A ridiculous article last Thursday in UCLA’s student newspaper, The Daily Bruin, reveals the mindset of those who believe that “Islamophobia” is a bigger threat than jihad terror, and reveals yet again the insidious agenda of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

“It takes a lot of work to marginalize 3.5 million Americans at once,” writes the article’s author, Omar Said, “but the ROTC did just that when it stereotyped Muslims to portray enemy combatants.”

Who are American troops facing in Afghanistan? Methodists?

Said complained:

During a training held by UCLA’s and California State University, Fresno’s Army ROTCs in early April, students acting as enemy soldiers in combat simulations wore clothing commonly worn by civilians in Arab countries. The clothing included kufiyyas and iqals, which are better known as the flowing scarves Arab men traditionally wear on their heads.

It might seem incongruous and wrong for the enemy combatants in the exercise to be dressed as civilians, until one recalls that the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the rest don’t usually march out in full uniform. Also, they often base their activity in civilian areas in order to claim that U.S. strikes hit non-combatants so that they might win points in the ongoing propaganda war.

In any case, the civilian dress was not the only aspect of this exercise that enraged Said. He noted:

At one point in the training, Maj. Tyrone Vargas, the executive officer of the battalion and a UCLA assistant adjunct professor of military science, held a rocket-propelled grenade above his head and said “Allahu akbar” in the presence of cadets. Vargas later told The Bruin that this had been a way to teach cadets how they would need to decide whether people approach them as combatants or in celebration.

Said then goes on to point out that the phrase “Allahu akbar” is “a large part of daily Muslim worship and life,” which has nevertheless “become a common element in Islamophobic jokes and stereotypes about terrorists.”

Now, why would that be?

“Training future military combatants is one thing; perpetuating discriminatory stereotypes is another,” Said fumed. He quoted Marwa Rifahie of CAIR’s Los Angeles chapter: “This training negligently promotes an image of Muslims as dangerous.”

The idea that this is a gratuitous affront is a telling indication of how far the public discourse today has strayed from reality. Some Muslims are dangerous; some aren’t. CAIR’s objective is apparently to attach such a stigma to preparations to counter those who are dangerous that such preparations will be dropped altogether.

But back in the real world, everyone should recognize that CAIR’s statement is as absurd as it is subversive. Does the U.S. face a jihad threat today? Obviously it does. Do many of these jihadis wear traditional Islamic garb and scream “Allahu akbar” when attacking? Once again, that is patently obvious. But a ROTC exercise that features the enemies of U.S. soldiers wearing Islamic garb and screaming “Allahu akbar” is “Islamophobic” and somehow endeavors to “marginalize 3.5 million Americans.”

Said even claimed that “the university cannot expect these students on campus to feel safe or comfortable knowing that all it takes for them to be labeled an enemy combatant is to say an often used phrase or wear an outfit common in their country.”

Really? And when exactly did ROTC or anyone else claim that everyone who wears traditional Islamic garb or says “Allahu akbar” is an “enemy combatant”? Never, of course, but reality seldom intrudes upon those who wax indignant about “Islamophobia.”

Said’s article is of a piece with successful efforts by CAIR and other Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S. to get all mention of Islam and jihad removed from counter-terror training, an effort that came to fruition in 2011, when Barack Obama mandated that there be no mention of Islam in the U.S. government’s anti-terror strategy, which he dubbed “Countering Violent Extremism.” The subtext was and is that because not all Muslims are jihad terrorists, it is somehow wrong for the U.S. military to prepare to counter those who are.

The end result will be that the U.S. is ignorant and unprepared in the face of the advancing jihad. Is that what Omar Said and CAIR want?