Mr. President,

You wanted to change the world. All you did was make it much more dangerous. In recent months, I see that your administration has launched a media campaign to re-gild the image of the United States in the world. I wonder whether your approach will hold up. Your policies have already done considerable damage. As the Mandinka, people of Mali, say, “A broken gourd cannot be repaired.”

It is not enough to launch a radio station, a monthly radio program, and a television station, all in local language. It is not enough to distribute candy and Coca-Cola to Arab children. Mr. President, Radio Sawa and the Middle East Television Network cannot compete with the big Arab television stations like Al-Jazeera or Al-Arabiya. The Arabs see your radio and television stations as being instruments of propaganda. Before Radio Sawa, Voice of America existed in the Middle East since 1942 for the same purposes. Mr. President, the Arab people are surely not fooled.