It is no secret that Muslims in the United States and elsewhere live under constant scrutiny and suspicion. They are often asked to prove their loyalties to the countries of their residence. It is one thing to doubt the loyalties of relative new comers. It is another to doubt, on spurious grounds, the loyalty of a person whose patriotism would make others envious. These are uncertain times, however, and no one is above suspicion. James Yee’s “For God and Country” proves how deep rooted the suspicion is.
Former US Army Muslim Chaplain Captain James Yee has an impressive background and stellar credentials. A third generation Chinese-American, he graduated from West Point. He was a commissioned officer in the US Army for 14 years. He traveled to Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War as part of his military service. The tour turned out to be fateful as it sparked his interest in Islam and he soon converted. To strengthen his religious knowledge he went to Damascus, Syria and studied under traditional scholars for four years. He also married a Syrian.
In 2001 he was commissioned as one of the first Muslim chaplains in the United States Army. He was sought after as a spokesman in order to educate soldiers about Islam and Muslims. Subsequently, he was selected to serve as the Muslim Chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay where detainees from Afghanistan and elsewhere are being held as “unlawful combatants.” When he first landed at Guantanamo Bay he received some valuable advice from the previous chaplain. “There are other things about this place that will be a little harder to take,” said Chaplain Hamza. “I don’t want to discourage you on your first night, but you need to be prepared. This is not a friendly environment for Muslims, and I don’t just mean the prisoners... You need to watch your back.” Yee soon found out the truth of the advice.
Guantanamo Bay is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. The weather is harsh and the working conditions tough. Yee sought to make the best of it and tried to do his job in as professional manner as possible. To his dismay, he found out that Islam was used as a weapon against the detainees. Detainees told him about the humiliations they had to suffer. One detainee complained that prisoners were forced to sit in the center of a satanic circle outlined by lit candles. They were then ordered to bow down as interrogators ordered, “Satan is your God, not Allah! Repeat after me!”
Yee says that these reports were corroborated by the translators. Female guards were used to provoke the detainees. Yee’s account further corroborates the charges about desecration of the Qur’an. The guards understood the great reverence Muslims have for the Qur’an but did not respect it and instead claimed that the detainees might be hiding weapons inside the holy book. “And in plain view of the prisoners, MPs would violently shake the Qur’an, looking for something to drop out. They’d break the binding and drop the Qur’an on the floor. I never heard of an incident where a detainee hid anything dangerous in the Qur’an — doing so would be considered an insult. The detainees would become outraged when the guards touched their holy books, and this behavior led to some of the worst clashes on the blocks.”
The increasing reports about insults not only against the prisoners but also against several translators made him wonder about his mission. He had come to Guantanamo to ensure that the detainees could practice their religion but now he wondered if his was merely a “political appointment, a piece of theater, meant to display the understanding and sensitivity we purportedly have toward Islam.”
Despite all the troubles, Yee tried to perform his duties in as professional manner as possible and he received superior performance evaluations. On Sept. 10, 2003, however, on his way back to Washington, he was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida. He was charged with espionage, sedition and a number of other charges and prosecutors sought death penalty. He was imprisoned in the Consolidate Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C.
He was in solitary confinement for 76 days. During his detention, he drew strength from the Qur’an and the story of Prophet Joseph, “an innocent man who was unjustly accused and wrongly imprisoned.” The government’s case soon began to fall apart and the most serious charges were two counts of mishandling information and another of lying to an investigator. In their relentless pursuit to convict Yee, the prosecution then charged him with adultery and possession of pornography. The reports of the adultery charges and frequent media leaks drove his wife to near suicide. Eventually, all the charges were dropped and Yee was honorably discharged but he did not receive an apology.
Apart from Yee’s personal narrative, the book provides a sad account of what goes on at Guantanamo Bay. “For God and Country” is the disturbing story of a true patriot, one who believed that he could be loyal to both his faith and his country. For this he was accused of being a traitor. In the end, however, it is the reputation of America as a fair and just country that suffered along with James Yee.
