[MediaMole]

Doesn't matter what ethnicity the guy is if he is viewed as a devout muslim. I'm probably giving the intelligence services too much credit. It would take long-term strategic thinking to train a West Point guy in Islam, have him convert, and send him to Syria to "study Islam."

He was almost certainly turned by Syrian intelligence once he got there. Assuming he wasn't a traitor before he got there.

[aristeides]

He was almost certainly turned by Syrian intelligence once he got there. Assuming he wasn't a traitor before he got there.

The Ba'athist government of Hafez al Asad was very hostile to fundamentalist Moslems. They shelled the city of Hama (sp?) and killed a lot of people in order to suppress a fundamentalist rebellion. The Asad family and their ruling class are Alawites, a heretical sect of Shiites.