Dear President Trump,

We write to call your attention to the decision by the United States Army War College (USAWC) to “postpone”—but in effect to rescind—its speaking invitation to military historian Raymond Ibrahim.

Ibrahim had been invited five months earlier to lecture on the topic of his most recent book "Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West" (2018). One week before the scheduled lecture, USAWC decided to postpone his talk after receiving a letter of protest from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Ibrahim is of Egyptian origin, fluent in Arabic, and an expert on the centuries-long armed conflicts between the West and Islam. Yet the USAWC has capitulated to pressure by CAIR, which the United States Department of Justice referred to as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in terrorist funding in its 2007 suit against the Holy Land Foundation.

Ibrahim’s disinvitation is part of a national trend. An increasing number of colleges and universities disinvite speakers unpopular with loud minorities on and off campus. Outright mob violence has been used to prevent talks by noted scholars such as Heather Mac Donald at Claremont McKenna College and Charles Murray at Middlebury College.

However, the current case appears to be unprecedented. So far as we know, Ibrahim is the first speaker to be disinvited from an American military educational institution.

Ibrahim’s disinvitation affects American national security as well as American freedom. America’s present and future military leadership needs to be fully informed about threats to America—and they need to know the history and religious roots of Islamist opposition to Western military forces. USAWC’s deference to CAIR threatens American interests, and endangers the lives of American soldiers.

CAIR has maligned Ibrahim, an ethnic Egyptian, as a “racist” and enabler of “white nationalism.” Its representations should not be taken at face value. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has written extensively about CAIR’s ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The United Arab Emirates, an American ally, has designated CAIR as a terrorist group, due to its ties to those two groups. No American government institution should give the benefit of the doubt to an accusation by CAIR. Such accusations are typically unfounded and are really meant to paralyze the good judgment of institutions that seek to be fair-minded.

We urge you to use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency to call on USAWC Commandant Gen. John Kem and Provost Dr. James Breckenridge to restore Raymond Ibrahim’s lecture. We also urge you to direct the Department of Defense to set up new procedures to ensure that such pressures do not in the future prevent speakers from addressing audiences at military educational institutions.

Respectfully yours,