by Patrick Appel
A reader writes:
The US Army Command and General Staff College is only one of dozens of American military-educational institutions that enroll students from Muslim countries. For Brownback to claim that Leavenworth is where "these relationships are built with foreign officers, particularly in the Islamic world" -- as if that happens at Leavenworth alone -- could charitably be described as disingenuous, though "stupid" is probably a more accurate term.
In my Signal Officer Basic Course at Ft. Gordon, Georgia, we had 10 foreign students in my class alone -- and there were easily a half-dozen classes in residence at any one time -- including one from Jordan, one from Saudi Arabia, and one from Egypt.
Foreign students regularly enroll at the National Defense University -- and from the region, dozens at the Near East-South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at NDU -- at advanced technical schools (every branch in the Army -- infantry, armor, aviation, etc. has its own school), at the Army War College, and at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
Being a former Army guy, I can't even speak to the dozens of military-educational facilities offered by the other services, though I have personal knowledge of Muslim-world officers at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, and at the Joint Special Operations University at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
In other words, officers from Muslim-world countries are scattered throughout the US military-educational system. CGSC does not "relations" make.