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Title: Muslims in the Military
Source:
nysun.com
URL Source: http://www.nysun.com/opinion/muslims-in-the-military/31393/
Published: Feb 1, 2011
Author: JOHN P. AVLON
Post Date: 2011-02-01 20:54:02 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 1486
Comments: 9
His call sign is "Hadji," meaning "one who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca." "It's a pilot thing," explains Colonel Douglas Burpee, the highest ranking Muslim officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Now in his 23rd year of military service, Colonel Burpee recently returned from flying helicopters in Afghanistan. "Everyone knows I'm a Muslim. When I fly, attached to my dog tags, I wear a pendant with a passage from the Koran," he says. "I try to set a good example based upon what I believe.... I can be a soldier and a Muslim at the same time. I have no problem with that." In the era of the war on terror, the example of a devout Muslim serving in the American Military is a heartening sign that highlights the difference between America and its self-appointed enemies in this conflict. This is not a clash of civilizations, but a fight between a modern pluralistic democracy and intolerant murders who have hijacked one of the world's great faiths. Certainly that's Colonel Burpee's view. "These people who commit terrorism have just adopted the face of Islam - nothing they say or do have anything to do with Islam," he says. "The Taliban is a terrorist organization - they are bad people doing bad things and they've attached religion to it. They are ruthless when it comes to killing people, but that's how you move helpless people around - you use fear." Out of the 1.4 million service men and women serving actively in the American military, an estimated 3,700 are Muslim, according to the Department of Defense. Colonel Burpee's path to both Islam and the military is not necessarily typical. With blond hair that is now going gray, he was born in America and raised Episcopalian. He converted to Islam when he was 19 for a very American reason: "I met a pretty girl" - an Egyptian woman named Hala who was a fellow student at the University of Southern California in the late 1970s. Three years later he was accepted at the Officers Candidates' School in Quantico, Va. Now he and Hala and their five sons live in Glendale, Calif. "We believe in god and family and prayer - the same things as everyone who believes in religion," he says. But his reaction to September 11th fit a less typical script. "I watched the attacks on TV, like everybody else. The first thing we did afterwards was go to the mosque because people were concerned about a backlash. On the other hand, I had to call into my squadron and ask, 'Hey, are we being activated?'" Colonel Burpee straddles his two worlds, but he is not typical of Islam or the military. Perhaps a more typical portrait of a Muslim soldier in the U.S. military comes from Sergeant Youseff Mandour of the U.S. Army. He immigrated to America from Morocco at the age of 17 and joined the army at age 22. Now 25, he just returned from 12 months in Iraq. Like Colonel Burpee, he aspires to a lifelong career in the military. "I'm fighting for a better life and a belief in freedom," he says. "I had a chance to get involved. I learned the English language and appreciate everything this country has given to me. That's why I joined the Army. The U.S. is doing great things." Sergeant Mandour takes special offense at the terrorists who murder in the name of his faith. "The war on terror is not about Islam. This is a war against criminals who use religion to say they are good people, but they're no better than the Mafia. They're just common criminals, many with criminal records ... It was great that I got to use my training against people who tried to kill us and who tried to give a wrong idea about my religion." Nor is Sergeant Mandour agnostic about the war in Iraq. "We are not there to fight Islam but spread democracy. I feel very ashamed for those like Osama Bin Laden who use the religion of Islam and call for a jihad. You can't call a jihad against people trying to help, and I believe we are helping people in Iraq. I helped more people in Iraq than I ever did in my life as a soldier and as a Muslim." Few people in the world can view the war on terror with more clarity than Muslim soldiers serving in the U.S. military. While figures like Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen try to divide the world by arguing that the war on terror is really a war between Islam and the west, our Islamic soldiers' example exposes their rhetoric for the lie that it is. The west is not a religion. It is instead a pluralistic place that opens its arms to all people of good faith regardless of race, nationality, or religion. And if soldiers who are proud to be American and Muslim at the same time can help heal some of the existing divides by the strength of their example, so much the better. These Muslim U.S. soldiers are, in some ways, the point men in this moment in our history, exemplifying the new edge of a far older trend. As Colonel Burpee says, "My family first came here as French Huguenots a few hundred years ago. They were oppressed and they came to America because it allowed them to practice their religion and live in freedom. That is the same reason that the Muslims have come here ... So is there a clash of civilizations? I don't think so. I think you have an old world and a new world. And we are the new world." That is exactly where I would want us to be.
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#1. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
It was the Sun or Post that put that pic up of the French being weasels not to invade Iraq with us? Am I right? Has the Sun apologized for invading Iraq? LMAO "The despots in Israel are knocked kneed furious about the puppet being pulled off the world stage so unceremoniously: Netanyahu urges world to tone down Mubarak criticism amid Egypt unrest. Just what Mubarak needs! The one guy nearly all Muslims hate the most, demanding everyone stop yelling at his good buddy! HAHAHA…this shows clearly how out of touch and scared the Jews are in this business. They cannot understand why things are happening and are desperate to stop the freight train." No Egyptian Revolution, no article o US 'muslim' soldiers. Too little too late.
You have two religions that are big, fairly old, and deeply and aggressively into the proselytization game out for as many converts as possible. Stone may or may not have been irritated by my posts showing how badly the Coptic Christians are treated in Egypt, but both Christianity and Islam have been guilty of some very atrocious behavior in the name of religious hegemony. I support the right to both of them existing, but want nothing to do with the salesmanship from either one. I have had people like Stone say I need to get to a Christian Church, and had friends in Portland offer me a Koran. One thing is for certain; no large faith is going away any time soon, and this means a whole lot more agreeing to disagree and development of mutual respect than we have seen in some circles. I watched a person thumping the Bible in downtown Eugene start screaming about the evils of Islam to one of our large Sikh community, and he wound up being arrested for a hate crime and as part of his adjudication process apologized to his target eating a whole bunch of crow saying he had no idea Sikhs were not Muslims. I also respect Judaism, but have no love for the atrocious apartheid, theft and physical harm Zionism is guilty of. The Israelis need to get rid of it as a guiding principle, and we are long overdue doing a tough love cutoff of aid to Israel to stop enabling Zionism and as an insensitive for Israelis to become more realistic and reasonable in their relationship with other peoples in Palestine and the area as a whole.
This is not about religion. It's about wealth and power. The Army has failed. . . . The speech by Obama was a not-so-coded language that let Mubarak do what he wish: the talk about transition means that he was basically told to stay in power, because Israel really freaked out at the prospect of Egypt without Mubarak. How dare Obama talk about technology for the Egyptian youth when his speech did not utter one word about how Mubarak is silencing and restricting the technology of the youth of people. Make no mistake about it: this could be like the 1953 Operation Ajax in Iran. The US is now arranging for a coup against the will of the Egyptian people. It requires utmost vigilance and steadfastness and thus far those qualities have been abundant among the Egyptian people. This move by Obama towards Egypt can be described as criminal because it will lead to blood on the streets. I wonder if Obama during his talk with Mubarak discussed numbers like: just don't kill more than 50 or 60 a day, or something like that. His unprincipled cynicism reminds me of the conspiracies of the 1950s. I am so glad that I resisted all efforts by my liberal and leftist friends who were urging me to vote for this personification of the Bush Doctrine.
One way I make money is acquiring old tube, or older flat screen monitors for my partner in this endeavor which we send in cargo containers to Egypt. There is a real hunger for technology there. I want to go back there sometime the next couple of years and see how things are there. I'll go this time by myself, I was sort of isolated being with a retired General Officer of the Egyptian Army and his friends and family. It is a very interesting country, very beautiful to someone like me who loves history.
It is a very interesting country, very beautiful to someone like me who loves history. One of them has a relation to cotton, I bet. Ask them. Cotton has been soaring. I deal in cotton.
Nice. Oh yes, Egypt is a huge cotton producer. In fact, most of the clothes I bought while there were Egyptian cotton, which is Pima cotton. It is very silky for cotton with very long fibers. Though I found it ironic the cheap 'I was here' sort of dumb saying T shirts for tourists was the usual cotton polyester blend crap you can find in Walmart. I was surprised to see some really antique irrigation equipment used along the Nile and much of the labor in the agricultural areas was much more manual labor intensive than here.
Though I found it ironic the cheap I recall some history seminar or some such which speculated that because the British had just stared planting and harvesting Egyptian cotton crops the Confederacy and southern cotton was not as important to the British as it would have been 30 years earlier so the British did not jump in and save the South as many thought would happen.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
The empire is always looking to diversify what it must have. US subsidizes Brazil soy for example.
I was surprised to see some really antique irrigation equipment used along the Nile and much of the labor in the agricultural areas was much more manual labor intensive than here. cotton247.com/globalperspectives/usa/?storyid=1138 Like much (all?) else, cotton depends as much on how it's handled. For ex, you hand pick it, roll it not gin saw it, and then textile spin it manually, I can produce a towel shirt with Upland Cotton that you couldn't tell from Egyptian. But Cotton like the other 'commodities' is valued at quantity price, not quality. AAMOF, buyers love inferior producers. their product gets 'docked' by larger percentages, then that product is blended in with better grades to sell at the better price.
"My family first came here as French Huguenots a few hundred years ago. They were oppressed and they came to America because it allowed them to practice their religion and live in freedom. That is the same reason that the Muslims have come here ... So is there a clash of civilizations? I don't think so. I think you have an old world and a new world. And we are the new world."
#2. To: mcgowanjm (#1)
#3. To: Ferret Mike (#2)
The Israelis need to get rid of it as a guiding principle,
#4. To: mcgowanjm (#3)
#5. To: Ferret Mike (#4)
sort of isolated being with a retired General Officer of the Egyptian Army and his friends and family.
#6. To: mcgowanjm (#5)
#7. To: Ferret Mike, mcgowanjm (#6)
Nice. Oh yes, Egypt is a huge cotton producer. In fact, most of the clothes I bought while there were Egyptian cotton, which is Pima cotton. It is very silky for cotton with very long fibers.
#8. To: Godwinson (#7)
I recall some history seminar or some such which speculated that because the British had just stared planting and harvesting Egyptian cotton crops the Confederacy and southern cotton was not as important to the British as it would have been 30 years earlier so the British did not jump in and save the South as many thought would happen.
#9. To: Ferret Mike (#6)
(Edited)
Nice. Oh yes, Egypt is a huge cotton producer. In fact, most of the clothes I bought while there were Egyptian cotton, which is Pima cotton. It is very silky for cotton with very long fibers.
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