Prosecuted for race or religion? James Yee went from being the military's Muslim poster child to a suspect in the war on terror.(feature)

On a boiling November day in 2002, Captain James Yee, a Muslim chaplain in the U.S. Army, arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from his permanent base at Fort Lewis, Washington in the cool environs of the Pacific Northwest. At Guantanamo, the U.S. military was detaining more than 600 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan. Yee was assigned to provide religious support for American personnel who were Muslim and to minister to the prisoners there, as well. Upon his arrival, Yee met his predecessor, Chaplain Hamza al-Mubarak, who took Yee on a tour of the prison camp. Mubarak drove to the prison in his truck, but before getting out, as both men dripped with sweat in the thick evening air, he turned to Yee and delivered a strange piece of advice. "This is not a friendly environment for Muslims, and I don't just mean for the prisoners," he warned. "You need to watch your back."

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Ten months later, Yee was arrested on suspicion of espionage. Under threat of the death penalty, he was held in solitary confinement in a cell measuring 8 feet by 10 feet for 76 days. When investigators could not turn up enough evidence, Yee was charged with mishandling classified information, a less serious crime. Moreover, in what some viewed as an attempt to publicly humiliate him, the military tacked on charges that Yee committed adultery and kept pornography on a government computer. When Yee's Syrian-born wife, Huda, heard about these accusations, she found a handgun in their house in Olympia and told Yee over the phone that she wanted to end her life. Eventually, military prosecutors dropped the charges of mishandling classified information, although Yee received a written reprimand for committing adultery and viewing pornography. The reprimand was subsequently overturned on appeal, and Yee's record was wiped clean.

With the assistance of journalist Aimee Molloy, Yee has recently published a memoir that recalls these events called For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire. From his home in Olympia, Yee spoke over the phone in November about his harrowing experiences. In a confident, assertive voice, he talked about the toll these developments have exacted on him and his family. "It was emotionally and psychologically devastating," he said, "and we're still recovering."

A Military's Model Minority

The publication of Yee's book comes at a particularly sensitive time, as several Asian Americans have recently been investigated for espionage. An F.B.I. intelligence analyst who is a naturalized U.S. citizen from the Philippines was arrested in New Jersey last September for allegedly passing classified information to officials in Manila. In addition, two Chinese Americans pleaded not guilty last November in California to an indictment alleging they were agents for China gathering information about U.S. naval warships.

Historically, Asian Americans have had their patriotism questioned. The most glaring example was when Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps during World War II. More recently, a Taiwanese-American scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was suspected of being a spy for China and imprisoned for nearly nine months before pleading guilty to only one count of mishandling classified information. Given this ugly underside of American history, it would be fair to ask if the military targeted Yee due to his Chinese heritage in addition to being a Muslim.