January 14, 2009

Jerry Gordon Comment:

Patrick Poole in this Pajamas Media article chronicles the depths that the US military educational system has sunk in denying what Stephen Coughlin had fought hard for inside the Pentagon last year, despite the intense opposition of Muslim Outreach aide Heshem Islam to the Deputy Defense Secretary, Gordon England, now both gone: teaching about Islamic War Doctrine under Sharia Law.

In his Pajamas Media piece Poole zeroes in on the infiltration of pro-Militant Islamics in faculty positions at the venerable Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who put “lipstick” on extremist Hamas-the antithesis of what Coughlin was teaching in his presentation to Joint Chiefs Staff and major combat command staff in his Islamic Law War Doctrine briefings. What Poole describes in this Pajama Media piece is stifling of counter terrorism doctrine that would equip our military to engage in the ‘long war’ against Militant Islam in the 21st Century.

A faculty member publicly defends Hamas while students are not allowed to read texts on militant Islam.

by Patrick Poole, Pajamas Media, Jan. 14, 2009

If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

This famous maxim by the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu is familiar to every student of military science and strategy. His counsel is simple: understand your enemy, understand yourself. Nearly eight years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, however, important segments of our military infrastructure dedicated to training and educating the next generation of military leaders have woefully failed to heed Sun Tzu’s advice. Two recent blog posts by Washington Post military correspondent Tom Ricks related to policies and publications by the U.S. Army War College give evidence to this strategic collapse in the War on Terror.

Two weeks ago, Ricks reported on a new publication by Army War College research professor Sherifa Zuhur on Hamas and Israel that informs readers that Hamas has been misunderstood due to the misreporting by “Israeli and Western sources that villainize the group.” Zuhur concludes that Hamas isn’t so bad after all, so we all just need to get along and embrace the terrorist group through negotiations — a view apparently endorsed by the Army War College when it published her defense of Hamas.

A second post last week, “Fiasco at the Army War College: The Sequel,” records an exchange between Ricks and defense expert and author Mark Perry. Assessing the academic state of affairs at the War College, Perry informed Ricks:

It’s worse than you think. They have curtailed the curriculum so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam. Akin to denying students access to Marx during the Cold War. (Continue Reading this Article)