In this photo taken, Thursday, May 10, 2012, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon. A course for U.S. military officers was teaching that America is at war with Muslims, suggesting the U.S. ultimately may have to wipe out Islamic holy cities like Mecca and Medina just as it destroyed Hiroshima in World War II. That teaching is counter to repeated assertions by U.S. officials over the last decade that the U.S. is at war against terrorists who distort Islam _ not against the religion itself. The Defense Department suspended the course at the Joint Forces Staff College last month due to the inflammatory materials, but details of what was taught were first revealed Thursday. Dempsey called the material objectionable, irresponsible and against American values on freedom of religion. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In this photo taken, Thursday, May 10, 2012, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon. A course for U.S. military officers was teaching that America is at war with Muslims, suggesting the U.S. ultimately may have to wipe out Islamic holy cities like Mecca and Medina just as it destroyed Hiroshima in World War II. That teaching is counter to repeated assertions by U.S. officials over the last decade that the U.S. is at war against terrorists who distort Islam _ not against the religion itself. The Defense Department suspended the course at the Joint Forces Staff College last month due to the inflammatory materials, but details of what was taught were first revealed Thursday. Dempsey called the material objectionable, irresponsible and against American values on freedom of religion. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

(MintPress) – A course taught at a U.S. military college has caused an uproar for training students that Islam in general, not just terrorists, is America’s enemy.

The class, taught by Army Lt. Col Matthew Dooley at the Joint Forces Staff College in Virginia, was suspended in late April after a student complained about the materials presented.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said, “It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound.”

In a course presentation posted online, some themes covered in the class included destroying Islamic holy cities Mecca and Medina, reducing Islam from a religion to cult status and threatening Saudi Arabia with starvation.

“They hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit,” the instructor, Army Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, said in the presentation last July.

He also said, “We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam’…It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

Lt. Col Dooley taught the optional course at the college for about a year, but following the investigation, he has been suspended from teaching, though he still holds his job at the college.

The college for professional military members, including lieutenant colonels, colonels, commanders and Navy captains, teaches midlevel officers and government workers about topics related to planning and executing war. However, exactly how this class was permitted to take place is unclear.

“We are looking at how that course was approved, what motivated the individual to adopt that — it was an elective, but what motivated that elective for being part of the curriculum. We are looking across the institutions that provide our professional military education now to make sure there’s nothing like that out there,” Gen. Dempsey added.

Mark Mardell of the BBC mentioned that it is amazing “that all those commanders, captains and colonels must have sat through the course and not felt the need to tell someone that something rather weird was going on.”

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