© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A top U.S. general in charge of hunting down Osama
bin Laden and Saddam Hussein is under fire from Muslims and others because of
published reports he has told evangelical groups America is in a war with
radical Islam, whose god is an "idol."
Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of defense
for intelligence, told a church gathering last year regarding a 1993 battle
with a Muslim militant leader in Somalia: "I knew that my God was bigger than
his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin (Photo:
Los Angeles Times) |
"We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been
raised for such a time as this," Boykin said, according to the Los Angeles
Times.
At a news conference yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
offered praise for the three-star general as an officer with an "outstanding
record in the United States armed forces." And Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he thought Boykin – a highly-decorated former
commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force – broke no
rules speaking at churches.
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on
American-Islamic Relations, however, issued a statement calling on Boykin
to be reassigned.
"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.
CAIR, whose leaders are accused of having ties to
Hamas and other radical groups, said it is responding to investigative
reports by the Times and NBC News that paint Boykin as an "intolerant
extremist who believes that Islam is an idolatrous, sacrilegious religion
against which we are waging a holy war."
Meanwhile, a former CAIR staffer, Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, was among 11
men indicted
in July for conspiring to train on American soil for a "violent jihad."
Another CAIR figure, Bassem Khafagi, was arrested in January while serving as
the group's director of community relations.
The Times noted Boykin has said publicly radical Muslims who resort to
terrorism are not representative of the Islamic faith. The paper said he has
compared Islamic extremists to "hooded Christians" who terrorized blacks,
Catholics, Jews and others from beneath the robes of the Ku Klux Klan.
Neverthess, the Muslim lobby group urged action be taken against Boykin,
citing his claims "radical Islamists" hate America "because we're a Christian
nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the
enemy is a guy named Satan."
Boykin also is quoted as saying, our "spiritual enemy will only be defeated
if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
'Everyone is entitled ... '
Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island said he had been unaware
of Boykin's statements, but stated, "If that's accurate, to me it's
deplorable," according to the Associated Press.
Nihad
Awad |
Awad said, "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. Gen. Boykin
should be reassigned to a position in which he will not be able to harm our
nation's image or interests."
The CAIR leader contended Muslims worship the same god as Christians and
Jews, noting Arabic language Bibles use the word "Allah" when referring to
God.
He quoted from Islam's holy book, the Quran, which says in 2:136, "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."
Awad called on Americans "of all faiths to reject any attempts to turn the
war on terrorism into a religious crusade."
"President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld should also take this opportunity to
further distance themselves from those who actively promote the clash of
civilizations and religions," said Awad, alluding to Professor
Samuel Huntington's thesis that since the end of the Cold War, the world
has moved into a new phase in which the fault lines of conflict are between
cultures or civilizations, particularly Western and Muslim.
The Los Angeles Times said Boykin's religious activities were documented
first in detail by William N. Arkin, a former military intelligence analyst
who writes on defense issues for the newspaper's opinion section.
In a Times op-ed, Arkin wrote, Boykin's Pentagon appointment "is a
frightening blunder at a time that there is widespread acknowledgment that
America's position in the Islamic world has never been worse."
Pollster John Zogby told the Times public opinion surveys indicate Arabs
and Muslims throughout the world react strongly against statements by American
officials suggesting a conflict between religions and cultures.
President Bush and his administration have been careful to couch the
country's current struggle as a war on terrorism, not on Islam.
"To frame things in terms of good and evil, with the United States as good,
is a nonstarter," Zogby said, according to the paper.
"It is exactly the wrong thing to do."
