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It's a serious mistake to allow a man who believes in a Christian "jihad" to hold such senior Pentagon policymaking position – NY Times
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Additional
Reporting By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff
WASHINGTON,
October 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A senior U.S.
Defense official came under fire Friday, October 17, from inter-faith
groups and Muslim advocacy watchdogs after saying the god of Muslims
is nothing but an idol, while the defense secretary and top army
commander rushed to defend him as having broke no rules.
William
Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, had
claimed
that Muslims’ God "was an idol," and that "our spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against
them in the name of Jesus".
The
Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based group, wrote to U.S. President
George Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Thursday, urging
that Boykin be reprimanded for his remarks released one or two days
earlier.
"The
remarks of Gen. Boykin fly in the face of the pleas of the president
and violate the basic principles of tolerance and inclusion that are
implicit in the culture of this nation, ," Rev. C. Welton Gaddy,
president of the alliance, was quoted by the New York Times as saying.
"Given
his discordant views on Islam — as reported in detail — and other
religions, can Gen. Boykin serve the U.S. while in the Middle East
with the necessary respect and diplomacy? At this point, I would have
to say no," Gaddy stressed.
“Christian
Jihad“
Lashing
out at him, the New York Times said Boykin is in a senior Pentagon
policymaking position, and it's a serious mistake to allow a man who
believes in a Christian "jihad" to hold such a job.
For
one thing, he has made it clear that he takes his orders not from his
army superiors but from God — which is a worrisome line of command,
it added.
For
another, it is both imprudent and dangerous to have a senior officer
guiding the war in Iraq and Afghanistan who believes that Islam is an
idolatrous, sacrilegious religion against which we are waging a holy
war, warned the daily.
‘Outrageous’
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"Putting a man with such extremist views in a critical policy-making position sends entirely the wrong message," said Awad
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The
statements drew angry reactions from human rights and civil advocacy
groups in the United States and Europe.
"It
will not help improve our relations with Muslims at all," Peter
Pelz of the Soul of Europe, a group dedicated to bringing in religious
tolerance across the world, told IslamOnline.net.
"This
is outrageous," Pelz said over the phone from London.
For
the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the remarks send the
wrong signals, at a time Bush was making reassurance the war on
terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.
"Putting
a man with such extremist views in a critical policy-making position
sends entirely the wrong message to a Muslim world that is already
skeptical about America's motives and intentions," said CAIR
Executive Director Nihad Awad.
"Everyone
is entitled to their own religious beliefs, no matter how ill-informed
or bigoted, but those beliefs should not be allowed to color important
decisions that need to be made in the war on terrorism."
Awad
stressed that General Boykin should be reassigned to a position in
which he will not be able to harm America’s image or interests.
The
CAIR official said Muslims worship the same God as Christians and
Jews, adding that Arabic language bibles use the word
"Allah" when referring to God.
He
quoted the Muslims holy book as stating "Say ye: 'We
believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ishmael,
Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and
that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction
between one and another of them and it is unto Him that we surrender
ourselves.'"
‘Outstanding
Record’
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"Whatever he said was in a private capacity," Rumsfeld argued
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Despite
repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday, Rumsfeld declined to
condemn Boykin, refusing to say whether he would take any action or
whether he was even reviewing the comments.
"Whatever
he said was in a private capacity," he told reporters.
"We
do know that he is an officer that has an outstanding record in the
United States armed forces," Rumsfeld argued.
For
his part, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers
said "there is a very wide gray area on what the rules
permit" but "at first blush, it doesn't look like any rules
were broken."
Boykin,
a highly decorated veteran of U.S. special operations, was elevated in
June to his new position with the mandate to reinvigorate the search
for A-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader
who has eluded U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
He
was a commando in the supersecret Delta Force and took part in the
failed hostage rescue mission in Iran, the search for drug lord Pablo
Escobar in Colombia and the 1993 raid in Mogadishu that ended in the
deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers.
Idol
God
Boykin,
dressed in his army uniform, had told an Oregon religious group on the
third day of his nomination to the new post in June that "radical
Islamists" hate the U.S. "because we're a Christian nation
and the enemy is a guy named Satan."
"Why
do they hate us? The answer to that is because we're a Christian
nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers," he
had said in Florida in January.
"I
knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and
his was an idol," Boykin said of a Muslim Somali warlord.
He
spoke about how his belief in Christianity has trumped Muslims and
other non-Christians in battle.
Casting
the war on terrorism in religious terms, he said "our spiritual
enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of
Jesus".
Boykin
has described himself as a warrior in the kingdom of God and invited
others to join with him in fighting for the U.S. through repentance,
prayer and the exercise of faith in God.
He
has praised the leadership of President Bush, whom he extolled as
"a man who prays in the Oval Office."
