Posted on 09/25/2003 10:13:31 AM PDT by quidnunc
The arrest of two Muslim-American servicemen based at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (a developing story originally broken by this newspaper), raises some complex questions about the conflicting loyalties of Muslim-American soldiers in the war against radical Islamic terror. Dueling it out are two policy imperatives dear to our tradition of government: equal treatment of all regardless of race and religion, and the need to guarantee national security. The threshold must be high for a policy to curtail one of these fundamental values in favor of defending the other — but it is a threshold that can be met in extreme cases. The ancient imperative of self-defense is such a case, but it remains to be seen whether we have reached that situation.
The complex connections between terrorist organizations, Islamic charities and some mainstream Muslim groups bring up the uncomfortable issue of whether Muslim chaplains and men in the ranks should be treated differently than recruits of other faiths. The military is confident in checking with the Vatican to confirm the character of a Catholic priest, but relying on the judgment of Muslim groups has proven to be less reliable.
Trouble was bound to happen eventually, as the military has sought assistance to approve chaplains from Muslim groups that are themselves questionable. According to Robert Spencer, author of the new book "Onward Muslim Soldiers," the Air Force "in July 2002 asked for help recruiting Muslim chaplains from the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA is subsidized by high-placed Saudi Wahhabis. Many Muslim military chaplains have been trained by the American Muslim Foundation's American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council; the AMF has been investigated for suspicions of funding terrorism." Because of this system, many Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military have strong Wahhabi beliefs. The risk of conflicting loyalties is not limited to the chaplain corps.
Considering that there are only approximately 4,500 Muslims in uniform, their record of religious-based crimes is significant. The most notorious case of conflicting loyalties was that of Sgt. Hasan Akbar, who killed two of his commanding officers in a grenade attack in Kuwait last winter and shouted, "You guys are coming into our countries, and you're going to rape our women and kill our children." As Mr. Spencer pointed out to us yesterday, "He explicitly identified himself as a Muslim, and not an American."
The author provides other serious examples of enemies within the ranks. Naval Reservist Semi Osman was charged last May with illegally trying to become a U.S. citizen (he had altered birth certificates and other related papers) and possession of a handgun whose serial number was altered. Maj. Ali A. Mohamed, an Egyptian, joined the Army as a resident alien in the late 1980s even though he was on a State Department terrorist watch list. After leaving the Army in 1989, he joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad, worked directly with Osama bin Laden and was charged with involvement in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998. Army reservist Jeffrey Leon Battle was indicted last year for conspiring to wage war against the United States, and according to the Justice Department, "enlisting in the Reserves to receive military training to use against America." He planned to go to Afghanistan to join up with the Taliban.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Less than a week after Army Chaplain Capt. James J. Yee was detained on suspicion of espionage, a second U.S. serviceman stationed at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist camp — Air Force translator Ahmad al-Halabi — has been arrested and charged with the same crime.
Moreover, three other military personnel at Guantanamo are said to be under investigation for possessing classified information, and for having improper contact with prisoners.
Al-Halabi is thought by prosecutors to have been spying for Syria.
The possibility of an espionage ring at Guantanamo that makes use of American traitors — and the near-certainty that the accused men had criminal relationships with the Guantanamo detainees — raises two troubling, and not unrelated, questions:
• Why does the Pentagon rely on radical Islamist groups to advise it on the hiring of Muslim chaplains?
• Can America's military presumptively trust its Muslim personnel as it conducts a war against extremist Islam?
Indeed, America presumptively recoils from the notion of group guilt.
As well it should.
But it remains that while all Muslims are not al Qaeda operatives, all al Qaeda operatives uncovered so far have been Muslim.
Meanwhile, simple prudence requires that Washington assume many Muslim nations — especially Syria, Iran and Libya — are running spying operations against America.
And are using American traitors.
The unpleasant fact is that some of these traitors are all too likely to be Arab-Americans or Muslim converts like the presumed-innocent Capt. Yee — or, for that matter, the convicted-in-a-court-of-law John Walker Lindh.
What this means is that the government — especially the military — must not permit political correctness to interfere with the preservation of national security.
-snip-
(The New York Post editorial, September 25, 2003)
To Read This Article Click Here
I would hope our military would not be that stupid.
Are you saying that the tenets post-modernism and multiculturalism are correct, therefore we must allow Muslims free run of the military even though there is a growing body of evidenced that among them are an undetermined number of Fifth Columnists (gad, I haven't heard that term used since WW II)?
Wahhabism is a movement committed to the destruction of Western civilization. It should be treated the same way we treated Naziism and Communism.
The 100th Battalion, 442d Regimental Team cited in War Department General Orders 78, 12 September 1945:
The 100th Battalion, 442d Regimental Team, is cited for outstanding accomplishment in combat during the period 15 to 30 October 1944, near Bruyeres, Biffontaine, and in the Foret Domaniale de Champ, France. During a series of actions that played a telling part in the 442d Regimental Team's operation which spearheaded a divisional attack on the Seventh Army front, this unit displayed extraordinary courage, endurance, and soldierly skill. Jumping off in the attack on the morning of 15 October 1944, the 100th Battalion fought an almost continuous 4-day firelight in freezing and rainy weather. through jungle-like forests, to wrest the strongly fortified Hill A, dominating Bruyeres, from a fanatically resisting enemy. When, during the course of the attack, the progress of an assault company was delayed by a strong point consisting of 50 enemy riflemen and an SP gun, a second company of the battalion swept in on the enemy force from the flank and completely routed it. To attack Hill A proper, the battalion was forced to cross 150 yards of open terrain covered by seven enemy machine guns and heavy automatic weapon fire. Following an artillery barrage, limited because a draw lay between the two high hills, the battalion, with one company acting as a base of fire, launched a frontal attack. Covered by friendly tank fire, waves of platoon after platoon zigzagged across the open field into a hail of hostile fire. So skillfully coordinated was the attack that the strongly fortified hostile positions were completely overrun, numerous casualties were inflicted on the enemy, and the capture of the town was assured. During the 3-day operation, beginning on 21 October 1944, that resulted in the capture of Biffontaine, the 100th Battalion fought 2 miles into enemy territory as a self-contained task force. On the third day of the attack, the battalion launched an assault to capture the isolated town. In the first surprise onslaught the battalion captured large quantities of supplies and ammunition which it turned against the enemy. Counterattacking enemy troops and tanks approached and fired point-blank into their positions. Shouting defiance in the face of demands for surrender, the men of the 100th Battalion fired their rifles and threw captured hand grenades at the enemy tanks. Bitter fighting at close range resulted in the capture of the entire town. During this action the battalion captured 40 prisoners, killed or wounded 40 of the enemy, and destroyed or captured large quantities of ammunition and enemy materiel. On 27 October 1944 the 100th Battalion was again committed to the attack. Going to the rescue of the "lost battalion,'' 141st Infantry Regiment, it fought without respite for 4 days against a fanatical enemy that was determined to keep the "lost battalion" isolated and force its surrender. Impelled by the urgency of its mission, the battalion fought forward, risking encirclement as slower moving units left its flanks exposed. Fighting yard by yard through a minefield the battalion was stopped by an enemy strong point on the high ground which he had made the key to his defense. As the terrain precluded a flanking movement, the battalion was forced to the only alternative of a frontal attack against a strongly entrenched enemy. Attacking in waves of squads and platoons, and firing from the hip as they closed in to grenade range, the valiant men of the 110th Battalion reduced the enemy defense lines within a few hours. Between 50 and 60 enemy dead were found at their automatic weapon emplacements and dugouts. On the fourth day, although exhausted and reduced through casualties to about half its normal strength, the battalion fought doggedly forward against strong enemy small-arms and mortar fire until it contacted the isolated unit.
The extraordinary heroism, daring determination, and esprit de Corps displayed by the men of the 100 Battalion. 442d Regimental Team, during these actions live as an inspiration and add glory to the highest traditions of the armed forces of the United States.
(General Orders 360, Headquarters Seventh Army, 3 August 1945, as approved by the Commanding General European Theater (Main).)
Ahem. The First Amendment DOES NOT APPLY to those in military service, the Uniform Code of Military Justice is the highest law.
I know of many qualified individuals who could not serve because there was information developed during a security investigation showing that they were either a threat to national security, or vulnerable to being blackmailed into becoming one.
That's Security, and it had better bloody well trump Diversity. . .
Yours is a specious point since neither editorial is advocating segregation.
What they are arguing for — and quite properly so — is for more careful selection and heightened surveillance of military personnel belonging to what is unarguably a problem group.
Hey, Washington!
This really IS a war against Islam, because Islam has picked a war with US! They've been broadcasting their plans to infiltrate us through legal immigration and Islamization of the host countries.
The First Amendment was not intended to be a suicide pact, and the rights of the adherants of this bastard death-cult to practice their seditious mischief end when they practice treason.
I hope they have one of those cool mass hangings when they get all these GITMO quislings. Right outside the chain link fence where the GITMO prisoners are kept.
And precisely how are we to determine which Muslims are which?
Give us a concise summation of just how we might do this.
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