Top military and Pentagon officials have spoken up this week to criticize the planned burning of Qurans by fundamentalist Florida pastor Terry Jones. Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. Roy Odierno, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have all repeated the same point – the burning would inflame Islamic extremists and possibly endanger U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What we haven't seen, however, is any notable media interest in asking these same officials about the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near the Ground Zero site in New York and its effect on Islamic extremism and American troops.

It's not that it isn't a concern. Newsweek reported that a Taliban operative has claimed that the controversy over the center is providing it “with more recruits, donations, and popular support”:

Taliban officials know it's sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that's exactly what they're wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. “By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It's providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”

America's enemies in Afghanistan are delighted by the vehement public opposition to the proposed “Ground Zero mosque.” The backlash against the project has drawn the heaviest e-mail response ever on jihadi Web sites, Zabihullah claims -- far bigger even than France's ban on burqas earlier this year. (That was big, he recalls: “We received many e-mails asking for advice on how Muslims should react to the hijab ban, and how they can punish France.”) This time the target is America itself. “We are getting even more messages of support and solidarity on the mosque issue and questions about how to fight back against this outrage.”

Zabihullah also claims that the issue is such a propaganda windfall—so tailor-made to show how “anti-Islamic” America is -- that it now heads the list of talking points in Taliban meetings with fighters, villagers, and potential recruits. “We talk about how America tortures with waterboarding, about the cruel confinement of Muslims in wire cages in Guantánamo, about the killing of innocent women and children in air attacks -- and now America gives us another gift with its street protests to prevent a mosque from being built in New York,” Zabihullah says. “Showing reality always makes the best propaganda.”

If the Taliban are exploiting the Ground Zero controversy for its terrorist ends, surely our top military officials would have something to say on the subject. But we could find just one instance of Petraeus, Odierno, or Gates ever having been asked about it.

It's even more surprising given that 1) the Pentagon houses a nondenominational chapel where Muslims have prayed for several years, and 2) Petraeus kicked off a media blitz in mid-August to tout progress in the war in Afghanistan, at the same time that attacks on the proposed Islamic community center, and the imam behind it, were starting to reach a fever pitch on Fox News and the right-wing media.

The only instance we could find of the question of the Islamic center controversy being raised with any of those officials is on August 25, when Fox News asked Petraeus about it. He declined to answer: “I've got enough minefields out here, with respect, without getting into domestic minefields back in the U.S.”

Weirdly, the opposite appears to be happening: Military officials are being blamed for endangering the troops by discussing the Quran-burning controversy and, by extension, encouraged not to talk about it. For instance, Red State's Erick Erickson writes:

That church burning the korans in Florida will incite muslims to kill Americans, particularly American soldiers

Why? Well, in part, because David Petraeus and the media have decided to magnify the event and guarantee it'll be featured on the front page of every major newspaper in the Middle East.

Erickson goes on to huff: “I think it is bad form for the military to start applying pressure to influence the political activities (and this is clearly a form of political speech) of American civilians.”

As his initial reluctance to weigh in on the Islamic center controversy demonstrates, it seems that Petraeus is a lot more concerned about the welfare of his troops than getting involved in home-front politics -- as it should be. But recognizing what happens on the home front can, in fact, affect troops on the front lines is very much his bailiwick. Now that it appears the Islamic center controversy is playing into the hands of Islamic extremists -- and, thus, potentially endangering our troops -- shouldn't the media want to know more about what Petraeus and other military officials think about it?