Muslim private granted conscientious objector status

Patrick Poole writing at Pajamas Media reports:

A shocking decision made by the secretary of the Army last month—in the case of an U.S. Army soldier with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell who refused to deploy to Afghanistan claiming that Islamic law prevented him from killing other Muslims—vindicates Fort Hood killer Major Nidal Hasan. He made identical claims and threatened [as Hasan did] that “adverse events” would occur if military officials didn’t accede to shariah principles.

The subject of the Fort Campbell case is PFC Nasser Abdo, who was granted conscientious objector status last month …

Abdo told Al-Jazeera:

I don’t believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don’t believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim.

He also told ABC News:

A Muslim is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war. Any Muslim who knows his religion or maybe takes into account what his religion says can find out very clearly why he should not participate in the U.S. military.

Poole continues:

By granting PFC Abdo’s conscientious objector claim, the Army may have created trouble for themselves in the court martial of Major Hasan for the murder of his thirteen fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Hasan’s attorney can now claim that by refusing to acknowledge Major Hasan’s claims under Islamic law as a conscientious objector and granting him an honorable discharge, the Army created irreconcilable conflict that prompted the Fort Hood massacre. And they can use the secretary of the Army’s decision in the Abdo case as proof.

[end of Poole excerpt.]

Now of course I believe, along with Major Hasan and PFC Abdo, that no Muslim soldier should be in the United States military if it is fighting in a Muslim country or against Muslims. However, I also believe, for exactly the same underlying reasons, that no believing Muslims should be in the United States, period.

Hasan’s and Abdo’s position is logically consistent: they recognize that Islam is eternally at war with non-Muslims, and therefore Muslims should not serve in an infidel military when it is at war with Muslims.

But my position is also logically consistent: I recognize that Islam is eternally at war with non-Muslims, and therefore Muslims do not belong in significant numbers in America or any non-Muslim country, period.

It’s everyone else, everyone who occupies the middle ground on these issues, the people who want Muslims to serve in the U.S. military notwithstanding the eternal Islamic jihad against infidels, the people who think Muslims can be safely a part of America and the West notwithstanding the eternal Islamic jihad against infidels, who are mired in hopeless intellectual confusion.

Furthermore, my consistent approach to the issue would eliminate the problem that Patrick Poole is concerned about. He says, correctly, that the Army, by recognizing that requiring a Muslim U.S. soldier to fight against Muslims creates an irreconciliable conflict in the conscience of that Muslim, is potentially creating an excuse for Nidal Hasan’s act of mass murder, since Hasan was subject to such an irreconcilable conflict. But Poole, since he strongly disapproves of the granting of conscientious objector status to PFC Abdo, presumably wants Muslims to serve in the military notwithstanding the evident threat that they pose to their fellow military personnel. So that’s no solution either.

The solution to this dilemma, the only solution, is (1) to remove all Muslims from the United States military, and (2) to remove all Muslims from the United States.

Step One of my solution, removing all Muslims from the U.S. military, eliminates the problem of Muslim soldiers with a dangerously divided conscience. But if we stop there, we will still have a Muslim population to whom we are applying different rules than to the rest of the population by not letting Muslim U.S. citizens serve in the military, which contradicts the American belief in a single rule of law for all citizens. The only way to eliminate the contradiction is through Step Two of my solution, removing all Muslims from America.

This is not rocket science, and it is not unfair. Islam prohibits its adherents from being loyal to a non-Islamic government. Any loyalty Muslims do appear to profess to a non-Islamic government is provisional and fake, part of the strategy for Muslim conquest laid out by Muhammad in the Koran. Therefore Muslims do not belong in a non-Islamic country which intends to remain non-Islamic.

Of course, the Muslims have their own proposal for eliminating the contradiction: Islamize America and subject it to Islamic law.

One way or another, the contradiction will ultimately be resolved. The only real choice we have is to resolve it on Islamic terms, or on non-Islamic terms.

- end of initial entry -

Aditya B., who sent the article, wrote:

It’s over, Mr. Auster. The rot’s set in completely. Fighting is pointless. What are we fighting for?

LA replies:

Instead of giving up, how about seeing it this way? We are living in very interesting times. :-)

James P. writes:

Why did the SOB join the Army in the first place? It is not a secret we are fighting and killing Muslims.

Michael S. writes:

According to the Fox News report, Private Abdo joined the Army LAST YEAR. It’s obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: Did it never occur to him that he might be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? He’s either stupid, or a troublemaker.

LA replies:

I’ll bet the official Army body that decided the case didn’t even consider that. Under modern liberalism, nothing is expected of the individual, not even minimal rationality or responsibility for his acts. All he has to do is claim his rights.

June 22

Mark L. writes:

Continuing on your post concerning the Muslim refusal to serve in the military, I recall hearing from a student at a local elementary school here in Minnesota: “I am not an American I’m a Muslim.”

This during the first week of school when students typically sing “This land is your land” “America the Beautiful”, and draw pictures of American landmarks ( many natural such as the Grand Canyon, Redwoods, etc.). This child was an Iranian, wore modern clothes, and seemed well—liked by classmates.

The week of song and drawing is no more.

What bothers me is not her opinion (she is in 3rd grade) but the parental influence showing. Had I mentioned her rant I wonder if the school would have done anything?

The school is overrun by Somalis, and even though many seem friendly (more so than the Iranian children), the young males are trouble.

The young girls are friendly but don’t appear trouble-prone. If anything their behavior reminds one of Amish children in their subservience to authority and “young mommy” attitude. Which is not all bad; they can be relied on to help out with autistic classmates whom other more normal kids avoid.

- end of initial entry -

Aditya B. writes:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

I remain a theoretical pessimist but operational optimist. One hopes that no future Oscar Wilde has to compose these lines for our era:

On The Massacre Of The Christians In Bulgaria

CHRIST, dost thou live indeed? or are thy bones
Still straightened in their rock-hewn sepulcher?
And was thy Rising only dreamed by Her
Whose love of thee for all her sin atones?
For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,
The priests who call upon thy name are slain,
Dost thou not hear the bitter wail of pain
From those whose children lie upon the stones?
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom
Curtains the land, and through the starless night
Over thy Cross the Crescent moon I see!
If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb
Come down, O Son of Man! and show thy might,
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

I worry that the “incestuous gloom” is rapidly descending across the West. Such mindlessness, such contempt for their own existence. Without the West, men like me will perish, and men such as yourself will not even exist.

But you’re right. The West is not lost. Not yet. Down but not out.

We do live in interesting times. One hopes that someday our descendants regard our era as one long nightmare from which the West awoke, feverish and drenched in sweat. But wide-awake and alert. And that in the cold light of day, she was able to identify and assess her enemy. That is all we need. The ability to see evil for what it is.

Here’s to the West: May it Live Long and Prosper!

Aditya B. writes:

Thank you, Mr Auster. I read that poem when I was but a child and even then affected me profoundly.

I am happy I could share it on VFR. I hope it gives all your readers some food for thought. Even Wilde understood that a creature like him could only thrive in the Christian west. Even he was stirred by Moslem conquest and Christian suffering.

June 23

Christopher B. writes:

Wilde was echoing Milton:

On the Late Massacre in Piedmont

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 21, 2011 05:58 PM | Send