Who is Emboff?

I don't quite remember when I encountered the term "Emboff" at an early point in my public-diplomacy Foreign Service career (1981-2003). While on one of my brief tours at USIA (United States Information Agency) Washington headquarters, I was assigned, among other tasks, to read for several weeks cables (telegrams) from the US mission in Paris. In these missives, I kept seeing references to Emboff: what he did, what he thought, what he recommended. Having studied Russian history (my dissertation was on an obscure 18th century Russian nobleman, Andrei Timofeevich Bolotov, arguably his country's first pomologist*), I wondered about the Russian connection of Mr. Emboff, as his name sounded Russian.

Bolotov image from

After some reflection, I came to the conclusion that Emboff's family must have been White Russians who emigrated to France after the Bolshevik Revolution. My reason for believing this was that his Russian-sounding name ended in "ff," the way Russian émigrés traditionally transliterated the Russian letter "в" (sound like "v" in "voice") into French. The common US transliteration, however, is "v" (Embov).

The more I read about Mr. Emboff, the more I was impressed by his multifarious activities. He seemed to be everywhere: at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at meetings with French intellectuals, on a visit to the provinces. I also wondered when his family had moved to the United States.

After too many days, it finally dawned on me, when I realized that no ordinary human being could do as much as Emboff did, that Emboff was an abbreviation for "Embassy Officer," a generic term for US diplomats overseas ...

All of which led me to suspect that my slow-working brain cells were not quite up to the high standards of FSOs (or should I say FSOffs). But, largely thanks to compassionate supervisors, I somehow managed to pull through.

****

*He also tried to cure his serfs of hemorrhoids by the use of electricity, a experiment Benjamin Franklin never attempted. 

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free By Jonathan Turley, Washington Post Published: January 13

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)

Warrantless searches

The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)

Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes

The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)

Secret court

The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.

These new laws have come with an infusion of money into an expanded security system on the state and federal levels, including more public surveillance cameras, tens of thousands of security personnel and a massive expansion of a terrorist-chasing bureaucracy.

Some politicians shrug and say these increased powers are merely a response to the times we live in. Thus, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could declare in an interview last spring without objection that “free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, terrorism will never “surrender” and end this particular “war.”

Other politicians rationalize that, while such powers may exist, it really comes down to how they are used. This is a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for instance, has insisted that Congress is not making any decision on indefinite detention: “That is a decision which we leave where it belongs — in the executive branch.”

And in a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention.

Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.


Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

Public-Diplomacy Advice for State Department Social Media Guru Alec Ross

From:

Ambassador McFaul's YouTube Presentation from a Public Diplomacy Perspective

I've looked at/listened to newly-appointed US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul's video presentation to the people of Russia. Several aspects of the talk struck me.

First, the negative ones, from the perspective of US public diplomacy with the Russian Federation, and especially its younger generation:

1. Repeated references to the Soviet Union (including showing a map of that former geographical expression), which collapsed some twenty years ago;

2. The fact that the Ambassador did not speak in Russian (as his predecessor did fluently on YouTube clips), except for a few words at the end of his remarks*;

3. The use of the word "help" (translated as pomogat' in the subtitle) in US dealings with the Russian population. Of all things Russians dislike most about foreigners, it is condescension of any sort on their part;

4. No reference to high Russian culture, except for Tchaikovsky (to which the Ambassador refers in the same breath as he does to Russian hockey); no references, even indirect, to intellectuals who condemned the USSR.

5. Irritating, feel-good background music that could be straight out of a US TV commercial for a Penile Dysfunction pill (an abbreviation of which, I can't resist saying, is the same as for public diplomat).

Positive:

1. Mentioning a new visa agreement that will make it easier to Russians to visit the U.S.;

2. An effort to reach out to the Russian "provinces" by comparing them to the Ambassador's home state of Montana;

3. A "down-to-earth" approach that might appeal to the "muzhik" (regular guy) side in the character of many Russians;

4. Stress on people-to-people exchanges;

5. He did not go on for too long, as do so many Russian politicians.

The Ambassador was careful not to confront the Putin regime, except by stating that he would be in contact with "civil society activists," whom he not very tactfully distinguished from "regular Russians."

Russian speakers/readers of the language might be struck, as I was, by the number of negative comments to the Ambassador's presentation, which suggests that Russian anti-Americanism is indeed a factor to consider in the two countries' relations -- and that, on a more mundane level, Russians use the Internet as a way of "letting off steam." It is not out of the question that some of the comments were "planted" by Russian security services.

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*However, it is better, in official remarks, for a foreigner to speak in his own language than address Russians in "bad" Russian, which will quickly "turn off" his audience. A few words indicating an appreciation of their language, yes; a long delivery full of grammatical and pronunciation errors, no. The Russians, though more tolerant of foreign accents than some other Europeans, are a bit like the French who cringe when they have to endure an American murdering their mother tongue by trying awkwardly to express himself in it, in his effort to show that he "understands" them. In contrast, we Americans, a nation of immigrants, tend not to be concerned with such linguistic niceties, even though there is a feeling in this country, not limited to Texas, that "English, if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me."

Mc Faul image from

Public Diplomacy and the National Museum of the American Indian

In the company of a distinguished American journalist, I visited the National Museum of the American Indian the other day. I had been there before, and been taken off guard by its emptiness -- its lack of well-identified objects on display. This time around, I was again shocked by how little this cavernous building in central Washington tells (can tell?) about

the history and culture of Native Americans. It is a coffin without a body.

My friend, a man of far more profound ideas than my own, shared my concern, and made a memorable remark, which I paraphrase here: "In an ironic way, in its voidness, this place tells us more about the extermination of a people than the Holocaust Museum nearby."

My widely-traveled pal added that the Indian Museum was among the sites most visited by foreigners who come to Washington. (Again, I paraphrase him: "Tourists don't come to DC to see European masters at the National Gallery of Art").

So, impressed by his comment, I wonder, former diplomat that I am, what public diplomacy impact this essentially vacant stone structure on the Mall, "sheltered by a roof that recalls a limestone overhang in a Southwest U.S. canyon" and dedicated to the ancestors of native Americans, has on persons from other countries in search of enlightenment about the U.S.

If disappointed by the museum's exhibits, tourists might at first be intrigued by its restaurant, which promises to have interesting and "unusual" food. But, judging by the "Buffalo Burger" that I consumed more out of hunger than delight, this souped-up, outragerously expensive cafeteria has much more to do with squeezing dollars out of visitors than titillating their palates.

Image of the National Museum of the American Indian from

The power of "soft power"

Near-riot prompts Apple to halt iPhone 4S release in China: The device has sold out at the company's five China stores. When one store refused to open, a mob responded by throwing eggs. The company says the phones won't be available in China "for the time being" - Jonathan Kaiman and John Lee, Los Angeles Times

1:52 AM PST, January 13, 2012

Reporting from Beijing


Apple Inc. halted the release of its iPhone 4S at retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai on Friday after a riot almost started outside one of its stores in the Chinese capital.

An angry mob of people who had waited overnight pelted the store with eggs and assaulted a mall manager after employees refused to open as scheduled.

Carolyn Wu, an Apple spokeswoman in Beijing, said the company's five authorized stores in China had sold out of the iPhone 4S and the Beijing store was prevented from opening because of the large crowd.

"To ensure the safety of our customers and employees, [the] iPhone will not be available in our retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being," Wu said.

The phone is still available online through its service provider, China Unicom, which is offering the device for free provided users commit to multiyear contracts. But the crowds that lined up at Apple stores were not interested in cell phone plans, and were willing to pay $790 to $1070 for the device alone.

People started converging Thursday outside the Apple store in one of Beijing's most popular high-end malls. Some brought sleeping bags. Tension grew overnight and through the early morning as prospective buyers sought positions near the front door. Fights broke out between bands of migrant workers who had been hired by scalpers to purchase the phones for later sale on the gray market.

"Ninety percent of the people here are scalpers," said a man surnamed Jin, who said friends recruited him to stand in line.

The incident underscores the popularity of the Apple brand in China, which has one of the world's fastest growing markets for mobile phones and personal computers.

The Cupertino-based company said in October that sales in China rose to $13 billion from $3 billion for the fiscal year ended Sept. 24. Plans are afoot to make the iPhone's digital assistant, Siri, fluent in Chinese.

Apple's five official stores in China -- three in Shanghai and two in Beijing -- generate more revenue on average than any other Apple stores in the world, the company said last year.

Many upwardly mobile urbanites wouldn't be caught dead without an iPhone. In June, a 17-year-old high school student reportedly sold a kidney to buy an iPad 2. And in September, a 16-year-old girl was killed in a fight with her mother over the right to buy an Apple computer.

The scene Friday was not the first time an Apple release had caused a public disturbance. The same Beijing store had its glass door shattered in May after a scuffle between a scalper and an employee during an iPad 2 and white iPhone 4 launch.

Bill Bishop, a Beijing-based technology consultant, said the mobs were a result of Apple delaying products and limiting supplies to create a frenzy of demand.

"It's a conscious marketing strategy by Apple, and it's going to cause a problem because things are ridiculously out of control," he said. "Nobody can be happy with Apple today in Beijing."

Because the store limits customers' purchases, scalpers organize large groups to swarm product releases, hoping to resell the products at a cut above retail.

Buyers were reportedly recruited to queue at the Shanghai store Friday as well, promised a free breakfast and $15.

Even when a major release is not impending, flocks of men hawking iPhones and iPads have become a regular sight outside China's authorized Apple retailers. Scalpers made up much of the crowd Friday in Beijing. The eclectic group ranged from seniors from the countryside seeking their fortunes in the capital to high-school dropouts looking to make some quick cash. Some said that they had organized on Internet forums designed for temporary job seekers.

One member of the crowd, a film extra from Beijing, said he was offered about $20 to wait overnight for the phone. He said scalpers picked up hundreds like him in buses outside film studios where extras commonly work.

"After Apple said they were not selling the iPhones today, no organizers paid their temporary workers," said the man, who declined to give his name.

One man wearing a puffy red jacket said he had organized 500 buyers to wait overnight for the release. That was more than a rival group, he said.

"They have a lot of people, but we have more," said the man, who also declined to give his name. "They will be overwhelmed."

Just before the store was set to open, a guard announced through a megaphone that the coveted phone would not be sold. A brief moment of disbelieving silence was then broken by loud expletives and shouts of "Apple lied to us!" and "Open the door!"

Soon afterward, a man arrived with a bag of eggs, which he began handing out to the crowd. A space cleared, and moments later, gooey yolk dripped down the store's glass facade.

When the mall's property manager tried to intervene, a gang of men chased after him.

"I'm not an Apple employee, I'm a mall manager!" he shouted while trying to block punches and kicks.

By 9 a.m., police had managed to disperse the crowd and clear the square. Police could not be reached for comment.

A 60-year-old woman who gave only her surname, Chen, said the melee ruined her plans to give her son the latest iPhone for his birthday.

"There are so many people, and it's so cold, and now they say they won't sell us the phone," she said. "This is just so, so wrong."

Kaiman and Lee are special correspondents Times Staff Writer David Pierson in the Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

China strikes at West through pop culture wars

China strikes at West through pop culture wars
By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

BEIJING – When Chinese leader Hu Jintao recently warned his nation's ruling Communist Party of an imminent risk from the West, he wasn't talking about the United States boosting its military capabilities in East Asia. He was alluding to things such as video games.

"International hostile forces" use thought and culture "to Westernize and split" China, Hu stated in a speech publicized in January in the party magazine Seeking Truth.

At least China's embattled youth can strike back at the West come May when Glorious Mission, a civilian version of the Chinese army's first training simulation game, goes on sale, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. Co-developed by the People's Liberation Army, the online, first-person shooter game allows players to destroy enemies that resemble U.S. forces.

Glorious Mission and other "serious games" supported by Chinese authorities form one front in Beijing's multiheaded cultural offensive, launched last fall. There's been fighting talk from Hu's likely successor, Xi Jinping.

China's universities are "a key ideological front to equip our youth with the core values of socialism," he told the country's deans last week. Xi, 58, is likely to succeed Hu, 69, as party general secretary this year.

Through massive investment, and countless censors, the Communist Party aims to boost China's "soft power," or cultural influence, abroad and shore up "cultural security" at home by reinforcing state control of the sector and guiding audiences back to "socialist core values." Neither goal will come easily.

"The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak," Hu Jintao admitted.

China is the home of pandas and kung fu, yet it took Hollywood to make the smash-hit animated movie Kung Fu Panda, the sequel of which was China's most popular film in 2011. The fast-swelling ranks of young, urban consumers here have proved highly receptive to the pop culture of the USA and Asian neighbors South Korea and Japan.

State censors launch regular crackdowns, sometimes with bizarre targets: Last year, authorities restricted time-travel TV dramas and banned downloading of certain foreign pop songs, including The Backstreet Boys' seemingly non-political 1999 hit I Want It That Way.

In recent weeks, the government has stripped two-thirds of entertainment programs, mostly talent, talk and dating shows, from the schedules of China's popular satellite stations. Citing "excessive entertainment and a trend toward low taste," regulators have forced satellite channels to switch to programs promoting "traditional virtues and socialist core values," the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Some viewers reject the changes.

"I can't understand why the government deprives us of the right to enjoy TV entertainment programs, as they are so mild and interesting," complains Zhu Qiansheng, 23, an unemployed graduate from Zhengzhou, central China.

As authorities shrink his options, Zhu has gone online for U.S. shows such as House and Prison Break and Chinese websites' own shows that dare to air "more open" content, he says.

"But I worry the Internet will also be more controlled this year," Zhu says.

The clamor of cultural rhetoric reflects the political atmosphere of this transition year for China's leadership, says Sheila Melvin, a U.S. writer working on a book exploring China's cultural rise. Some party analysts hope to buttress China's cultural strength against the Western culture they see spurring the "Arab Spring" revolutions and the collapse of another communist dictatorship, the Soviet Union. There's also a deeper, moral purpose, Melvin says.

"The Communist Party has inherited the ancient belief that culture transforms — exposure to high culture can make you a more moral person, exposure to low culture can cause you to behave immorally," she says. "The party sees the many problems in Chinese society and hopes to address them with culture; to some degree, it can be seen as a substitute for religion."

Grabbing the world's attention will remain a tough task unless the government relaxes its decades-long control of "cultural products," cautions Yin Hong, a professor of film and television studies at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

"The restrictions on culture always make it hard for China to produce world-influencing literature and cinema," writes China's most popular blogger, novelist Han Han.

Despite stiff odds, Chinese video game creator Linus Xin hopes his "serious games" achieve some impact by enlivening the ideology and morality classes every Chinese college student must take.

Being tested in the capital's colleges, the Emotional Quotient Gas Station game teaches students, often nervous and naive, how to tackle the opposite sex in a respectful manner, says Xin, CEO of Intellect Valley Communications.

China's Ministry of Culture promotes the "serious game" category, characterized by strong educational and moral messages, although Xin and fellow game developer Zheng Yaqi say they have not received funding support.

"I hope the name 'serious game' won't scare off players," says Zheng, CEO of Pipilu Culture and Technology, who is transforming the popular children's stories of his father, Zheng Yuanjie, into educational games. "Games can also show a country's soft power," says Zheng, who hopes U.S. players and readers will develop a taste for his dad's creations.

Online game fanatic Liu Bowen, 23, has never played a "serious game" and dismisses EQ Gas Station for its "boring and silly" name. But he looks forward to the PLA's Glorious Mission "if it's violent and bloody." Otherwise, "I have no interest."

"I don't think it's good for government to control or encourage which type of game we should play," Liu says.