Veterans Call On West Point To Cancel Planned Speech By Islamophobic General

Written by Faiz Shakir

On Feb. 8, 2012, the United States Military Academy at West Point is planning to host a National Prayer Breakfast featuring ret. Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, an individual who has a long record of issuing hate-filled rhetoric about Muslims.

Here’s what Boykin has said about Muslims in the past: there should be “no mosques in America“; Muslims worship an “idol“; “Islam is a totalitarian way of life, it’s not just a religion”; “it should not be protected under the First Amendment”; Muslims operate “under an obligation to destroy our Constitution.”

In the early days of the Iraq war, Boykin served in the Defense Department as a senior intelligence officer. Around that time, he appeared in full military dress at various churches, spouting bigoted rhetoric that casted the military conflicts as part of a religious crusade between Christians and the devil. In a 2004 report, the Pentagon Inspector General admonished Boykin for violating numerous internal regulations. “We recommend that the Acting Secretary of the Army take appropriate corrective action with respect to Lt. Gen. Boykin,” the report said.

VoteVets, a coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, released a letter today, asking West Point President to rescind the invitation to Boykin. Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Richard Allen Smith, an Afghanistan War Veteran, write:

As has been articulated by GEN Petraeus, [statements similar to Boykin’s] remarks threaten our relationships with Muslims around the world, and thereby, our troops serving in harm’s way. LTG Boykin’s values are inconsistent even with current Army doctrine that is taught at the Joint Readiness Training Center, National Training Center and the Combined Arms Center, which instructs Army leaders to respect the Muslim culture as a part of counterinsurgency operations. It is counterproductive for our future Army leaders to hear the views of LTG Boykin, a man whose views are inconsistent with the values of the Army as an institution. [...]

Sir, as Veterans, we have the utmost faith in your leadership. As Veterans of these wars and men who have served in combat alongside Muslim Americans, we respectfully request that you retract LTG Boykin’s invite to the USMA Prayer Breakfast. The presence of LTG Boykin at West Point would violate Army Values, as well as potentially be used as propaganda by the enemy and endanger our troops in combat.

Read the full letter here.

Just today, Boykin was scheduled to speak at the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in Ocean City, Maryland. People for the American Way and the Council on American-Islamic Relations had waged a vigorous campaign against his appearance.

The Baltimore Sun endorsed that effort this week, writing, “Make no mistake: This is not an issue of freedom of speech or of any of the constitution’s protections for religious expression that Mr. Boykin seems so eager to deny to those who don’t share his own Christian faith.” Boykin has every right to speak, but organizations that invite him “need to make clear whether they agree with Mr. Boykin’s views.” If not, they should not sponsor his hate speech.

We have contacted West Point to seek a reply, and we will post an update if we hear back.

This post was originally published by ThinkProgress.

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Read more: islamophobia, military, muslims, thinkprogress, west point

Photo from ChuckHolton via flickr

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Ann S.

5:36PM PST on Feb 7, 2012

Wow, many of these comments are slathered in hate and ignorance. We have religions in our own country that do not treat men and women equally. Why do you hate so much on the Muslims while ignoring the Mormons in your own back yard. Funny how the New Testament scripture "Take the log out of your own eye before picking splinters out of another's..." applies the most to those who claim to be holy yet know the least about what God and Jesus expect of mankind.

send a green star

5:27PM PST on Feb 7, 2012

The intolerance to religious freedom is SO un-American. How can anyone claiming to be American hate Islam so much or bash on Muslims? You'd think we would have progressed from the several centuries that passed since the Crusades, but monkeys appear to adapt better than some humans.

Robby C.

7:15PM PST on Feb 6, 2012

Islam is a disease. A more violent, dispicable "religion" does not exist. Anyone who believes in women's rights should stand against it.

bob m.

12:17PM PST on Jan 28, 2012

@ Allyson D...As to being Gods' chosen.. is there no end to the twisting of scripture, covering up, distortion ,
lies?
"if any man be in Christ; behold he is a new creation. All things are made new ..old things are passed away."
The Name of the Lord be Praised. The Name alone by which we are saved.

Rob and Jay B.

10:37AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

This guy's a goofball, but it's interesting how Care2 & so many 'liberals' here, who claim to care so much about human rights & freedoms, rail so loudly over every slight against Islam/Islamists, yet never utter a peep over the daily atrocities committed by Islamists around the world in obedience of Mohammed's commands of hate for non-Muslims, to conquer & 'subdue' all non-Muslims & force them under the barbaric Sharia Law, the demeaning of women, abuse of children (even Mohammed, Muslims' perfect example 'married' a 6 y/o child!) & this ideology of death & hate never allows any other religion to be treated equally, but all must accept subservient second class status to live in 'peace' with Islam - Allah's command.

Islam commands the killing of those who leave it, criticize it, gays & rape victims. Should 'liberals' be defending this or fighting for the victims of it? Who else could do this & gain your blind support?

Maybe this man's got a point. When Muslim occupied countries allow full freedom of religion, which NONE do,, allow other religions to build houses of worship without restriction or outright bans, to be equal in the eyes of their laws & give freedom & respect for other beliefs, then perhaps we are just perpetuating their bigotry which commands all of these inequities, brutalities & killings when we bow to their every demand with nothing in return. Silly

Lynda D.

10:16AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

Muslim men are so sexually repressed, that rape is a fundamental right, and women become pawns in their dirty war whether they are Muslim or other. They become Collateral damage - these are the same men who feel women are weak and incapable of thinking. But these men think with their ....s. And they are fanned by the clerics to be out of control. Islam - any sort of information becomes a dangerous thing.

WAR is not good for children and other living things. Be ever Vigilant - do not become complacent.

10:10AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

It seems inarguably, that the General is a victim of his own mind - he's been to war, suffered enough of his own version of war, and slid to the other side of rational thinking. PTSD can do that. Time for him to retire.

Carola M.

10:03AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

Allyson D, Your ignorance is astonishing! You've swallowed all the CAIR propaganda. Women are NOT equal in Islam & if you think it is honourable for men to slake their lust with 4 wives, divorce one when he finds a new one he gets the hots for. Shi'ias still allow 'temporary' wives, as Mohammed did, which are nothing but prostitution/1 night stands, all legal if they get a permit from the imam, & they can be for a few hours or longer, as many as a MAN wants to have, along with his more permanent 'wives'. That's honourable? Equal?

Here's just some of the demeaning things Mohammed said about women:

Sahih Bukhari 1:6:301: Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:
..."O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)...I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence & religion than you...Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?...This is the deficiency in her intelligence... Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?...This is the deficiency in her religion." (Did you get all this? Equal? Respect? Honourable?)

...'Because Allah afflicted Eve, all of the women of this world menstruate & are stupid."Tabari I:280 (women are considered unclean when they menstruate & can't pray or read/touch the Qur'an or enter a mosque! Doesn't Allah know what it is & why?)

Abu Dawood:2142 - "The Prophet said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife."

"A

8:13AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

@ Allison d. The last thing sex?... don't mistake bondage for liberty.. darkness for light... blood guilt for Love, shame for Grace, deceit for a garment ,bitterness for joy, aggression for fielty, rage for Godly purpose, a false god for a glorious Gift.
Fear for LOVE, free will for subjegation.
The Glory lost at Adam was a covering in which they were naked but not SELF conscious, in perfect fellowship with their creator; they walked with him in fellowship without guile.
There is no deliverance , no redemption, no salvation, no Peace in islam..
1 John 2: 22,23.

Kathleen L.

6:26AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

Allyson D. -- I don't care if a woman stands stark naked on a street corner. Unless she says I want to have sex with you, then hands off-- The excuse that she asked for it is just a rationale to excuse rape. Are you saying Muslim men are so weak- willed that they will rape a woman on sight? See an ankle, get an erection? Rape is NOT about sex, but subjugation. Just as covering woman head to toe is subjugation. muslim woman do get raped, and then are blamed for it and imprisoned, or in some cases murder by a male family member for dishonoring the famiuly. I truly don't care if a woman chooses to wrap herself up, head to toe, if it is her choice, but is HER choice? Several years ago, a group of Muslim school girls died in a dorm fire because the male firemen would not go into the dorm to rescue them becuase they were not veiled, but in their pajamas. Get real-- Muslim women are just as abused as any other group of women in this world.