Recently the State Department and USAID produced a document titled Joint Strategy on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Not once in the entire report do the words “Islam,” “Islamism,” or “Muslim” appear. The fact that the devisers of this strategy are unable to name their opponents is testimony, writes Elliott Abrams, to the bankruptcy of their thinking—and that bankruptcy in turn encourages anti-Muslim demagogy:
There are some ideas in this “strategy” for what is now called CVE, but at bottom it is hopeless. If this is really the U.S. strategy, we are in even bigger trouble than we thought. . . .
When we seek to understand why voters in Europe and the United States listen to demagogues and even form [harsher] views of their own, we should remember this [report]. When governments put out documents like this one, they are helping feed demagogy and . . . harming the effort to formulate effective and sensible efforts against extremism.
Read more on Pressure Points: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/05/27/the-violent-extremism-that-dare-not-speak-its-name/