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Showing posts from October, 2017

Rex Tillerson and the magic clock: The importance of Diplomatic Meeting Sites

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The US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has been on a romp around Asia this week, discussing US foreign policy with various leaders, including Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.  In the aftermath of the event both the US Embassy in Afghanistan and President Ghani issued press releases about the meeting. Both seemed to tick off everything on the diplomatic summit press release checklist; words like ‘peace’ and ‘prosperity’: a nice photo featuring a flag and two men sat way too far apart. However, questions were asked once the Afghan and US photos were compared.   US photo on the left, Afghan on the right Spot it? In the Afghan photo the clock and fire alarm above Tillerson and Ghani’s heads has been photoshopped out. It was showing ‘Zulu time’, the Coordinated Universal Time (GMT to you and me) used by the US army, suggesting the meeting did not take place in Kabul, the Afghan Capital, as both sides originally claimed, but rather at a US military base. Once the ruse was exp