NIE Wake-Up Call

The recently declassified NIE sounds like interesting reading, if this article is at all accurate about it's contents. I'm interested to see what sort of reaction it gets, since the author points out what the government goes great lengths to avoid talking about -- that general Muslim sentiment about the U.S. is a reaction to its policies around the world, and not some sort of relgious crusade against freedom.

In some ways this article really surprised me. This is a view that's been frequently expressed by some of my friends, but rarely examined by mainstream media. It's occasionally admitted that U.S. support for Israel might be a reason for some anti-U.S. sentiment, but even more so than anti-U.S., reasons for anti-Israeli feelings are never to be examined. The implications are always that it's because there are no reasons, just a vague, irrational hatred that can't be appeased.

After all, if there were reasons for these feelings, you could do something about them, couldn't you? And that would be a far more difficult situation.