Retired Army General William Boykin has been serially accused of wrongspeak during the War on Terror, and has therefore been dis-invited to speak at a prayer breakfast at West Point:
General Boykin, a longtime commander of Special Operations forces, first caused controversy after the Sept. 11 attacks when, as a senior Pentagon official, he described the fight against terrorism as a Christian battle against Satan. His remarks, made in numerous speeches to church groups, were publicly repudiated by President George W. Bush, who argued that America’s war was not with Islam but with violent fanatics.
(Who just happened to be Islamic. Sheer coincidence, that.)
Since his retirement in 2007 and a new career as a popular conservative Christian speaker, General Boykin has described Islam as “a totalitarian way of life” and said that Islam should not be protected under the First Amendment.
Those are arguable points, to say the least. And we can no longer tolerate the notion of arguments, people get all het up. So the usual suspects, whose intolerance of intolerance is legendary, so long at that intolerance begins and ends at home (they have nothing whatsoever to say to the foreign sort), lobbied to have his wrongthink preemptively flushed down the memory hole:
Last week, after learning that General Boykin would be speaking at the prayer breakfast, a liberal veterans’ group, VoteVets.org, demanded that the invitation be revoked. In a letter to West Point’s superintendent, the group said General Boykin’s “incendiary rhetoric regarding Islam” was “incompatible with Army values” and would “put our troops in danger.”
It logically follows that if General Boykin were not allowed to publicly express his opinions, the troops would therefore be entirely safe. Silence him, and bring the boys body armor back home!
Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, West Point’s director of public affairs, defended the invitation on Friday, saying that “cadets are purposefully exposed to different perspectives” and that the breakfast “will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish and Muslim cadets participating.”
“Let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated while reason is left free to combat it.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1st inaugural speech.
Our greatest minds used to actually think like that, at one time. We all did. So did Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, for a while there. But, you know. Not everyone is capable of combating error. So let’s shelter them, the better to do their thinking for them.
But by Monday, several other groups had condemned the invitation and concern was also reportedly being voiced by some faculty members and cadets. The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy (a liberal group of retired military chaplains), the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations made public appeals to the Pentagon to cancel General Boykin’s appearance.
In any Venn diagram of interests appealing to both the liberal Military Chaplaincy and CAIR, I believe I’m on solid ground when I suggest that on the issues of gay and women’s rights, the bubbles do not precisely overlap. But never mind. The really important issue here is the constitutionally protected right to free speech.
No, that can’t be it. It must be something else.
A fourth-year cadet at West Point, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals for breaking military discipline, said in a telephone interview before the cancellation was announced that “people are definitely talking about it here.”
“They’re inviting someone who’s openly criticizing a religion that is practiced on campus,” he said. “I know Muslim cadets here, and they are great, outstanding citizens, and this ex-general is saying they shouldn’t enjoy the same rights.”
The cadet asked, “Are we supposed to take leadership qualities and experience from this guy, to follow in his footsteps?”
No, you were supposed to listen to what he said and form your own opinions, using the critical thinking tools that West Point was supposed to have armed you with. But apparently, they’re just not sure they trust you with that. So, good luck leading troops in the field!
Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, said the West Point invitation was a mistake. West Point, Mr. Montgomery said, would have given “a platform to someone who is publicly identified with offensive comments about Muslims and about the commander in chief.”
Muslims and the commander in chief have the absolute constitutional right to not have offensive things said about them. It says so somewhere there in the Constitution that every single West Point cadet swore an oath to support and defend. Emanating from the penumbra, if you like. Just don’t do a text-based search for it. That’s the thing about penumbrae, they’re awfully shadowy in there, and you have to be pretty keen to recognize their emanations. Best to leave that dreary work to someone else.
George Orwell, whose name may be remembered more broadly and long after Peter Montgomery’s transient flare has burnt out, felt differently: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
Just not at West Point.
The fourth-year cadet who spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals for breaking military discipline doesn’t seem to have a problem with breaking discipline so long as they can’t pin it on him. Great leadership lesson there. I wonder if he’ll ever be in a position to hold NJP on a soldier.
Contrast the silencing of Gen. Boykin with the Army-sponsored event at Fort Bragg attacking the Christian and Jewish religions with an advertising video featuring burning churches and synogogues. No offense there… nope.
Speaking of offending Muslims, I’m sure today’s advertisement to the right of the recent post is sure to do that. I’m offended as well. So much so that I’m not going to look at the picture more than 10 or 15 more times.
A guarantee of freedom of expression does not grant you any claim over a specific forum.
There are so many hours in the day, and any time spent exposing cadets to ideas that are as facile, wrong, and unhelpful as Gen. Boyken’s is wasted.
This isn’t a religious war, the vast majority of the people killed by Al Queda and the Taliban have been Muslims. This is a cultural war, our major weapon is propaganda. A retired general, speaking to a group of future Army officers, talking about a religious war is dropping a thermonuclear device on our own position.
If we built monuments to error whoever invited Gen. Boyken in the first place would get a hunk of marble on the National Mall.
Jeff, I would beg to disagree with you here, but the post and comments @ Harry’s Place have put it more eloquently and completely than I ever could. Please read in its entirety the admittedly very long discussion carried out in the comments section on this topic which really is the meat of my point, as most demolish the thesis of the poster, “SaraAB,” although her thesis is finely argued. Really covers the waterfront@ http://www.hurryupharry.org/201/01/26/anti-muslim-bigotry-vs-islamophobia/#comments
What to you think of the Army-approved atheist event at Fort Bragg, attacking the Christian and Jewish religions? Waste of precious time?
I have honestly never heard of it. Since we aren’t at war with extremists atheists I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it. Though I’m not a big fan of militant atheists who make the rest of us look bad.
Sorry, the “extremists atheists” should be “extremist Christians”.
I don’t think we’re at war with extremist atheists or Christians. Or Buddhists for that matter.
Animists, I’m not so sure.
A guarantee of freedom of expression does not grant you any claim over a specific forum.
Absolutely! I agree with you in that this is a cultural war, not a religious war, and framing it as “All Muslims are bad because their religion is bad” etc. will not help us win in the long term.
That said, I do think Islam is in need of a Reformation, for lack of a better term.
Oh, and you didn’t know we’re also at war with extremist atheists? Cause, after all, anyone who is an atheist is Anti-American, etc.
“anyone who is an atheist is Anti-American, etc.”
Crap, I wish someone had told me that before I spent 8 years sweating my bits off.
If you have read and believe what Sam Huntingdon wrote, you’ll think that culture is religion, even for those who have objections to the religious underpinnings thereof. And if the folks we’re fighting believe that they are in a religious war with us, what difference will it make whether or not we agree with them? They will shoot at us just the same, and plant their roadside IEDs. Maybe even try to fly airplanes into our skyscrapers.
Some would argue that Islam has already had their reformation, and those that we’re fighting against are the reformers. They just went, you know: The other way with it, compared to our own.
We’re not at war with atheists, Phalanx08. We’re just keeping them all in internment camps until the present unpleasantness is over and it’s safe for them to come out.
“There are so many hours in the day, and any time spent exposing cadets to ideas that are as facile, wrong, and unhelpful as Gen. Boyken’s is wasted.”
But they let Obama speak there, didn’t they?
Or is it your argument that it is only permissible to waste cadets’ time so long as the “facile, unhelpful, and wrong” ideas are espoused by someone with official credentials?
PC Chicken Sh*t, no more, no less.
Sorry Jeff, but it is a religious war. Simply because more Muslims have died at the hands of the Taliban or Al Queda is immaterial. We are dealing with an enemy that has a certain religious outlook who will not hesitate to kill anyone that doesn’t have that religious outlook.
We have also seen that holding to teh idiology of Islam also predisposes towards certain actions because of the mindset it entails. To put into Maoistic terms, Muslims are the sea in which the Salafists swim. Boykin has recognized that fact, and we ignore it at our peril.
The disinvitation of Boykin speaks volumes. Most of the print is in the language of disgust at the intentional stupidity and ignorance demonstrated by the 4th year Cadet.
Alas, the humorous sobriquet Lex has hung on USMA, “Whoops Point,” applies in this case.
If you want to identify “Islamism” as a unique religion, fine (I prefer to view it as a cultural conflict). However, the conflict is usually framed as a Muslim v. Christian and/or Jew, which is incorrect.
The Islamists are a microscopic part of the Muslim world. The only hope they have for victory is to win over the majority of Muslims. Not surprisingly, our only hope of victory is also to win over the majority of Muslims. Actions that antagonize significant numbers of Muslims hurt us and help the enemy.
My objections are primarily over the forum and secondarily over the speaker. The harm caused by, say, a Florida preacher burning a Koran is real but doesn’t, IMO, outweigh the harm that would be caused by silencing him. The harm of a retired general telling cadets they’re in a religious war against Islam greatly outweighs the harm of telling said general to go elsewhere with his message.
I think you are not giving enough weight to the idea that Islam is not only a religion, but one that dictates the culture of its followers. Thus the idea of a culture war but not a religious war is unworkable.
Religion is a part of culture. Also, all religions dictate cultural norms to their followers. Hell, the reason we’re in this mess is because 2500 years ago the religious practices of the Jews allowed them to maintain a distinct cultural identity during the Babylonian exile.
The only difference between Islam and the other two monotheistic religions (aside from the obvious doctrinal issues) is that Islam has not yet gone through a catastrophe, such as the diaspora of the 2nd century AD or the 30-years war, to teach it that combining church and state leads to misery, death, and destruction.
I dunno so much about the Babylonian exile being the proximate cause of the mess we’re in. We need to talk about
KevinMo’. Who by modern standards would be reckoned a serial killer, torturer, rapist, slaver and ped0phile. All a very long time ago of course, and standards have changed.Except that he is considered still to be the “perfect man” to his adherents. I think that’s rather the crux of the matter.
It’s not the Babylonian exile, but rather the Jewish survival of the exile. If the children of Judah had followed the other ten tribes into assimilation there wouldn’t be any Judaism or Christianity to influence Mohamed.
I didn’t mean to imply that it was a proximate cause, but it is a link in the causal chain.
Majorities don’t mean much in the Muslim world where (with the exceptions of Turkey and Indonesia and possibly Iraq) autocracy is the norm. Its only a cultural conceit of the West (Americans in particular) to think that the will of the people matters. To win the fight against Islamic terrorism allows for basic two options.
Back tolerable strong men to be autocrats – like Karzai or Mubarak or Saddam. This has the benefit of being able to work within the cultural norms of the Musim world. Only it doesn’t work very well, because America gets squeamish about repressing populations under an autocracy. If America were serious about this approach it would have got Mubarak to indulge in the methods used by the Syrian and Bahraini regimes (gun down protesters in the street). The squeamishness factor means that the client autocrats of America have to create/sustain opposition forces that are much worse than themselves, for instance the Sauds (who are America’s richest and dearest autocratic dictatorship) directly sponsor Salafist Islam.
Or America could aspire to wholesale cultural change of the Islamic world to a more pluralistic, democratic society. To create a secular Muslim world would require vociferous criticism of current Islam, because the truth of God is never even slightly pluralistic. This approach would upset a lot of muslims and thus CAIR is against it. It also upsets a lot of westerners, because it make the situation worse (think WW3).
But there is a 3rd way. Accept a small amount of terrorism as inevitable. Make sure not to criticise Islam too much, back some semi-compliant autocrats and fight some small wars against antagonistic autocrats. And wait for the oil to run out in 2070.
Autocracy isn’t exclusive to the Muslim world. The consent of the governed is pretty much an Anglo-Saxon invention. Significant portions of Continental Europe (and their American sycophants) do everything they can to ignore the will of the people. Just look at the EU and the flail surrounding the Eurozone breakup.
NO one is saying autocracy is exclusive to the Muslim world. The commentariat here is more than sophisticated enough to realize that such an assertion is silly.
OTOH, if you wish to hold to teh idea that Religion is part of a culture and, as you seem to imply, that a religion can’t be the culture itself, and not just an adjunct, then who am I dissuade you. I will say, that in Muslim countries, the Religion is the culture. Only in places like Turkey, which was ruled by the ideology of Attaturk, was this not quite the truth, although it was a very strong undercurrent according to the missionaries of my denomination who actually lived there.
As I said, and I will hold, unless there is actually evidence, rather than bald assertion, Muslims are the sea the Salafists swim in. We ignore that fact at our peril.
In the EU the majority of the electorate selected pro-EU politicians to serve them, the consent was explicit. How can that be called an autocracy?
And what lesson shall the cadets now take from this episode in the politics of rightspeak? After all, to disinvite, as a result of political opposition to his ideas, is a more powerful statement than the invitation.
It’s garbage like this which causes me to re-assess my heretofore unflinching support of West Point, or The United States Community College as it now should be known.
Don’t like the General’s point of view? Don’t go… or don’t listen.
Censor him on these issues and you become that which, allegedly, we swore an oath to fight. Letting outside, anti-American groups determine the speaking schedule at our school (“Our” in the sense that we own it, not that I went there, full disclosure and all that) is just another reason to close it as they seemed to have long since forgot what their purpose actually is.
Lex nailed it. Jeff blew it. And in a combat situation, where I would have to choose between the Jeff’s of the world or the Boykins in my foxhole… it wouldn’t even be a contest.
+1
“Censor him on these issues and you become that which, allegedly, we swore an oath to fight.”
This.
“Lex nailed it. Jeff blew it.”
This, too.
We have people informing our troops not to pee or poop toward Mecca but informing these same troops about what this “religion” is really about is out of the question!
+1.
I know I speak for multitudes when I say simply:
The Corps has.
Thanks for your +1 Kris. As a Lex gal I rarely score!
All the Lex babes score with admirable regularity.
And another thing…
The smack knew he damn well better not use his name because all communications with media agencies are supposed to be cleared through Chain of Command. (If I remember right, something along the lines of Cadet Public Relations office on the East side of Old South Barracks)
I am tired of the legitmacy and deference granted all the “liberal advocacy groups” as they tear apart the fabric of our culture, our nation and our military.
Like it or not, we ARE in a religious war. Not of our choosing, or our initiative, but as the victims of cowardly attacks upon our homeland, and our interests and citizens abroad. And, it is because we are NOT all Muslims. Perhaps it is incorrect to say it is a war of Christianity vs. Islam, but it is 100% accurate to say it is a war of Islam against western civilization. True, not all Muslims are actively fighting against the west, and should not be considered our enemies.
However, refusal to identify the enemy, and to understand their motivation, reasoning, strategies and tactics is suicidal.
Our Constitution guarantees our freedom of religion (including Islam!) but does not require, nor permit, the silencing of one faith for or against another. Let them all recruit other to their beliefs in any way they like, and if the tenants and doctrines of any faith is anathema to another, too bad. You are free to select your own, but not to be protected from what the others might say, unless it crosses into violence.
“Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.” Douglas MacArthur
Seems to me that West Point needs to heed the guidance of Duty, Honor Country more than that of the “liberal advocacy groups.”
But denying the general HIS rights — that’s all OK.
There is a place where this all makes sense. I just didn’t know that it was where we trained future combat leaders. Developed critical thinking skills, all that stuff. And OBTW cadet, he isn’t an “ex-general”. Guess you missed that class, huh?
And Jeff — just because YOU don’t think we are in a religious war, doens’t mean our enemies don’t. As far as not giving platforms, I guess you were OK with Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia? Are you saying that the Columbia students are capable of discerning BS, making their own minds up, etc., but WP cadets aren’t?
Nobody’s rights have been denied. A right to free expression does not impose upon anybody an obligation to provide you a forum. Lex could, if he desired, delete comments from me or anyone else without infringing upon anyone’s rights.
Our enemies desperately hope to engage us in a religious war, because that’s the only way they win. There are fewer than 60,000 Taliban fighters. There are over 29 million Afghanis. That’s not 1% of the population, that’s 0.2%. But if they can convince the Afghanis that NATO forces are a crusading army intent on spreading Christianity by the sword their support grows significantly. Their propaganda arm is going to ignore the fact that this talk was extra-curricular and say that it’s representative of what our soldiers are taught.
This talk would make our soldier’s lives more difficult for no benefit.
They would have gained great benefit from his talk, if nothing else to give them something to think about.
What you say about his speech rights are true. But, his rights were impinged upon because his viewpoint is something to be expunged by the PC freakoids.
Sorry I can’t agree with you on this Jeff, but you aren’t just merely wrong here. You are demonstrating a basic lack of understanding of the situation we face.
I understand the situation perfectly. We either reform the Muslim world or we extirpate it. What I do not understand is why so many seemingly reasonable people are hell-bent on sabotaging the first option. You are correct that Islam is the sea in which the Salafists swim, but what do we get for encouraging the sea to join the fish (metaphor overpressure alarm in)? Aside from dead bodies?
It’s not like these cadets haven’t been exposed to any of these ideas already, this war has been going on since they were in grade school. In fact this latest controversy has exposed everyone to these ideas without granting them the legitimacy of an official forum. If I had any faith in bureaucratic intelligence I would think it was planned.
It seems this is at the core of your objection. You’re right – WP did not deny LTG Boykin his speech rights. What they did do was, having already considered his well known views before the invitation, rescind the invitation under pressure from two special interest groups – and it is THOSE groups who weren’t interested in the good general’s speech rights. All of the hand wringing – including your tortured logic about a prayer breakfast somehow pushing a peace loving Afghan teen into the waiting arms of the otherwise despicable Taliban – is just Procrustean after the fact justification for the thought you so clearly revealed.
“The Islamists are a microscopic part of the Muslim world…”
Someone hasn’t been paying attention.
Will the rapid propagation of American Muslims lead to greater tolerance by traditional American “infidels”, or the inevitability of violent clashes with intractable Sharia fanatics vs. Constitutionalists that could have / should have been avoided?
Perhaps this is what our sell-out leaders (the founding lawyers of the NWO in concert with the U.N.) have had in mind from the outset for our progeny:
Islamist Autonomous zones in America
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/01/muslim-autonomous-zones-in-the-west
Good link–brings a lot of it all together in one place..
Sad he cannot speak, but just like in private business now, only politically correct statements are allowed. One of my favorite oxymorons has been “islam is the religion of peace”. Hopefully some of the cadets will learn from this episode to think for themselves and not allow chosen speakers to dominate their thinking. I wonder if this retired general has written a book and whether the west point library has copies?
Islam IS a ‘religion of peace…’ It demands peace on it’s own terms – - either the peace of abject and total submission (hint: what’s the literal translation of the word ‘Islam’?) or the peace of death.
Dead men espouse no dissenting views in a culture which only reads one book.
A friend sent me this when I forrwarded this to him.
Eric, I think there are some wrongfully intended statements in this release based on what I saw and heard today on Fox News , Meagan Kelly show. Two Generals, one Army one Air Force who know Boykin and the commander at West Point have a different view of this story. When Boykin was invited to speak about leadership he agreed to talk as long as this would not be a media storm because of his earlier statements about Radical Muslims years ago. This was the agreement and when the media storm was whipped up by CAIR , Gen.Boykin decide to not speak and to avoid the media storm, instead it is whipped up anyway—-damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.”
Fear of CAIR still got the General Canceled, though.
Gotta love that Religion of Perpetual Outrage. And what about “a liberal veterans’ group?” I’d say they are in need of some extra military instruction. Conscientious objectors, maybe?
I think General Boykin should show up anyway, walk up on stage, and before anybody can hustle him away, make this speech:
“There sure are a bunch of silly people in this world. That is all.”
Tyranny of the Minority, plain & simple.
The minority of jihadist Muslims have hijacked the Muslim faith and defined all Muslims as part of their screwed up version of their faith.
For the last three decades of the 20th century, the Irish Catholics & Protestants in Northern Ireland were butchering each other in the streets, but no one suggested Christians were all willing to follow suit.
There are Muslims who are disgusted by those who use their faith to conduct honor killings and violence. They need to take back their faith and join those who want to build a better future for people of all faiths….the TALIBAN are not representatives of the MUSLIM faith. They are Narcoterrorists, plain & simple.
It is telling that Muslims are very quiet when someone gets shouted down by other Muslims, or an honor killing takes place. The few that do speak out have to go into hiding.
Like it or not, they see this as a religious war, because Islam is their Culture and we are their enemy until we convert or submit.
As for me: “I Will Not Submit.” I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
Agreed QM….. Those who fight us will not succeed – of that I am sure.
We beat the Nazis & the USSR… we will beat these bastards too. We just have to get rid of the Idiot-in-Charge first.
Anyone saying that Islam and its aherents isn’t a theocracy at its core doesn’t read history and hasn’t studied the playbook, which, BTW, hasn’t changed since the 7th Century. Read “Endless Jihad”. As for the smell that now permeates the military caused by the malignant liberal/progressive world view aka political correctness. Its real name when it comes out in the open is Liberal totalitarianism.
Dust,
Thank you for the encouragement, without which we may all “hang separately”.
To Mssrs. Guach and Phalanx,
You both seem to speak of shoulds and should nots, good/bad, right/wrong as if you were appealing to some standard that is authoritative. That seems quite presumptive when one’s foundational position is an admixture of chance occurence and serendipity.
I’ll say the same thing I said about the Occupy movement folks; the right to free speech does not mean that the government has to provide you with the forum to speak.
OTOH, if he’s being banned from speaking in this forum because of his viewpoint on Islam, then people voicing other viewpoints about Islam should also be banned from speaking on the topic in this forum. Or does one’s right to speak on a topic at West Point only get cancelled on the basis of one’s opinion of Islam if it doesn’t offend the correct people. If the good General says that Islam is a religion of war, then why should people who say it’s a religion of peace not be equally banned?
“If the good General says that Islam is a religion of war, then why should people who say it’s a religion of peace not be equally banned?”
Or, let’s think positively, and get them on the same platform and have a good, old-fashioned debate wherein each side is given equal opportunity to practice the fine art of persuasion & endeavor to make points with the audience.
Also, if Muslim cadets’ sensitivities are so tender (or their faith so weak?) that their psyches cannot withstand a bit of one-sided criticism of their religion (Piss Christ, anyone?), then they’re studying in the wrong place on the taxpayers’ dime, and are aiming themselves at the wrong career.
Several people who study Islam have observed that it is possibly the only major religion where G-d must be defended against insult, ridicule, and offense, as if he is unable to defend himself. Which does suggest a certain weakness in the faith, or in the deity.