Originally published at Yahoo News 

A shocking course taught to mid-to-high level U.S. military officers asserted that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, including the destruction of Islam‘s holiest cities and the threatened starvation of Saudi Arabia, would be necessary in order to defeat Islamic terrorism because “there is no such thing as moderate Islam.”

Last month, Wired reported that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ordered the entire U.S. military to review its training regimen to ensure that no anti-Muslim material was being taught after the Pentagon halted a class at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia which reportedly taught inflammatory material about Islam.

But the full extent of what was being taught has only just now come to light.

Wired now reports that the course contained a presentation on “A Counter-Jihad Op Design Model” calling for “total war” against all Muslims that would include “taking war to civilian population[s] wherever necessary,” the destruction of entire cities and the threat of starvation of the Saudi population in order to reduce Islam to a “cult status.”

“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam’,” Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, who delivered the lectures, asserted in a July 2011 presentation.

“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 then proposes a possible four-step plan to destroy Islam. In Phase Three, “Islam [is] reduced to a cult status” and “Saudi Arabia is threatened with starvation.”

International laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, which protect civilian populations are “no longer relevant,” Dooley argues, allowing U.S. forces to emulate “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima [and] Nagasaki” to achieve “Mecca and Medina[‘s] destruction.”

“Some of these actions offered for consideration here will not be seen as ‘political correct’ in the eyes of many,” Dooley acknowledges, a great understatement. But he insists they are necessary to defeat Islamic extremism.

“Ultimately, we can do very little in the West to decide this matter short of waging total war.”

Dooley points out that his shocking plan is “not the official policy of the United States government” and his views are intended “to generate dynamic discussion and thought.” The course he taught was cancelled by top Pentagon officials after they learned of its contents.

But the fact that such a course existed, and was used to instruct high-ranking U.S. military officers — the future military leaders of America — could be seen by many Muslims as proof that the United States really is at war with Islam.

Many in the Muslim world are wary of America’s intentions, and a host of incidents — some inadvertent, others intentional — have stoked their suspicions. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C, President George W. Bush used the word “Crusade” to describe the nascent War on Terror, a poor choice of words but no indication of a war against Islam. Indeed, Bush repeatedly reached out to the Muslim world and much effort was made to “win Muslim hearts and minds.”

That outreach has continued under the current administration, with President Obama delivering speeches in Egypt and in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim country — in which he highlighted the commonalities between American and Islamic culture.

“America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition,” he said in Cairo in June 2009. “Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”