Silence of America

SILENCE OF AMERICA
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] For decades, the Voice of America and its sister broadcasting organizations offered a remarkably balanced alternative to state-controlled media all over the world, buoying dissident movements and undermining anti-American dictatorships for a relatively small investment. Soviet citizens even learned how to reconfigure their radios to break through the jamming signals their government used to interrupt VOA and British Broadcasting Corp. programming. Now, with Russian President Vladimir Putin bullying his neighbors, manipulating the Russian media and throwing increasingly audacious anti-American tantrums, one would think U.S. policymakers would have the sense at least to maintain relatively modest VOA operations in and around the Russian Federation. Yet President Bush's recently released 2008 budget proposal does just the opposite, cutting VOA programming for a range of post-Soviet states to finance programming expansion in other areas of the world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR200702...
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