I dont think this needs any comment.
What Readers Saw, and Didn't See
By Michael Getler
Sunday, December 5, 2004; Page B06
The story that didn't appear in The Post is about a 102-page report by a task force of the Defense Science Board, a federal advisory committee composed of academic, think tank and private-sector representatives who provide independent advice to the secretary of defense. The report had not been made public until after the New York Times wrote about it on Nov. 24, followed by the Associated Press and other news organizations.
In some ways, the report -- titled "Strategic Communications" -- is dry, bureaucratic fodder. But deep inside, it goes to the heart of both the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, and it raises many crucial issues that don't get probed deeply enough by news organizations, in my opinion.
The report comes at an interesting time. President Bush, on many occasions when speaking of Osama bin Laden, his al Qaeda network and the "nature of the terrorist enemy," has said: "They hate us. And they hate freedom. And they hate people who embrace freedom." Last week, in a television interview, Thomas Kean, co-chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, said, "We know there's another attack coming. You and I can't say if it's next week or six months from now, but it's coming." In recent weeks, there have been new statements from bin Laden (on Oct. 29) and his top deputy and strategist, Ayman Zawahiri (on Nov. 29). Zawahiri was quoted as saying: "You must choose between two methods in dealing with Muslims. Cooperate with them based on mutual respect and interests or deal with them as if they are spoils of war. This is your problem, and you must choose. And you should know that we are a nation of patience, and we will continue fighting you until the last hour."
Now comes the Pentagon's advisory board with a sharply critical report that says U.S. efforts to separate "the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists . . . have not only failed . . . they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."
Here are some of the key points:
• "American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the U.S. to single-digits in some Arab societies."
• "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states."
• Since Sept. 11, 2001, "American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. What was a marginal network," the report said, is now a community-wide "movement of fighting groups."
• "Muslims," the board says, "see Americans as strangely narcissistic -- namely, that the war is all about us . . . no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game." The critical problem for American public diplomacy, the section concludes, is "a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none -- the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam."
