Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Shooting reveals tensions over Muslims in military

WASHINGTON -- The killings of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, by an Army psychiatrist who also was a Muslim set off a rancorous debate Friday that once again spotlighted the fear among Muslims in America that they'll be collectively found guilty for the actions of one man.

Vitriolic exchanges filled Internet sites devoted to military affairs, with some posters arguing that Muslims should be barred from the armed services. News reporters deluged the Silver Spring, Md., mosque where the Fort Hood shooting suspect once worshipped, demanding to know what the Quran, Islam's holy book, has to say about such events. One asked if the suspect, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was born in Virginia and lived his whole life in the U.S., spoke with an "accent."

Anita Husseini, who also worships at the Muslim Community Center, said she didn't know Hasan, but she knew that what he's accused of doing would affect her life and those of others.

"My heart cried last night," said Husseini, a hairdresser. "Every time the Muslims try to get up, something goes 'boom' and pushes us back. What a crazy person decides does not define me or Islam."

"They're trying so hard to pin this on Islam," said Arshad Qureshi, the mosque's chairman. "They're working so hard to make it about religion."

U.S. military officials repeated Friday that the motive behind Thursday's shooting remains unclear. Hasan remains unconscious after a civilian police officer shot him four times, and he hasn't spoken to investigators.

Investigators seized his computer after news reports said that someone named Nidal Hasan had posted messages comparing suicide bombing missions to Japanese kamikaze pilots. Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the base commander at Fort Hood, said that witnesses to Thursday's mayhem reported that Hasan had shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic, as he opened fire with two handguns on clusters of soldiers who were waiting for medical examinations and other processes in the sprawling base's Soldier Readiness Processing Center. The phrase is a traditional Muslim invocation.

Cone and others, however, turned away questions about Hasan's religion, and Cone said there's no evidence that Hasan was part of a wider plot.

Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a Pentagon spokesman, said there was no doubt within the military hierarchy of the loyalty of Muslim service members. He said the military will take steps to make sure "everyone is treated with dignity and respect."

Posters to Facebook and participants in chat rooms and popular military sites were less circumspect, revealing a bitterness that Muslims say they've often felt since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

One Facebook page was titled "Against muslims in military! ... or in presidency" -- a reference to the false claims that President Obama is a Muslim.

Another commenter wrote: "Whoever you are you're an idiot. It's a shame you weren't at Ft. Hood."

Muslims make up less than 0.3 percent of America's active duty military forces. Of the roughly 548,000 soldiers in the U.S. Army, there are 2,500 Muslims, 1,500 of them on active duty. By comparison, 105,000 claim Roman Catholicism as their religion, and 99,000 say they're Baptists. More than 1,800 soldiers say they're Jewish, surpassed by the nearly 2,500 who identified themselves as atheists. More than 101,000 list no religious affiliation.

That was the case with Hasan, according to Pentagon officials, even though interviews at the Silver Spring mosque make it clear that he was an observant Muslim who prayed daily -- and often in uniform.

Mona Ayad, the administrative assistant at the center, said that Hasan would come to prayer quite often, volunteer at the mosque, contribute money for the poor as Islam requires and answer phones.

He wasn't a loner, but he wasn't particularly social either. He stopped coming over the summer, apparently when he was transferred to Fort Hood.

Imam Mohamed Abdullahi Sheikh Mohamed, the mosque's chief cleric, said he knew Hasan from his frequent appearances at the mosque and knew he was a military doctor.

However, he said Hasan never brought up his work with the U.S. military.

"He was not violent; he seemed calm. ... I was shocked," Mohamed said. "It's absolutely unacceptable what he did. ... He was a doctor. He was supposed to help people."