Pentagon panel says US fails to explain policies to Muslim world

The United States is failing in its efforts to explain the nation's diplomatic and military actions to the Muslim world, but no public relations campaign can defend America from flawed policies, a Pentagon advisory panel says.

The Defense Science Board released the harshly critical report on its website Wednesday after the content was disclosed by the New York Times. It urged the government to urgently change its approach to understanding and communicating with the Muslim world.

The report said the United States has fundamentally misunderstood why many Muslims are hostile toward the nation. "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies," it said.

In the eyes of the Muslim world, the report says: "American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering."

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 stated.

"When American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy," it said.

The report, "Strategic Communication," proposes a permanent "strategic communication structure" within the White House National Security Council and urges elevated roles and responsibilities for a designated senior officer within other government organizations, including the State Department and the Pentagon.

"To win a global battle of ideas, a global strategy for communicating those ideas is essential," the Defense Science Board's chairman, William Schneider, Jr. wrote in a memo introducing the report.

The report, completed in September, is among a series of reports produced by the board, a group of nongovernment experts who advise the secretary of state on a range of issues.