Washington: A course for US 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 Makkah and Madinah without regard for civilian deaths, following the Second World War precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima or the allied firebombing of Dresden.
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 US officials over the past decade that the US 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 Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia "destroyed."
A copy of the presentation was obtained and posted online by Wired.com's Danger Room blog. The college did not respond to The Associated Press' requests for copies of the documents, but a Pentagon spokesman authenticated the documents. Dooley still works for the college, but is no longer teaching, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said.
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.
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."
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 US Military Academy at West Point in May 1994.
