A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on Pentagon officials not to use a target depicting a Muslim woman wearing a religious head scarf (hijab) and verses from the Quran in combat scenarios for training Navy SEALs at the new close quarters combat range at Joint Base Fort Story in Virginia Beach, Va.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that military facility, referred to as a "kill house," features a number of combat scenarios, including a mosque and a movable target of a Muslim woman wearing hijab and aiming a handgun. Verses from the Quran, Islam's revealed text, are also displayed behind the target.

"Using a Muslim woman wearing a religious head scarf with [verses from the] Quran behind her as a target for our nation's military personnel is offensive and sends a negative and counterproductive message to trainees and to the Muslim-majority nations to which they may be deployed," wrote CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. "This is yet another example of why the Department of Defense needs to fix what appears to be an ongoing problem by consulting credible scholars and experts to review all training and training materials related to Islam or Muslims."

CAIR press release, 29 June 2012

See "Fort Story range creates combat scenarios for SEALs", Virginian-Pilot, 26 June 2012

And "Group criticizes image of Muslim woman on SEAL range", Virginian-Pilot, 29 June 2012

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One of the slides from a presentation that was merely intended to 'stimulate discussion'Poor judgment and poor oversight led to the teaching of anti-Islamic material at a military school for officers, the Pentagon said Wednesday

Though an Army lieutenant colonel who taught the class has been relieved of his teaching duties, investigators recommended reviewing the actions of two civilian officials at the school to see if they also should face discipline, the Defense Department said in a statement. A second military officer will receive counseling.

Materials in a course for military officers at Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., portrayed the U.S. as at war with Islam. That's an idea counter to repeated assertions by U.S. officials that the war being fought by America is one against terrorists.

Some of the material suggested the U.S. ultimately might have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia without regard for civilian deaths, following World War II precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan, or the allied firebombing of Dresden, Germany.

The teacher, Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, also suggested that the Geneva Convention, which guides behavior toward prisoners, was "no longer relevant" and that Muslims "hate everything you stand for."

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 its curriculum, too, was critical of Islam.

The new findings come from a report sought by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey. He had ordered all service branches to review their training to ensure that other courses don't use anti-Islamic material and that procedures are in place to screen course content. The report itself has not been released, but the conclusions were described by Dempsey's spokesman, Marine Col. Dave Lapan, in a written statement to the media and later in a conversation with Pentagon reporters.

Lapan said the intent of the inflammatory material was to be provocative – "to be something to stimulate discussion and challenge people's beliefs and generate academic discussion," he said. But briefing slides used in the class, for instance, did not explain that. "The flaw was that it didn't clearly define that it was meant to be provocative," Lapan said.

Associated Press, 20 June 2012

See also "Military instructor suspended over Islam course", Reuters, 20 June 2012

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