Rice: U.S. using Cold War techniques in war on terror
Waging a war of ideas with radical Islam
 |  National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice speaks at the United States Institute of Peace Thursday. |
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday the United States is using techniques developed during the Cold War to support reformers in the Islamic world, sowing seeds she hopes will end Islamic terrorism.
"True victory will come not merely when the terrorists are defeated by force, but when the ideology of death and hatred is overcome by the appeal of life and hope and when lies are replaced by truth," Rice said in a speech at the Institute of Peace titled "Waging the War of Ideas in the Global War on Terror."
Rice said she agreed with the 9/11 commission's call for the development of a long-range strategy to engage in a struggle of ideas with radical Islam. The former Soviet specialist in the State Department credited programs such as the Voice of America with helping to end the Cold War, and said similar efforts are needed to boost the U.S. effort against Islamic terrorists.
"The values of freedom and democracy -- as much if not more than economic power and military might -- won the Cold War, and those same values will lead us to victory in the war on terror," she said.
Rice said President Bush's budget doubles funding for the National Endowment for Democracy and supports two Arabic-language radio stations and a Middle East television network in the region.
"We need to get the truth about our values and our polices to the people of the Middle East, because truth serves the cause of freedom," she said.
"Why do they hate us?" she asked. "The answer to that question depends on what one means by 'they.'"
She said "they" referred to "a small minority of extremists" -- out of the world's one billion people who profess the Islamic faith -- who hate U.S. values, policies and freedoms.
"When that hatred is expressed through terrorist violence, there is only one proper response: We must find them and defeat them," she said.
Fear of American power
But surveys show that a large majority of Muslims fear American power or mistrust U.S. government intentions or misunderstand American values, so efforts also must be made to dispel myths about American society and policy, she said.
"For instance, many see the worst in American popular culture and assume any democracy inevitably leads to crassness and immorality. Others believe that democracy is inherently hostile to faith and corrosive of cherished traditions," she said. "And many are fed a steady diet of hateful propaganda and conspiracy theories that twist American policy into grotesque caricatures."
Such views challenge the United States, she said. "At their worst and most intense, they create a climate of bitterness and grievance in which extremism finds a sympathetic ear."
But any attempt to dispel such beliefs "is difficult and long-term," she said. "We must not lose sight of the fact that some of the mistrust and suspicion felt toward the West by many in the Middle East and in the Muslim world, in fact, has some basis in reality."
Rice said that for the last six decades, the United States and its allies "excused and accommodated the lack of freedom in the Middle East, hoping, as President Bush said, to purchase stability at the price of liberty. Of course, we got neither."
But the history of recent U.S. relations with the Muslim world is one of friendship and partnership, she said, citing Turkey as a strong U.S. ally and trade agreements with Morocco and Indonesia.
She also cited decades of efforts by U.S. presidents to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, an effort she said was sometimes misunderstood.
"Because America supports Israel's desire for security, many in the Muslim world seem to believe that America opposes the Palestinians' desire for freedom. This is a misconception that we must take head-on and dispel. Because the truth is that our policy insists on freedom."
Bush believes that the Palestinians "deserve not only their own state, but a just and democratic state that serves their interests and fulfills their decent aspirations," she said.
For its part, Israel "must meet its responsibilities under the road map and help create conditions for a democratic Palestinian state to emerge," she said.
Wars to help Muslims
Rice said many in the Muslim world are not aware that each of the five wars the United States has fought since the end of the Cold War "was to help Muslims." She listed as "wars of liberation and freedom" the conflicts in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rice called for cultural exchanges and for U.S. universities to teach American students about Islamic language and literature so the two cultures can interact. "We must reach out and explain, but we must also listen."
Asked why neither she nor anyone else in the Bush administration had given a similar speech in one of the five largest Muslim nations, Rice said, "Maybe we should."
