The Obama administration is “shifting the focus of public diplomacy efforts to play down” emphasis on violent extremism in order to avoid offending foreign audiences, the Washington Times reports:

Judith A. McHale, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said in an interview with The Washington Times that ‘a very narrow segment’ of the world’s population is at risk of turning to extremism, and the policies adopted by the Bush administration should be broadened.

‘Looking back, there was such a focus on countering violent extremism that everything got swept into the same category or the same bucket,’ Ms. McHale said.

‘So if you were teaching English in many countries around the world, it was described as part of our [counter-extremism] effort, whether or not the individuals you were teaching were ever at risk of becoming violent extremists.’