Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
I've found a great new columnist for you all. His name is Melik Kaylan, he writes for Forbes, and he's superb on Turkey. But he's also just all-around unusually good on foreign affairs. He's writing this week about the United States' insane, suicidal unwillingness to take public diplomacy seriously:
If we expect our soldiers to crawl in dirt, we should expect that our ideas should battle the lowest of enemy propaganda however vile or preposterous. Where are the documentaries, the multi-part broadcasts and detailed refutations of 9/11 distortions – in Peshto, Urdu, Arabic and the like? The accusations are out there; they can be refuted point by point. Where’s the creativity, skepticism and brilliance of American media in our dealings with our opponents? Where’s the gossip website outing the sex lives of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard leaders? I know it sounds counter-intuitive but a humorous documentary skewering George Bush for lacking the competence even to plant phony chemical weapons in Iraq would do more for American credibility than a hundred drone strikes.
His whole column archive is worth reading.
So why is he the "Creamy Angel?" Because for some reason I kept forgetting his name, so I made a mnemonic device: "Melik" sounds like "angel" in Turkish, and "Kaylan" sounds a bit like "kaymak," a kind of clotted cream.
There you go.
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Sep '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
When do you sleep Lady Berlinski? Does the sun never set on the Anatolian first lady?
Sep '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Peshto, Urdu, Arabic and the like?
That would be because of the desparate shortage of people who speak those languages in North America.
May '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Claire Berlinski, Ed. quoting Melik Kaylan:
Because our creative, skeptic, brilliant media think we are the opponents?
Jun '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
I just listened to your interview at PJM regarding your book on Maggie Thatcher. Question: Did you ever hear the story about Thatcher and the winter boots? She was peeved at paying top dollar for a pair of winter boots to wear at the funeral of Uri Andropov (or maybe it was Chernenko). She later quipped something about a good investment, see you next year.
May '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
I love the way Claire thinks the American people are interested in foreign policy. It's cute.
Most people think foreign affairs is what happens when their son gets a crush on the Swedish exchange student and multiculturalism means more booths at the food festival in the village.
Jun '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
EJHill
Claire Berlinski, Ed. quoting Melik Kaylan:
Because our creative, skeptic, brilliant media think we are the opponents? · Oct 2 at 6:58pm
May I quote from the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
Japanese officer: "Are you a demon?"
Mr. Lawrence: "No, I am your demon."
Jul '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
It's a great piece Claire. Yet, taking public diplomacy seriously and accepting propaganda tips are not the same. He's right (as you've been repeatedly right) that the U.S. needs to at least try to make it's case. But, while we're superior avoiders (Zero APR until June 2011!) we're not, generally, great bald-faced liars. We expect to be caught. That's why the practice tends to be limited to those who stand to do really well and the stupid.
May '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Well played, Mr. Hill.
This is an old hobby-horse of ours around Castle Gormogon.
In re: Egypt. Pakistan. Iran. President O. And, maybe most interesting, in passing about Avatar.
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
On the other hand, Claire, I know you're familiar with the excellent work of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, so we do have that going for us.
Your Palæologan Majesty, let me suggest that there's a difference, strictly speaking, between propaganda—which is advocacy—and black propaganda, which is lying. In contemporary English “propaganda” just tends to mean the latter, but in the original meaning and in the arsenal of diplomacy, it's not necessarily deceptive.
Jun '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Bill Walsh: On the other hand, Claire, I know you're familiar with the excellent work of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, so we do have that going for us.
Your Palæologan Majesty, let me suggest that there's a difference, strictly speaking, between propaganda—which is advocacy—and black propaganda, which is lying. In contemporary English “propaganda” just tends to mean the latter, but in the original meaning and in the arsenal of diplomacy, it's not necessarily deceptive. · Oct 2 at 7:31pm
The late, great, Jeff Cooper wrote a book called To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth. One could do worse.
Jun '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
BTW, Bill, I studied a wee bit of Islamic history under professors Majeska and Zilfi at UM, College Park. Link?
Jul '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Bill Walsh: On the other hand, Claire, I know you're familiar with the excellent work of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, so we do have that going for us.
Your Palæologan Majesty, let me suggest that there's a difference, strictly speaking, between propaganda—which is advocacy—and black propaganda, which is lying. In contemporary English “propaganda” just tends to mean the latter, but in the original meaning and in the arsenal of diplomacy, it's not necessarily deceptive. · Oct 2 at 7:31pm
Fair enough. Yet, context & culture matter. While birthers, truthers, and unseen hand loons have some small influence in America, the default position of most Americans is that all of them are crazy.
Thus, the standard is that conspiracies are for the silly. It's a tough sell to explain to Joe the Plumber why he should spend mega-bucks on the State Dept. to convince Ahmad the Plumber that Joe doesn't want to move from Austin to Ankara to steal business.
Edited on Oct 2, 2010 at 8:18pmMay '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
I tried to use the word in its old sense while talking to a professor once. He wasn't buying it. Sadly, this is one of the million words which the Left has utterly destroyed.
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Link to?
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
To me? No. Though I took a class at College Park once.
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
I've basically been asleep since 10 pm last night (it's 8:45 am now). So don't you be worrying about me, I'm very well-rested. I just woke up to feed the cats (who are persuaded beyond all reasoning that the call to prayer is in fact the call to breakfast), and while I was up stopped to check my mail, saw that, and figured I'd share.
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
They get interested when I explain that foreign countries are really just like the way they are in the movies, only in 3-D-smell-o-vision.
Jul '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Just how much brilliant propaganda would be required to counterbalance Lady GaGa or Paris Hilton?
It would take an entire division of propaganda geniuses to present America as the world's last, best hope, when the excretions of our entertainment industry reveal us to be, at best, flaccid, frivolous and degenerate.
Who among us, suffering some particularly egregious assault of pop culture, has not been seized by a momentary urge to look up the address of our local Al Qaeda recruiting office?
Jul '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
May '10
Re: Propaganda Tips from the Creamy Angel
Kenneth: Just how much brilliant propaganda would be required to counterbalance Lady GaGa or Paris Hilton?
Who among us, suffering some particularly egregious assault of pop culture, has not been seized by a momentary urge to look up the address of our local Al Qaeda recruiting office? · Oct 2 at 11:37pm
They hate us for our nymphettes! I dunno, they seem to do as much good for us as bad, no matter how unsanitary. It's a lengthy campaign of cultural subversion.
And no amount of Paris Hilton or Jersey Shore or Wheel of Fortune or other such eschatonic decadence has ever given me the slightest desire to become a terrorist. Though I have occasionally been tempted to hoist the black flag and start slitting throats, ala Mencken. Generally on national "Talk Like a Pirate Day".
Where is the local al-Qaeda recruiting office? I'd very much like to moon it, though not sure that would advance our public diplomacy.