The New York Times earlier this week on Major Nidal Malik Hasan:
In recent years, he had grown more and more vocal about his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tortured over reconciling his military duties with his religion. He tried to get out of the Army, relatives said, and apparently believed it to be impossible, though experts say he was probably given inadequate advice…
But because the Army had paid for his education, and probably because the Army was in great need of mental health professionals and was trying to recruit Arab-Americans, he was advised that his chances of getting out were miniscule, relatives said.
“They told him that he would be allowed out only if Rumsfeld himself O.K.’d it,” said a cousin, Nader Hasan, referring to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense. Relatives said they were unclear whether Major Hasan sought assistance from a private lawyer; then, about two years ago, his cousin Nader Hasan said, he resigned himself to staying in the Army through the end of his commitment.
An Army spokesman said on Sunday that he did not know the length of Major Hasan’s commitment. But for medical officers, it is typically seven years after graduation from military medical school, which would have meant at least into 2010 for Major Hasan.
Private lawyers who represent soldiers said it was difficult but not impossible to obtain an early discharge from the Army.
According to U.S. law, Hasan would be ineligible for conscientious objector status. Per the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case, Gillette v. U.S., conscientious objectors must object to all wars, not just certain wars, even if those objections are religious in nature. The Gillette ruling affirmed the constitutionality of the 1967 Military Service Act, which states that no person shall be forced into “service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.”
Hasan urged reform. The Washington Post reported yesterday that he once gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military,” the last slide of which concluded, “Department of Defense should allow Muslims [sic] Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.”
Is there a point there? Should the Military Service Act be brought into our conversation about this issue? Is there a better way to establish the contours of conscientious objector status that might make strategic sense?
