Are we going to occupy Iran and Syria, too?

I got a letter the other day from a faculty member at the University of Maryland’s overseas division in Europe. UM is the primary university providing classes for U.S. service members abroad.

Here it is:

The reason that I am writing today is to inform you of something rather unsettling. Last weekend, we had a Europe-wide faculty meeting at our headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. At that meeting, we were told that the U of MD military education contracts will be expanding soon to Iraq, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Djibouti, and other locations in the Middle East and Africa. This comes as no surprise.

What is startling is that the U.S. military has also asked us to prepare a bid for educational programs in IRAN and SYRIA (and, oddly enough, France — where we have had no presence since NATO was expelled in 1967 — probably a function of the new conservative government there). We will be bidding on an education contract to these locations at the end of November.

“This is a truly ominous development. The U of MD overseas program follows the military around the world — thus clearly the contingencies for an occupation of several Middle Eastern countries is not only being contemplated, but actually set up.

Could someone with an expense account from a major media corporation still interested in journalism please look into this?