I haven't been tracking this story, a reader brought it to my attention; it's been going on for so long it's developed past the initial stage where a 101st Airborne Division private was claiming that his Muslim beliefs prohibit him from fighting in Afghanistan, on the grounds that Islamic law prevented him from killing other Muslims.
PFC Nasser Abdo sought conscientious-objector status in June.
This is disgraceful in and of itself; that anyone world can claim any kind of naïvety about what joining the Army - the Infantry no less - means in the post- 9/11. The job description of an Infantryman is to break things and kill people. The enemy this time around happen to be Muslims - every single one of them. In fact, being a Muslim is one of their enlistment requirements. To become aware of these circumstances and develop some kind of objection AFTER signing up and going through training is what the chaplain back at 3d Special Forces Group once described as a "jailhouse conversion" - meaning even he as a man of the cloth looked at this kind of thing with a jaundiced eye.
The Department of the Army under the Obama Administration give themselves an out of an apparent moral dilemma by recognizing that “even in our all-volunteer force, a soldier’s moral, ethical or religious beliefs may change over time.”
Oh, I get it. It's all very well and fine to sign up, put on the spiffy uniform and draw pay and benefits, but when it comes time to pay the piper you can opt out because your moral, ethical or religious beliefs changed?
I've got another way to look at it. I call it "chicken."
We had a guy like this in 3d Group. Sit right back and I'll tell the tale of of Mister Walker -
It was in the mid-nineties when Warrant Officer 01 Walker - Mister Walker - showed up in Battalion, and right away I was informed by guys who had been with him in 5th Group that this was the guy we'd all heard about. What happened was during Gulf War 1 - over there in the Sandpile, just as they were getting ready to go "over the berm" - up there on the line were Egyptian formations, Saudi formations, Syrian formations, Jordanian formations; and co-located with every Arab regiment and battalion were detachments from 5th Special Forces Group.
Arab armies allied with Western nations in the First Gulf War.
Well, at this stage of the game Walker conveniently decides to get religion. Muslim religion; and as such he can't go and kill his fellow Muslims.
Never mind the fact that there wasn't even a Jihad flavor to the conflict - Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a secular Arab nation. All those Arab units were getting ready to roll against Saddam Hussein, and the whole thing about "A Muslim cannot go against another Muslim" wasn't an issue with the REAL Muslims.
Of course the US Army is totally Politically Correct, right, and there's no way on God's Green Earth any battalion commander is going to persecute a black Muslim for what this really was: cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Did I mention the fact that Walker was black? It doesn't matter to me, I don't see people that way, but that's what he was: a black guy in Special Forces who converted to Islam right before the whole shooting match was getting ready to kick off, claimed he couldn't bear arms against his "Muslim brothers" - who the day before were just Iraqis - and they let him get away with it, swept the whole thing under the rug.
Fast forward a bit: the whole outfit rotates back to Fort Campbell, the old chain of command transfers out and new officers rotate in. Time goes by and Walker puts in a packet for Warrant Officer school and not knowing any better, the chain of command signs off on it, and that's how his sorry ass ended up signing into 3d Group as a warrant Officer.
I say "his sorry ass" not because of what happened before, when I was not there, but what happened at 3d Group when I WAS present:
The first time I met Mr. Walker was in the Battalion Headquarters at 1st Bn / 3d Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg; this was around 1996-97. He was introduced to me, and the first thing I noticed about him was a large silver ring he wore with a strange symbol:
It wasn't as detailed as this, what it looked like to me was a Star of David surrounded by a crescent, which of course is LOADED with symbolism. A little later I noticed an SUV out in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that featured similar symbology:
The verbiage read: "Nuwuabianism, that's our Religion!"
Being the cultural kind of SF Intell guy that I was, I just HAD to look this madness up, and the Internet coughed up all kinds of good stuff: a religious system of beliefs featuring UFOs and aliens with idiosyncratic amalgam of elements from Islam, Judaism, black nationalism, and ancient astronaut writings. Also known as Ancient Mystic Order of Malchizedek, Malachi Z. York (AMOM, Nuwaubians, the Nubian Nation of Moors, Right Knowledge), the leader, (a.k.a. Dwight York) claims to be from the 19th galaxy called Illyuwn.
Your basic nutjob cult, in other words. There's all kinds of sites featuring information about Nuwaubianism; Wikipedia has a good summary of the whole Nuwaubianism phenomena but I kind of get a kick out of information straight from the whacked out source.
A 1993 FBI report surfaced calling the group a ''front for a wide range of criminal activity, including arson, welfare fraud and extortion" - fancy that - the York group has also operated under other names and organizations including Nubian Islaamic [sic] Hebrew Mission and the Ansaaru Allah Community, (an Islamic sect with doctrines similar to Nation of Islam), and the Original Tents of Kedar.
Here are some images of His Majesty:
Here he is descending from the Mother Ship:
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But this one's MY favorite:
Dwight York a.k.a. Malachi Z. York, Issa Al Haadi Al Mahdi, in 2004 after being convicted for transporting minors across state lines in the course of sexually molesting them, racketeering, and financial reporting charges. He was sentenced to 135 years in prison.
Walker lasted less than six months as a Warrant Officer in 3d Group. What happened was the captain on his team - a great guy we'll call Captain W - saw through his sh*t and they didn't get along. Then the company commander was overseas and W was acting commander. About that time Walker decided he was too important to do things like actually show up for work - never mind doing PT or standing in formation or all the other things that soldiers do. So Captain W calls him up, says, "Where the hell are you?" Walker throws a tantrum over the phone, basically, and so W says, "RIGHT - I got yer number!" and the next thing you know Walker is being court martialed for disobeying orders and generally having a bad attitude.
Well it's extremely rare that you see an officer get court martialed for anything - especially heavy sh*t like this. What happened was they cut him a deal, pulled his warrant, busted him down to E-6, and booted him out. That's where Chief Rojo comes in.
I've written about Chief Rojo before on STORMBRINGER
- bravest man I have ever met, and one of the few I know who ever killed someone with a knife. Two people, actually, but that's another story.
As senior Warrant Officer in the battalion, Chief Rojo was tasked to handle Walker throughout his legal situation, and when the deal was cut, he was to escort him through outprocessing and then off post. The way Chief Rojo tells it, Walker explained to him all about how he was a "Nuwaubian Prince", how there was going to be a race war and the blacks were going to take over - I guess their alien technology was going to give them the edge or something - and so Chief Rojo had better be good to him and show some respect. That must have gone over with Chief like a fart in a space suit. The last thing that happened was Walker - now MISTER Walker in another sense of the word - had to be escorted off post, and this is where he baulked, apparently. You know, the old "No! I'm not going to do it!" routine that two-year-olds pull on their mothers.
Chief Rojo wasn't going to mess around. He called the MPs and while they were waiting for the MPs to show up, Walker was going on and on about how the Nuwaubians came from outer space, how the Nuwaubians were going to take over the world, how the sun dropped out of His Lordship Malachi Z. York's bumhole, etc. etc.
Apparently the MP's showed up with their handcuffs and their tasers and explained how they could do this the easy way or the hard way. All the fight went out of the Nuwaubian Prince at that point and Mister Walker left peaceably, his tail between his legs.
OK it's a funny anecdote, but just think of the trouble a toolkit like this could have stirred up overseas. The Army is not a game; the Army is FOR REAL, and trying to work with a loose cannon like this guy can get good men killed downrange. There's another way that accommodating this kind of horse hockey is dangerous.
Consider the case of the Fort Hood killer Major Nidal Hasan.
Fort Hood shooter US Army Major Nical Hasan.
Hasan made identical claims and threatened that “adverse events” would occur if military officials didn’t accede to shariah principles. Pajamas media has a pretty good essay on how the Department of Defense's decision on this Abdo kid actually VINDICATES the Fort Hood Killer. Andrew C. McCarthy explores the concept a little further at the National Review Online: Our Sharia-Compliant Afghan War
It ain't good, people. If we - meaning we as in all of Western Civilization - don't pull our heads out of our collective, Politically Correct ass, and fast, then we stand a good chance of being steamrollered over as a culture by the dirt-worshipping bum-in-the-air crowd on one side, and the ant hive that is the Peoples Republic of China on the other.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Saturday's Bird HERE
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No, No, No,
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't look a thing like "Bootsy" from "Parliament Funkadelic" or even George Clinton for that matter so he can't be landing the mother ship........
Just sayin'........
I was in the British Army in the late 90's, not a long time ago, but if the examples you have written about had occurred during my time and unit there would have been a few accidents, and Mr Hasan would be pushing up daisies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Major Bob - since when is cowardice in the face of the enemy NOT a punishable offense? In the words of the great philosopher Judge Roy Bean:
ReplyDelete"I never saw a horse that needed stealin', but I met a lot of men who needed hangin'."
Of course it comes down to who will bell the cat, and I am not a killer. If I was one of these reprobates commanders I might have said, "Muslim, huh? Okay, I'm going to give you three seconds to pull your head out of your ass before I throw the book at you, and two of them are already gone."
I might not even have given him that - considering the kind of aforethought that goes into a scheme like this.
Absolutely disgraceful, all around.
- S.L.
UPDATE: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/28/exclusive-us-military-serviceman-arrested-in-second-alleged-attack-on-ft-hood/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/28/exclusive-us-military-serviceman-arrested-in-second-alleged-attack-on-ft-hood/
ReplyDeleteAnd now this...