CAIR Asks Pentagon to Dismiss Officer Who Taught 'Total War' on Islam

Training suggested destroying Mecca and Medina using 'Hiroshima' tactics

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 5/10/12) -- A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on the Department of Defense (DoD) to dismiss the instructor who taught fellow officers that only a "total war" on Islam would protect America, that they should use "Hiroshima" tactics, target civilian populations, and abandon the Geneva Conventions.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently applauded the DoD for dropping the Islamophobic training course attended by senior officers and for instituting a complete review of training relating to Islam and Muslims. CAIR is asking that the officer who taught that course at the Defense Department's Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., be dismissed from his position at the college.

"It is imperative that those who taught our future military leaders to wage war not just on our terrorist enemy, but on the faith of Islam itself be held accountable," wrote CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. "These shocking revelations are completely out of line with the longstanding values of one of our nation's most respected institutions."

Awad also called for the retraining by credible scholars of all officers who took the course and offered to coordinate a meeting between Pentagon officials and national Muslim leaders.

"If left uncorrected, the biased, inaccurate and un-American training previously given to these officers will harm our nation's security, image and interests for years to come," wrote Awad.

Awad said he agreed with FBI Director Robert Mueller who, when questioned yesterday about similar Islamophobic training of FBI agents, told the House Judiciary Committee, "It does us no good to have personnel who are trained with inadequate materials or misguided materials."

Republicans to FBI: Put Those Anti-Muslim Materials Back!

The DoD course for future military leaders was suspended after it was found to contain false and derogatory material about Islam, but few specifics of the course content were available at that time.

SEE: CAIR Commends Pentagon for Dropping Islamophobic Course

Today, Wired magazine revealed details of the contents of the course, which included:

• "We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam.'" "It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction."
• Suggestion to apply "the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki" to Islam's holiest cities, and bring about "Mecca and Medina['s] destruction."
• The Geneva Conventions may no longer be relevant, allowing the targeting of the "civilian population wherever necessary."

According to the Wired report: "For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America's real terrorist enemy wasn't al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself."

CAIR last year welcomed a White House-ordered comprehensive review of government counterterrorism training materials to weed out Islamophobic content.

CAIR chapters nationwide have filed 87 separate public records requests about possible Islamophobic training of local, state and national law enforcement personnel.

The Washington-based Muslim civil liberties organization has in the past called on the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and Congress to provide oversight for apparently widespread anti-Muslim bias in the training of law enforcement, security and military personnel nationwide.

CAIR noted the release of an 80-page report by Political Research Associates (PRA), titled "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants, & the Threat to Rights and Security," which details a systemic failure to regulate content in counterterrorism training.

Washington Monthly magazine also published a major investigative article showing similar anti-Islam attitudes by private trainers of law enforcement agencies.

A number of recent reports have documented the growth and promotion of Islamophobia nationwide.

CAIR: Same Hate, New Target
Center for American Progress: Fear, Inc.
Southern Poverty Law Center: Jihad Against Islam
People for the American Way: The Right-Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

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