Do the Bushies simply not give a damn about Arab and Muslim public opinion?

President Bush has named controversial Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace to the dismay of a major American Muslim organization, which described Pipes on Monday as a ``Muslim-basher'' with bigoted views....

Last year, Pipes aroused criticism when he launched Campus Watch, an organization that collects complaints against professors and academic institutions deemed to be biased in favor of Islam, Muslims and Palestinians.

In a commentary in the New York Post on March 25, Pipes wrote that a grenade attack on U.S. troops at a camp in Kuwait that killed two soldiers and for which an American Muslim has been charged, ``fits into a sustained pattern of political violence by American Muslims.''

``There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks,'' he added.

--Reuters

Tarek at The Liquid List directs us to this statement by Pipes, in which he says that 10 to 15 percent of Muslims "must be considered potential killers." Elsewhere, Tarek links this rundown of statements by Pipes and reviews of his books (some statements: "I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews"; "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene....All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most").

Yeah, that ought to win a few hearts and minds in the Arab/Muslim world.

But there's more: Tarek also notes that, according to this Guardian story, Michael Mobbs "will supervise civil administration in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is removed." Who is Michael Mobbs? The Guardian explains:

In his role as a legal consultant to the Pentagon, Mr Mobbs has been working behind the scenes to help determine the legal fate of terror suspects and other detainees held by the US military in Cuba and Afghanistan.

He was also author of what has become known as the "Mobbs declaration", a document presented to the US courts on behalf of the Pentagon claiming that the US president has wide powers to detain American citizens alleged to be enemy combatants indefinitely.

Unbelievable.