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07-10-2004, 03:46 AM
By Peggy Fletcher Stack and Linda Fantin
The Salt Lake Tribune
Like many other Muslims in the U.S. military, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was a citizen of two worlds: the American West and the Islamic East. Throughout the saga of his captivity, the worlds constantly collided.
On Thursday, the U.S. military hinted that Hassoun's capture by Islamic militants may have been staged even as angry neighbors in the Middle East attacked him as a traitor.
"I believe my family is being targeted in Lebanon," said Hassoun's brother, Sami. "We are a very big family, couple thousand. To see a picture of an American Marine -- they don't accept it, they don't understand."
Much like Japanese Americans during World War II, many of the roughly 14,000 self-identified Muslims in the U.S. military face questions about their loyalty to country. Add to that suspicions about their fealty to faith, coming from fellow believers in the Islamic world.
"Muslims have to prove their loyalty again and again," said Iqbal Hossain, president of the Khadeeja Islamic Center in West Valley City. Allegations that Hossain's kidnapping was a hoax "might not have been made had he not been a Muslim."
Not so long ago the U.S. military scarcely recognized the existence of Muslims in their midst, let alone understood their unique challenges.
When Abdul Rashid Abdullah signed up in 1990, he told the recruiter he was a Muslim, but the man didn't know what a Muslim was.
"My dog tags were issued with 'Other' on it, and I had to get them to correct it in case I died," said Abdullah, now communications director for the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council in Arlington, Va. Muslims have distinct burial rites -- they don't embalm bodies -- which need to be closely followed.
Now there are more than a dozen Muslim chaplains to help soldiers deal with these issues, said Abdullah, speaking by phone from his office in Hawaii. "But there's still a lot of misperceptions."
Sgt. Sherwin Moshiri, a linguist with the Utah National Guard and a Shiite Muslim, experienced the dual pressures during his year-long military stint in southern Iraq that ended in April.
"After 9-11 a lot of people carried hurts and pain that carried over to people of Middle Eastern descent," said Moshiri, a native of Iran. "I can sense some people are distrustful, that no matter what you do they will never like you."
Moshiri said the commander of the 141st Military Intelligence Battalion ordered the Utah soldiers to be sensitive to their Muslim military comrades, "but there was always someone from another unit who said bad things."
During his stint in Basra, "many of the Iraqi people were openly hostile to American soldiers," Moshiri said. "Every day of their lives they were bombarded with anti-American propaganda. They think of Americans as evil. It takes time to explain, to get them to see that Americans can be trusted, that what we are doing there is a good thing."
Such sentiments may reflect politics more than religion, Abdullah said. The public should "separate what Muslims do because of their faith and what they might do because of a specific culture."
Hassoun's own country, Lebanon, has gone through major political shifts since the revolution of 1990 tipped the balance towards Muslims.
That has produced a growing hostility toward Washington, said former Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini, who grew up in Lebanon and has visited within the last three months.
"The Lebanese have always loved America, loved American music, wanted their kids to receive an American education," said Corradini, who is on the board of directors of that nation's only U.S. secondary school, American Community School. "But they don't like the American foreign policy, which is perceived as being pro-Israel."
Anyone in the military, she said, "represents the American government."
Many foreign-born soldiers, not just Muslims, face a similar distrust.
Shahram, a sergeant in the U.S. Army who returned from Iraq in early May, fled his native Iran when he was 21.
Six months later, in March 1999, he joined the Army Reserves to help pay for college. He asked that only his first name be used because he fears reprisal for his parents, who still live in Tehran.
"To their eyes, I'm a traitor," says Shahram, a Christian, of his former countrymen. "They say, 'Why do you come back here and shoot at your brothers?"
But these soldiers can also provide unofficial diplomacy, helping Americans to understand the Islamic world.
When Shahram joined up he couldn't speak any English and his boot camp buddies automatically assumed he was Muslim. Many later admitted they "wanted to kill" him, he said.
"Most soldiers don't know Iraq from Iran from Kuwait," he said. "But once they got to know me, we became really close friends. Now I love these guys and they love me, and they make sure I get the proper respect. Now, if anyone looks at me with suspicion, my guys would tear them apart."
Now, he says, any insults are made in jest. "You put a bunch of guys in the same sweaty tent for a year and they have to joke around to survive," he said. "So they'll say, 'You freaking Iraqi Muslim' and I'll say, 'You American satans' and there's no offense taken."
Shahram speaks some Arabic and is familiar with Muslim mores. His comrades came to rely on his advice -- "Don't look at their daughters" -- and his judgment. "I was the one person in my platoon who could look at a civilian, the way he looks, acts or dresses, and tell if he is anti-American," Shahram says. "But to [American-born soldiers] they all look the same."
Reaz Ahmed Chaudhuri, a Muslim who teaches in the engineering department at the University of Utah, has never been treated differently while working for years on American military bases and with weapons research.
"People don't question my loyalty," Chaudhuri said.
He moved to the United States in the 1970s, married, raised two sons and became a U.S. citizen. He resents any suggestion that he would abandon his country on behalf of his Muslim faith.
"Although I was born in India and still have brothers and sisters there, in practicality, I am tied to the U.S.," he said, "If the U.S. goes down, I will go down with it."
Link (http://166.70.44.66/2004/Jul/07092004/utah/182133.asp)
The Salt Lake Tribune
Like many other Muslims in the U.S. military, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was a citizen of two worlds: the American West and the Islamic East. Throughout the saga of his captivity, the worlds constantly collided.
On Thursday, the U.S. military hinted that Hassoun's capture by Islamic militants may have been staged even as angry neighbors in the Middle East attacked him as a traitor.
"I believe my family is being targeted in Lebanon," said Hassoun's brother, Sami. "We are a very big family, couple thousand. To see a picture of an American Marine -- they don't accept it, they don't understand."
Much like Japanese Americans during World War II, many of the roughly 14,000 self-identified Muslims in the U.S. military face questions about their loyalty to country. Add to that suspicions about their fealty to faith, coming from fellow believers in the Islamic world.
"Muslims have to prove their loyalty again and again," said Iqbal Hossain, president of the Khadeeja Islamic Center in West Valley City. Allegations that Hossain's kidnapping was a hoax "might not have been made had he not been a Muslim."
Not so long ago the U.S. military scarcely recognized the existence of Muslims in their midst, let alone understood their unique challenges.
When Abdul Rashid Abdullah signed up in 1990, he told the recruiter he was a Muslim, but the man didn't know what a Muslim was.
"My dog tags were issued with 'Other' on it, and I had to get them to correct it in case I died," said Abdullah, now communications director for the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council in Arlington, Va. Muslims have distinct burial rites -- they don't embalm bodies -- which need to be closely followed.
Now there are more than a dozen Muslim chaplains to help soldiers deal with these issues, said Abdullah, speaking by phone from his office in Hawaii. "But there's still a lot of misperceptions."
Sgt. Sherwin Moshiri, a linguist with the Utah National Guard and a Shiite Muslim, experienced the dual pressures during his year-long military stint in southern Iraq that ended in April.
"After 9-11 a lot of people carried hurts and pain that carried over to people of Middle Eastern descent," said Moshiri, a native of Iran. "I can sense some people are distrustful, that no matter what you do they will never like you."
Moshiri said the commander of the 141st Military Intelligence Battalion ordered the Utah soldiers to be sensitive to their Muslim military comrades, "but there was always someone from another unit who said bad things."
During his stint in Basra, "many of the Iraqi people were openly hostile to American soldiers," Moshiri said. "Every day of their lives they were bombarded with anti-American propaganda. They think of Americans as evil. It takes time to explain, to get them to see that Americans can be trusted, that what we are doing there is a good thing."
Such sentiments may reflect politics more than religion, Abdullah said. The public should "separate what Muslims do because of their faith and what they might do because of a specific culture."
Hassoun's own country, Lebanon, has gone through major political shifts since the revolution of 1990 tipped the balance towards Muslims.
That has produced a growing hostility toward Washington, said former Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini, who grew up in Lebanon and has visited within the last three months.
"The Lebanese have always loved America, loved American music, wanted their kids to receive an American education," said Corradini, who is on the board of directors of that nation's only U.S. secondary school, American Community School. "But they don't like the American foreign policy, which is perceived as being pro-Israel."
Anyone in the military, she said, "represents the American government."
Many foreign-born soldiers, not just Muslims, face a similar distrust.
Shahram, a sergeant in the U.S. Army who returned from Iraq in early May, fled his native Iran when he was 21.
Six months later, in March 1999, he joined the Army Reserves to help pay for college. He asked that only his first name be used because he fears reprisal for his parents, who still live in Tehran.
"To their eyes, I'm a traitor," says Shahram, a Christian, of his former countrymen. "They say, 'Why do you come back here and shoot at your brothers?"
But these soldiers can also provide unofficial diplomacy, helping Americans to understand the Islamic world.
When Shahram joined up he couldn't speak any English and his boot camp buddies automatically assumed he was Muslim. Many later admitted they "wanted to kill" him, he said.
"Most soldiers don't know Iraq from Iran from Kuwait," he said. "But once they got to know me, we became really close friends. Now I love these guys and they love me, and they make sure I get the proper respect. Now, if anyone looks at me with suspicion, my guys would tear them apart."
Now, he says, any insults are made in jest. "You put a bunch of guys in the same sweaty tent for a year and they have to joke around to survive," he said. "So they'll say, 'You freaking Iraqi Muslim' and I'll say, 'You American satans' and there's no offense taken."
Shahram speaks some Arabic and is familiar with Muslim mores. His comrades came to rely on his advice -- "Don't look at their daughters" -- and his judgment. "I was the one person in my platoon who could look at a civilian, the way he looks, acts or dresses, and tell if he is anti-American," Shahram says. "But to [American-born soldiers] they all look the same."
Reaz Ahmed Chaudhuri, a Muslim who teaches in the engineering department at the University of Utah, has never been treated differently while working for years on American military bases and with weapons research.
"People don't question my loyalty," Chaudhuri said.
He moved to the United States in the 1970s, married, raised two sons and became a U.S. citizen. He resents any suggestion that he would abandon his country on behalf of his Muslim faith.
"Although I was born in India and still have brothers and sisters there, in practicality, I am tied to the U.S.," he said, "If the U.S. goes down, I will go down with it."
Link (http://166.70.44.66/2004/Jul/07092004/utah/182133.asp)