January
21, 2007: Britain has been trying to recruit Moslem Britons for the army, and
not doing very well. The main reason was that there is a tremendous
anti-Western attitude in the British Moslem community. For that reason, there
are only 330 Moslems in the British armed forces, and efforts to increase that
much have, so far, been futile. Since large numbers of Moslems (mainly from
Pakistan and India) began arriving in Britain sixty years ago, there has been a
lot of discrimination. The recruiting difficulties are one of the side effects.
Interestingly, the French military is over ten percent Moslem, mainly because
the unemployment rate of Moslems is much higher in France, and the military
will take anyone who is French, physically fit, and without a criminal record.
But the French are a bit nervous about how much they can trust many of the
Moslem soldiers. So far, there have been no problems. However, a British Moslem
soldier was recently arrested and charged with spying for Iran.Â
The
U.S. has not had such problems with recruiting Moslems. The reason is that the
culture in the United States is geared toward eventually accepting immigrants.
Most other nations, which are not composed largely of immigrants, or the
descendents of immigrants, are generally much more hostile to "others."
