American Muslim organization asks U.S. Army to deny Pfc Nasser Abdo Conscientious Objector status and for Abdo to be punished to the full extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PHOENIX (September 3, 2010) – The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) takes deep exception with claims from PFC Nasser Abdo regarding his application for Conscientious Objector (CO) status from the U.S. Army. Abdo claims that his faith precludes him from serving “in Afghanistan, Iraq or any war the U.S. Army would conceivably participate in.” Such a claim is patently false. Muslims serve with distinction throughout the United States Military and AIFD sees Abdo’s traitorous public assertions as a slap in the face to all American Muslims especially those Muslims who fight in our armed forces for the liberty and freedom guaranteed by the American Constitution.

Abdo’s claims of conscientious objection clearly violate the requirements for CO status as delineated by DOD directive 1300.06. On August 21, 2010, he treasonously told the foreign Islamist media arm, 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.” In his own published web statement he further states that “being a soldier in the U.S. Army may not be permissible according to Islamic doctrine. It did not take me long to find an abundance of religious sources on the matter… fighting in an unjust war particularly against a fellow Muslim brother would be considered to be a form of disbelief or kufr”

According to DOD directive 1300.06 (May 31, 2007), CO status is given to those enlisted who have “a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” CO status cannot be selective for any particular war. It is only against all war or any military service. Abdo entered the Army in April 2009 freely and knowing full well that he stood a significant chance of being deployed in one of two theaters of war. Abdo’s statements clearly demonstrate that not only does he exploit the CO provision, but he is a traitor who clearly is serving his Islamist loyalties and beliefs about the “ummah” (the Muslim nation) above his sworn loyalties to the United States and our security. His actions are a cowardly attempt to use his faith to make a political statement about wars in Muslim majority nations.

Abdo further mixes in slanderous accusations of discrimination by his Army unit upon him for his religious beliefs. Among the religious grievances he cites is that he is not afforded the opportunity to pray five times a day. His obsession with prayer rights belies the religious experience of the vast majority of Muslims who have served in the US Military who found the time to perform our spiritual rituals. This is typical of the American Islamist technique of highlighting a false victimization in order to deflect from their own American and Islamic responsibilities.

Rather than publicly repudiate the embarrassingly disloyal actions of Muslims like Abdo, Islamist groups like CAIR instead advertise their often baseless complaints in order to augment their narrative of hyperbolic Islamophobia. After the Fort Hood massacre, groups like CAIR wrote letters on behalf of similar victim-mongers like Zachari Klawonn who had unproven charges of Islamophobia against our military feeding into the same anti-American narrative.

American Muslim responses to these public displays of disloyalty by Muslim uniformed soldiers like that of Abdo are critical in this war of ideas between our American democracy and transnational political Islam as embodied in groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. For example, known Islamist apologist Muzammil Siddiqui representing the stridently Islamist, Islamic Law Council of North America told ABC News that “there are a lot of good Muslims who are serving in the U.S. Army and a lot of other places.” What Siddiqui does not answer and what leading Muslims should lead with is that Nasser Abdo does not represent American Muslims or the Islam we know. He represents the ideology of a traitor with allegiance to the ummah over allegiance to our nation. AIFD calls upon Mr. Siddiqui, his “Law Council” (aka Shariah council) and all American Muslim groups to repudiate the statements of Abdo which reflect upon all American Muslims and are used by Islamist propaganda arms like Al Jazeera to radicalize our youth. In fact, AIFD calls upon the media to begin a national conversation on the approach of Muslim organizations to this subject. AIFD has already over the past years repeatedly brought attention to the treasonous proclamations of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA). IPT News recently reported that that a Minnesota based Egyptian cleric, Khatem al-Hajj of AMJA told American Muslims that, “It is forbidden to work for the FBI or for U.S. security services because these harm Muslims; furthermore, working for these bodies involv es spying on Muslims.”

Abdo disgraces the pride of being an American which we instill in our American Muslim children. His use of CO status is not only false it is un-Islamic. If he understood conscientious objection, he would have been pleading that Islam teaches pacifism. It does not. The Qur’an is full of examples of ‘just war.” Abdo’s traitorous un-American, un-Islamic logic against killing radical Muslims who are America’s sworn enemies and his obsession with Islamophobia is the same logic that drove the murderous rampage of Maj Nidal Hasan on Nov. 5, 2009 at Fort Hood. Instead of fanning the flames of Islamophobia, AIFD calls upon American Muslim groups to put cowards like Abdo in their place. Abdo’s adherence to the global Islamist ideology above his American loyalty runs to the core of what we Muslims need to fight in real counterterrorism.

“The Military has made the application for CO status extremely clear so that soldiers, sailors and marines can not abuse the system and run from their military responsibility,” said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of AIFD and a former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy. In fact in April 2004 CAIR nationally distributed to media and mosques a grotesquely offensive picture slandering all American soldiers. It is that same Islamist attitude which radicalizes and drives the separatism, ignorance, and disloyalty of Americans like Abdo.

“Abdo’s actions are an affront to every American Muslim who has proudly donned a US military uniform. His assertions are not built on Islamic teachings but on a feeble adherence to the global political ideology of Islamism that threatens our security and radicalizes our Muslim youth.”

AIFD asks that Abdo be made an example of and punished to the full extent of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). With all the recent media attention to the victim oriented “campaigns against Islamophobia” of American Islamist groups like CAIR and ISNA, we call upon media and political leaders to seek out the condemnation of Abdo by all legitimate American Muslim organizations and make it clear that a loyal American Muslim should never seek CO status and those who do seek CO status are misrepresenting our faith of Islam and American Muslims.

About the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

MEDIA CONTACTS: OFFICE : 602-254-1840, info@aifdemocracy.org web: www.aifdemocracy.org

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