Let me congratulate The Washington Times for insisting that the Congress conduct hearings to uncover the jihadist motivations of the Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (“Covering up jihad,” Editorial, Tuesday).
A wealth of data accumulated over the past decade on the Muslims involved in terrorist plots points to a common theme: Almost invariably, they were all mosque-going Muslim men. Moreover, polls indicate widespread influence of radical ideologies on American Muslims.
A recent report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) claims that 76 percent of Muslim men in America are mosque-going.
An April 2001 survey by CAIR found that 69 percent of Americans Muslims said it is “absolutely fundamental” or “very important” to have Salafi (similar to radical Wahabi Islamic ideology) teachings at their mosques. Sixty-seven percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “America is an immoral, corrupt society.”
There was another poll conducted in Detroit-area mosques in 2003. In this poll, 81 percent of respondents endorsed the application of the Sharia in Muslim-majority lands.
It appears that about 70 percent of the mosque-going American Muslim men identify with radical ideologies. Marrying this data with 76 percent of the men who attend mosques, about 54 percent of the American Muslim men are seen to identify with radical ideologies.
There are about 3,500 American soldiers who have declared themselves Muslims. The overall female-to-male ratio in American military is about 15 percent.
Based on the above analysis, it seems plausible that about 1,500 Muslim men out of 3,500 Muslim soldiers are likely to identify with radical ideologies. Since single Muslim men in uniform may be more susceptible to acting out, assuming that 50 percent of these men are unmarried or single, we arrive at a figure of 750 single Muslim men. This select group is put in the difficult spot of fighting fellow believers in faraway lands.
This notable conundrum has the potential to create many more Hasans out of the 750 or so vulnerable Muslim-American male soldiers. Indeed, this looming threat can only be addressed by making jihadism the focus of Fort Hood trial and congressional hearings.
MOORTHY MUTHUSWAMY
Coram, N.Y.
By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
