In
general since the advent of the Arab Spring, I no longer think it
needs to come to that at all. Middle class values soon trump
barbarism and peoples make up their own minds about what is right or
wrong and snuff out folly on their own.
Not
surprisingly the USA is taking it experience against the Nazis to
heart and is and will plan accordingly against the day of a total
World War against Islam. I came to this conclusion a long time ago.
I
simply do not see it happening. Not only is the Arab world in total
disarray, they refuse to even talk to each other. On top of this all
the remaining autocrats are confronting their demise to populous
government.
These
populous governments have begun the nasty task of grinding up their
radical elements. It promises to take a long time. While this is
happening, they also have to usher their population into a modern
economy which clearly dissolves away the radical aspects.
The
shoe that has not fallen yet is the sudden demise of the global oil
industry. It is certain to happen and it will be soon. It will also
be swift. This means that the Arab world will have to learn in a
hurry how to operate a productive economy. So far it has been
clearly halfhearted, but it has at least begun.
Beyond
that, any war with the mullahs will be a war of liberation and a body
blow to Shiite Islam and I do not see them lasting long enough to
make good on their threats anyway.
So
this is pretty optimistic with plenty of ongoing opportunity to have
panic attacks.
U.S. military class
taught ‘total war’ against Islam, destroying Mecca necessary for
fighting radicals
Pauline Jelinek and
Robert Burns, The Associated Press May 11, 2012 – 11:53
AM ET | Last Updated: May 11, 2012 11:54 AM ET
REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Muslim pilgrims circle
the Kaaba at the Grand mosque, on the last days of the annual haj
pilgrimage, in Mecca November 8, 2011.
WASHINGTON — A
course for U.S. military officers has been teaching that America’s
enemy is Islam in general, not just terrorists, and suggesting that
the country might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy
cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths,
following Second World War precedents of the nuclear attack on
Hiroshima or the allied firebombing of Dresden, according to
documents obtained byWired.com’s Danger Room blog.
The Pentagon suspended
the course in late April when a student objected to the material. The
FBI also changed some agent training last year after discovering that
it, too, was critical of Islam.
The teaching in the
military course was counter to repeated assertions by U.S. officials
over the past decade that the U.S. is at war against Islamic
extremists, not the religion itself.
“They hate
everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you
submit,” the instructor, Army Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, said in a
presentation last July for the course at Joint Forces Staff College
in Norfolk, Virginia. The college, for professional military members,
teaches midlevel officers and government civilians on subjects
related to planning and executing war.
Dooley also presumed,
for the purposes of his theoretical war plan, that the Geneva
Conventions that set standards of armed conflict are “no longer
relevant.”
He adds: “This would
leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian
population wherever necessary [the historical precedents of Dresden,
Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable...].”
His war plan suggests
possible outcomes such as “Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation
… Islam reduced to cult status” and the Muslim holy cities of
Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia “destroyed.”
The college did not
respond to The Associated Press’ requests for copies of the
documents, but a Pentagon spokesman vouched for their authenticity.
Dooley still works for the college, but is no longer teaching, Joint
Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said.
US Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta(L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Martin Dempsey during a press briefing at the Pentagon in
Washington, DC, May 10, 2012.
Dooley refused to
comment to the AP, saying “Can’t talk to you, sir,” and hanging
up when reached by telephone at his office Thursday.
A summary of Dooley’s
military service record provided by Army Human Resources Command at
Fort Knox, Kentucky, shows that he was commissioned as a second
lieutenant upon graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point in May 1994. He has served overseas tours in Germany, Bosnia,
Kuwait and Iraq. He has numerous awards including a Bronze Star
Medal, the fourth-highest military award for bravery, heroism or
meritorious service.
In what he termed a
model for a campaign to force a transformation of Islam, Dooley
called for “a direct ideological and philosophical confrontation
with Islam,” with the presumption that Islam is an ideology rather
than just a religion. He further asserted that Islam has already
declared war on the West, and the U.S. Specifically.
“It is therefore
illogical” to continue with the current U.S. strategy, which Dooley
said presumes there is a way of finding common ground with Islamic
religious leaders without “waging near ’total war,”’ he
wrote.
The course on Islam
was an elective taught since 2004 and not part of the required core
curriculum. It was offered five times a year, with about 20 students
each time, meaning roughly 800 students have taken the course over
the years.
Though Dooley has been
teaching at the college since August 2010, it was unclear when he
took on that particular class, called “Perspectives on Islam and
Islamic Radicalism.”
The joint staff
suspended the course after it had received a student complaint, and
within days Dempsey ordered all service branches to review their
training to ensure other courses do not use anti-Islamic material.
On Thursday, Dempsey
said the material in the Norfolk course was counter to American
“appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness.”
“It was just totally
objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically
sound,” Dempsey said when asked about the matter at a Pentagon news
conference. “This wasn’t about … pushing back on liberal
thought; this was objectionable, academically irresponsible.”
In his July 2011
presentation on a “counterjihad,” Dooley asserted that the rise
of what he called a “military Islam/Islamist resurgence” compels
the United States to consider extreme measures, “unconstrained by
fears of political incorrectness.”
He described his
purpose as generating “dynamic discussion and thought,” while
noting that his ideas and proposals are not official U.S. government
policy and cannot be found in any current official Defence Department
documents.
A Pentagon inquiry is
seeking to determine whether someone above the professor’s level is
supposed to approve course materials and whether that approval
process was followed in this case, said Col. Dave Lapan, spokesman
for Dempsey.
The problem of
negative portrayals of Islam in federal government is not new. A
six-month review the FBI launched into agent training material
uncovered 876 offensive or inaccurate pages that had been used in 392
presentations, including a PowerPoint slide that said the bureau can
sometimes bend or suspend the law in counterterror investigations.
That is significant
because ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI
has stressed the importance of working with leaders in the Muslim
community as an important part of the battle against terror. The FBI
review began last September after Wired.com reported that the FBI had
discontinued a lecture in which the instructor told agent trainees in
Virginia that the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to
be violent.
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