Arabs in Military Try to Rise Above Massacre
WASHINGTON (Nov. 6) — The shooting rampage at Fort Hood could make life noticeably more difficult for Arabs and Muslims serving in the U.S. military.
Soon after the killings, witnesses said that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged gunman, had shouted “Allahu Akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great,” as he fired. Meanwhile, a video played repeatedly on cable television of him wearing the white dishdasha and skullcap of an observant Muslim. The clip was recorded just hours before the attack that killed 13 people and wounded at least 28 others, reports said.
For those who believe Muslims and Arab-Americans — Hasan’s parents were Palestinian — constitute a dangerous “fifth column,” the tragedy provided further evidence.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested that all Muslim Army officers should face special debriefings. “If I’m going to be deployed in a foxhole, if I’m going to be sticking in an outpost,” he said, “I got to know the guy next to me is not going to want to kill me.”
Nidal Malik Hasan
Allen West, a Republican recruit for a House seat in Florida and a retired Army officer who served at Fort Hood, was more blunt, saying that the attack “is proof the enemy is infiltrating our military.”
Similar rhetoric was heard two years ago when the U.S. Military Academy at West Point dedicated its first Muslim prayer room. Investor’s Business Daily criticized the Army for “a show of blind tolerance” that increased the chances of “Islamist infiltration.”
Some of the suspicions about Muslims in uniform arose after Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, an African-American convert to Islam, killed two officers and wounded 14 others in a grenade attack in Kuwait a few days before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Akbar, who was later sentenced to death by a military court, said he was upset that U.S. troops planned to kill his fellow Muslims.
Relatives of Hasan, a psychiatrist about to be deployed to Afghanistan, said he was often harassed for being a Muslim after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and wanted to leave the military.
The Pentagon says there are 3,546 self-identified Muslims in the military. Muslim groups say there as as many as 15,000 because many list no religious preference in their records. Hasan is among nearly 300,000 of 1.4 million active-duty service members who didn’t list a religion.
Ray Hanania, a Chicago radio talk show host and co-founder of the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military, condemned Hasan’s alleged actions as the work of a troubled individual. But he said many Arab-American and Muslim service members can tell stories of prejudice in the ranks.
“There are jokes about Arabs,” said Hanania, who is Christian. “Or someone saying, ‘Why did your people attack us?’ Or it’s a lack of knowledge about Islam. Do you guys believe in a different God? Or, ‘If we go to war, can I really count on you stand with me?’ I don’t think everybody gets those questions.”
Former Army Capt. James Yee, who served as Muslim Army chaplain at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, said harassment can take a toll on Muslim service members. Yee himself was accused of espionage in 2003 and spent 76 days in solitary confinement in a Navy brig before all charges were dropped.
“There is absolutely no excuse justifying the criminal actions” at Fort Hood,” he said. “But the military also needs to better address racial, religious and gender harassment issues. They all do occur much more than is ever reported. That I know from firsthand experience as a chaplain who often dealt with these issues from soldiers, as well as experiencing it for myself.”
Life in the military has been tough for those with Middle Eastern backgrounds for years, says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. “In every war, the enemy ‘gets generalized,’” he said. “We did it with the Hun and gook and Japs and now it’s hajis and rag heads. It is hard but it’s a special tribute to these young men and women that they’re able to weather that and continue to serve with distinction.”
In 2003, Gen. John Abizaid, the grandson of Lebanese immigrants and a fluent Arabic speaker, was promoted as head of U.S. Central Command, managing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Five years later, Michael Monsoor, who died throwing himself on a grenade to save his fellow Navy SEALs in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006, became the first Arab-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
When Colin Powell went on “Meet the Press” to endorse Barack Obama for president amid Internet rumors that the candidate was a Muslim, he noted a photo of a mother grieving in Arlington National Cemetery’s Section 60, final resting place for the dead from Iraq and Afghanistan. She clutched a grave marker that “had a crescent and star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan,” said Powell, the first African-American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “And he was an American.”
Despite Thursday’s attack, Arab-American and Muslim soldiers are likely to remain in high demand as language and cultural translators in both war zones.
“I watch the news and know what they’re saying” on right-wing talk shows about Arabs and Muslims, said Souhaid Elkoun, a Marine Corps reservist who served as a translator in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. “Reality is another thing.”
Elkoun, 27, a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in Morocco, said he was treated well by other soldiers because of his language skills. Commanders always gave him days off to observe Islamic holidays.
Indeed, the military has made great strides in educating troops about the culture and religion of the lands in which they are fighting, said Louay Safi of the Islamic Society of North America. But isolated instances of abuse are still reported, and he said Muslim military chaplains — all 14 of them — are concerned about a backlash after the Fort Hood shootings. “Their fear is somebody will try to blame it on the community and not look at it as an individual case,” he said.
Eric Rahman, 35, isn’t worried. An Iraqi-American who grew up with Muslim traditions, the Army reservist from Louisville, Ky., took part in the U.S. invasion of his parents’ homeland. “The military couldn’t carry on the operations they have without the skill sets” brought by soldiers like himself, he said.
But when asked why he and others like him serve in uniform at a time when the image of Arabs and Muslims has taken a beating, his answer is clear: “All these people who have raised their right hand to serve from the Arab-American community are doing it as Americans, not just as Arabs.”
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