They Hate Our Freedom, Don't They?
From the Christian Science Monitor's Terrorism & Security daily update from 29 November:

Late on the Wednesday afternoon before the Thanksgiving holiday, the US Defense Department released a report by the Defense Science Board that is highly critical of the administration's efforts in the war on terror and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.'

[...]

MSNBC notes that the report, in a comment that directly goes against statements made by President Bush and senior cabinet members, says the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have united otherwise-divided Muslim extremists and given terrorists organizations like Al Qaeda a boost by "raising their stature."

In fact, Wired News reported the board as saying, the US has not only failed to separate "the vast majority of nonviolent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists," but American efforts may have "achieved the opposite of what they intended."

And here's some more excerpts from an NYTimes article on the report:

The report compares the national security challenge of the post-Sept. 11 world to the decades-long struggle against Soviet Communism. But the study then argues that the government's cold-war-era communications institutions have not understood that the Islamic world - and extremists operating in the Islamic world - present different challenges. The report scolds the government for casting the new threat of Islamic extremism in a way that offends a large portion of those living in the Muslim world.

"In stark contrast to the cold war, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity - an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism,' " the report states.

"Today we reflexively compare Muslim 'masses' to those oppressed under Soviet rule," the report adds. "This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies - except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends."

NPR's All Things Considered also has a very good series--Europe, Islam's New Front Line--with a story focusing on Britain and the rise of "Islamaphobia" on Monday (link will open Real Player).

Egyptian-born author Ahdaf Soueif, who has made London her home, worries that the rise of Islamophobia is eroding what she calls the "mezzaterra:"

“This was the world that my generation believed we had inherited, an area of overlap where one culture shaded into the other, where echoes and reflections added depth and perspective, where differences were interesting rather than threatening because they were foregrounded against a backdrop of affinities.”

Here's a key bit of the story that I'll transcribe--but you should give the whole thing a listen:

Sylvia Poggioli: Soueif, who has made London her home, feels her mezzaterra is under attach from all sides, from extremists who are waging war against the West, and from the West with its constant demands that Muslims reject their cultural identity.

Soueif: Islam is both a faith and a culture. If you attack one, you're attacking the other. Even people who would call themselves secular Muslims, are really scared at the extent to which they're required to denounce everything that makes up their life.

UPDATE...
My pal Hammen pointed me to some more juicy tidbits about this Defense Science Board report, via Sidney Blumenthal in Salon:

The task force discovered more than a chaotic vacuum, a government sector "in crisis," though it found that, too: "Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation." Inevitably, as it journeyed deeper into the recesses of the Bush administration's foreign policy, the task force documented the unparalleled failure of its fundamental premises. "America's negative image in world opinion and diminished ability to persuade are consequences of factors other than the failure to implement communications strategies," the report declares. What emerges in this new Pentagon paper is a scathing indictment of an expanding and unmitigated disaster based on stubborn ignorance of the world and failed concepts that bear little relation to empirical reality except insofar as they confirm and incite gathering hatred among Muslims.

The Bush administration, according to the Defense Science Board, has misconceived a war on terrorism in the image of the Cold War -- "reflexively" and "without a thought or a care as to whether these were the best responses to a very different strategic situation." Yet the administration seeks out "Cold War models" to cast this "war" against "totalitarian evil." However, the struggle is not the West vs. Islam; nor is it "against the tactic of terrorism." "This is no Cold War," the report insists. While we blindly and confidently call this a "war on terrorism," Muslims "in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration" against "apostate" Arab regimes allied with the U.S. and "Western Modernity -- an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism.'"