[Soadiassy]

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.

'Something weird'
As far as I can see this is not intended in any sense as a rather sick academic exercise in stretching the bounds of what could be thought. It is actually what the officer teaching it believes.

In other words: completely nutty stuff that would disgrace the wilder fringes of the blogosphere.

So, not surprisingly, Gen Dempsey has ordered a full investigation into what other US military schools might be teaching about the religion.

The voluntary course aimed at senior officers was taught at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, for a year.

Gen Dempsey described the course as "counter to our values of appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness" and "just objectionable, academically irresponsible".

It came to light when one of the officers on the course complained last month. There is now an investigation into how the course was approved and why it was part of the curriculum.

A lieutenant colonel has been suspended from teaching, but for the moment keeps his job. The Pentagon hopes a full report will be out by the end of the month.

What does seem rather surprising is that all those commanders, captains and colonels must have sat through the course and not felt the need to tell someone that something rather weird was going on. BBC News

To what extent can we blame Afghans for turning on their Nato comrades or point the finger at Muslims who accuse western governments of an alienation process when such practices are endorsed by high-ranking officials in powerful institutions such as the US military?

Will we ever really understand that every action has a reaction or will we carry on pointing the finger at the eternal black sheep for everything that is wrong with our societies?

Disclaimer: I am not implying by any means that Muslims, as a collective, only react and never do anything wrong. They do. But that which they do is magnified and projected across the world as a natural predisposition, applicable to an entire community. I feel it is important to make the distinction that I am specifically referring to Muslim/non-Muslim conflict, be it in cosmopolitan cities of the west, the streets of Baghdad or the mountains of Afghanistan, in a variety of situations from physical conflict to integration problems and xenophobia and not so much the ridiculous administration styles of states such as Saudi Arabia. Though I can see how that, also, can be relevant to this discussion.

I ask that we keep this thread free of nationalistic jargon and the same withered one-liners that waste space and make the discussion inconsistent and difficult to follow.