Why was the US military teaching 'total war' on Islam?

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This is absolute madness surely.

www.bbc.co.uk...

America's top military officer has condemned a course taught about Islam at one of America's top military schools as "totally objectionable". It is not surprising. The story, first broken by Wired, is fairly astonishing, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, must be furious. The course taught officers there was no such thing as moderate Islam and that they should consider the religion their enemy. It advocated "total war" against all the world's Muslims, including possible nuclear attacks on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the wiping out civilian populations. The Pentagon has confirmed the course material found on their website is authentic.

How in the hell are we going to get any progress in the middle east when attitudes like this are being forced on the military?

Here is the original story from Wired

www.wired.com...

Originally posted by faceofcydonia
The course taught officers there was no such thing as moderate Islam and that they should consider the religion their enemy.

In the UK, according to MI5, 4,000 British Muslims have received military training from the Taliban

MI5 has estimated that up to 4,000 British Muslims had travelled to Pakistan and, before the fall of the Taliban, to Afghanistan for military training.

By the way, those 4,000 Taliban trained UK Muslims have British passports. British passports holders don't need a visa to enter the USA.

Completely true.

There are certain progressions within all religions - you have the hunky doray normal respecting people...and then you have the extremists. I have loads of friends, growing up in society - respectful of my views, of other cultures, completely against terrorism and oh yes, not agreeing with certain bits in the Qu'ran.

A course like this...is completely wrong. Education, especially within religion, is meant to give BOTH views upon a subject...which this is failing to do.

I would love to emphasise the fact, time and time again, that no...not all Muslims are terrorists, evil and manipulative.

America's home-grown terrorists are now a 'global threat' and the US should look to Europe to learn how to deal with the problem, a prominent US congresswoman has warned Barack Obama.

In a letter to the president, Sue Myrick, a member of the House of Representatives select committee on intelligence, says that America is for the first time exporting Islamist terrorism.

She accuses the US of complacency in dealing with the issue and says the country in "far behind" Europe in having measures in place to deal with the growing problem of the radicalisation of young men and their willingness to carry out terror attacks.

"Today there is no doubt that radicalisation is taking place inside America. The strikingly accelerated rate of American Muslims arrested for involvement in terrorist activities since May 2009 makes this fact self-evident. What has been missed is that our home-grown terrorists are now becoming a global threat."

The Telegraph

Originally posted by ollncasino

Originally posted by faceofcydonia
The course taught officers there was no such thing as moderate Islam and that they should consider the religion their enemy.

In the UK, according to MI5, 4,000 British Muslims have received military training from the Taliban

MI5 has estimated that up to 4,000 British Muslims had travelled to Pakistan and, before the fall of the Taliban, to Afghanistan for military training.

By the way, those 4,000 Taliban trained UK Muslims have British passports. British passports holders don't need a visa to enter the USA.

And that's out of 1.6 million Muslims?
That's 0.0025% of the population.

It happens - it happened within Britain eons ago. Terrorism has just moved onto another religion.

Any ideology with it's foundation in obsession to the death behaviors, whether it holds the social facade of any religion, any way of governing, or pocket of culture, has the potential to want to expand itself over the entire population of the world. This is a threat to social realms existing with the boundaries of balance, common sense, and conscience derived from self-evident Truths. War colleges war game out EVERYTHING. This was the only way to stop this particular ideology up to this point of gaming scenarios that have been played out.

Nuclear attacks against Mecca? What brainless fool would even spout that horse poop? If you honestly think that a whole people are "enemies", you need to have your skull crushed in.

I just read the article, and If I get time will read the PDF file.

This sounds and looks bad, but i am wondering a couple of things.

I have the corespondance cirriculum for the Air Force Squardron Officers Course at home (it is possible for certain civillians to take several of the military's professional courses by correspondence) In the cirriculum are lots of ethics based courses dealing with the law of war, combat ethics, etc. Many of these give situations showing possible strategies dealing with certain situations. Some of the responses are deliberatly an UNDER response, and some are OVERTLY too strong a response. The point being to pick correct methodologies and tactics that are also ethical in dealing with certain situations and to discuss inappropriate responses . I wonder if that could be the case and this info was part of a broader class objective.


Second, the military does indeed study the concept and theory of total war, should we ever be in a situation where total war with a country or group become a need. As someone above mentioned, they wargame or discuss all manner of possibilities at these schools, even unlikely ones, as part of the academic questioning. The info presented could be more theoretical then anything else,although based on the story it's kind of hard to beleive that.

I'd like to know exactly what or how this course of information played in the broader cirriculum of the school.. Was there a specific point trying to be made in a specific context. I mean the staff would have to know it was going on? Having, "all muslims are enemies and must be wiped out" as a course title should have raised some eyebrows amongst the school staff? For the PR angle if anything else.

I've got no real problem with the information, it's the context it was presented in I was wondering about.

Hopefully I'll try to read the PDF later and see what insite that gives.

Originally posted by faceofcydonia
The course taught officers there was no such thing as moderate Islam and that they should consider the religion their enemy.

While it is true that not all Muslims are radicals, by the same token the question could be asked why Islam compared to other religions produces so many?

After all, we don't hear people saying that not all Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh immigrants are terrorists.

Is the difference Islam itself?

Originally posted by ollncasino

Originally posted by faceofcydonia
The course taught officers there was no such thing as moderate Islam and that they should consider the religion their enemy.

While it is true that not all Muslims are radicals, by the same token the question could be asked why Islam compared to other religions produces so many?

After all, we don't hear people saying that not all Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh immigrants are terrorists.

Is the difference Islam itself?

edit on 11-5-2012 by ollncasino because: Fix error

I think the answer to that is yes. It was a "warrior type" religion, when you study it's inception, whith goal aim of subjegating the world under the banner of Islam. While Christianity may have been USED by the powers to be to support various wars, crusades, etc....it's not really dictated in the new testement to subjugate the world.............preach the word of Jesus to the world, yes....conqure by sword...not so much.

Which brings me to another ponit. Christianity has had the Reformation and Protestism movements, which changed the religion greatly. Islam has not really had either....and this is why those that are fundamentalists in Islam still wield alot of control over the governments and the masses, and why their interpritations and practices are still very much 7th century.

reply to post by ollncasino


I think the answer is yes.

Their greatest prophet Mohammed was a military general, en.wikipedia.org... and the religion was initially spread by force.

But, does this mean the whole of Islam now believes that it should be spread at the cost of non believers? I can not see this happening with the Muslims I know and call friends.

Originally posted by faceofcydonia
I think the answer is yes.

Their greatest prophet Mohammed was a military general, en.wikipedia.org... and the religion was initially spread by force.

But, does this mean the whole of Islam now believes that it should be spread at the cost of non believers? I can not see this happening with the Muslims I know and call friends.

Neither can I. The minority that do the killing in the name of Islam however seem to do both a very good job of driving Islam forward and of effectively rendering moderate Muslims passive.

I just read the 28 page pdf provided by the link.

It assumes or states (in writing) the following:

It is theoretical. The model explored is intended primarily to facilitate academic strategic discussion of how to deal with current and future radical islamic threats.

It requires looking at radical islam threat capablities and goals based on their own publications, operations, training programs, propaganda, etc; instead of through the "political corectness" of Western thought. (He notes that this was done with the Soviet threat as an ideology, but not with Islam because we view it as a religion).

It states that we begin to look at radical Islam as an ideology instead of a religion.


It assumes a deterrence ability to radical islam cannot be found or if found has not worked

It assumes that certain articles of the Geneva Conventions would have to revaluate how non state players (such as Al Queida or Muslim Brotherhood) interact with host states allowing population centers of support states to be attacked (such as MAD with the soviets) should deterence fail.


It assumes that this ideology is diametrically opposed to the US Constitution/Bill of Rights and therefore we need to come to the understanding or view point that "tolerance" of said religion (now an ideology) is an unaccaptable response when that ideology wishes to destory the very principles (of the Bill of Right)s that allow diversity within the US and radical Islam's own existance within the US.

It declares that a better understanding of what exactly is a "moderate" muslim needs to be evaluated. How many muslims are "radical" vs "moderate", "moderate" doesn't nessecarily equate to "mainstream" either.



Overall, I couldn't necessarily disagree with what the information was stating. I say teach away and don't judge a book by it's cover.... Flame away

The USA's actions perfectly explain its military teaching a 'total war' against a religion.

The USA invaded a nation that did not attack it, spent over a decade attacking another in which only nineteen men allegedly committed terror attacks, and continues to lob missiles into multiple other countries.

The United States really has gone out of its collective mind and would apparently love to engage in an all-out war with Muslims. Its a war machine that cannot be sated.

reply to post by faceofcydonia


good to know, makes it all very clear....

Originally posted by ollncasino

While it is true that not all Muslims are radicals, by the same token the question could be asked why Islam compared to other religions produces so many?

After all, we don't hear people saying that not all Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh immigrants are terrorists.

Is the difference Islam itself?

The difference is the Mass Media coverage. They tend to ignore violent acts by people of other religions unless it involves a mother killing her baby. Any violence by Muslims is instantly labeled as terrorism by the Mass Media and hyped for ratings.

For example, the 2010 shooting incident on the UT campus would have been labeled as a terrorist act if the shooter was Muslim. Instead his religion was downplayed by the media.