Editorial: Daniel Pipes' Nomination to U.S. Institute of Peace

April 19, 2003

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53900-2003Apr18.html

On April 19, 2003 The Washington Post printed an editorial stating that "the White House had nominated scholar Daniel Pipes to, of all places, the U.S. Institute of Peace... The institute is a quasi-governmental think tank dedicated to international "peace and conflict resolution"; one of its latest projects is the Special Initiative on the Muslim World, begun after Sept. 11, 2001, as a bridge between cultures. Mr. Pipes has long been regarded by Muslims as a destroyer of such bridges. And it takes only a glimpse at the latest column posted on his Web site to see why. The column, written for the New York Post, is about Hasan K. Akbar, the U.S. soldier in Kuwait charged with throwing a grenade at his fellow soldiers: 'No one yet knows Akbar's motives, but ignoring that it fits into a sustained pattern of political violence by American Muslims amounts to willful self-deception. When will officialdom acknowledge what is staring it in the face?...' The Bush administration has spent the past year and a half trying to dispel paranoia that the fight against terrorism is a clash of cultures between the Western world and Islam. It has gone to particular pains to calm the nerves of U.S. Muslims, who are ever anxious that they are being singularly scrutinized. As long as there is an operational Justice Department actively investigating terrorism, this outreach campaign will never work perfectly. But the Pipes nomination is salt in the wound. If the White House doesn't rescind it, Congress should have the good sense to turn it down."