Texas Education Boss Clashes With CNN Host Over Revamped Curriculum Teaching ‘Radical Islam’ Motivated 9/11: ‘That’s What It Was’

Texas Board of Education Chair Aaron Kinsey clashed with CNN host Victor Blackwell over the way the state teaches about the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks — with the guest telling the anchor “radical Islam” is listed as a cause of the tragic events of the day because “that’s what it was.”

Kinsey joined CNN’s First of All with Victor Blackwell one day after  the 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The attacks — including the destruction of the World Trade Center and a hijacked plane being rammed into the Pentagon — were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, who quoted the Quran and ordered his followers to “slay the pagans” in his 1998 fatwa against the West.

The current curriculum teaches students that “radical Islam” inspired the attacks.

Still, Blackwell wondered why it was appropriate to mention Islam while discussing the carnage in the classroom.

“It’s been 25 years and I know that the curriculum is going through a major overhaul, rewriting many sections, why rewrite this portion of the curriculum in this way now?”

Kinsey said the social studies curriculum has been going through an update for five years.

“It’s only appropriate that when we’re studying world history, that we update it to include the events of 9/11… now to the specifics on why we characterized it as ‘radical Islam,’ that’s because it’s exactly what it is. It’s radical Islamic terrorists. That’s what it was.”

He continued, saying Blackwell or anyone else could do a “simple Google search” and see bin Laden and his terrorist thugs were motivated by religion.

“I think that you would characterize those [beliefs] as radical. They are tied to foreign policy, there are some other aspects to [it], but they wanted to expel the United States from the Middle East because they were concerned we were near their holy sites,” Kinsey said. “So I don’t know how else you could characterize the murder of 2,977 people, other than ‘radical.'”

They went back and forth a bit longer on it, with Blackwell saying it was obvious bin Laden was a “jihadist,” but the Texas curriculum fell short because it did not “go through any of those other factors” which may have spurred him to mastermind 9/11.

Blackwell went on, saying he didn’t understand why the new Texas curriculum didn’t mention Al-Qaeda or bin Laden, even though it’s books talk about Adolf Hitler when discussing the Holocaust and Joseph Stalin when talking about the atrocities of the Soviet Union.

“You just name Islam,” he said. “Is that an omission that is intentional?”

“No, and I would disagree with your analysis, because we do talk about fascists, we do talk about Nazis multiple times,” Kinsey told him.

Their exchange came a few minutes after Blackwell started the segment by lamenting the Republican Party under President Donald Trump had moved away from the Muslim-friendly remarks made by ex-President George W. Bush following Sept. 11. Blackwell played a clip of Bush reiterating those comments on Wednesday, where Bush said he felt it was critical to tell Americans “Islam was a religion of peace.”

He noted most Americans do not seem to agree now, with a new Pew survey finding 51% of citizens believe Islam encourages violence more than other religions — up from 26% of Americans who felt that way in early 2002.

Kinsey later told Blackwell he was fixated on a “tiny piece” of the curriculum which merely context and helped students understand “how the world evolved and how we got to where we are today.”

Blackwell protested, saying it was not “tiny” to Muslim students in Texas, before ending the interview there.

Watch above via CNN.

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