Arabist.net forwards this from
Danger Room:
The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of “Hiroshima” to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the “civilian population wherever necessary.”
The course, first reported by Danger Room last month and held at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, has since been canceled by the Pentagon brass. It’s only now, however, that the details of the class have come to light. Danger Room received hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents from a source familiar with the contents of the class.
...
“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam,’” Dooley noted in a July 2011 presentation (.pdf), which concluded with a suggested manifesto to America’s enemies. “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.”
. . .
"International laws protecting civilians in wartime are “no longer relevant,” Dooley continues. And that opens the possibility of applying “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina['s] destruction.”
File under "just asking for trouble."
One of my best friends, my heart sister, is a Japanese American whose mother is a survivor of Hiroshima. What is screaming in my head is: "When will we ever learn ?" Blowback, indeed. Melissa Kendal
ReplyDeleteIt's understandable that professionals of violence think violence achieves things, but this is simplistic to the point of horror. Hiroshima produced an effect mostly because it followed years of exhaustion and deprivation, but also because there was a single authority over the target population that could surrender, because Japan was a nation with a government. Islam is not a nation. It doesn't have a government, it has no head, its left and right hands are not linked by anything except rumour and conscience. I can't believe these people don't get that simplest and most important of differences. This is a case where "maybe if we use a bigger gun" doesn't have a target.
ReplyDelete