Iran is preparing a new generation of jihadists to go to war against the so-called West (read: non-Islamic nations) in schools, the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) finds in a report that analyzed 115 textbooks and teacher guides in all grades.  I must say, the results of the study aren’t surprising in the least, and actually I figured this was happening all along.  One doesn’t just say one day, “hey, I want to be a jihadi.”

What is new is there are more descriptive phrases used for the United States than I had previously known about.  Not only is the United States the “Great Satan,” according to Iranian textbooks, the U.S. is also the “World Devourer” and the “Arrogant One.”  If I, as a citizen of the United States, wasn’t so arrogant, I might give such phrases more thought.  Alas though, I am still partial to being considered a citizen of the Great Satan.  It just has that ring to it that none of the other nicknames has.

From the summary of the findings (pdf) in a sociology class for grade 11:

…America is known as an Imperialist country, which embarks on military intervention
wherever it sees that its interests are in danger. It does not refrain from massacring
people, from burying alive the soldiers of the opposite side and from using mass
destruction weapons (as it did with Iraq). It makes use of atomic bombs (the
bombardment of Japan). It uses the weapon of human rights in order to suppress the
justice seekers (like its abuse against Islamic Iran). It creates the greatest dictatorships
and the violent and torturous security-oriented regimes, and defends them. It also does
not feel uncomfortable whatsoever while human rights are violated (Iran in the time of
the Shah after 1953). Its security system runs the largest smuggling networks, but it
makes use of the pretext of drug smuggling in order to arrest those who oppose its
policies in other countries (the case of Panama).

What would, and should, be your reaction to America?

Interesting these topics come up.  I had a wonderful discussion with the curator of a British flight training school earlier today for a freelance job I am doing (an article I intend to share with readers when completed).  The gentleman was trained in one of six Royal Air Force centers in the United States that officially opened up pre-Pearl Harbor and moved to the United States following the conclusion of the war to be with his wife, whom he met while he was in training.

Naturally, the topic of Japan came up and we discussed in brief the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Out or pure curiosity, I asked him what he thought of a hydrogen bomb being dropped on either city, and his response was nothing more than eloquent.  Without directly quoting him, he told me if it wasn’t for the bomb, there’s no question in his mind the war would have gone on for at least another five years and that many, many more Japanese cities would have been raised to the ground because of the materials used during the time to build homes.  So in his mind, and in the mind of countless historians, the hydrogen bomb actually saved lives on all sides of the war.

Islamists however have the uncanny ‘reasoning’ to take all context out of a situation and declare what they want in any situation.  They can negate why such a bomb might have been used to push their point forward, only because the other contextual history has no meaning to their stated goals.  In the case of school curriculum, it’s a great way to teach because no one in the classrooms knows enough to challenge the assertions.

Take for instance the following excerpt from a Islamic Culture and Religious Instruction textbook for the 8th grade:

Islam never orders [to go to] Jihad and battle for [the purpose of] conquering countries,
taking lands, exploiting people and imposing faiths and cultures. But, if people are
ignorant, live in poverty and deprivation, and the oppressors and the Arrogant Ones plunder the product of their labor – in such a situation the army of Islam knows its duty,
which is helping these deprived ones and save them from the Arrogant Ones’ claws…

If the Arrogant Ones close the way to preaching and reason and prevent guidance and
preaching, the order of Jihad is issued according to the discretion of the Prophet, or the
Imam, or the Muslims’ leader, so that the army of Islam would make the Arrogant Ones
fall in a holy Jihad and heavy attack, and pave the way for free preaching and for the
people’s awakening and their redemption.

Initiative Jihad is, then, a kind of defense as well, defense of the deprived people’s
rights, defense of the people’s honor, and defense of the rights of the oppressed.

But the very first jihads were nothing short of offensive battles to conquer lands.  The only rational defense as the first jihad wars being defensive is that it took offensive strikes to defend the Islamic empire, but for whatever reason Islamists can’t even come to that realization.

The full report (pdf) is filled with many more examples within Iranian textbooks teaching children both incorrect history and preparing children for war.  There’s another area within the same region that uses similar textbook styles, and it should be safe to question why Iran wants its youth to end up like children in Palestine.