A number of other notable websites and publications continue to expose the US Army War College’s submission to CAIR. Excerpts from and links to some follow:
Powerline: In “Army War College Surrenders,” Scott Johnson succinctly summarizes the entire fiasco — including how, in their smear campaign, the Islamists presented me (an ethnic Egyptian) as a “white nationalist” — before quoting John Hinderaker:
Ibrahim is one of the few people who systematically keeps track of, and tries to publicize, the worldwide persecution of Christians. I have frequently quoted his columns on that topic here. Maybe showing concern about the violent persecution of Christians (most of them non-white) is what it means to be a “white nationalist” these days.
Providence Magazine: In “US Army or Islamic War College?” J. Daryl Charles covers the entire incident in detail; some of his unique experiences and insights follow:
As I write, I am doubly pained, having had the honor three times in the last decade of being invited to Fort Leavenworth, KS, and the US Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) to speak to mid-level officers on the moral substructure of the just war tradition. And as I write, I am unaware of any parallel to the recent decision by the US Army War College (USAWC) to disinvite Raymond Ibrahim, who was scheduled to lecture on June 19 at the War College’s Carlisle, PA, barracks as part of its 2019 Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series. Ibrahim, an expert in armed conflict between Islamic and Western cultures, had been invited five months previously to lecture on his 2018 book Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of Warfare between Islam and the West. A week before the scheduled lecture, the USAWC decided to “postpone” the event following receipt of a letter of protest from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR, it needs emphasizing, has been identified by the US Department of Justice as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the largest terrorist funding case in American history; it is a designated “terrorist organization” for nations such as the United Arab Emirates. ….
Alas, on June 10, the USAWC capitulated to the demands and hysteria of CAIR and canceled the event. Being informed of the decision, Ibrahim suggested that the War College turn the lecture into a debate, pitting Ibrahim against anyone of CAIR’s choosing. This remarkable offer, however, was not enough to prevent the War College from capitulating.
Perhaps the most dishonorable—and dishonest—element in the entire episode is the War College’s attempt to save face, pretending that it was not capitulating to a group considered to be an abettor to Islamic terrorism. The War College’s official line is that Ibrahim’s lecture has been “postponed.” Ah yes, the old postponement tactic. But the reality of the War College’s capitulation is too obvious: a “postponing” of an event a mere nine days before it is scheduled is in fact no postponement at all; it is spineless surrender to a smear campaign by Islamists who will lie, deceive, and deny the truth….
Because Islamists have only triumph and submission of non-Muslims—i.e., the dar al-harb (the “house of war”)—in view, any suggestion that they can embrace a principled pluralism is pure fantasy. The Muslim world, smarting from the 400–500 years of European history in which it was forced to recede from the world stage, senses that the West is weak. Islamists intuit—correctly, I fear—that the West lacks the moral backbone to assert itself.
And, in many ways, they are correct. European nations and North America presently have no “first principles” (other than “tolerance” of the intolerable), believe nothing, and in fact are committed to persecuting those in society who do. Not only are European nations in competition to see who can eradicate any memory of their Christian past the fastest, Canada and the US are doing their best to catch up to Europe. Which is why divine judgment, inter alia in the form of violent Islamic intrusion into the West, is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. Let us be clear: the issue is not the presence of Muslims in Western culture. Christian faith has always embraced a robust, principled social-cultural pluralism; we have called this sort of arrangement “civil society.” The problem, rather, is one that Ibrahim has identified, and for which he was disinvited by the USAWC: namely, few in the West have the moral and religious backbone to identify Islam’s violent tendency throughout much of its history. Free speech deemed offensive to the Muslim world simply will not be tolerated.
And when a prestigious military institution in the US—an institution commissioned to protect, facilitate security, and teach the moral principles that underpin the just war tradition—capitulates to ideological Islam—a version of Islam that has been linked to terrorism—then it is truly time to pray, for the hour is late…
Today, FrontPage Magazine published the National Association of Scholars’ open letter on this matter to Donald Trump. Click here to read the letter. If you agree with it, sign it, and share with others.
The Horn News: In “OUTRAGE! U.S. Army War College surrenders to far-left,” Fr. Mark Hodges writes:
[T]he United States Army War College surrendered to radical Islamists – and the mainstream media is completely silent.
Raymond Ibrahim, a Coptic/Islamic relations expert who has briefed the U.S. Strategic Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Congress, and other government agencies, was slated to speak at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks on June 19th….
From January to the end of May, all was peaceful and Ibrahim’s lecture was a go. Then, the far-left Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) heard about it and raised a stink.
And the War College surrendered….
On May 28th, CAIR wrote to Commandant Gen. John Kem and Provost Dr. James Breckenridge at the War College, telling them to cancel Ibrahim’s lecture because they think his book is “deeply troubling.” Without a single citation or any evidence at all, they accused the book of being “inaccurate.”
Professional historians and scholars specializing in the field of Muslim-Western history disagree. There’s been praise over the accuracy and research behind Ibrahim’s book. One is America’s leading military historian, Victor Davis Hanson, who calls the book, “first-rate military history and a product of solid scholarship and philological research.”
“The history I present in Sword and Scimitar is ironclad, verifiable, and beyond well documented; with about a thousand endnotes, it is heavily based on primary sources, many of which are Muslim, and from eyewitnesses,” Ibrahim matter-of-factly states. But the real issue is, “the history presented in Sword and Scimitar proves everything that groups like CAIR exist to suppress.”
As expected, the liberal media began echoing CAIR’s groundless complaints. But the War College stood firm… at first.
Ibrahim was repeatedly assured his appearance at the War College was still on. On June 5th, he received an official communiqué that “we are good to go for the lecture.”
Then CAIR upped the ante. Having no rational ammunition, they created a hysteria campaign based on complete lies and libelous slander. They labeled Ibrahim, who is a non-white Arab-American from Egypt – a “white supremacist.”
On June 6th, CAIR and its sister Islamicist group MPower Change told the mainstream media that Ibrahim was an “Islamophobe” who holds “racist views” and accused the U.S. military of being “racist” and the War College of “endorsing and fostering anti-Muslim hate” and “dangerously nurturing Islamophobia and white nationalism.”
Their campaign worked. The Western Journal wrote that initially CAIR was ignored, but when they cried, ‘Islamophobe!’ they got Ibrahim “kicked to the curb.”
On June 10th, the U.S. Army War College caved in pressure and dropped Ibrahim. The College claims they only “postponed” the lecture…
The Washington Times reported, “After CAIR organized a publicity campaign alleging Mr. Ibrahim was a white nationalist, the college buckled to the group’s pressure.”…
Former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Lt. Col. Joseph C. Myers called the War College, “cowardly.”
“Of all the colleges that should be throwing off the gloves in a fight for freedom of speech and the open exchange of ideas, one would think the United States Army War College would be first in line,” the Clarion Project commented.
True to the nature of bullies, once the Army gave in, CAIR pushed and shoved for more. They demanded the Army College “repudiate” and publicly “reject” history critical of Islam, and called for an Islamicist to lecture to the U.S. military.
After throwing Ibrahim under the bus, the Army War College added insult to injury by announcing they will host “another historical perspective.”…
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