Uncle Sam wants U.S. Muslims

[Rasputin]

The Pentagon builds Islamic prayer rooms and hires imams to make military life more appealing.

By Richard Whittle

WASHINGTON – As US troops battle Islamic extremists abroad, the Pentagon and the armed forces are reaching out to Muslims at home.
An underlying goal is to interest more Muslims in the military, which needs officers and troops who can speak Arabic and other relevant languages and understand the culture of places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The effort is also part of a larger outreach. Pentagon officials say they are striving for mutual understanding with Muslims at home and abroad and to win their support for US war aims. Among the efforts to attract and retain Muslim cadets:

• West Point and the other service academies have opened Muslim prayer rooms, as have military installations.

• Imams serve full- and part-time as chaplains at the academies and some bases.

• Top non-Muslim officers and Pentagon officials have taken to celebrating religious events with Muslims overseas and here in the US.

"There is a message here, and that is that Muslims and the Islamic religion are totally compatible with Western values," says Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England in an interview.

For the past two years, Mr. England has hosted an iftar, the feast that ends the daytime fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va. His guests have included ambassadors, leaders of the Muslim-American community, and Muslims who serve in the US armed forces.

President Bush also hosted an iftar at the White House in October, as he has done for several years. Gen. Robert Magnus, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, held one the same month at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington for defense attachés from predominantly Muslim nations.

The US armed services don't recruit by religion, but the Pentagon estimates at least 3,386 Muslims were serving in the US military as of September. No precise figures are available because, while US service members are surveyed on their religion, they aren't required to disclose it. Advocacy groups put the number at 15,000, saying many are reluctant to reveal their religion. African-Americans represent the largest share of Muslims in uniform, they add.

However uncertain the progress, the military is intensifying its outreach.

On June 6 - the anniversary of D-Day, he notes - Mr. England helped dedicate a new Islamic prayer center at the Quantico Marine Corps Base near Washington, whose 6,100 marines include about 24 Muslims, according to Lt. Cmdr. Abuhena Saifulislam, a Navy chaplain who serves as their imam.

The Marines also have allowed Muslims in their ranks at Quantico some dispensations to make it easier to practice their religion, says Lieutenant Commander Saifulislam, a US citizen born and raised in Bangladesh. During Ramadan, "they're allowed to have some time off to prepare for their fasting break and not to go to physical training" while fasting, he says.

Muslim troops say misunderstandings and friction with non-Muslims in uniform arise sometimes, but practicing Islam in a military at war with extremists who profess the same faith isn't a burden, they add.

Petty Officer Third Class Nicholas Burgos, a Sunni Muslim training to be a Navy SEAL, or commando, says instructors sometimes goad him by calling him "Osama bin Burgos" or asking if he's training to help the Taliban. But "it's all in good fun," he insists.

"It's all about how much mental stress you can deal with while you're in training," Petty Officer Burgos says. "I just laugh or have a smirk on my face."

His father, Asadullah Burgos, is the part-time imam at the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., whose roughly 4,000 cadets include 32 Muslims, 12 of whom are foreign students.

"There's been some insults and some taunting, but it's been handled at the cadet level," Imam Burgos says. "Usually that's due to ignorance."

Col. John Cook, the senior chaplain at West Point, says that after media reports about the academy's new Muslim prayer room, he got a call from a self-described "concerned citizen" who fretted that "the Muslims are taking over the world."

"I told him, 'I'm a Christian chaplain, but I have the responsibility to provide for other faith groups,' " Colonel Cook says. Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish cadets all have their own chapels at West Point, he notes.

Marine Sgt. Jamil Alkattan, a Sunni Muslim of Syrian heritage from South Bend, Ind., says his religion, his knowledge of Arabic, and his familiarity with Arab culture were major assets during two tours in Iraq.

Not only was he able to teach fellow marines key Arabic phrases and explain that all Muslims aren't extremists, he says, but he also was able to befriend locals, who brought him vital intelligence. "They would come to me and say, 'I know where bombs are,' and this and that," Sergeant Alkattan says. "I never got to sleep. They would come at night time and tell me, 'Hey, I think these guys [insurgents] are trying to set you guys up,' or, 'I've seen these guys with an IED [improvised bomb].' I think it stopped a lot of things that could have happened."

Under a new Middle East Cultural Outreach Program created by the Marine Corps, Sergeant Alkattan is one of six Arab-American marines selected to be stationed in major American cities as liaisons to the Arab-American community and advisers to recruiters.

The program was conceived by Gunnery Sgt. Jamal Baadani, a Muslim born in Cairo who emigrated to Michigan when he was 10.

"It is not a direct recruiting program," says Sergeant Baadani, but its goal is to educate recruiters to avoid cultural no-nos and foster good relations with Arab-American communities. The "overall objective ... is to develop solid relationships with the Arab and Muslim communities for the 21st and 22nd centuries. This isn't something that's just a Band-Aid treatment."

[Rasputin]

Struggling to fill its depleted ranks using American citizenry, the US military is considering recruiting more non-US citizens, according to Pentagon officials.

The Boston Globe reports that this will include "disputed proposals" like opening recruiting offices overseas and fast-tracking foreigners who join the military for US citizenship.

Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.

The idea of signing up foreigners who are seeking US citizenship is gaining traction as a way to address a critical need for the Pentagon, while fully absorbing some of the roughly one million immigrants that enter the United States legally each year.

The Globe reports that the idea is not without precedent in American history. During the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, foreigners fought in large numbers alongside native-born troops. But one Army official privately expressed concern about the idea, saying it would "smack of the decline of the American empire" - a comparison to the last days of the Roman Empire when its emperors were forced to use foreigners to fight its wars because not enough Roman citizens would volunteer to fight.

Earlier this month, however, The Associated Press reported that the Pentagon announced that "the Navy and Air Force met their recruiting goals last month while the Army and Marine Corps exceeded theirs."

The Army, which is bearing the brunt of the work in Iraq, did the best. It signed up 6,485 new recruits in November compared with its target of 6,150 — meaning 105 percent of its goal.

All the services turned in similar performances in October as well, meaning they so far are meeting their goals for the 2007 budget year that began Oct. 1.

Channel CBS 5 in San Francisco reports that one big reason for this results is that all branches of the military are offering rich financial rewards for those enlisting, as much as $40,000 in some cases. The Kalamazoo Gazette reports on another reason — the military has raised the age limit at which men and women can enlist. In 2005 the age limit was 35 — since then, the Army has raised it to 42, while the other branches of the military have set it at 40.

In October, AP reported on a third reason for the increase in recruitment during the year - lower standards in those being recruited. The US Army, for instance, was able to recruit 2,600 more soldiers using the lower aptitude standards.

Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a private research group, said there is a "fine balance between the need for a certain number of recruits and the standards you set."

"Tests don't tell you the answer to the most critical question for the Army, how will you do in combat?" Goure said. But, he added, accepting too many recruits with low test scores could increase training costs and leave technical jobs unfilled.

The National Priorities Project (NPP), a research group studying the impact of federal spending policies at the community level, reported Friday that despite meeting many of its quantitative goals for 2006, the military fell far below meeting its qualitative goals.

In 2004, 61 percent of active-duty Army recruits were 'high quality,' according to DoD criteria. In 2006, while the Army filled its ranks, only 47 percent — less than half — were 'high quality,' according to the same DoD criteria.

The percentage of new recruits who were regular high school graduates (tier 1 in [Department of Defense (DoD)] parlance) dropped from 84 percent in 2005 to 73 percent in 2006, again falling short of the 90 percent benchmark established by the DoD after decades of research and experience. The percentage in 2004 was 86 percent. Put another way, the percentage of recruits with alternative credentials grew from 13 percent in 2004 to 16 percent in 2005 to 27 percent in 2006, or doubling in just two years.

The NPP also reports that wealthy neighborhoods (with a median household income of $60,000 or more) were more under-represented in recruiting in 2006 while lower- and middle-income areas were over-represented.

The Los Angeles Times reports that there is at least one way to increase the military that remains off the table: reinstating the draft.

"We've been at it for 30-plus years," said Theodore Stroup Jr., a retired lieutenant general and former head of the Army personnel system. "We do not want to go back to a draft."

Supporters of the volunteer force say it is of much higher quality than that of the draft era, which ended in 1973. Critics, however, suggest that the Army already has lowered its standards to meet recruiting goals and would have to lower them even more to meet a larger goal.

Despite the military's support of an all-volunteer force, expanding its size will be expensive. Military experts say that the Pentagon should be able to add 10,000 new troops during the coming year using greater incentives and advertising to boost enrollment, but doing so will cost an additional $1.2 billion.