Muslims in the U.S. military

A.P. photo/ David Guttenfelder -- Ft. Hood mourns

The U.S. military worries that some Muslims may turn on fellow soldiers.  This has happened, but not often.

Over all, the Pentagon wants more Muslims to join up.  It offers Muslims a special recruiting bonus and fast track to citizenship.  The U.S. needs translators and soldiers familiar with customs in Muslims countries.  It knows of about 3,000 Muslim GIs, but suspects there are thousands more who think it prudent to conceal their identity.  For one thing, they don’t want insurgents to single them out or to punish their relatives living in Muslim countries.  Several Muslim soldiers said they had been uncomfortable going into combat zones in Muslim areas, but then became proud of their service.  Some re-enlisted   (Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall St. J., 11/8, A13).

I am proud of them, too.

During WWII, many Americans of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry fought well for the U.S., though their homelands were on the opposite side and the U.S. treated Japanese-Americans as suspects.

Socialists believed that workers from different countries should not fight each other in WWI, but the German Social Democrats voted funds for the war and Socialists participated fully in the war. 

Some Jews regret that fellow Jews fought each other on both sides of that war.  That makes some sense, considering how useless the war was.  Jews traditionally were loyal citizens of their countries, though some of their governments were not reciprocally loyal.  In eastern pogroms, returning veterans committed some pogroms.

Israel exempts Arabs from military service, lest they be put into a position of having to fight their own families.  However, it also exempts them from the non-military alternative of national service, as in teaching and medical care.  That does not seem justified.  

For my piece on the Ft. Hood massacre, click here