Why was the US military teaching "total war" on Islam?

[robertlouis]

http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18030105

Interesting article by the BBC's north American political editor, Mark Mardell. And it seems legit, according to the response.

[Prospero]

Interesting indeed - and oddly, it isn't in today's issue of the New York Times.

A whole year of potential military commanders were being taught that the US might, ultimately, have to nuke Mecca and Medina.

[Stavros]

Long before the Irish 'volunteers' who were Roman Catholics were bombing and murdering their way through the UK, I think the English attitude to Catholicism was not much different, with the exception of a military plan to destroy Rome. Had they spent as much time trying to work out the political ambitions of the Iranians, the Saudis, al-Qaeda, the Taliban et al, we might be seeing people who are sworn enemies talking to each other. There will always be political conflicts, none of them are beyond a solution. And I don't believe, so far, that any Jihadis in the UK -or anywhere else- have assumed that blowing up Canterbury Cathedral would rock this Christian state to its foundations...

[robertlouis]

Long before the Irish 'volunteers' who were Roman Catholics were bombing and murdering their way through the UK, I think the English attitude to Catholicism was not much different, with the exception of a military plan to destroy Rome. Had they spent as much time trying to work out the political ambitions of the Iranians, the Saudis, al-Qaeda, the Taliban et al, we might be seeing people who are sworn enemies talking to each other. There will always be political conflicts, none of them are beyond a solution. And I don't believe, so far, that any Jihadis in the UK -or anywhere else- have assumed that blowing up Canterbury Cathedral would rock this Christian state to its foundations...

Hmmmm. The UK is a "christian" state by statute rather than conviction, these days. There would be a much greater and longer outcry if a Westfield shopping mall was bombed without any loss of human life. Mammon triumphant.