Kasich calls for agency promoting "Judeo-Christian" values
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John Kasich says he'd set up an agency with a "mandate" to promote what he calls "Judeo-Christian values" overseas to counter Islamist propaganda.
Kasich criticized the State Department's efforts, saying, "U.S. Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting have lost their focus on the case for Western values and ideals and effectively countering our opponents' propaganda and disinformation."
The Ohio governor said Tuesday, he would create "a new agency that has a clear mandate to promote the core Judeo-Christian Western values that we and our friends and allies share: the values of human rights, the values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association."
Kasich says the information would be distributed in the Middle East, China, Iran and Russia, to compete with the propaganda and misinformation purveyed by Islamic militants.
He made the comments at the National Press Club in Washington, as part of a speech on national security. Kasich says the U.S. is "failing to advance our values in the battle of ideas" in the face of advances by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.