In 2009 Major Hasan is alleged to have killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. In 2007 he presented “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military” During his presentation he said that “it’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.” Based on this, he recommended that the “Department of Defense should allow Muslims [sic] Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.” In light of the deaths at Fort Hood, perhaps his recommendation should have been taken quite seriously.
While this event is a recent one, the idea of being a conscientious objector is a rather old one. Also, the question of obedience is an even older one, dating back in terms of philosophical discussion to at least Plato’s Crito.
While Socrates is not discussing military service in the Crito, he does discuss the moral question of whether a citizen should obey the commands of the state or not. In Socrates’s case, he is in prison and awaiting his execution. His friends, lead by Crito, have arrived with a plan to spring him from jail and go to another city state. Socrates refuses to flee and, like all good philosophers, decides to spend the final moments of his life in philosophical argumentation.
While he presents three distinct arguments, the two that are relevant to the matter at hand can be presented in the following condensed versions. The argument that does not apply here is his argument that he could have chosen exile during his trial and hence would appear foolish to run away.
One argument can be classified as the benefit argument: Socrates argues that since the state benefited him and he freely accepted these benefits, then he owes the state his obedience. A second argument, the contract argument, is that by remaining in the city of Athens by his own free choice he thereby agreed to obey the laws of that city. Socrates does, however, add two important conditions: the state cannot trick or force people to remain and still expect their obedience. But, once an adult person agrees to obey by remaining and accepting the benefits of the state, then she owes her obedience to that state. If she disagrees, then she is obligated to persuade the state that it is in error, but if she fails to do so, she must remain obedient.
Now, let us turn to the matter of Muslim soldiers and Hasan’s case. As noted above, he contends that it is difficult for Muslims in the United States military (and this would presumably also apply to Muslims in any Western military) to morally justify serving when the United States military is engaged in operations against Muslims. He also presents a view that can be easily made into a utilitarian argument: Muslims should be allowed to leave the service so as to avoid harms such as damaged morale and other adverse events (perhaps including such things as violent actions by Muslim soldiers against their fellow soldiers).
While I cannot speak for Socrates with certainty, given his views in the Crito, I suspect that he would present a much better version of the sort of argument I will now hazard.
When Muslim soldiers enter the United States military, they know that they might be required to fight against fellow Muslims. Of course, anyone who enlists knows that they might very well be required to fight against other people who belong to groups they identify with (such as Christians, or men, or women, or Russians, or any number of groups). As such, there seems to be no trickery in play. Also, entering the military is completely voluntary: no one, Muslim or non-Muslim, has to enlist and serve. As such, there is no force.
When people enter the military, the United States spends a considerable amount of resources in training them. Also, the soldiers are given various incentives (such as signing bonuses) and opportunities (such as education). Naturally, the soldiers are also paid and receive other benefits as well.
Since Muslim soldiers have not been deceived or forced into serving and they have accepted the benefits provided by the service, they are then obligated to fulfill their obligations. If they did not wish to risk facing fellow Muslims in battle, then they should have chosen another career path.
It might be objected that this would discriminate against Muslims by not allowing them to enter the service. However, this is not the case. This would no more be discrimination against Muslims than expecting pacifists to either be willing to fight or not join the military in the first place. After all, the military’s function is to fight and service members might be, in theory, called upon to fight people of almost any faith.
Of course, this still leaves open the possibility that a soldier can correctly object to immoral orders or situations and do so within the rules of the military. This right is, of course, held by all soldiers.
Naturally, it could be argued that it is immoral for a Muslim to fight a fellow Muslim (although a shared faith, be it Islam or Christianity rarely if ever seems to be a deterrence against violence in war). However, the same sort of argument could be made by anyone who objects to fighting folks whom they identify with. Of course, I do find this appealing: when we are killing each other over land, power, or whatever, it does seem like we are acting in an immoral manner.
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Magus can tell us more, but it can’t have been that hard for Hasan to get out of the military.
Couldn’t he have just said he was gay?
First of all, I must say that Hasan was allowed to remain in the military because of the rampant political correctness in the Army and racial “quotas” engaged when selecting officers for promotion: It looked good to have a Muslim Major in the Army, and the Army wants people to know it’s not biased–so it becomes biased. There were far toomany indicators of problems for Hasan before this incident. While an intern, he received what could have been a career ending negative couseling and required extra supervision. The problems of attempting to contact al-Qaeda goes without saying.
The political correctness is so horrendous, that General Casey, a four star general, will not use the word terrorism when addressing the media concerning Hasan. This is clearly a case of terrorism, though of course Hasan is given the right to a trial. However, we can still use our common sense to come to reasonable conclusions. We aren’t putting him in prison based on our conclusions–yet. Hasan was allowed to do what he did prior to the shootings, precisely because of political correctness. The Army would be afraid of too much publicity were it to kick a Muslim officer from its ranks for non-violent actions.
As far as Hasan leaving the Army, an Officer can
Secondly, I wonder if Hasan was concerned that al-Qaeda intentionally slaughtered thousands of Iraqis in order to discredit the US?
Supposedly Hasan attempted on several occasions to leave the military, hiring a lawyer and attempting to pay off his college depts that that he would have owed the Army had he left. Accoring to his relatives, the Army would not let him go, though the Army will not confirm this. I suspect it is true that the Army wouldn’t release him. It’s unlikely that claiming homosexuality would have gotten him off the hook either, especially considering Hasan’s long recorded Muslim faith and a lack of history. The Army makes it more difficult for officers to leave than for enlsited, becaus eof the massive amount of recourses invested and the valuable skills officers carry, particularly medical officers.
The Army is faced with a hard truth here: It is likely that Hasan became embued with a jihadist’s mindset, and yet the Army had no way of releasing him into the wild. It could only harbor him and offier him opportunities to harm fellow Americans through the Army apparatus. I think that the Army will have to admit to itself that not all things are of equal value, and that Islamic fundamentalism does exist right here, and can be dangerous.
The Army should release people like Hasan who furvently seek release, for any reason, I think. What use are soldiers that don’t want to be in the military when they have a cush, high paying job? How useless would they be when things get tough? When real war and all it’s horrors break out?
It’s up to the soldier to carry on at that point. These people aren’t real American soldiers. Neither was Hasan.
Strike this sentence:
“As far as Hasan leaving the Army, an Officer can”
I’m working on the idea of just war theory and selective conscientious objection — which seems to be a good compromise position..
I have a significant problem eliminating any category of citizen from military service. Every person entering the military since 9/12-01 has done so with the knowledge that they may be fighting Muslims. Officers periodically have the ability to leave the military, so presumably Hasan had that opportunity as well — assuming he began his service before 01. If the problem is that the US military is fighting Muslims, he could have found another career.
IF Hasan had decided that ALL war was against his religious beliefs, he could have made a conscientious objector claim and left the military.
The concept of selective conscientious objection applies here because, while Hasan presumably would have been willing to fight another war, he objected to THIS particular war. Currently the military rarely recognizes SCO claims as valid, thus he was not able to avoid fighting the war.
I need to do more reading on the incident — but, it seems to me that a plausible reading on his situation is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan violate just war principles — and if so, my argument concludes that this is a valid reason and he should be assigned alternative service. Perhaps if that had been the policy of the US military, Ft. Hood wouldn’t have happened.
Hasan was a medical physician. His job was to treat the sick and injured and the probability of him actually “fighting” a war was very small.
Instead, he chose to kill 13 people. His just war objection was tossed in the garbage in favor of mass murder.
True-if he was morally opposed to going to war against fellow Muslims, one would expect that he would be moral enough to be against murdering unarmed people.
I’d also like ot point out that America gives the same medical treatment to captures, injured enemies that it does to its own soldiers. If the jihadist mindset were anything other than nihilistic barbarism (it isn’t) than Hasan would have used his position to help fellow Muslims who were injured in the war–he could have treated children, too. Check out Afghanistan where or hospitals are over run with sick Afghans–and we treat them all.
This would not have happened in Israel. they would not have been stupid enough to even toy with the idea of letting Hassan continue to do service in the military. They would not be concerned on whether or not to let him go as he would have been kicked out or not even allowed to join. Then you would have had 13 soldiers still alive.