. Except that American fundamentalist Christians, not to mention millions of other Christians, don’t enslave and rape girls and women, condemn those who leave Christianity to death, throw homosexuals from rooftops, stone women accused of adultery, behead those who draw caricatures of Christ, and carry out countless suicide bombings. Watching the VOA video one could certainly conclude or guess that they perhaps do.
At this juncture, the links between Islamic fundamentalist religion, culture and ISIS-inspired terrorism are inseparable. They don’t exist in the United States despite what the video seems to suggest.
There are no modifiers in dealing with or describing Islamic extremists.
And they are inseparable where it counts: with the jihadists, not with some apologists inside the Cohen Building.
As part of its denial, individuals inside the Voice of America, purporting to be “journalists,” cannot reconcile the fact that a religion – any religion – can be used to bolster a movement.
This video does one thing rather well: it creates the appearance the agency has become a facilitator of messaging which only helps ISIS apologists and sympathizers.
Of course, VOA director Bennett believes that the agency has a “fantastic leadership team.” Maybe she thinks this video is representative of great agency content as the result.
A video that is flawed is bad enough – right up there with the atrocious “zombie” video of blood-thirsty Uncle Sam produced by one of the agency’s language services some years ago or the video of well-stocked food shops and fat kids in starving North Korea with a good dose of unchallenged North Korean propaganda.
But this most recent example from VOA is beyond dangerous. It is almost sinister, trying to pull the viewers into a web of disinformation, misinformation and deception.
The video ends by asking viewers to “join the conversation.”
What “conversation?” A conversation with an organization dedicated to destroying Western Civilization, Christianity and all other religions? A conversation with murderers of hundreds upon thousands of defenseless victims? A “conversation” with an organization that routinely rapes and enslaves women? A conversation with whom? ISIS apologists?
Delusional doesn’t come close to describing the lunacy upon which this video is based.
This nightmare of a rogue Federal agency has to come to an end.
Soonest.
The Federalist
June 2016