This bothers me on several grounds. Obviously, the material presented is factually wrong. That is often the case with bigotry. It is a sufficient ground for firing this instructor.

Second, how did the military come to choose this man to teach this course at the Joint Forces Staff College? There is ordinarily at any college in the land a hiring decision based upon review of qualifications and references. The review does not concern the prospective teacher's political or religious beliefs; it concerns evidence that the person knows the subject matter and can be an effective teacher.

From here on, I do not know how things are done in the National Defense University. I do not even know whether or how the concept of "academic freedom" applies in the military context.

Third, a person is hired to teach a course that has been approved by a college on the basis of a course description. The instructor is expected and obliged to stick to that course description. The course description specifies the subject matter of the course. It does not specify what point of view the instructor must have on the subject matter. It is sometimes hard imagining people of certain persuasions teaching certain courses, so I suppose that the assumption is that an instructor will not take certain positions in class, but this gets to a sticky point.

Fourth, the syllabus for a course is often (although not always) the intellectual property of the person teaching the course. In my experience, it is rare for a supervisor to demand to inspect an instructor's syllabus, much less to assert the right to approve it. One of the reasons is that the candidate for a position will have submitted syllabi and teaching evaluations as part of the application package. Hiring a person signals trust in that person to teach the assigned subject matters. In the case of the instant course, I have no idea whether the syllabus would have served as a tip-off to the actual, bigoted content of the course. The readings might have done so if the supervisor knew the field well enough to know that literature or spent the time needed to learn that literature.

Fifth, some instructors deliberately teach provocative courses. The underlying belief is that students need to learn how to deal with that in order to become critical thinkers. As long as the instructor makes it clear that dissent is welcome and expected, such classes can work very well. Dooley's course does not sound like it was intended to stimulate debate, however. It sounds like he was teaching a dogma, not raising questions.

Sixth, does an instructor in a military college have the right of freedom of expression that is accorded by academic freedom?

Academic freedom is not boundless, but sometimes it does protect the weird as long as they conduct themselves in academically appropriate ways (e.g., do not mistreat or humiliate students). It is always hoped that such people will be weeded out in the application process, but when that does not occur, it can become a factor in promotion or merit pay decisions. The result is that many large colleges have a few very weird faculty members. Students tend to know about these people and avoid their classes.

I can see an argument that academic understandings of academic freedom should not apply in military colleges and universities. I can also see an argument that officers need to be exposed to bigotry so that they can learn to deal with it. An in-between argument is more to my liking: these are officers. They have good minds. Let them deal with it. It is probably not the first time that a bigot has taught officers, and it certainly will not be the last. I would prefer taking that risk to demanding that all instructors follow a dogma. Dogmas need to be challenged, perhaps especially so in a class for officers.

I am not arguing on Dooley's behalf. I am arguing something that I believe is more fundamental than this instant class: Officers need to be challenged intellectually and morally, and some form of academic freedom is required to ensure that this can occur. As for Dooley, I think he is incompetent and will never again be allowed to teach such a class.

For completeness:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04 ... -training/

It looks like a new instructor transformed the existing curriculum for a class. The military seems to be taking this seriously. When word got to the Pentagon, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs launched an investigation into the incident and ordered a military-wide review of training materials. They appear to be pretty open about the problem - Wired seems to have gotten an interview with the 3-star in charge of trainning and education.

The class was abysmal. There needs to be zero tolerance of this kind of bullshit. Hopefully, we're heading that way. The guy teaching the class is obviously toast. The CG of the school is probably also done - his own PAO threw him under the bus in the latest interview, and his official picture has not yet been updated to reflect the promotion he received right before the problem came to light.

This is key:

That is also a no-no in the university context. It is a departure from the approved course description, which is a disciplinary matter in the university context.

The officer who hired him should be in hot water as well, which appears to be the case.

Is this a matter for a court-martial?

The Joint Forces Staff College is a component of National Defense University, and NDU does have some degree-granting programs, but the JFSC programs don't seem to be degree-track. They appear to be purely continuning professional education.

I generally agree with the need for challenging people both intellectually and morally, and I think there is an argument to be made that such challenges should be actively made a part of military education. In the case of this particular school, though, the purpose is to provide officers with technical skills needed to work in certain fields within the military. It might be more appropriate to look at this as a training environment rather than an educational one.

I would expect a couple of Reliefs for Cause, Career Ending Letters Of Reprimand, w/i 6 mo a retirement for anyone over 20 and no promotion and the boot at 20. This doesn't seem to me to rise to a "criminal" matter, but an Administrative Matter to be dealt with "Administratively".

Both the guy and his boss are pretty much brunt toast.

That's obviously more a question for Dwight Sullivan or Phil Cave, but my gut instinct would be that it's not. I'm sure there is probably a way that it could happen, but only with difficulty.

Given that the Joint Forces Staff College is for technical training, this guy stepped far outside the bounds.

If this had occurred at, say, West Point, I think the academic freedom question could arise. Academic freedom is worthless if it only protects "the right" opinions. But I would hope his students there would have had a rollicking good argument with him and that he would have clearly distinguished facts from opinions.

This is said by Wired to be a PDF copy of a PowerPoint presentation made by FBI instructors to a group of FBI staff on January 15, 2009. Most of the images are very obscure. Could this be caused by converting a color PPT to a B&W PDF?

One slide asserts

This was being taught to FBI agents in 2009?

Some of the reference sources are rabidly anti-Islam.

The last slide is a mystery to me, including the second quote:

My question is: How many perspective Staff Officers took this course without informing their superiors about the bat content?

Army Times has a brief bio of Lt. Colonel Matthew A. Dooley:

The class was suspended in April following a complaint by a student who took the class in March, 2012. Army Times April 25, 2012 Class suspended over anti-Islam concerns

Mondoweiss says that the class has been taught by Dooley since 2004, although most other articles say that Dooley has had a position at the Joint Forces Staff College only since August 2010. It may be that a course named “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism” has been taught since 2004, but not until 2010 or 2011 by Dooley. Wired Danger Room cites an "unspecified revision" in summer, 2011.

Sounds more like a moral booster to me, for FBI agents operating only within the USA and who hardly ever will come into contact with a real Islamist terrorist. Tell them that they will rarely be able to show off at a press conference, but their work behind the scene is appreciated (though they may not even speak with friends and family over their real assignment).

The American Muslim offers a reaction to the revelations coming from the Joint Forces Staff College and the FBI. Is the U.S. Military “at war with Islam”? by Sheila Musaji. It includes numerous quotes from commentators ranging from Islamophobes to the ACLU. There is a long list of references on the Web.

These are not the only two instances in which known Islamophobes have spoken to military groups.


From Walid Shoebat: http://www.shoebat.com/videos/obamaIndonesia.php

MSNBC May 11, 2012 "Outrage, calls for action over anti-Muslim materials in military training"

I like Mikey, and he's absolutely right about the dangers posed, but he does tend toward hyperbole. There are going to be firings - plural - over this, and there might conceivably be Article 15s. But court martial is pretty unlikely.

But this whole incident does make me damn glad that we've got people like Mikey Weinstein and Spencer Ackerman keeping tabs on this kind of thing.

Al Jazeera says that two anti-Islam classes were taught. There is also a claim that both courses were developed by the Strategic Engagement Group:

Officers of SEG include:
EJ Kimball, President

Stephen Coughlin, VP of Strategic Communication Initiatives

John Guandolo, VP of Strategic Planning and Execution

I believe that we will find that this cancer is far deeper and more widely spread than one course taught by one Lt. Colonel who got off track. I no longer believe that high officers in the Pentagon were unaware of this.

I think Al Jazeera is confusing "class" with "course" or just has bad information this time. They name the same instructor, and while they claim to have "exclusive" documentation, the title of the class they provide matches the title of one of the classes Wired posted material for last week.

I don't doubt that SEG had a role in developing the course, and possibly deeper involvement.

As far as the cancer itself goes, the depth probably depends on the definitions used. Anti-Islamic sentiment in the military certainly runs deeper than one LTC at one schoolhouse. I don't doubt that there are people in the Pentagon, probably including some senior leaders, who have a strong anti-Islamic bias. That bias probably taints their actions to some degree.

I doubt that there was much involvement in Dooley's stupidity beyond the level of Dooley and possibly his dean. If there was, they would not have been teaching that course to those people - he would have been somewhere he could do more damage. The people who cycle through the Joint Forces Staff College's programs are generally mid- to late-career officers. They're O5s and O6s, which means that most of them will have 15+ years of service, will have held at least one command already, probably have multiple deployments as mid-grade officers, and as a result have at least some limited exposure to the facts on the ground. They did not make it to where they are by being easily hoodwinked. They also have limited years of service ahead of them, and many will not be promoted again. If you want to influence the future leaders, this is not the group to target. You'd want to get that material into the various Captain's Career Courses - the schools that senior O3s and junior O4s go through. That's where the future leaders are.

It may be that Al Jazeera was confused between "classes" and "courses." It's easy to do -- I did it myself in my post.

It might also be that Al Jazeera is confusing the different course taught at the FBI with the course that Dooley taught.

Strategic Engagement Group lists four training courses that they offer:

Executive Briefing (2 Days)

Understanding the True Nature of the Threat to America (3 Days)

Train the Trainer (2 Weeks)


Train the Trainer for Media and Legislative Staffers (1 Week)

The highlighted course has all the marks of an intensive indoctrination program. It selects only from those who "have demonstrated an aptitude and deep interest" in the subject matter -- pretty much guaranteeing conformity and group-think. It sequesters its trainees. It calls for the same kind of personal statement that classic indoctrination methods use. It apparently is offered both inside and outside the military. I would dearly love to know where this course has been offered.

According to another SEG site, wix.com, a class begins today:

Then there is the SEG Annual Picnic, to which participants must bring their own food, body armor, and weapon. It is scheduled for June 19, 2012, at the Adams Center in Loudon County, VA. This is "a time to rest and recarge [sic] our batteries."

While looking over the vast range of topics to be found on TFB, I came across this abandoned topic: Seymour Hersh: Christian neoconservatives in the military. I wonder if it has any connection to the JSFC course being discussed here.