Greetings MRFF Supporters!

"[The United States is] at war with Islam and you are a Muslim." These shocking and inflammatory words were not uttered by a radical Al Qaeda ideologue such as Ayman al-Zawahiri but by an officer of the US Army Criminal Investigation Division, addressing honorable men eager to serve their adopted homeland. These valiant recruits had volunteered to serve as battlefield translators in the most lethal theaters of operation that the United States are contending with, namely Afghanistan and Iraq. However, these brave men were instead faced with a campaign of anti-Arab and Islamophobic persecution redolent of the worst periods in modern Western civilization, harkening back not only to the days of Joseph McCarthy but to the tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition.

The accusation, coming hot on the heels of the Fort Hood atrocity perpetrated by the rogue Major Nidal Hassan, was that these five men were plotting to poison their comrades at Fort Jackson. These unfounded accusations and the subsequent witch-hunt were prominently featured by Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, an international television network known for its opposition to America's foundational principles of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. After having endured 45 days of detention, the Muslim soldiers were abruptly released without explanation (unsurprisingly, the CBN failed to report on the unproven nature of the allegations once the soldiers were released). However, the charges had already stuck: unable to find a job, pass background checks, or even win the scantest form of redress from the Army, Khalid Lyaacoubi and Yassine Bahammou reached out to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Springing into action immediately, MRFF mobilized all resources at our disposal to get their horrific experience into the national and international spotlight so that Khalid and Yassine's ordeal would be known. Due to MRFF's unflagging persistence, the resulting investigation by both the New York Times and ABC News' flagship program Nightline revealed that the 45 days' detention was the tip of the iceberg, with disruptive effects resulting from this massive human rights violation continuing to erect huge barriers in the lives of these aspiring citizen-patriots whose only goal was to serve the United States of America.

MRFF have on numerous occasions proven our mettle and resolve when it comes to challenging the onslaught of religious bigotry which the men and women in our armed forces face daily, and this egregious incident was absolutely no exception. My testimony before the US Senate Committee hearing entitled "Protecting the Civil Rights of American Muslims," was but one example of our stalwart and unconditional defense of the civil rights of all religious minorities. Indeed, this latest case of religious oppression and its exposure in the press comes amidst the announcement of a new round of Congressman Peter King's McCarthyesque investigations of a so-called "radicalization of the Muslim-American community". Apparently some in the United States would like to have their cake and eat it too: they insist on (or turned a blind eye towards) the unjust jailing of Muslims on flimsy pretexts, promoting or condoning the witch-hunt of entire communities and questioning their patriotism, while interrogating them regarding why on Earth they would consider taking an oppositional stance to the same trends which entail their ruthless persecution! While the anti-Constitutional inquisitionists' ability to notice the contradictions in their stance has long slipped from their grasp, MRFF's 20/20 vision has allowed us to highlight the unjust treatment of our Muslim brothers and sisters in the US military as well as that of all soldiers, irrespective of religious or non-religious beliefs, shining the spotlight on this hideous campaign for all to see, as was the case most recently with the MRFF-exposed ABC News Nightline investigation of Khalid and Yassine's sickening encounter with these hypocrites.  

This latest episode should serve as a wake-up call to those who continue to insist on retaining their complacent attitude towards ongoing religious persecution in the US military. Just this month we received a disparaging letter from a Mr. "Detractor" (name withheld), a Jewish parent of two Air Force Academy cadets, who claims that the lack of bigotry in relation to his children at the US Air Force Academy somehow debunks our well-documented and verifiable record of anti-Semitic incidents and exclusivist, evangelical fundamentalist proselytizing in the armed forces.  This is equivalent to an African-American in the Deep South writing off the Civil Rights Movement, claiming that since he personally did not have crosses burned on his own front lawn, the broadly-felt racist attacks perpetrated through Ku Klux Klan terrorism and Jim Crow legislation were somehow "exaggerated". As MRFF supporters (and anyone who wasn't born yesterday) know, such impressionistic claims are patently absurd and ridiculous on the face of it.

We need your help to continue the fight. You may remember that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation exposed the usage of Biblical/Scriptural references on the scopes of rifles ("Jesus Rifles") used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we're going to continue holding the U.S. military accountable in the courts and in the media, we need your generous donations. Help us push back against those that would turn our armed forces into a 21st century crusader force! With your continuing generous support, we can keep fighting for unconditional religious freedom for every single honorable and noble serviceman or servicewoman in the U.S. armed forces. Please do so today by pledging a donation to Help Build The Wall separating Church and State in the United States military. Your donation is fully tax-deductible, as always, and you can submit your own text for a brick.

Mikey