Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 3 - 2004 (mainly Iraq)
US Policies Alienating World Muslims: Pentagon from Islam Online 
US Policies Alienating World Muslims: Pentagon WASHINGTON, November 25 2004 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The United States is alienating Muslims worldwide and losing the "the war of ideas" because of adopting faulty policies and what is perceived as "self-serving hypocrisy", a Pentagon report has revealed. While Washington's efforts to explain its policies have failed, improved public relations efforts can not sell faulty policies, said the toughly-worded report, conducted by the Defense Science Board and released on Wednesday, November 24. "Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies," the Pentagon advisory panel was quoted by the BBC News Online as saying in the report. "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," it said. "Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy," added the report. The Bush administration claims the invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq is as a mission to bring democracy to the oil-rich Arab country and allegedly to thus serve as a model to others in the region. Many analysts cast harsh doubts on the claim, recalling that Bush declared some dictatorships in Muslim countries as allies to Washington. Anti-US Sentiments The report said the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have actually increased anti-American sentiments across the Muslim world. "US actions appear... to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination." The report also indicated that the US government had failed to adapt its Cold War communications strategy to deal with the threat of extremism 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,'" it said. "Today we reflexively compare Muslim 'masses' to those oppressed under Soviet rule. "This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim societies -- except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the US so determinedly promotes and defends." "War of Ideas" Students burn a US flag as thousands protest inside Cairo University campus The report said that the US is also losing the "war of ideas" in the Muslim world, referring to all attempts by Washington to convey information crucial to the so-called war on terrorism. "In this war, it is an essential objective because the larger goals of US strategy depend on separating the vast majority of nonviolent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists," it said. "But American efforts have not only failed in this respect. They may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended," the report added. In 2002, the Defense Department shut down its new Office of Strategic Influence after critics accused the department of creating a propaganda office to spread lies around the world under the premise of misleading US enemies, according to Reuters. The report came a few weeks after another Pentagon report said that Radio Sawa, the Arabic-language sister broadcaster of Voice of America that was launched after the Iraq invasion, failed to attract its targeted Arabic-speaking listeners. The Pentagon says the new report may not be official policy, but it does highlight many concerns in official circles in Washington about how the US government can communicate its messages abroad, the BBC News Online reported. Wrong Way The report described US public diplomacy as being in crisis and urged the creation of a strategic communications apparatus within the White House. "The information campaign - or as some still would have it, 'the war of ideas' or the struggle for 'hearts and minds' - is important to every war effort," it said, referring to the so-called war on terror. Observers see the recommendation as window-dressing, as many in the Muslim world call for solutions to such long-standing crises as Israeli occupation of Arab lands in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Muslims across the world have been angered by the US-led invasion of Iraq under the pretext of possessing weapons of mass destruction - none of which have been found - along with a pro-Israeli bias. Observers also believe that unless the US ends its occupation of Iraq, Muslims will remain suspicious of Washington's foreign policy. The US had made the case for the invasion of Iraq on claims of finding weapons of mass destruction. Failure to find any such banned weapons more than two years after the occupation raised fears of false pretexts to attack Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves. In August, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice admitted failure to win hearts and minds of the world Muslims, in what experts attributed to uneven-handed policy in the Middle East and unjustified Iraq invasion. "Unless we take real action to be more even-handed in trying to resolve the Mideast conflict, little else will matter," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said commenting on Rice's statement. President Bush has named Rice to replace resigning Secretary of State Colin Powell. |