Muslim Troops' Loyalty a Delicate Question

[Pharo Of Egypt]

[c]Muslim Troops' Loyalty a Delicate Question [/c]


[l]Military's Religious Tolerance May Have Aided Infiltrators, Led to Complacency

Just after the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, huge tents were erected in Saudi Arabia near the barracks of U.S. military personnel. Inside, day and night, Saudi imams sent by their government lectured the GIs about Islam and made aggressive pitches to convert them

Saudi officials had promised that the discussions would touch only on Arab culture. But within months, about 1,000 soldiers, and perhaps as many as 3,000, converted to Islam -- the largest surge of Muslims ever into the U.S. armed forces.

"It was quite aggressive," said David Peterson, then the military's top chaplain in the region. In retrospect, he said, there was reason for concern that foreign clerics had gained influence over the troops, but military officials were slow to grasp the implications, he said.

Twelve years later, with three Muslim employees at the Guantanamo Bay prison accused of security breaches, some U.S. military officials are again wondering whether they have been inattentive to outside influences on the small community of Muslims in the armed forces. But even asking that question is a delicate matter for an institution that has long embraced tolerance of all faiths
[/l]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Nov1.html
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